• Ila Corcoran lived in California but bought a four-bedroom home in Texas where prices were lower.
• She's a house hacker, living in one bedroom while renting out the others to cover her monthly costs.
• In 2024, she bought a second property using the rental income she earned from her primary residence.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ila Corcoran, 26, who purchased her first home in 2021 and used the income from renting out its rooms to help buy a second property in 2024. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

When I was 18, I earned my real-estate license and later became a property manager at an apartment complex in Los Angeles. I lived in a one-bedroom, one-bathroom unit valued at $2,300 a month, but my rent was covered as part of my salaried role.

I used the money I saved by not paying rent to build up a down payment so I could invest in real estate. At 22, I started house hacking by buying properties and renting out rooms in them.

In March 2021, I bought my first home for $250,000 in Forney, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. I used a Federal Housing Administration mortgage, or FHA loan, because it made the purchase more affordable. I put 3.5% down on the home and secured a 2.8% interest rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage.

I eventually moved to Texas to live in the home — since FHA loans require the home to be your primary residence — and began renting out the extra rooms. I've earned a total of $110,000 in rental income over the past four years. However, I do have property taxes to pay and a homeowners association, or HOA, fee of about $400 a year.

In January 2024, I bought my second property. It's a two-bedroom, two-bath, 1,300-square-foot home in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I got it for $190,000 with a 10% down payment, a 6.5% interest rate, and a seller-financed 10-year mortgage. The HOA fees for this home are $250 per month, and I'm unsure of the exact property-tax bill since I've owned the home for just under a year. I rent out the entire house to a single tenant for $1,500 a month and have earned $25,000 so far before expenses.

I use the money I make from renters primarily to cover the mortgages and utilities for my homes. Any extra income goes toward building my fintech company, BySengo, which helps founders seeking funding connect with investors interested in private businesses across the beauty, fashion, wine, and hospitality industries.

In the long term, I'll put the rental income profits into investing in more real estate.

I had to leave California to afford to buy a home

I decided to buy property outside Los Angeles because I knew I could more easily afford homeownership elsewhere.

Although I had never been to the Dallas area, I chose it for its population growth, emerging communities, and affordability. It also stood out because it had a high proportion of renters compared to homeowners, which made it seem like an easier market for renting out property.

I found my property through a real-estate agent. It was a new construction home that had yet to be built.

In October 2020, I flew to Dallas to visit the site. During the trip, I put down a $1,500 deposit to reserve the land. In March 2021, I closed on the home, bringing about $9,000 to the table.

I split my time between California and Texas, traveling back and forth from March 2021 until I officially moved in September 2024. It was difficult leaving my home state, but I realized this was what it took to build wealth, and I was ready to make it happen.

The home is two stories and has four bedrooms, which are all occupied. Over time, I've had about seven different roommates. At the moment, I'm charging $1,000 a month for the primary bedroom and $900 for the downstairs bedroom. I'm not charging rent for the fourth room, as my best friend, who recently moved from California, is staying with me while she gets settled. I've previously charged $750 for that room.

Living with roommates isn't always smooth sailing

I found most of my roommates through the app Roomster, which helps people find rentable rooms or lease out their homes, and I have also used Facebook groups.

I screen all my roommates and have them sign individual leases. Most leases are for six months to a year, after which they can become month-to-month. My renters can stay as long as we both agree, but we need to give notice if either party wants to terminate early, with no fees involved.

For my contracts, I've drawn from my experience as a property manager in California and tenant law. I've also consulted with local lawyers who've reviewed my documents and given me recommendations.

Things aren't always perfect with roommates. I've definitely faced my share of challenges. For example, one roommate might complain about another, saying things like, "I don't like when they do this" or "It bothers me when they do that." It's definitely something I deal with on an ongoing basis.

Communication is key in situations like these. It's all about establishing boundaries, talking things through, and letting people come to me privately to make sure everyone feels heard. I'm not easily angered, so having patience really helps.

I used a seller-financed mortgage to buy my second home

I chose to buy my second home in Tulsa because I learned about Black Wall Street and its historical significance in the city.

I also came across a YouTube video discussing up-and-coming cities. Because of its municipal bonds, government investment, and corporate interest, Tulsa was mentioned as a city on the rise.

