• Some athletes who took podium spots at the Paris Olympics say their medals are deteriorating.
• Chaumet, a fine jewelry brand owned by LVMH, designed the medals.
• The International Olympic Committee said it will replace all "defective" medals.

All that glitters is not gold — and, as some athletes who competed in the Paris Olympics are finding out, even gold can lose its luster.

Since the 2024 Olympic Games last August, some Olympians who took home bronze, silver, and gold have taken to social media to complain that their medals are already showing signs of wear and tear.

They include French swimmers Clément Secchi and Yohann Ndoye Brouard, who posted photos on X of their gold medals in less-than-ideal shape in December.

"Paris 1924," Brouard wrote alongside crying face emojis in a post with images of his deteriorating gold medal.

The complaints mirror those of Team USA skateboarder Nyjah Huston. Shortly after the Games, he took to social media to show that his medal was already "looking rough."

"Olympic medals, we've got to step up the quality a little bit," Huston said in an Instagram story.

The medals were produced by the Monnaie de Paris, the French Mint, in partnership with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Last week, the IOC said in a statement to France 24 that it was reviewing complaints and replacing "defective" medals.

In a statement to Business Insider, the Monnaie de Paris said it first received medal complaints in August, after which it "modified the varnish" used and "optimized its manufacturing process" to make them "more resistant to certain uses by athletes."

It also said it would replace and identically engrave "all damaged medals."

While the French Mint did not reveal the number of medals replaced, The New York Times reported on Tuesday that more than 100 athletes have issued complaints since the games.

Questions have also arisen for LVMH, the luxury conglomerate that partnered with the Olympics in 2024.

Ahead of the games, LVMH said that its fine jewelry brand Chaumet would design each medal — a task that the Maison embarked on with "creativity and passion," according to the LVMH website.

The Olympics marked one of the few highlights of 2024 for LVMH, a year in which its brands reported disappointing sales amid a widespread downturn in the luxury industry.

At the time, the Olympic partnership was a major marketing boost for LVMH, which — in light of the unfortunate medal situation — may no longer be the case.

This year is shaping up to be more promising for the French company. Its stock has risen sharply and and CEO Bernard Arnault's net worth is up almost $18 billion since January 1 to $194 billion, putting him in fifth place on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

LVMH and the IOC did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• An AI startup in China just showed how it's closing the gap with America's top AI labs.
• Chinese startup DeepSeek released a new AI model on Monday that appears to rival OpenAI's o1.
• Its reasoning capabilities have stunned top American AI researchers.

Donald Trump started his new presidency by declaring America must lead the world. He just got a warning shot from an AI crack team in China that is ready to show US technological supremacy is not a given.

Meet DeepSeek, a Chinese startup spun off from a decade-old hedge fund that calculates shrewd trades with AI and algorithms. Its latest release, which came on Trump's inauguration day, has left much of America's top industry researchers stunned.

In a paper released Monday, DeepSeek unveiled a new flagship AI model called R1 that shows off a new level of "reasoning." Why it has left such a huge impression on AI experts in the US matters.

Some of Silicon Valley's most well-resourced AI labs have increasingly turned to "reasoning" as a frontier of research that can evolve their technology from a student-like level of intelligence to something that eclipses human intelligence entirely.

To accomplish this, OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and others have focused on ensuring models spend more time thinking before responding to a user query. It's an expensive, intensive process that demands a lot from the computing power buzzing underneath.

As a reminder, OpenAI fully released o1 — "models designed to spend more time thinking before they respond" — to a glowing reception in December after an initial release in September. DeepSeek's R1 shows just how quickly it can close the gap.

DeepSeek narrows the gap

What exactly does R1 do? For one, DeepSeek says R1 achieves "performance comparable to OpenAI o1 across math, code, and reasoning tasks."

Its research paper says that this is possible thanks to "pure reinforcement learning," a technique that Jim Fan, senior research manager at Nvidia, said was reminiscent of the secret behind making Google DeepMind's AlphaZero a master at games like Go and Chess from scratch, "without imitating human grandmaster moves first." "This is the most significant takeaway from the paper," he wrote on X.

DeepSeek, which launched in 2023, said in its paper that it did this because its goal was to explore the potential of AI to "develop reasoning capabilities without any supervised data." This is a common technique used by AI researchers. The company also said that an earlier version of R1, called R1-Zero, gave them an "aha moment" in which the AI "learns to allocate more thinking time to a problem to reevaluating its initial approach."

The end result offers what Wharton professor Ethan Mollick described as responses from R1 that read "like a human thinking out loud."

Notably, this level of transparency into the development of AI has been hard to come by in the notes published by companies like OpenAI when releasing models of a similar aptitude.

Nathan Lambert, a research scientist at the Allen Institute for AI, noted on Substack that R1's paper "is a major transition point in the uncertainty in reasoning model research" as "until now, reasoning models have been a major area of industrial research without a clear seminal paper."

Staying true to the open spirit, DeepSeek's R1 model, critically, has been fully open-sourced, having obtained an MIT license — the industry standard for software licensing.

Together, these elements of R1 provide complications to US players caught up in an AI arms race with China — Trump's main geopolitical rival — for a few reasons.

First, it shows that China can rival some of the top AI models in the industry and keep pace with cutting-edge developments coming out of Silicon Valley.

Second, open-sourcing highly advanced AI could also challenge companies that are seeking to make huge profits by selling their technology.

OpenAI, for instance, introduced a ChatGPT Pro plan in December that costs $200 per month. Its selling point was that it included "unlimited access" to its smartest model at the time, o1. If an open-source model offers similar capabilities for free, the incentive to buy a costly paid subscription could, in theory, diminish.

Nvidia's Fan described the situation like this on X: "We are living in a timeline where a non-US company is keeping the original mission of OpenAI alive — truly open, frontier research that empowers all."

DeepSeek has shown off reasoning know-how before. In November, the company released an "R1-lite-preview" that showed its "transparent thought process in real time." In December, it released a model called V3 to serve as a new, bigger foundation for future reasoning in models.

It's a big reason American researchers see a meaningful improvement in the latest model, R1.

Theo Browne, a software developer behind a popular YouTube channel for the tech community, said, "The new DeepSeek R1 model is incredible." Tanay Jaipuria, a partner investing in AI at Silicon Valley's Wing VC, also described it as "incredible."

Awni Hannun, a machine learning researcher at Apple, said that a key advantage of R1 was that it was less intensive, showing that the industry was "getting close to open-source o1, at home, on consumer hardware," referring to OpenAI's reasoning model introduced last year.

The model can be "distilled," meaning smaller but also powerful versions can run on hardware that is far less intensive than the computing power loaded into servers in data centers many tech companies depend on to run their AI models.

Hannun demonstrated this by sharing a clip on X of a 671 billion parameter version of R1 running on two Apple M2 Ultra chips, responding with reason to a prompt asking if a straight or a flush is better in a game of Texas Hold 'em. Hannun said its response came "faster than reading speed."

AI censorship

R1 does appear to have one key problem. Former OpenAI board member Helen Toner pointed out on X that there are demos of R1 "shutting itself down when asked about topics the CCP doesn't like."

Toner did suggest, however, that "the censorship is obviously being done by a layer on top, not the model itself." DeepSeek did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

It is worth noting, of course, that OpenAI has introduced a new model called o3 that is meant to be a successor to the o1 model DeepSeek is currently rivaling. Lambert said it was "likely technically ahead" in his blog, with the key caveat that the model is "not generally available," nor will basic information like its "weights" be available anytime soon.

Given DeepSeek's track record so far, don't be surprised if its next model shows parity to o3. America's tech leaders may have met their match in China.

• Natascha Turner, 47, started a marketing agency and employs her own husband.
• There are perks — the couple have been able to move to Spain as remote workers.
• But she says it's "no walk in the park" and they've had to set some boundaries.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Natascha Turner, 47, who runs her own marketing agency. It has been edited for length and clarity.

It's funny how things work out — I never really wanted to start my own business.

The security of a regular paycheck was always the most important thing for me. It was instilled in me by my mom, who was a single parent, so financial security was always the top priority.

I was moving up the corporate ladder in the world of marketing and advertising, and after getting a few promotions, I realized I could probably actually do this working for myself. So in 2016, I started my own marketing agency.

My husband's career was going in the opposite direction; he'd joined a startup business that turned out to be on the brink of failure. Everyone he worked with was dodgy. He was chronically stressed because he wasn't making any money.

After two years of him working at the startup business, I put my foot down and said: that's it, no more of that. I've had enough of you going through this and not getting money in return for your skills. You're coming over to work with me. So, a year ago, that's what he did. I now employ four people, one of whom is my husband.

Our dynamic at work is different from our regular dynamic

At work, I'm more alpha, and he's more passive, which is a reversal of how we typically are in our relationship. We've been together for 16 years and married for 11. Back then, nobody would've believed we'd ever work together. We're just so different. He's quiet, data-driven, and will go down into rabbit holes. I have to put my foot down and say, "This multi-layered spreadsheet isn't what the client needs. Stop wasting time, focus on their needs."

The hardest part is balancing my role as a leader with my role as a wife. Women don't often talk about how hard it is to lead with strength without feeling like we're losing a piece of our femininity.

But it's my job to make the big calls. He appreciates it because, he admits, it's not his strong point. If graphics came in and weren't right, he'd dance around it rather than just say, "This isn't right; you need to go back and fix it."