There were many benefits to purchasing the home with seller financing. The process was similar to a traditional closing. The key difference is that I make my payments directly to the seller, who holds the lien, rather than a bank. If I fail to make my payments, the seller has the right to foreclose.

I chose this route because I am self-employed, which can make it harder to get a traditional mortgage. Seller financing allowed me to avoid the long documentation process and had fewer requirements. I was also able to put down less money and avoid private mortgage insurance.

The home seller benefited because they didn't have to pay taxes on the entire lump sum from the sale at once. Instead, by receiving monthly payments, they spread out the income and pay taxes gradually. This lowers their tax liability each year, allowing them to keep more of the money.

I am proud of myself of investing in real estate so young

When I bought my first home, everyone told me not to do it. They said prices were too high, and I was overpaying. They suggested I wait until rates went up and the market cooled down. But I'm glad I didn't listen.

There's always going to be a "better deal" or a "better time," but if you let that hold you back, your opportunity cost becomes even greater. All the time spent deliberating on the best possible outcome can prevent you from even starting and achieving anything.

I do think people should be cautious but also take the risk of investing in themselves.

I know real-estate investing isn't for everyone, but as a Black woman, I feel like I'm helping to address some of the inequality in homeownership in America — particularly the disparity between Black landowners and non-landowners.

Investing in real estate and house hacking has also been incredibly beneficial for me. Without the equity from my real-estate investments, I wouldn't have built much of a net worth — at least not as quickly.

I've had my family's support, but I've done this financially on my own. Honestly, I feel great about it.

I still have goals of getting married, having a family, and becoming a wife and mother — goals women are often encouraged to prioritize. But by pursuing real estate on my own, I feel more confident about dating and marriage because I already have a strong foundation and feel established.

• The Office of Personnel Management said it can now process retirement applications digitally.
• For decades, the US government has processed retirement paperwork in a mine in Pennsylvania.
• The facility has been in the crosshairs of the DOGE office.

In a video promoted by the White House DOGE office, the Office of Personnel Management said it can now process pensions entirely digitally — and within two days.

For decades, OPM has stored and processed federal retirement paperwork in a limestone mine. The US government started storing records in the underground facility in the 1960s.

In a video update shared on Thursday by the OPM, Chuck Ezell, OPM's interim director, said that the Trump administration had approached OPM "about a week ago" with the one-week "challenge" to process a federal retiree's application "end-to-end digitally without printing anything on paper."

Kimya Lee, OPM's associate deputy director for enterprise enablement, said in the video that they "got it done in record time within two days without printing one piece of paper."

DOGE's de facto leader Elon Musk highlighted the issue in a press conference earlier this month. Musk criticized the reliance on paper records and said the speed of the mine's elevator shaft determined how fast people could retire.

"The elevator breaks down sometimes, and nobody can retire," Musk said, adding: "Doesn't that sound crazy?"

The facility holds 26,000 filing cabinets containing 400 million retiree documents, and applications are still largely processed by hand — a system that can take months.

"Instead of working in a mineshaft, carrying manila envelopes to boxes in a mine, you could do practically anything else, and you would add to the goods and services of the United States in a more useful way," Musk said of those working there.

The OPM didn't immediately reply to Business Insider's request for comment.

In an X post on Friday, DOGE praised the development, calling it "a great improvement from the current paper solution taking multiple months."

Musk has said that, due to the mine's manual systems, only about 10,000 retirees' paperwork can be processed in a month.

DOGE's X account later said that more than 700 employees work 230 feet underground to process applications.

Musk's comments came as the Trump White House continues its moves to radically overhaul the federal workforce, fueling anxiety among those who work there.

"They're nervous for their jobs obviously because their heads are on the cutting block," a senior OPM source told Business Insider on condition of anonymity.

"This administration has been very black and white the day they walked through the door about what they were going to do," they added.

A 2014 Washington Post report said 600 OPM workers processed federal employees' retirement papers by hand at the site, passing thousands of case files from cavern to cavern.

The outlet said successive administrations have tried and failed to digitize the process.

The OPM source told BI that fully digitizing all the mine records would be an "incredibly expensive, multi-year, if not decade-long, project."

They also said closing the mine would damage the local economy.

The mine is in a "really, really rural area in the middle of Western Pennsylvania," they told BI. "It's not like there's a lot of opportunity in the area."

• Netflix cemented its streaming crown in 2024 and grew its workforce.
• We analyzed US work-visa data from late 2022 to 2024 to see how much Netflix pays employees.
• The streamer has offered base salaries between $80,000 and $1 million a year for certain roles, data shows.

Netflix won the streaming wars in 2024, ending the year with record subscriber gains. The company's unique culture remains a key component of its success.

Last year, the streamer tweaked its infamous culture memo — including an addendum to its "keeper test."

The company's ovations about culture aren't just lip service, said Cheick Soumaré, a former HR director at the streamer from 2020 to 2022: "What you see in the culture memo is really what happens at Netflix."

While Netflix had layoffs, the company grew its overall workforce in 2024. As of December 2024, the company had 14,000 employees — a 7.7% increase over last year.

Its careers page lists over 500 positions as the company looks to staff its live content, advertising, and other various teams globally.

How much do new hires make? Like other US companies, Netflix discloses how much it plans to pay workers it hires on work visas.

Business Insider analyzed publicly available offer data from October 1, 2022, to December 31, 2024, to see how much Netflix is willing to pay for talent in the US. The data, which the US Department of Labor's Office of Foreign Labor Certification released, included wages from around 720 certified foreign-labor applications Netflix submitted.

Many of the roles offered six-figure base salaries. The data includes base salaries only and not additional stock awards or bonuses. They also don't cover all employee offers — only those the company made to workers on a visa or with a green card. The salaries captured in the data tend to be tech-focused, such as data scientists or software engineers.

Read on to find out the US salaries for around 185 different Netflix jobs across content, product and technology, marketing, corporate, and more. We highlighted roles in each category and then listed all the roles in the data alphabetically.

Netflix has declined to comment on this story.

How Netflix looks at compensation

Netflix's compensation policy stems from its cultural philosophy, which hinges on principles including a high-performance culture, lack of a formal vacation policy, and aversion to "brilliant jerks."

The streaming platform doesn't offer performance-based bonuses unlike some others in tech. Reed Hastings, a cofounder of Netflix, has said bonuses hinder innovation.

Instead, Netflix pays its employees well. The company says it pays staffers at the top of workers' "personal market" based on their role and qualifications for the job.

"Whatever the market is ready to offer you for the same job, that's what Netflix will pay," Soumaré said.

As it relates to the data, the wage offers listed are the minimum amounts the company said it would pay specific workers in applications, US Department of Labor documentation shows.

Netflix may pay employees more than the figures reflected in this data or compensate them in additional ways. While Netflix doesn't give bonuses, it does let employees choose each year how much compensation they want in cash versus stock options.

The data includes Netflix base salary offers ranging from roughly $80,000 to $1 million a year, with a median of around $226,000.

Corporate

Netflix's corporate team includes roles in finance, legal, strategy and analysis, operations, and more, according to its jobs site.

Here are examples of annual salaries in these fields:

• Analyst, Tax Operations: $141,534 median; ranging from $137,030 to $146,037
• Associate, Corporate FP&A: $210,000
• Associate, Corporate Ops Strategy, Planning, and Analysis: $220,000
• HR Business Partner, Manager: $222,019
• HR Business Partner, Director: $750,000
• HR Talent Partner, Creative Production: $285,000
• Operations and Portfolio Manager, Talent Technology: $151,102 median; ranging from $136,157 to $166,046
• Revenue Accountant: $137,030
• Senior Content Accountant: $109,346 median; ranging from $101,650 to $155,000

Content and production

Netflix's content organization covers content acquisition, production, visual effects, animation, and more. Some content-related salaries in the data include:

• Coordinator, Major Studio Film Licensing: $123,386 median; ranging from $121,763 to $125,008
• Director, Documentary Film: $172,328
• Associate, FS&A, Content: $103,314
• Product Manager, Live-Action Production Media: $377,553 median; ranging from $155,106 to $600,000
• Production Manager: $283,442
• Production Planner: $195,936
• Senior Manager, Production Finance: $260,000 (listed under Netflix Animation)
• Vertical Lead, Overall Deals: $166,046