It's hard to keep the work conversations from coming home with us

Working with your partner is no walk in the park. Sure, there's this glossy idea of "building a dream together," but the truth is, it's juggling spreadsheets with side-eye and trying not to kill each other over emails.

Those tough decisions can hit differently once we get home. Work conversations don't just end at the office; they follow us to the dinner table, the sofa, and even into the shower.

After a long day of meetings and calls, instead of decompressing, the same work chat sometimes bubbles up. "Why'd you veto that idea earlier?" or "You seemed sharp in that meeting — are you upset?"

The lines blur, the feelings flare, and suddenly it's not just a conversation — it's a thing. The number of times I've had to say, "Can we just not right now?" or "Do you want to keep talking about this or move on?" It's like being a referee, a therapist, and a CEO all rolled into one.

Focusing on boundaries has been helpful

In June last year, we relocated from Perth, Australia, to Valencia, Spain, so we now schedule time together to make space for being a couple: holding hands, switching off, and exploring this new city. Here in Valencia, they have these big public baths full of jacuzzis so we'll go there twice a week, and they've become a space where we've agreed not to discuss work.

It's important to remember to just be silly as well — I do that by dancing to music around the house with him so things feel less serious, and we laugh together.

I still get it wrong sometimes. Last week, I snapped and shouted, "You've got to do it this way!" After a stressful moment like that, I make sure we sit down and discuss it, and I'll apologize for being dismissive. I think that's key, too — being self-aware enough to admit you're wrong. He gets it. He'll accept my apology, and we'll move on.

It's recognizing your flaws, too. I'm pretty quick to temper when it comes to deadlines; a bit of a control freak. That's what makes me really good at some things but I know when I've pushed too hard and need to back off. It took a lot of working on myself to get to this point, though.

I see things getting better and better now that we have systems and processes as a couple, not just as colleagues. It's taught us the art of boundaries, the value of switching off, and the importance of saying, " No more business talk tonight, OK?"

• The rich and powerful are in Davos, Switzerland for day three of the World Economic Forum.
• BI is talking to people on topics from AI to the economy to how consulting firms are gearing up for a big year.
• This is what we're hearing on the ground.

The World Economic Forum has brought the rich and powerful together to discuss topics ranging from Donald Trump's impact on the economy to AI's impact on their industries.

This is what Business Insider is hearing and seeing on the ground.

It feels like Europe is missing in action

The need for Europe to step up has been the recurring theme in my conversations with business and government leaders. Geopolitical and economic uncertainty is at the forefront of everyone's mind.

While business leaders are excited about the new US president and Asia boasts some of the world's fastest-growing economies, Europe seems to be missing from the action. Walking along the promenade in Davos, the presence of American, Asian, and Middle Eastern delegations is unmistakable. But where is Europe? And where is the UK?

One CEO I spoke with Tuesday night stressed that Europe's regulatory landscape had to change to make it easier for businesses to operate there. "What Asia is gaining, Europe is losing," he said.

Another executive observed that Europe was a major topic of discussion in Davos, but its presence feels muted. Srini Pallia, Global CEO of Wipro, highlighted that growth and regulatory challenges in Europe are key concerns this year. "I was in a session just before this, where the European president was present, and she was asked how the EU could reduce regulatory barriers that are hindering growth. I think that's one of the big conversations happening here." — Spriha Srivastava

Meta is trying to reassure advertisers about its moderation changes

Mark Zuckerberg's Meta makeover has had some advertisers concerned about what changes to content moderation might do for what people start seeing across Facebook and Instagram.

In a Davos roundtable discussion with BI, Nicola Mendelsohn, head of Meta's global business group, said the company had been speaking with advertisers in recent days and trying to reassure them that nothing will change. Mendelsohn said advertisers would still be able to stop ads appearing next to political content if they wish.

"What they've shared back actually is the reassurance that all the commitments that we have to brand safety, brand suitability on the platform, none of that changes," she said. — Hugh Langley

We need a new institution to ensure human-like AI doesn't harm humanity, Google DeepMind's CEO said

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis had a busy Tuesday here with two near-back-to-back interviews at Google Haus. If there was one big takeaway, it was Hassabis saying we're not thinking enough about the AI bigger picture. "I think there's way too much hype in the short term," he said. "Actually it's underrated still, underappreciated, the amount of transformation that's going to happen in the medium to long term, so the five to 10 years," he added.

In response to a question from BI, Hassabis said he believed there were big questions around capitalism and society that need to be pondered. "One of the big things economists should be thinking about is what does that do to money, the capitalist system, even the notion of companies. I think all of that changes."

Hassbis said we need an institution that can "meet the moment" — a governing body that can ensure artificial general intelligence, or AGI, is managed in a way that benefits humankind.

"That would be where you put a wise council, an international council of very diverse and smart people from different backgrounds. Not just technologists. I'm talking about philosophers, social scientists, writers, et cetera. But who is building that institute, is what I would ask. And I think we really need that."

He also discussed his work on protein folding with AlphaFold, which recently earned him a Nobel Prize. And who better to discuss the science than Bill Nye, "the science guy," who took the mic for the second interview. — Hugh Langley

Consulting firms are ready for a big year

Consulting firms are ready for what is expected to be a big year for their business thanks to a flurry of potential changes on the horizon.

"There are several macro factors that have been in play for a while: AI certainly, but also strong economic indicators in the US, as well as the current pro-growth sentiment in the market as a result of the incoming administration. So, there might be an uptick in business activity," Sharon Marcil, BCG's North America chair and a managing director and senior partner, told me.

A massive ramp-up comes with issues, though, as was evident in 2021 when the surge in M&A activity led to employee burnout across financial services.

A complete repeat of 2021's record year seems unlikely, but there are still staffing considerations. It's a tricky balance. You need enough workers so resources aren't stretched too thin while avoiding a surplus where there is not enough work to go around.

An immediate fix also isn't easy, as bringing on new talent requires a necessary training period. And good luck telling clients to hold off on deals, especially after so many have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the market to open up.

"For us, periods of increased activity force us to predict staffing. And that can sometimes be hard. There is a sweet spot between being understaffed and overstaffed. If we find we haven't gone far enough, we try other approaches like off-cycle hiring. It's definitely a balancing act," Marcil said. — Dan DeFrancesco

Proper snow boots are the way to go here

We're three days in, and we've yet to touch one of the most interesting debates I've found at Davos: footwear. Being that we're in the mountains, the abundance of snow and ice means opting for typical business shoes or heels isn't necessarily your best bet.

Boots of varying degrees of heftiness and fashion sense are a popular choice. (They don't call it "suits and boots" for nothing.) Others wear spikes that can be taken on and off.

Personally, I've gone all in, opting for proper snow boots. Wearing them with my suit every day is a bit … jarring. However, my daughter thinks I look like Kristoff from "Frozen," so that's a win.

Of course, some people throw caution to the wind and still opt for their dress shoes. Davos is a lot about status, and the luxury of wearing normal shoes since you're being chauffeured around speaks to that. — Dan DeFrancesco

• Ritesh Verma earns almost $15,000 monthly from side hustles alongside his Capital One job.
• Verma's side hustles include AI agents, YouTube, mentorship, and software services.
• He uses automation to work on multiple projects at once and earn more money.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ritesh Verma, 23, a software engineer in Jersey City. It's been edited for length and clarity.

After graduating from college in 2023, I was hired as a software engineer at Capital One with a $136,000 base salary, but it's not my largest source of income.

I've been building side hustles for years, and they now earn me almost $15,000 a month.

When I got hired at Capital One, I was worried about a full-time job disrupting my side hustles, but I've created a system that makes it manageable. Here's how I stay on top of my work and why I won't take my side hustles full-time — yet.

AI agents are my main side hustle

In late 2019, a friend of mine asked me to code a purchasing bot to help him buy and resell sneakers. I had no idea what bots, or AI agents, were, but I agreed and spent over six months teaching myself how to make software programs that perform tasks.

In 2022, I decided to post a YouTube tutorial on how to create a simple bot, and it got 200,000 views. A man saw my video and asked me to make him a purchasing agent for high-end golf clubs. I accepted the offer and made $600 every time I got him a golf club. Suddenly I was earning $1,800 a month.

Word spread, and I started getting more clients in the golf club collection space and other niche communities. I built purchasing bots for anything from hats to wine bottles to baby clothes.

I didn't want to be known as just the bot guy, so I started building services and tools as well. I built a scheduling bot that helps shift-based workers, such as servers, in the Nevada area snag competitive shifts.

I started using Reddit to find clientele

Early last year, I watched a YouTube video where the creator described how he used Reddit to grow his startup. I decided to give it a try.

I made a Reddit post saying, "I suck at getting these shifts, and I need help. Does anyone else relate?" Then I DMed the roughly 20 commenters who sympathized and pitched them my tool. I got eight of my clients from Reddit and now make about $9,000 monthly from it.

I also trained AI assistants to make Reddit posts for me, advertising my services and sending potential clients my phone number.

Reddit takes my posts down because they're promotional, but within 30 minutes of them being up, I'll usually have several people in my DMs. I've been kicked off Reddit and had to make multiple accounts, but it's all part of the process, and I think it's worth it.

I also have less lucrative side hustles

1. YouTube: I use my YouTube channel to gain clientele and as a side hustle. I get ad revenue from videos, and in one month, I made $1,400 from three sponsors.
2. Mentorship program: I also started a six-week mentorship program where I teach others how to code bots. For $3,000 in any given month, usually, two to three students get bi-weekly meetings to discuss assigned projects and learn concepts.