Product and technology

Netflix's product and technology organization had some of the highest-paying salaries in the data. Here are some examples of salaries in the division, which spans advertising, business development, data science and engineering, product management, and more:

• Data Analyst: $183,310 median; ranging from $151,694 to $210,704
• Data Engineer: $218,847 median; ranging from $139,464 to $295,194
• Data Scientist: $222,113 median; ranging from $146,744 to $295,194
• Director, Growth Data Science and Engineering: $1 million
• Senior Data Engineer: $540,000 median; ranging from $420,000 to $700,000
• Senior Data Scientist: $565,000 median; ranging from $143,291 to $650,000
• Senior Machine Learning Engineer: $775,000
• Senior Manager, Ads Platform Engineering: $283,442
• Senior Product Designer: $283,442 median; ranging from $119,766 to $400,000
• Senior Product Designer, Ads: $217,610
• Senior Production Planner: $205,150
• Senior Research Scientist: $590,000 median; ranging from $550,000 to $630,000
• Senior Researcher: $295,194
• Senior Software Engineer: $455,000 median; ranging from $170,872 to $750,000
• Software Engineer: $226,158 median; ranging from $135,283 to $525,000

Marketing and communications

There were a handful of marketing and communications salaries included in the data. That Netflix team includes editorial and publishing, communications, consumer products, partner marketing, and publicity, per the company's jobs page. Examples from the data in those fields include:

• Manager, Growth and Engagement, Publishing Innovation: $100,630
• Senior Manager, Creative, Marketing Partnerships: $195,936
• Senior Manager, Product Marketing: $280,987
• Specialist, Communications: $96,190 median; ranging from $93,579 to $98,800

Games

Games are a newer venture for Netflix. This division includes its Games Studio as well as developers it bought, like Night School Studio, Boss Fight Entertainment, Next Games, Moonlight Games, and Spry Fox, per the jobs page.

Here are examples of salaries for jobs related to Netflix's gaming business:

• Game Reliability Manager: $137,550
• Games Service Reliability Manager: $128,086
• Manager, Game Analytics: $210,704
• Product Manager, Mobile Games: $475,000
• VFX Artist, Games Studio: $161,907

All roles

The data also included salaries for other Netflix jobs, such as corporate, data, editorial, human resources, and research roles.

Some of the highest-paying jobs in the data include a director of growth data science and engineering with a $1 million annual salary and a senior machine learning engineer making $775,000.

Here's the full list of positions and annual wages included in the data, in alphabetical order:

Analyst, Tax Operations: $141,534 median; ranging from $137,030 to $146,037

Analytics Engineer: $197,371 median; ranging from $170,186 to $295,194

Android Automation Engineer: $254,800 median; ranging from $226,158 to $283,442

Application Security Engineer: $172,536

Associate Product Manager, Live Services: $214,074

Associate, Ads FP&A: $123,240

Associate, Corporate FP&A: $210,000

Associate, Corporate Ops Strategy, Planning, and Analysis: $220,000

Associate, F&S, Plans and Pricing: $174,117 median; ranging from $156,770 to $191,464

Associate, F&S, Products and Technology: $156,770

Associate, FS&A, Content: $103,314

Associate, FS&A, Product: $174,117

Associate, FS&A, Products and Technology: $167,086 median; ranging from $148,595 to $174,117

Associate, Memberships Strategy and Analysis: $240,000

Associate, Pricing Strategy, Planning, and Analysis: $183,310

CAD Manager: $165,000

Capacity Planner: $183,310

Coordinator, Major Studio Film Licensing: $123,386 median; ranging from $121,763 to $125,008

Counsel, Advertising Legal Affairs: $330,554

Creative Lead: $275,000

Data Analyst: $183,310 median; ranging from $151,694 to $210,704

Data and Insights Project Manager: $239,200 median; ranging from $210,704 to $285,000

Data Engineer: $218,847 median; ranging from $139,464 to $295,194

Data Engineering Manager: $218,608

Data Scientist: $222,113 median; ranging from $146,744 to $295,194

Data Visualization Engineer: $192,941

Director, Business and Legal Affairs, Post Production and Production Planning: $218,754 median; ranging from $218,754 to $650,000

Director, Business Development: $387,456 median; ranging from $249,912 to $525,000

Director, Commercial Operations: $685,000

Director, Documentary Film: $172,328

Director, Growth Data Science and Engineering: $1 million

Director, Plans Innovation: $210,704

Director, Post Services: $175,615 median; ranging from $168,147 to $183,082

Director, Product and Tech Legal (Consumer): $330,554

Director, Product Platform Strategy, Planning and Analysis: $206,274

Director, Production Travel: $183,040

Distributed Systems Engineer: $283,442 median; ranging from $192,941 to $283,442

Enablement Manager, Data Platform: $210,704

Engineering Manager: $283,442 median; ranging from $266,926 to $294,299

Finance Functional Lead: $132,787

Full Stack Engineer: $184,662

Game Reliability Manager: $137,550

Games Service Reliability Manager: $128,086

Global Technical Research Manager: $180,000

Hardware Engineer: $211,120

HR Business Partner, Manager: $222,019

HR Business Partner, Director: $750,000

HR Business Partner, Director, Internal Studios/UCAN: $193,232

HR Business Partner, Senior Director: $193,232

HR Business Partner, Tech: $238,098

HR Talent Partner, Creative Production: $285,000

Indirect Tax Analyst: $132,787 median; ranging from $130,000 to $137,030

Integration Architect, Finance Technology: $350,000

Language Program Manager, Globalization: $79,664

Legal Technology Manager: $255,352 median; ranging from $210,704 to $300,000

Localization Project Manager: $101,816

Machine Learning Engineer: $283,442 median; ranging from $211,536 to $283,442

Machine Learning Scientist: $146,744

Manager, Ads Strategic Planning and Analysis: $166,046

Manager, Consumer Products and Experiences FP&A: $92,518

Manager, Corporate FP&A: $171,454

Manager, Creative Development and Production: $137,800 median; ranging from $92,518 to $183,082

Manager, Creative Services: $475,000

Manager, Documentary Film: $281,394 median; ranging from $183,082 to $379,706

Manager, Editorial Development and Planning: $105,810

Manager, F&S, Product: $191,464

Manager, F&S, Revenue Analytics: $178,110

Manager, FS&A, Ads: $121,763 median; ranging from $95,826 to $205,150

Manager, FS&A, Plans: $123,240

Manager, FS&A, Revenue Management and Analytics: $151,694

Manager, Game Analytics: $210,704

Manager, Growth and Engagement, Publishing Innovation: $100,630

Manager, Growth Data Engineering: $283,442

Manager, iOS UI Foundations: $266,926

Manager, Machine Learning, Studio Intelligence: $155,958

Manager, Marketing and IP Legal Operations, Tools, and Workflows: $129,293

Manager, Payments Strategy, Planning and Analysis: $183,310

Manager, Post Services: $183,082

Manager, Product Finance: $195,686

Manager, Product Strategy, Planning, and Analysis: $280,000

Manager, Production Finance: $275,000

Manager, PS, P&A, North America: $170,000

Manager, Revenue Management and Analytics: $217,600 median; ranging from $140,005 to $295,194

Manager, SP&A, Studio Product: $300,000

Manager, Space and Occupancy System and Data: $98,946

Manager, Technical Program Management: $171,330

Manager, UI Engineering: $395,352 median; ranging from $210,704 to $580,000

Manager, VFX Business Development: $175,635

Media ML Engineer: $295,194

Media Operations Specialist: $130,998

Metadata Technologist: $102,294

ML Engineer: $283,442

Operations and Portfolio Manager, Talent Technology: $151,102 median; ranging from $136,157 to $166,046