3. SaaS products: In 2024, I launched two SaaS products, which are basically just more conventional software engineering services. One is Instagram outreach software, which earns me $900 a month. My other SaaS product, which allows people to put Instagram reels on their website, has yet to turn a profit.

How I manage my side hustle and 9-to-5

My secret to success is working on several projects at once. I can stay on top of so many because it's highly automated.

I might spend 20 hours building a new AI agent or project, but after that, my weekly commitment might only be two hours. I also might spend a few additional hours getting clients or troubleshooting, but the hard work is done.

My Capital One job is a hybrid 9-to-5 with two days in the office each week. After work, I eat and have a four-hour deep work session where I focus on my side hustles. I also work a few hours each day of the weekend.

It's a lot of work, but I find it fun. I also make sure to have time for myself. A few friends and I travel every three months. In 2024, I spent a total of a month overseas in places like Brazil, Japan, and Italy, doing no work. Those trips are a good sanity check and keep me looking forward to something.

I won't leave my full-time job until I meet a specific metric

A mentee asked me why I don't leave my full-time job, and I told him I don't feel like it's taking up space.

I've probably tried 15 projects recently, and most fail. I give every project a month or two of serious dedication before deciding if it's worth continuing. Sometimes, the project is just too hard, and growing it is a pain.

Other times, I just lose the spark of the idea. In those cases, I'll put it on a major backburner or ask a mentee if they'd like to take responsibility for equity in the product.

Plus, I'm following a rule that I won't leave my full-time job until I make three times my Capital One base salary from my side businesses. Once I achieve that, I'll drop it. That's the goal.

If you make six figures from a side hustle and would like to share your story, please email Manseen Logan at [email protected].

• Francesca Lagerberg is CEO of Baker Tilly, one of the world's 10 biggest accounting firms.
• In an interview with BI, Lagerberg explained why her firm has managed to buck the downward trend in the sector.
• Lagerberg doesn't want to turn Baker Tilly into a lesser version of a Big Four firm, she told BI.

The Big Four professional services firms lead the accounting and advisory market globally. They have a combined 1.5 million employees, generate billions in annual revenue, and their easily recognizable names draw in scores of eager young graduates annually.

But for all their status, the Big Four have seen a marked drop in growth rate over recent years, and their consultants have been leaving.

Bucking that downward trend in the market is Baker Tilly, a midsize network of around 140 member firms.

Its offering of tax, advisory, and legal services generated global revenue of over $5 billion for the year ending December 2023, an 11% increase from the previous year and a record high for the firm. It's now one of the top 10 accounting firms in the world.

For Baker Tilly, though, the goal isn't growing to the point where the Big Four becomes the Big Five, its CEO Francesca Lagerberg told Business Insider.

"Am I ambitious? Yeah, very," she told BI. "But am I ambitious to be a lesser version of something else?"

"The Big Four Super Tank is an amazing organization, very successful and really good at what they do. We just operate in an environment where midsize firms excite us."

Lagerberg said Baker Tilly's success is due to its great proposition, strong member firms within the network, and the moves those firms have made into bigger markets.

"It's a very good time for us. We've been able to offer what the market needed. We've been in markets where growth has continued and the kind of work that we specialize in seems to have a bit more of an ongoing level."

"In the mid-tier, where we are strongest, firms are looking for that kind of input and advice. So we've been able to offer the services they want, and there hasn't been that drop-off."

Smaller-scale growth has also meant the firm didn't follow the overstaffing fallout that has afflicted bigger names.

On paper, all accounting firms like Baker Tilly appear to offer the same services, but Lagerberg, who's spent her career in professional services, says it's the culture that helps differentiate the firm. It's not just about the services you provide, but offering them in a way that clients would like to have them delivered, she said.

"It is fundamentally about the values and behaviors that we have. We have a very strong people-first approach, and we genuinely mean it," she said.

There are no strict work hours at Baker Tilly that other firms are renowned for. Instead, the company offers its employees unlimited holidays and flexible working. It's an organization whose staff actually get on with each other and that attracts like-minded clients, Lagerberg said.

Being people that others like to do business with is a "much-misunderstood part of how the world goes around," she added.

The private equity wave

The mid-tier sector of professional services firms hasn't avoided the slowdown hitting the Big Four.

Together with economic pressures and high interest rates, the strain is helping drive a new wave of private capital investment in mid-tier accounting firms.

Firms have typically paid out profits to equity partners, who also get a vote on how the firms are run. External cash injections are divesting the control historically promised to partners and shaking up the culture at firms.

In the US and UK, firms like Grant Thornton, Cooper Parry, and EisnerAmper have gone down the private equity route. In 2024, Baker Tilly US did the same, selling a majority stake to private investment groups Hellman & Friedman and Valeas. It was the second-largest deal to be done in the sector.

PE has lots of advantages, but it isn't a golden bullet, Lagerberg told BI. One benefit is that it's providing an influx of capital that's necessary for firms as they evolve with technology and data.

"We used to be a really cap-light business. Now, we're a cap-heavy environment, so it's not surprising that PE is seeing growth," the Baker Tilly CEO said.

It's also bringing about a huge change in the culture that not all partners are happy about.

"A lot of partners they've operated in an environment that's been very similar all their careers, and suddenly in comes an external stakeholder," Lagerberg said. But they also bring a new rigor to firms.

"PE houses are very good at running organizations in an efficient way. I think you'll see an even stronger emphasis on the financials and looking for a return."

The reality for any business is that you can't be future-proof, Lagerberg said. In this era of instability, this is part of the reason companies keep turning to Baker Tilly.

"You will not make all the right decisions because no one quite knows where something is going to go. But you can be future fit. How can you get yourself to a position where you're going to ride out most of it? Some things are going to be amazing opportunities. Are you ready to take them?"

Do you work at a consulting or accounting firm? Contact this reporter in confidence at [email protected] to talk about your experience and the industry.

• DARPA seeks to modify red blood cells to enhance troop performance.
• The Red Blood Cell Factory program aims to insert biologically active components in cells.
• The agency says this research could one day lead to longer-lasting meds and blood-cell drug delivery systems.

The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, the Pentagon's top research arm, wants to know if red blood cells can be modified in novel ways to protect troops and help them manage extreme battlefield environments.

The DARPA program, known as "Red Blood Cell Factory," is looking for researchers and is interested in inserting "biologically active components" or "cargoes" in red blood cells. The hope is that modified cells would bring with them special enhancements, "thus allowing recipients, such as warfighters, to operate more effectively in dangerous or extreme environments."

Red blood cells could act like a truck, carrying "cargo" or special protections, to all parts of the body, since they already circulate oxygen everywhere, Christopher Bettinger, a professor of biomedical engineering overseeing the program, told Business Insider.

"What if we could add in additional cargo … inside of that disc," Bettinger said, referring to the shape of red blood cells, "that could then confer these interesting benefits … protective capabilities that we're trying to sort of imbue to our warfighters?"

What could these modifications do?

DARPA does not expect the researchers to experiment on people or animals, just on bags of blood. The research is foundational, Bettinger said, but could allow scientists to identify how red blood cell modification could evolve over time.

The research could impact the way troops battle diseases that reproduce in red blood cells such as malaria, for example, Bettinger hypothesized.

"Imagine an alternative world where we have a warfighter that has a red blood cell that's accessorized with a compound that can sort of defeat malaria," Bettinger said. In this scenario, a red blood cell could be "accessorized" with a countermeasure.

"It's kind of like an automatic drug delivery system," he said, "that could then protect the warfighter from the harmful effects of subsequent infection and sort of replication of the parasite."

It could also be possible to modify the red blood cells in ways that would allow medications to last longer without a service member having to ingest them daily — instead, relying on doses that protect a person for weeks or months instead of just 24 hours.

Another potential use of modified cells could be stopping a hemorrhage from trauma, including battlefield wounds.

"Trauma induces a kind of host of biological responses, one of which is rupturing of red blood cells," Bettinger said. DARPA's research efforts could ascertain from its blood research whether a catastrophic injury that would normally mean death from blood loss instead sees blood automatically coagulate.

A path to a more capable warfighter

"Each red blood cell stays in the blood for about four months, and it accesses pretty much every organ in the body," said Samir Mitragotri, a professor of bioengineering at Harvard. Their prevalence and relatively long lifetime are partly why red blood cells are such an attractive target for scientists.

Part of the challenge, Mitragotri said, is that the cells can't be so radically changed that the body no longer recognizes them as red blood cells, thus prompting quicker bodily digestion.

Such advances in bioengineering could be a game-changer in fields like infectious disease treatment and oncology, said Mitragotri, illnesses which require long periods of drug treatment. Though the science is still emerging, it's "a very promising area," he said.

The Department of Defense has long been interested in learning how biomedical engineering could benefit troops.

For years, the US military has been looking into the benefits of biofeedback technologies to better understand mental and physical health. And there's also been research into potential physical enhancements through various lines of effort.

In 2019, for instance, the Army released a "Cyborg Soldier 2050" report detailing how the military is thinking about a future where troops could benefit from things like neural and optical enhancements, though the report acknowledged ethical and legal concerns surrounding such possibilities.

US rivals like China are, as the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies noted in a new report, also exploring this space, but with less concern for ethical considerations.

The Chinese People's Liberation Army "has long recognized the strategic importance of biotechnology, engaging in extensive collaborations with Chinese biotechnology behemoths," the report said. "These and other partnerships have yielded research with potential military applications, including efforts to enhance Chinese soldiers' physical and cognitive abilities."