Performance Engineer: $238,192 median; ranging from $192,941 to $283,442

Privacy Software Engineer: $283,442

Product Design Manager: $283,442

Product Designer: $316,721 median; ranging from $102,835 to $430,000

Product Manager: $284,388 median; ranging from $210,704 to $294,299

Product Manager, Ads Platform: $236,038

Product Manager, Commerce Platform: $210,704

Product Manager, Developer Platform: $210,704

Product Manager, Developer Productivity: $184,080

Product Manager, Device Platforms: $166,379

Product Manager, Enterprise Software Engineering: $400,000

Product Manager, Live-Action Production Media: $155,106

Product Manager, Mobile Games: $475,000

Product Manager, Plans: $210,704

Product Operations Lead: $272,553 median; ranging from $249,912 to $295,194

Production Manager: $283,442

Production Planner: $195,936

Program Manager: $266,926

Project Engagement Manager: $500,000

Project Specialist: $127,504

Ratings Architecture Lead: $181,293

Ratings Architecture Strategist: $178,630 median; ranging from $146,744 to $206,773

Ratings Policy Strategist: $153,525 median; ranging from $117,042 to $154,315

Research Engineer: $260,666 median; ranging from $169,146 to $295,194

Research Scientist: $260,666 median; ranging from $226,325 to $283,442

Research Scientist/Engineer: $260,666

Research Scientist/Engineer L5, Algorithm Engineering: $260,666

Revenue Accountant: $137,030

Rights Analyst, Major Studios Licensing: $125,528 median; ranging from $96,160 to $137,114

Security Analytics Engineer: $151,694

Security Engineer: $187,262 median; ranging from $171,330 to $202,134

Security Software Engineer: $192,941 median; ranging from $157,477 to $283,442

Senior Analyst, Transfer Pricing: $178,110 median; ranging from $162,926 to $191,464

Senior Analytics Engineer: $146,744 median; ranging from $138,341 to $430,000

Senior Analytics Engineer, Tudum: $151,154

Senior Associate, Sales Operations: $117,042

Senior Backend Engineer: $168,709

Senior Content Accountant: $109,346 median; ranging from $101,650 to $155,000

Senior Data Engineer: $540,000 median; ranging from $420,000 to $700,000

Senior Data Engineer, Membership: $540,000

Senior Data Scientist: $565,000 median; ranging from $143,291 to $650,000

Senior Director, Talent Relations and Awards: $165,693 median; ranging from $93,579 to $195,936

Senior Director, Talent Relations and Awards, Film: $225,035

Senior Game Designer: $167,523

Senior InfoSec GRCA Partner: $375,000

Senior Integrations Architect: $192,941

Senior Integrations Architect, Finance Applications: $430,000

Senior Machine Learning Engineer: $775,000

Senior Manager, Ads Platform Engineering: $283,442

Senior Manager, Creative, Marketing Partnerships: $195,936

Senior Manager, Product Marketing: $280,987

Senior Manager, Production Finance: $260,000

Senior Market and Economy Analyst: $119,850 median; ranging from $89,502 to $178,110

Senior Product Designer: $283,442 median; ranging from $119,766 to $400,000

Senior Product Designer, Ads: $217,610

Senior Production Planner: $205,150

Senior Research Scientist: $590,000 median; ranging from $550,000 to $630,000

Senior Researcher: $295,194

Senior Security Engineer: $550,000

Senior Security Partner, Application Security: $575,000

Senior Security Software Engineer: $500,000

Senior Software Engineer: $455,000 median; ranging from $170,872 to $750,000

Senior Software Engineer, Big Data Platform: $525,000

Senior Software Engineer, Core Data Platform: $575,000

Senior Software Engineer, Media Cloud Engineering: $650,000

Senior Software Engineer, Personalization Application Core: $525,000

Senior Software Engineer, Privacy Engineering: $475,000

Senior Stock Analyst: $137,030

Senior Systems Engineer: $300,000

Senior Technical Program Manager: $550,000

Senior Technical Sound Designer: $217,610

Senior Technical Writer: $190,986

Senior User Interface Artist: $145,184

Site Reliability Engineer: $192,941

Software Engineer: $226,158 median; ranging from $135,283 to $525,000

Software Engineer in Test: $283,442

Software Engineer, Identity and Access Management: $210,000

Solutions Architect: $247,489 median; ranging from $197,829 to $286,728

Solutions Software Engineer: $177,029

Solutions Support Engineer: $226,158

Specialist, Communications: $96,190 median; ranging from $93,579 to $98,800

Support Solutions Engineer: $219,624 median; ranging from $144,248 to $295,000

Technical Program Manager: $210,704 median; ranging from $137,738 to $210,704

Technical Solutions Manager: $320,000

Technical Support Engineer: $209,550 median; ranging from $192,941 to $226,158

Technology Auditor: $194,875

Treasury Manager, FX: $241,134

TV UI Engineer: $226,158

UI Engineer: $199,347 median; ranging from $146,307 to $226,158

Vertical Lead, Overall Deals: $166,046

VFX Artist, Games Studio: $161,907

Video Engineer: $192,941

This story has been updated to include the latest available data. Elaine Low and Lucia Moses contributed to an earlier version of this story.