• Federal workers in DEI roles will be placed on leave by 5 p.m. Wednesday.
• The move follows President Donald Trump's executive order terminating DEI roles and initiatives.
• It's part of a wider right-wing pushback against DEI, which Trump says is discriminatory.

Federal workers in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) roles are being put on paid leave as DEI initiatives, offices, and programs are dismantled under the Trump administration.

CBS News obtained an Office of Personnel Management memorandum that said all federal employees in DEI roles should be placed on leave by 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

Agencies are instructed to inform those in DEI offices their leave would be "effective immediately," it said, as the agency works to close DEI initiatives.

The move follows an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office, which declared the termination of DEI "mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities" in the federal government.

The order requires agency, department, and commission heads to work with the Attorney General and the directors of the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management to take action within 60 days.

As well as the termination of DEI roles, the order also called for the termination of "environmental justice" offices.

Karoline Leavitt, assistant to the president and White House press secretary, confirmed the memorandum's authenticity in an X post.

She wrote: "To every reporter asking about this: I can gladly confirm!"

The memo urged heads of departments and agencies to immediately take down all "outward facing media," including social media and websites, of DEI offices and cancel any related training.

It also said the heads of departments and agencies need to report to the Office of Personnel Management by midday on Thursday, detailing all the steps taken to implement the memo, by providing lists of DEI offices, personnel, and any related contracts as of Election Day 2024.

Additionally, the department and agency heads are asked to submit plans to the OPM by the end of the month on executive force reduction within DEI offices.

Trump's executive order accused former President Joe Biden's administration of forcing "immoral discrimination programs" into "virtually all" aspects of the federal government.

The move is part of a wider effort to clamp down on DEI, which has increasingly become the subject of criticism in conservative circles.

On Tuesday, the White House issued a separate presidential order ending all DEI-based hiring in the Federal Aviation Authority, including those that consider race, sex, or disability.

Trump said in his inauguration speech on Monday: "We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based."

He also announced that it would become official US policy that there are "only two genders: male and female."

• There's no single definition for artificial general intelligence.
• Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, previously predicted that "powerful AI" could arrive by 2026.
• Amodei said AGI is more of a "marketing term," and he has a different way of describing the next AI milestone.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is confident that we're rapidly approaching a new technology threshold — the creation of AI systems that are "better" than humans at most things.

He's just not willing to pin the buzzy term "AGI," or artificial general intelligence, on it.

"AGI has never been a well-defined term, for me," Amodei said on a recent appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "I've always thought of it as a marketing term. But, you know, the way I think about it is, at some point, we're gonna get to AI systems that are better than almost all humans at almost all tasks."

AGI is top of mind for various tech leaders, with many predicting that the technology is rapidly approaching viability.

The issue is there is no widely agreed-upon definition of AGI, much less a concrete timeline for reaching it. However, in general, many describe it as a form of AI that can meet or exceed human capabilities.

In Amodei's case, he said he prefers to think about future advanced AI systems as a "country of geniuses in a data center."

"It's a sort of evocative phrase for all the power and all the positive things, and, you know, all of the potential negative things," Amodei said. "That's the thing I think we're quite likely to get in the next two or three years."

Amodei has previously written an essay on the subject of AGI, which he prefers to call "powerful AI." In it, he laid out a series of parameters for the technology, including being "smarter than a Nobel Prize winner across most relevant fields." In the same piece, he predicted it could arrive by 2026.

After a decade in the AI field, Amodei said he's more confident than ever about such a timeline.

"Throughout the 10 years that I've been working in this field, I've always said, 'You know, I don't know for sure, this is the direction it seems like it's going in, we could be getting to very powerful or human level systems,'" Amodei said.

"I still think there's uncertainty, I think it's important to be humble, but over the last six months, I would say that uncertainty, for me, has decreased a great deal," he said.

As for recent concerns about the practicality of continued scaling of AI models, Amodei said he isn't worried. He said there have only been "five or six" times throughout his career in AI where the tech appeared to be hitting a wall and that "something slightly different" was always invented that allowed for continued progress.

"The scaling of AI, it feels like this river," Amodei said. "That, you know, every once in a while it runs into a stone, but it'll — it always finds a way to go around."

• At firms like CapitalG and CRV, an increasing amount of VCs are former college athletes.
• Some firms like Benchmark have specifically sought out college athletes in recent hires.
• Athlete VCs say that the skills and lessons they learned on sports teams make them better investors.

Maggie Basta's first experience as a teammate came early in life: She grew up playing soccer and was on the soccer team at Harvard University. Today, Basta is an investor at Scale Venture Partners and focuses on AI infrastructure and developer tools. Basta is part of a growing number of venture capitalists around the country who are former college athletes and bringing the lessons they learned from years of playing sports to enhance their investing careers.

One of Business Insider's rising stars of venture capital in 2024, Basta said that her experience playing soccer taught her the importance of accountability.

"Your portfolio companies are counting on you, and your investing team is counting on you, so showing up and doing what you say you're going to do as an investor is incredibly important," she told BI. "If you don't show up for your team, you're letting everyone else down and holding everyone else back."

Some VCs are openly seeking out college athletes as employees. In a recent job posting for an associate position at Slow Ventures, the firm called out athletes as great potential candidates.

"The easiest people for us to hire: You got a 1600 on your SATs, and played sports seriously (++ for endurance athletes)," the posting said.

Investor Peter Fenton, whose work at Benchmark has led to notable exits including Twitter and Yelp, is a runner and previously looked to hire student-athletes for assistant positions at the firm, Business Insider previously reported.

In 2022 he hired Vanessa Fraser, a standout Stanford University athlete who inked a deal to run professionally for Nike.

"Running has grounded me into a more disciplined routine, which translated to higher functioning and higher performance," Fraser previously told BI. "The biggest surprise to me is that I'm almost less tired than when I was a full-time professional athlete. I'm more mentally stimulated."

VC firms are seeking out college athletes with transferable skills that could make them great investors.

For investors like James Green, a background in sports has been a value-add for his VC firm, CRV. Growing up in a small town in the United Kingdom, he was one of many young people tapped by the British government as part of an elite-sports development initiative. He spent 15 years as a rower, culminating with a spot on Harvard University's rowing team.

Green, who focuses on investing in cybersecurity and fintech startups, told BI that VC and rowing are similar because they're both team and individual sports.

"Without a team, you can't win, but you're only as good as your slowest person," he said. "It's kind of the same in VC — we're all a team, individually making our own investments. When I make an investment, the team wins."

Green added that sports have also taught him patience. Training for years towards an athletic goal has parallels to a long career investing in startups and dealing with high and low periods.

"I rowed at a high level for years, which takes a lot of patience," he said. "You're doing sets on the rowing machine and working out multiple times per day, sometimes just to get one second faster or even plateau. It's the same when you're in the early stage for startups. You have to prepare for it to be nonlinear."

CapitalG vice president Kelly Barton also says that playing sports — in her past and present life — has made her a better investor. The former Massachusetts Institute of Technology rower, who joined CapitalG In 2021, transitioned to running marathons after graduating and later found success in the triathlon.

When she spoke to BI in mid-December, she was about to embark on a trip to Taupō, New Zealand, to compete in the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships.

"One thing that I've appreciated is that workouts create a forced space for me to think about the companies I back," she said. "Stepping back for two-plus hours a day helps me find the space to think about their next steps."

CapitalG general partner Jesse Welder — who himself was on the University of California-Berkeley's sailing team — told BI that Barton and the other members of his team, who all happen to be former college athletes, have extra drive. There are mulitple former student athletes at CapitalG, including AI investing partner Jill Chase, who was captain of Williams College's women's basketball team, and managing partner Laela Sturdy, who was captain of the women's basketball team at Harvard.

"Athletes are competitively driven people who are driven to succeed more than the average person," he said. "In an investing job, there is so much that you can keep learning, and it never stops mentally. Endurance athletes, and athletes in general, are a good fit for this."

Barton's work at CapitalG has continued to complement her sport: she won her age group at December's IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships and became a world champion for women ages 25-29.

"I'm my best athlete when I'm my best self, and that means that I'm well-rested, and I'm devoting time to my relationships and my work, too," she said.

• JPMorgan's David Kelly said US workers have been too timid when it comes to asking for raises.
• One career advisor suggests you create a "brag sheet" to outline your accomplishments.
• Experts also recommend doing research on pay, knowing your worth, and leveraging tech for raises.

A top Wall Street exec thinks most of us need to get better about asking for a raise.

David Kelly, the chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, told Bloomberg that many US workers appear timid when going to their employer for more money — even though there are some 8 million job openings across the country.

"Everybody knows it's hard to find a good employee," he said.

Kelly said that, in some cases, discussions about layoffs can make workers believe it's not a good time to ask for a boost.

"It's good messaging from these companies," he said, adding, "There's nothing like announcing prospective layoffs to quiet down the labor force."

So, if you're thinking it's time for a bump, here are four tips from workplace experts on how to talk with your boss.

Keep a record of your wins

It's easy to lose track of all the things you've accomplished at work, especially as the months roll by. Jasmine Escalera, a career expert with MyPerfectResume, recommends that workers keep a "brag sheet" of the major contributions they've made in their role and to their team — and on behalf of their manager and the organization.

"What are the top things that really showcase the impact that you've made?" she said.