• Meghan Markle became the Duchess of Sussex when she married Prince Harry.
• She was born in Los Angeles and was an actor before becoming a working royal.
• In 2025, Meghan is returning to the lifestyle space with a new show and business.

From starring on a TV show to marrying a literal prince charming, Meghan Markle's life sounds like the stuff of fairy tales.

However, royal life wasn't all it was cracked up to be for Meghan, 43. In January 2020, Meghan and Prince Harry, 40, stepped back as senior royals.

Five years later, the couple are raising their two children — who are sixth and seventh in line for the British throne — in California, building a non-royal life that still allows them to leverage their fame and global influence.

Here's everything to know about Meghan's life so far.

Meghan Markle's early life

Meghan was born Rachel Meghan Markle in Los Angeles on August 4, 1981, to Thomas Markle and Doria Ragland.

Thomas Markle and Ragland split when Meghan was just 2. In the Netflix series "Harry & Meghan," she said that she spent weekdays with her mother and weekends with her dad throughout her childhood.

Ragland worked as a social worker and yoga instructor, while Meghan's father was a lighting designer for shows like "Married… with Children." Meghan got her first experience with Hollywood by visiting sets with him.

Meghan has two half-siblings from Thomas' previous marriages, but she told Oprah Winfrey in 2021 that she was raised as an "only child" and didn't have contact with her siblings from her Markle family.

She attended the Hollywood Little Red Schoolhouse for elementary school and later Immaculate Heart High School before studying at Northwestern University, where she double majored in acting and international relations.

Meghan was an activist from a young age. When she was 11, she petitioned Procter & Gamble to change the tagline of a soap commercial with sexist undertones.

Meghan Markle's acting career

After graduating from Northwestern in 2003, Meghan was cast in a series of smaller roles, including an appearance on "General Hospital" and a stint as a briefcase girl on "Deal or No Deal."

Then, in 2011, she landed her breakout role as Rachel Zane on "Suits." She starred on the show from 2011 to 2018, moving to Toronto to film the series.

Meghan also launched her lifestyle blog, The Tig, in 2014. The blog featured everything from recipes and travel recommendations to interviews with fellow celebrities.

While her acting career flourished, Meghan dedicated much of her offscreen time to service work. She became a United Nations women's advocate and gave a speech at the UN Women's 2015 Conference, recounting her plea to Procter & Gamble to change its ad in her youth.

Meghan also became a World Vision ambassador in 2016, taking philanthropic trips to Rwanda and India through her partnership with the organization. The same year, she became a counselor for One Young World.

Falling for Prince Harry

Harry and Meghan met in 2016 after the prince saw Meghan in a video on a mutual friend's Instagram page, in which she was wearing the dog filter, as they shared in the Netflix docuseries "Harry & Meghan."

After their pal told Meghan that Harry was interested in her, they connected via Instagram DMs. Harry and Meghan's first date took place in London in July 2016.

When they met, Harry was 32, and Meghan was 35. She was previously married to Trevor Engelson, a film producer, from 2011 to 2013, while Harry had never been married.

The couple also shared in their Netflix docuseries that their relationship escalated quickly, saying they went on a five-day safari in Botswana for their third date.

After reports of their relationship surfaced in October 2016, Harry publicly confirmed they were a couple in November, using the statement to condemn the "wave of abuse and harassment" Meghan experienced from the press and "social media trolls."

Harry proposed to Meghan in November 2017 in the north garden at Kensington Palace, and they announced their engagement on November 27. USA Today announced Meghan was leaving Suits the next day. A few months earlier, Meghan closed The Tig, preparing for her new royal life.