Escalera said it doesn't have to be an exhaustive list. She added that if there are smaller accomplishments that don't warrant being mentioned in a discussion over compensation, they could serve as the basis for asking a client or a colleague for a LinkedIn endorsement.

Keeping a list can also help identify when it might be time to ask for an increase in compensation or a heftier title, even outside an annual review cycle, Escalera said.

Too often, she said, workers shy away from discussing their achievements because they want to avoid the appearance of bragging.

"We stop ourselves from self-promotion because we think it's bad, but self-promotion is the breadcrumbs that lead to the titles and the promotions and the pay raises," Escalera said.

Know your financial worth

One way to feel less uneasy about promoting ourselves is to have a sense of what others in similar roles at other organizations are earning.

Having that data on hand can appeal to many bosses' desire to be competitive in the marketplace and even to live up to the values the organization espouses, Maria Ross, who researches empathy and is the author of the book "The Empathy Dilemma," told BI.

She said workers who have information about pay rates at other organizations and who have deep knowledge about the state of their employer's business are likely to fare better in a discussion about pay.

Ross suggested people should consider how getting a raise might benefit the organization. A hike in pay might come with added responsibility or taking on some of your boss's work. Or, she said, if you get a promotion, that could create an opening for someone to move into your old role.

"How can you frame the ask as a benefit to the organization?" Ross said.

Don't make it an easy 'no'

Often, workers consider themselves lucky to have a job. While that might be true, the organization can also be lucky to have you, Julie Smith, author of the book "Coach Yourself Confident," told BI.

"It's kind of a scary thing to ask, 'Do you think I'm worth more?'" she said.

Smith said the discussion over a bump in pay might end up spilling into more than one conversation — and that's OK. That's because, sometimes, raising the topic of a pay increase can prompt a busy boss to pay more attention to all of the things you're doing.

She said that instead of asking for a raise immediately, you might benefit from asking your boss to consider a pay bump, or that your boss brings it up with senior leaders or HR.

The one-off ask can make it easier for your boss to say "no," Smith said.

It can also be helpful to ask others at your job who are ahead of you how they asked for a raise and what steps they took to advance.

"How did it go down?" she said. "What can I take from that?"

Smith also suggested that you practice asking aloud before the conversation with your boss. You might prepare with a friend. It doesn't have to be a full-on role-play, Smith said. Yet hearing yourself make your case can help you edit out apologetic phrases that can creep in and can help you get a sense of how your statements come across.

"Don't say the words out loud for the first time with your boss," she said.

Show you're keeping up

Many employers are investing in artificial intelligence tools with the goal of improving productivity and efficiency. If you can, learn how to use this technology so you can boost your own productivity — and your value to the business, Ger Doyle, country manager for the staffing firm ManpowerGroup US, told BI.

He said workers who are thinking about how they can use tech — including, in some cases, an AI copilot — to do their jobs more effectively and efficiently will look good in the eyes of the boss.

"How do you use that copilot to make your job more effective, make your department more effective, make the company more effective?" Doyle said.

• US President Donald Trump said he could impose 10% tariffs on Chinese goods from February 1.
• China's stock markets fell after Trump's comments, breaking several straight days of gains.
• Trump had said he could slap tariffs of 25% on Canada and Mexico from February 1.

On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed a raft of executive orders and threatened Canada and Mexico with 25% tariffs that could come as soon as next month.

China got a pass on day one, but the break didn't last long.

On Tuesday, his second day in office, Trump said he could impose tariffs on China next month.

"We're talking about a tariff of 10% on China, based on the fact that they're sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada," Trump said at a press conference.

"Probably February 1 is the date we're looking at," Trump said.

Trump previously threatened 60% tariffs on Chinese goods while on the campaign trail.

China is calling for better dialogue and cooperation for mutual benefit.

"Keeping business ties sound and stable serves the fundamental interests of both countries and both peoples, it is also conducive to global economic growth," China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, said at a scheduled press conference on Tuesday.

China's stock markets fell on Wednesday following Trump's comments, breaking several straight days of gains.

The CSI300 Index closed 0.9% lower. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index closed 1.6% lower.

Trump's consistent threats of tariffs reflect his "American First" trade agenda, which he outlined in a presidential memo on Monday.

In the memo, Trump asked the US Trade Representative to assess China's compliance with a trade deal the two countries signed in early 2020 and recommend actions — including tariffs — as needed.

China did not meet the import requirements in the trade deal, economists from Nomura wrote in note on Tuesday.

"The concern here is that this gives the Trump administration another reason to impose additional stiff tariffs or trade demands on China to force compliance with the original trade deal," the economists wrote.

On Tuesday, Trump also took aim at the European Union.

"We have a $350 billion deficit with the European Union. They treat us very very badly, so they're going to be in for tariffs," Trump said.

• If you get knee pain or injuries in the gym, that could be from sitting all day.
• Exercises that strengthen and stretch the leg muscles effectively will help protect knees.
• For healthier joints, aim to move regularly and work on your balance and stability.

Simple exercises can help prevent knee pain from derailing your routine, according to a physical therapist.

Andrey Simeonovski, a physical therapy doctor, recently spent a week in Kathmandu as part of Operation Walk, helping rehabilitate patients who'd had knee replacement surgeries.

He said a major takeaway from the experience is that consistently putting your body through the same motions can cause problems, whether you're sitting all day or doing repetitive physical tasks.

"It's a variety of movements that are important for your health in your body," Simeonovski said.

Here are some exercises that offer your joints a range of motion to strengthen the surrounding muscles. As always, it's best to work with a qualified trainer, or talk to a doctor first if you have existing injuries.

Lateral "monster walks" can relieve knee and back pain

Resistance bands are a great tool for strengthening muscles that help stabilize the knee joint.

Simeonovski said a common exercise he uses for the knees, hips, and back is the "monster walk," taking steps from side to side with a band around the legs or feet.

The band provide tension to engage the glutes, which can be underdeveloped from sitting all day, so firing them up helps to stabilize the rest of the body.

"It reduces strain on the low back," Simeonovski said.

Quad stretches help take pressure off your knees

Knee pain can often result from tightness in the quads, which then pull on the knee and create problems, according to Simeonovski.

A couch stretch can help lengthen and loosen up the quads while opening up the hip flexors.

Simeonovski typically recommends an elevated version of the stretch, which is easier on the knee:

Rest one knee on a bench or box near the wall. Bend that knee while moving the shin and top of the foot to rest flat up against the wall.

If it's painful, ease up on the stretch, especially if you have an injury.

Simeonovski said the best way to avoid injury is pay attention — if something is painful enough that it's distracting, or if you stop the exercise and the pain persists, don't continue.

"Pain that lingers is a red flag," he said.

Hamstring curls can protect your knees from injury

Simeonovski said the hamstrings, the muscles on the back of the leg, are often overlooked. We tend to focus on the quads on the front of the leg. But that can increase the risk of damaging ligaments in the knee because the quads can put too much pressure on the ACL without the hamstrings to counteract them.

To strengthen the hamstrings, try Nordic hamstring curls.

Start in a kneeling position with your feet secured (you can use a special mat or bench, tuck them under a couch or other furniture, or have someone hold them). Keeping your torso, hips, and shoulders in a straight line, slowly lower yourself to the ground, landing on your hands as if in the bottom of push-up.

This exercise can be challenging. If you feel like you don't have control, use a resistance band secured behind you to help offset some of your body weight. That will make the movement easier.

Step-ups strengthen the knee and help fix imbalances

One of Simeonovski's go-to exercises for improving lower body strength and joint health is the step-up.

Stand in front of a stool, bench, box, or stairs, and place one foot on the elevated surface. Pressing through that foot, lift your body up onto the step, and then return to the starting position. Repeat, alternating the starting foot.

Step-ups are low-impact and work the glutes, hamstrings, and quads as well as the core muscles. Alternating sides can also help improve your balance.

Go slow and gradually increase weight, height, or intensity as you get comfortable with the exercise. Squats and lunges offer similar benefits, but may need modifications if you have an existing injury.

Simeonovski said he prefers these movements to exercises like knee extensions, which aren't necessarily bad for your joints, but don't offer as much stability.

Rotational exercise helps to offset damage from sitting

Tightness in one area can cause a chain reaction and create aches and issues elsewhere.

For instance, back problems can worsen strain and pressure on the knees.

That's why Simeonovski recommends the open book exercise for patients who have knee pain and spend lots of time sitting. It doesn't directly involve the knees but can improve overall mobility.

Lie on a mat or the floor with your knees and hips bent at 90 degrees and your arms extended in front of you. Slowly rotate the top arm up and across your body as far as you comfortably can, gently twisting your spine. Return to the starting position and repeat, being sure to perform the exercise on both sides.

You can also do a similar rotation from a half-kneeling position.

Take breaks for movement throughout the day

The key to strengthening and protecting your joints is consistency, especially if you sit all day, according to Simeonovski.

Find opportunities to get up and move around at regular intervals, setting an alarm if needed to remind yourself to take a stretch break, go for a short walk, or otherwise give your body a rest from repetition.

"Staying in one position is a problem long-term," he said.

• Torrey Grant commutes eight hours each week for a teaching job at Syracuse University.
• That job is in addition to his account executive role at a PR agency where he works full time.
• The share of supercommutes in the 10 largest US cities has grown from four years ago.

Torrey Grant said his roughly eight-hour weekly commute for his part-time gig is worth the time because he enjoys the job and it supplements his income.

In June 2022, Grant and his wife moved from Syracuse, New York to New York City so they could be closer to her family. Grant landed a Manhattan-based account executive role at a public relations agency that specializes in the food, wine, and spirits industries. He was also able to retain his part-time gig of more than five years: teaching a wine and beer appreciation course at Syracuse University, his alma mater.

During typical weeks when school is in session, he wakes up at 4:30 a.m. on Tuesdays in his Manhattan residence, drives roughly four hours to Syracuse, and is at his desk by 9 a.m. During the day, he works remotely for his public relations job. He then teaches two courses in the evening, stays overnight at a hotel, works remotely for his PR job the next day, teaches two more classes in the evening, and then drives home Wednesday evening.

"It's well worth it to keep a great job and it keeps my wife and I close to her family," said Grant, 50, when referring to his teaching position.

Grant is among the supercommuters who are defined by traveling more than 75 miles to work. The share of supercommutes in the 10 largest US cities was 32% greater between November 2023 and February 2024 than between the same time period four years prior, per a study from Stanford University that was published in June.

The researchers said this increase was likely driven by the uptick in remote working arrangements. For example, some Americans who moved away from their offices — in part for lower housing costs — decided they could stomach a long commute when their employers rolled out return-to-office policies after the pandemic.

Driving several hours is worth it for the job and pay

Grant said he earns between $80,000 and $100,000 annually from teaching, depending on the number of courses he teaches — which can vary based on student interest, among other factors. Grant estimated that he dedicates about 30 hours a week to his teaching job, which includes 12 hours of lecturing and additional time spent in meetings, conducting office hours, preparing for classes, and grading.

Grant said that his round-trip commuting costs typically include between $40 and $50 for a full tank of gas, roughly $80 for one night at a hotel, about $25 in tolls, and $36 to park at the school — a total of about $200 per round-trip.

Before he committed to driving as his preferred mode of transportation, Grant said he tried taking the train and flying. However, he said the train can take up to six hours if there are delays, and that flying — which can also come with delays — typically doesn't save any time.

Looking ahead, Grant said he plans to keep supercommuting for the foreseeable future. He said the biggest downside of the commute is that he has to be away from his wife two days a week. However, he said he enjoys teaching and that working with students helps him stay up to date on what's popular with younger wine and beer consumers — which can also give him a leg up at his public relations job. He said he's considered looking for teaching jobs closer to home, but only a few schools offer similar courses.

Ultimately, he said the teaching job's pay — and the limited travel costs — are what's made his commute sustainable. In the future, he said the job could bring about another financial benefit: discounted college tuition for his children.

"Financially it still makes sense," he said of the commute. "I'd love to say I would do it even if it wasn't but that's not realistic."

Do you have a long commute to work? Are you willing to share your story with a reporter? Reach out to [email protected].

Jessica DeBenedetto has only been on compounded tirzepatide for a couple of weeks, but she already feels like it's a life-changer. Her doctor prescribed the cheaper, generic version of the weight-loss drug after her insurer refused to cover Zepbound, the brand-name version made by Eli Lilly. DeBenedetto, now 43, tells me she's been prediabetic since her 20s, and after going through hormone injections with IVF, she's put on a worrying amount of weight she just can't take off. As we talk, she marvels that she's had a box of chocolates on her desk all day that she still hasn't touched, which is probably the result of both the drug and a psychological shift, since she hasn't been taking the injections that long. Still, the optimism is palpable. Those chocolates would "normally be gone in an hour," she says.

DeBenedetto's excitement has been stunted, however, by recent developments that will make compounded tirzepatide no longer widely available. The FDA has removed the drug from its shortage list and set a timeline for pharmacies to stop making compounded versions of the drug — meaning the only version available will be the FDA-approved, pricier type. She feels like the rug has been pulled out from under her.

"I'm so devastated that this option is going away," she says.

For now, her doctor is going to switch her over to compounded semaglutide — the active pharmaceutical ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, made by Novo Nordisk. The problem is, that's a temporary fix, too. While semaglutide is still on the shortage list, the FDA is expected to eventually end that designation, and compounders will have to stop making it, too. Lots of people could be in DeBenedetto's situation: The perfect candidate for a miracle drug whose miracle will no longer be easily accessible.

GLP-1 drugs such as semaglutide and tirzepatide are at the center of a weight-loss drug revolution. The biggest development in weight-loss medicine since bariatric surgery (not to mention less invasive), the medications, which were initially approved to treat type 2 diabetes, have exploded in popularity in recent years. People say the drugs help them drop pounds by cutting the "food noise" — making them feel fuller longer and quieting their appetites. Recent research suggests these drugs could help treat a variety of other conditions, from sleep apnea to heavy drinking.

The drugs became so popular so fast that manufacturers began running out, and patients scrambled to find Ozempic or Wegovy (the brand-name versions of semaglutide) and Monjauro or Zepbound (tirzepatide). There were other barriers to access: The brand-name versions of the drugs are expensive, in most cases costing thousands of dollars a year without insurance, and insurers have been hesitant to cover them. Moreover, not everyone who wants to lose weight has a clinical need to — a doctor saying no to a prescription doesn't always quell the desire to get one.

Some of these access issues were alleviated when the FDA put the drugs on its shortage list in 2022. This allowed compounding pharmacies to get into the GLP-1 game by creating their own versions of the injectible drugs using active ingredients obtained from chemical wholesalers and manufacturers that they could dispense when prescribed by a provider. Even though the FDA warned patients about the potential dangers of getting non-FDA-approved, compounded GLP-1s, the cat was out of the bag. Compounding pharmacies and telehealth companies saw an enormous opportunity to meet the demand for these copycat medications and offer them at a lower price point. Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, obviously, didn't love the setup, but there wasn't much they could do to stop it, given the shortages.

The thing about shortages is that they don't last forever. After some legal wrangling, the FDA pulled tirzepatide from its shortage list in December, giving compounders a short grace period to wrap things up. That means people taking the copycats will soon need to switch to the name-brand version, find another drug, or stop taking anything altogether. The party is over — or at least it's supposed to be.

"We all knew when semaglutide went into shortage and then when tirzepatide went into shortage that this was not a permanent status. Eventually, those drugs would be available in quantities sufficient enough to meet demand," said Scott Brunner, the CEO of the Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding, an industry group. Since October, when the FDA first determined the shortage was resolved, they've been warning members that "the end was near," he said.

Compounders aren't eager to pack it in. The Outsourcing Facilities Association, another industry group that represents compounders that produce large batches of medications, has sued to overturn the FDA's decision. Eli Lilly has since joined the FDA as a defendant to try to make sure the shortage stays resolved — it wants people taking and paying for its Monjauro and Zepbound, not cheaper copies.

In a statement to Business Insider, an Eli Lilly spokesperson said the FDA has "correctly determined" that tirzepatide is not in shortage and that it was "clear that compounders must immediately begin transitioning patients taking compounded tirzepatide knockoffs to FDA-approved tirzepatide medicines," adding that the company will "vigorously defend" the FDA's decision. The spokesperson said the best way to ensure patients get tirzepatide is for "employers, insurers, and the government to recognize that obesity is a chronic disease and to increase coverage of medicines to treat it."

The OFA did not respond to a request for comment on this story. The APC has not joined the suit in defense of the compounders, but Brunner expressed concerns that Eli Lilly's brief had gone too far, and if the court agrees, it could end compounding by smaller pharmacies of common drugs, such as lidocaine or amoxicillin, if they were to happen to fall into a shortage for one reason or another.

The bigger picture is that there's a lot of money on the line when it comes to GLP-1s, and the parties involved know it. Compounders have found a big revenue stream they don't want to easily give up. At the same time, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk have market exclusivity — meaning no generics are allowed — for a limited amount of time and they want to make as much money as they can before it runs out.

For patients, this all adds up to a lot of confusion, changes, and, potentially, interruptions in treatment. The transition period will not be seamless.

"You're going to have a lot of very disappointed people," said Melanie Jay, the director of the NYU Langone Comprehensive Program on Obesity.

Many providers have begun to switch patients from tirzepatide to semaglutide or, when they can afford it, to the brand-name drug. The telehealth company Ro, which in the past offered compounded tirzepatide, in December announced it would be offering single-dose vials of Zepbound to patients with obesity. (It comes at a lower price point than the medication when delivered in an injection pen.) "We'll follow the FDA's guidance on compounding, and we'll work to ensure our patients have the best treatment options available," a Ro spokesperson said in an email.

Some compounders and telehealth companies may try to find workarounds and loopholes, especially once semaglutide is no longer in shortage. John Hertig, an associate professor at Butler University's College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, explained that much of this depends on what's determined to be "essentially" a copy of the GLP-1 in question, meaning it's too close to see it as anything other than a duplicate. Compounders can make patient-specific (and prescription-specific) versions of medications if, for example, a person is allergic to a dye in the FDA-approved version or has trouble swallowing something in pill form. But they're only allowed to make "essential" copies in very specific circumstances — say, a drug shortage.

"There is a space in this world where compounders are important when things go on shortage or if there's a supply chain issue or you need a patient-specific alteration of a medicine because of that patient's condition," Hertig said. The problem, he added, comes when compounders are "playing games" and "skirting that essential copy regulation" by adding a minor ingredient to make the drug technically different or changing its form of delivery.

The question now becomes what counts as too close a copy to be allowed and whether a small alteration is really different — some entities might try to add vitamin B12 to their drugs or deliver it in oral form and argue that it's OK. This could very well become battleground territory.

GLP-1s are a golden goose no one wants to give up, and investors know it. When the FDA took tirzepatide off of its shortage list in December, the stock price of Hims & Hers fell amid concerns about the telehealth company's GLP-1 business. In January, Citi downgraded its rating on the stock based on the assumption that semaglutide would be off the shortage list within the next year. Hims & Hers has not offered compounded tirzepatide in the past, a spokesperson for the company said, but it does offer compounded semaglutide.

The spokesperson said it's heard from patients who are "unable to access branded GLP-1 medications" and that over half of its customers couldn't access GLP-1s they were prescribed because of its price. They added that compounders serve a "critical purpose" and pointed to part of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act that "permits the compounding of medications to address patients' clinical needs irrespective of whether a particular drug is subject to a shortage." When I asked whether that meant they would keep compounding semaglutide, the response was vague. It indicated that, at the very least, they're going to keep trying but in a way that's "personalized" for patients, though it's unclear how they'll achieve that for thousands of individuals.

"Many patients benefit from the standardized dose of GLP-1s, and right now, in this current shortage, we are committed to unlocking access to these life-changing medications," the spokesperson said. "With that, many patients can benefit from something different than the standardized dose, they need something more personalized, and this is an option that we make available on our platform and plan to do that for the long term."

A spokesperson for the FDA said the agency recommends patients use FDA-approved drugs when available and that compounded drugs should "only be used to fulfill the needs of patients whose medical needs cannot be met by an FDA-approved drug." The agency also warned that compounded drugs pose a higher risk to patients.

To further complicate things, the new presidential administration means new leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA, and Donald Trump has picked Ozempic-skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the health department. In January, Hims & Hers donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund.

In the short term, this is going to be a mess. The spigot is turning off for patients on compounded tirzepatide, and compounded semaglutide's days are numbered, too. Some providers will try to find workarounds, but it's not clear how successful they'll be — or how successful regulators will be in stopping them. Patients can access the brand-name drugs, but insurance coverage and affordability remain problems. Once more reputable compounders leave the market, people might resort to sketchier operations, which could lead them to scammers, counterfeiters, and unsafe concoctions.

On the flip side, this could also be a moment for a reset. It could lead to the healthcare industry taking a better approach to GLP-1 access and care.

"Up to 70% of people with obesity who start these meds are not on it at one year anyway," Jay said. "There's a lot of reasons why people go off of it. Certainly insurance and costs, but also because I don't think people really know what they're getting into or don't have the support to really stay on them, or they think that somehow once they lose weight, they can go off of them, which is not true."

"If you're Eli Lilly, you're also looking at, how do we work with patient access?" Hertig said. "How do we work with insurers? How do we manage the cost here where we're then incentivizing more patients to go to the manufacturer, which is FDA-approved? My hope would be that the manufacturers are also looking at that patient access."

Generic versions of Ozempic and Monjauro won't be available until their patents expire. What happens with compounding is unclear, but once these drugs are no longer in shortage, compounders are supposed to stop making them, except under very specific circumstances. Within that framework, "the real thing is expensive" is not a valid reason for copying, as much as many patients wish that was the case.

It's impossible to untangle exactly who's to blame here, to the extent any one party is at fault. It's the result of how the American health system is set up. Brand-name GLP-1s are much cheaper in many other parts of the world than in the US, and the drugmakers could slash their prices, but the profit motive dictates that if they don't have to, they won't. Compounding pharmacies have been filling in a legitimate gap, though some have overstepped — it's quite easy to get GLP-1s from many providers without much of an examination. Both the big guys and little guys are pushing these drugs onto consumers through ads on television and online. Of course, people are clamoring for drugs that will improve their health, help them lose weight, and reduce the stigma around their weight.

DeBenedetto said it's "ridiculous" that the government would take compounded tirzepatide away from her, even though the government is just doing what's outlined in the law. But like many other people, she didn't realize that. For the most part, the drug makers and marketers have papered over the fact that while the medications are ubiquitous, they're not widely available at a price point patients can easily afford.

"It's always about money," DeBenedetto said. "Everything's always about money, and it sucks."

Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

• Trump's first day in office on January 20 included proposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
• Trump's tariff plans could raise the costs of some medications for Americans.
• Additionally, Trump said on the campaign trail he would impose a 60% tariff on Chinese imports.

Tariffs are already a central feature of President Donald Trump's second-term agenda — and those could have a significant impact on what Americans pay for some medications.

In his inauguration speeches and Day One executive orders, the president detailed his plans for imposing sweeping tariffs on foreign goods, including a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada. Trump said the tariff policies could begin on February 1. It follows his tariff proposals from the campaign trail, including a 60% tariff on imports from China.

Some trade policy experts previously told Business Insider that broad tariffs on key trading partners like Mexico and Canada could increase the prices of goods imported from those countries. This could also stretch to key medical drugs like pain relievers, antibiotics, and cancer treatments, several of which are used in the US and manufactured abroad.

Countries like China, Canada, and Mexico not only make prescription and over-the-counter medicines, but they also supply drug ingredients. In many cases, foreign-manufactured medications are more affordable than those directly made in America — but prices and access could change with tariffs.

Trump has previously denied that his tariff policies will increase prices for Americans. Trump's press team did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

What tariffs mean for your medicine costs

Under Trump's tariff plans, frequently used medications could become more expensive. Per the nonprofit organization KFF, importing some pharmaceutical drugs or ingredients from other countries has made some medicines more affordable in the US than if they were manufactured domestically due to lower production costs and cheaper labor.

In 2023, Mexico exported 165 of the 350 pharmaceutical products and drug ingredients designated as critical by the International Trade Administration. Although it was a small share of America's total pharmaceutical imports — about 1.5%, per the nonpartisan policy research firm Wilson Center — Mexico supplied key ingredients for medicines like pain relievers and antibiotics. Major pharmaceutical and vaccine companies like Pfizer and AstraZeneca also have operations in Mexico.

Canada, too, manufactures some generic forms of over-the-counter and prescription medications, like pain relievers. Per the Census Bureau, the US imported about $5.8 billion in pharmaceutical preparations in 2023.

Some states, like Florida, have previously proposed importing some prescriptions from Canada to increase affordability. The FDA signed off on imports from Canada to Florida on a range of drugs, including those used to treat HIV, AIDS, and diabetes, and other states are working to get approval to import drugs from Canada in bulk to lower high prices.

Trump proposed even steeper tariffs on China, which could affect drug prices. A 2023 report by the policy analysis firm Atlantic Council found that, between 2020 and 2022, US imports of Chinese pharmaceuticals grew by over $8 billion, and China remains one of America's major medical suppliers. China manufactures many healthcare products used by Americans like pain relievers, cardiovascular medicine, cancer treatments and immunosuppressives, cold and cough medicine, antibiotics, and bandages.

Tariffs and trade restrictions on foreign pharmaceuticals could also lead to higher prices and drug shortages if the US is unable to manufacture cheaper alternatives. Trump has suggested enforcing a "universal tariff" on all imported goods, which may impact other main suppliers of medicine, like Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, and India.

Details are unclear on how exactly Trump will impose these tariffs, and the legal authority he uses would likely determine how soon the US could see the prices of goods change. Still, tariffs are not the only avenue through which Americans' healthcare could be impacted. On Monday, Trump signed a range of executive orders — some related to healthcare — including plans to pursue actions that will "eliminate unnecessary administrative expenses and rent-seeking practices" that raise healthcare costs.

Are you changing how you approach healthcare costs with to the new Trump administration? If so, reach out to [email protected] and [email protected].

• Regeneration.VC is taking over the management of Sky Ocean Ventures' climate portfolio.
• The US-headquartered fund now counts nearly 50 companies in its global portfolio.
• Regeneration.VC is also expanding in Europe amid US policy shifts, adding a new partner.

Climate tech fund Regeneration.VC, which is backed by Leonardo DiCaprio as a limited partner, has taken over the management of Sky Ocean Ventures' climate portfolio.

Launched in 2022, Regeneration.VC bills itself as a consumer climate fund backing companies that are making industries such as food, apparel, and electronics more sustainable, partner Jamie Rowles told Business Insider in an interview.

Its portfolio includes the likes of recycling startup Greyparrot and textile dyeing company Colorifix.

Sky Ocean Ventures, the impact investing arm of British telecoms company Sky, had backed early-stage climate and cleantech startups working on everything from recycling technology to combatting the plastic pollution crisis. Regeneration.VC will take over the management of these companies, but Sky will still retain a financial stake in them.

Regeneration.VC now counts nearly 50 companies in its global portfolio.

"We are backing these consumer companies because those categories of climate have received less funding than energy and mobility," said Rowles. "And we're seeing a really exciting trend of some of the world's biggest corporates wanting to make changes in their value chains and their supply chains."

Trump 2.0 is spurring climate funds to invest in Europe

Along with the expansion of its portfolio, Regeneration.VC is adding a new partner to its European office. Narina Mnatsakanian, who was UBS' former head of impact investment, will also be the fund's new chief impact officer. In 2023, Regeneration's founding partner, Michael Smith, moved to the Netherlands.

Rowles also joined the firm in November 2024 in a bid to double down on its presence in the UK, and raise capital from limited partners for its second $150 million fund.

Europe is fast becoming an attractive hotspot for climate VCs amid a change in the US administration. Trump has been vocal in his support for oil and gas initiatives and has threatened to push back on the Inflation Reduction Act, which facilitated investment in clean energy. A potential shift in climate policy has encouraged some climate tech investors to look to Europe for more investment opportunities, Rowles said.

In the past year, US-based climate tech funds such as Voyager Ventures and Energy Impact Partners have also grown their European footprint with new appointments on the continent.

"The concept of sustainable and impact investment will have better tailwinds in Europe for the next few years," Rowles told BI. "Can sustainable investing survive Trump 2.0? For us, it's strategic to have a European presence, even though the DNA of the firm is the US. We have to be aligned with EU systems."

Regeneration.VC will still be investing in the US because of its "great pools of capital and risk appetite," — but Rowles emphasized that being aligned with the European Union on climate was a huge priority for the fund.

"We will see more climate tech funds with more of a presence in Europe," he said. "The reality is, you need to be in both markets to do the type of work we're doing. But in Europe, there's better regulation and better mechanisms to avoid greenwashing," he added.

• Staci Rice lost 64 pounds on a compounded form of the weight loss drug semaglutide.
• It was expensive so she tried to maintain her weight loss without the medication, and gained 26 pounds.
• Rice started a side hustle so she could go back on the medication.

The weight loss drug semaglutide was a "miracle" for Staci Rice, making cravings and "food noise" disappear and helping her to lose 64 pounds in around eight months.

To afford to keep taking the drug, she started a side-hustle in digital marketing alongside the 40 hours a week she worked to get her new insurance business off the ground.

Semaglutide, marketed as Wegovy for weight loss and Ozempic for diabetes, is part of the family of appetite-suppressing drugs called GLP-1s, which includes products such as Mounjaro. Many insurance companies cover the drugs for diabetes but not weight loss.

Rice, 42, from Georgia, is among users who take compounded GLP-1s that aren't FDA-approved, because they are significantly cheaper than branded products that can cost around $1,000 a month.

In August 2024, Eli Lilly reduced the price of its GLP-1 Zepbound by almost 50% to compete with knock-offs. It now sells for $399 to $549 a month, down from $1,059. In November, the Biden administration proposed a new rule to expand Medicare and Medicaid coverage to include GLP-1s for weight loss, but it's unclear if President Donald Trump will follow through.

But even the compounded form, which cost Rice $499 at the time, was expensive.

Rice stopped using semaglutide and gained 20 pounds

Rice started taking weekly injections of semaglutide in May 2022. After she achieved her goal of losing 64 pounds, she saved up for a $18,500 "mommy makeover" (tummy tuck and breast augmentation) in April 2023, she told Business Insider.

GLP-1 users are encouraged to build up from a low dose to minimize side effects like nausea and constipation. At first, a $499 supply lasted Rice three months, reducing to a month as she upped the dose.

After the surgery, she started injecting the medication less frequently to maintain her weight rather than lose more. In early 2024, money was tight after Rice changed jobs and semaglutide seemed like something she could cut back on. She bought the compounded drug online, so she made these changes without the guidance of a medical professional.

Dr. Spencer Nadolsky, an obesity specialist and founder of a virtual health clinic specializing in GLP-1s, told BI that it's not advisable to change doses without consulting a doctor.

"I thought that I could go less and less, and eventually, I got to where I was forgetting to take the injection," Rice said. "I was thinking I had this, I was thinking, 'Now I'm set. I don't need to take the medicine anymore.'"

Rice maintained her weight for a couple of months. And although she started eating more, she presumed it wouldn't affect her progress.

But the "food noise" in Rice's head — cravings for sugar and sweet treats when experiencing heightened emotions — gradually returned, and she regained 26 pounds over about six months.

Rice had a small amount of medication left which she would take now and then, but it wasn't enough to lose weight, and she couldn't afford her previous maintenance dose.

"I started to notice my clothes were getting tighter," Rice said. Knee problems, a swollen finger, and various other aches and pains returned.

Nadolsky said he'd seen clients who abruptly stopped taking GLP-1s because their insurance no longer covered them or there were shortages. However, regaining weight is the biggest risk associated with coming on and off the medicine, he said.

"Obesity is a chronic disease and these medicines work by helping people manage their appetite and food noise," he said. "The cost of these medicines must come down. And if insurance doesn't cover them, it would be ideal that the cost would be low enough to pay out-of-pocket for them. The medicines are not a short-term fix. They are designed and used for the chronic disease of obesity."

Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, the CEO of Novo Nordisk which makes Ozempic and Wegovy, has previously blamed insurers and middlemen for the high prices of the drugs.

A side hustle to fund semaglutide

Towards the end of 2024, Rice had started her side hustle and restarted the medication on a low dose to minimize costs, deciding when to start and stop without medical guidance. The cost was different depending on the provider, and she used the money from her "very stressful" jobs to pay for it.

She now takes a low weekly dose (0.25 milligrams was her lowest, and her highest 2.5 milligrams). A 10-week supply costs her $305, and she is budgeting to afford it.

"I'm going to get back on track and I'm going to get back to where I was," Rice said. "But I hate that I ended up spending a good amount on a mommy makeover."

Rice said she feels guilty that she put her family in a financial bind and, if she could go back in time, isn't sure she would have had the surgery.

She hopes she'll be back at her goal weight by February, and then plans to stay on a maintenance dose long-term. She sees regaining the weight as a valuable lesson that maintainance without medication isn't as easy as she thought.

"It is a miracle medicine," Rice said. "I'm always going to be an advocate for it."

• Dame Judi Dench, 90, says she doesn't enjoy attending events alone.
• "I'm not good at that at all, nor would I be now," the Oscar-winning actor said on a podcast.
• But these days, her deteriorating eyesight means she doesn't go out alone anymore, she added.

Dame Judi Dench, 90, isn't a fan of going to events on her own.

"I'm not good at that at all, nor would I be now," the Oscar-winning actor said during an appearance on the "Fearless" podcast hosted by Trinny Woodall.

"I'm always nervous before going to something. I am nervous about — I don't know — I have no idea why," Dench said.

The "James Bond" star said she usually needs to have a partner — such as her agent — accompany her.

"Somebody will always be with me," Dench said. "I have to now because I can't see, and I will walk into something or fall over."

In 2012, she told The Mirror that she had been diagnosed with macular degeneration, a disease that affects a person's central vision. It is the leading cause of vision loss among Americans 65 and older, per the CDC.

But "fortunately," she doesn't have to go out alone now "because I pretend to have no eyesight," she said.

In 2023, Dench said on "The Graham Norton Show" that her vision had gotten so bad she couldn't read scripts anymore.

"It has become impossible, and because I have a photographic memory, I need to find a machine that not only teaches me my lines but also tells me where they appear on the page," Dench said. "I used to find it very easy to learn lines and remember them."

Dench has been with her partner, conservationist David Mills, since 2010. She shares one daughter, Finty Williams, with her late husband, the actor Michael Williams, who died of lung cancer in 2001.

Despite a career spanning almost seven decades, Dench has hinted at retirement due to her worsening vision.

When asked by a reporter in 2024 if she had any plans for future roles, Dench responded with "No, no, I can't even see," per The Guardian.

Her last onscreen role was in 2022's "Spirited," per her IMDB page.

She previously told The Mirror in 2023 that she wanted to work "as much as I can."

"I have an irrational fear of boredom," she said. "That's why I now have this tattoo that says carpe diem. That's what we should live by."

A representative for Dench did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular hours.

• President Donald Trump announced Stargate, a new joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank.
• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says Stargate will allow AGI to be built in the US, creating more jobs.
• Altman said that a project like Stargate may not have been possible without Trump.

The US will be able to achieve AGI, or artificial general intelligence, with President Donald Trump's new Stargate AI project, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Tuesday.

Altman was at the White House on Tuesday when Trump announced Stargate, a new joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank. Stargate is expected to invest up to $500 billion in AI infrastructure across the US.

"This means we can create AI and AGI in the United States of America," Altman said of Stargate during a Tuesday interview with Fox News's Bret Baier, adding that Stargate wouldn't exist without Trump.

"I think with a different president it might not have been possible. But we are thrilled to get to do this, and I think it'll be great for Americans, great for the whole world," Altman told Baier.

Building AGI in the US would create "hundreds of thousands of jobs," Altman said at the press conference following Trump's Tuesday announcement.

"I'm thrilled we get to do this in the United States of America. I think this will be the most important project of this era," Altman told reporters at the White House.

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

To be sure, the US is likely not close to achieving AGI just yet. Altman, too, took to X to temper expectations that OpenAI is on the cusp of achieving AGI.

On Monday, Altman wrote in an X post that OpenAI was "not gonna deploy AGI next month, nor have we built it."

"We have some very cool stuff for you but pls chill and cut your expectations 100x!" Altman wrote on X.

Still, OpenAI is developing new offerings — and rolling them out quickly. The OpenAI chief wrote in a blog post on January 5 that companies could start using AI agents this year.

"We are now confident we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it. We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents 'join the workforce' and materially change the output of companies," Altman wrote.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva predicted in a blog post in January 2024 that AI's impact on the job market would be uneven. Around 60% of the jobs in advanced economies will be affected by AI, Georgieva wrote.

"Roughly half the exposed jobs may benefit from AI integration, enhancing productivity," Georgieva wrote in her blog post.

"For the other half, AI applications may execute key tasks currently performed by humans, which could lower labor demand, leading to lower wages and reduced hiring. In the most extreme cases, some of these jobs may disappear," she added.