Harry and Meghan got married on May 19, 2018, at St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, and she officially became the Duchess of Sussex. Millions of people watched the couple say "I do," and celebrities and royals flocked to the UK for the event.

However, Meghan's father caused tension in the lead-up to the nuptials. On May 14, 2018, less than a week before the wedding, tabloids, including TMZ and the Daily Mail, reported that Thomas posed for staged paparazzi photos in exchange for money. Meghan's half-sister, Samantha Markle, said on the British program "Loose Women" that the paparazzi photos were her idea.

When news of the staged photos was reported, Thomas told TMZ he wouldn't attend the wedding. He told the outlet he changed his mind on May 15 at 8 a.m., but he then said he wouldn't go to the event at 2 p.m. the same day because of an emergency heart surgery.

Meghan confirmed in a statement just two days before the wedding that her father would not attend. King Charles III walked her down the aisle.

Royal life — and a step back

Once Meghan and Harry were engaged, she became a working royal. As she took on duties, her fresh approach to royal fashion was often the topic of conversation, and she used her new platform as a duchess to promote feminism.

Harry and Meghan went on their first royal tour as a couple to Australia in October 2018, announcing they were expecting their first baby just before it started. They welcomed their son, Prince Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, on May 6, 2019, just shy of a year after their wedding.

Meghan later shared in an interview with Oprah Winfrey and in "Harry & Meghan" that she was struggling with her mental health throughout her pregnancy with Archie because of the intense media scrutiny she faced — particularly from the Royal Rota outlets, which have direct access to the royal family and that the couple said often featured reporting with racist undertones. Studies later found they were also the subject of coordinated hate campaigns on social media.

Meghan said the Firm didn't allow her to seek support for her mental health, even as she struggled with suicidal ideation.

"I just didn't want to be alive anymore," she told Winfrey in 2021. "That was a clear and real and frightening and constant thought."

The couple also told Winfrey that members of the royal family questioned how dark Archie's skin may be during Meghan's pregnancy, adding to their stress.

Meghan added that reports that she had made Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, cry ahead of her wedding were false. In fact, Meghan said Kate made her cry, though the princess later apologized.

In his 2023 memoir "Spare," Harry said there had been ongoing tension between the Sussexes and the Windsors when Meghan joined the royal family, largely stemming from different thoughts on how they should approach the press and King Charles and Queen Camilla's close relationship with certain outlets. Harry even said William physically attacked him during an argument in 2019.

Because of the tension, the couple said in "Harry & Meghan" that they proposed moving to other Commonwealth countries between 2018 and 2019, which they thought would allow them to continue serving as working royals, have some distance from the Royal Rota system, and put other members of the monarchy in the spotlight in the UK.

They proposed moving to New Zealand in 2018, South Africa in April 2019, and Canada in December 2019, but none of the moves panned out. Harry said he believed the Firm leaked the plans for the moves to South Africa and Canada to the press, which made it difficult to move forward with them.

Then, on January 8, 2020, Harry and Meghan announced they were stepping back as senior royals and planned to "work to become financially independent while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen."

They made their final appearance as senior royals on March 9, 2020, and they returned to Canada after the event, where they had been staying since December 2019. Soon after, they relocated to California amid the coronavirus pandemic, staying in Tyler Perry's home before buying their own house in Montecito, California, in July 2020.

Post-royal life

Meghan and Harry were initially quiet in the months after they left the royal family, but they made a series of moves in the second half of 2020 that charted their path for the coming years.

They signed a production deal with Netflix, reportedly worth $100 million, in August 2020 and a separate $20 million podcast deal with Spotify in December 2020. In October 2020, they founded Archewell Inc., an umbrella organization for both a charitable organization and a production company.

They announced they were expecting their second child in February 2021, and in their now-famous interview with Winfrey in March 2021, they shared they were having a daughter. Princess Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor was born on June 4, 2021. Her name honors both Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Diana.

Meghan also released her first children's book, "The Bench," in June 2021, which became an instant New York Times bestseller. Her podcast "Archetypes" was initially a hit when Meghan released it in August 2022, beating out Joe Rogan's podcast for the No. 1 spot on Spotify, though Harry and Meghan's relationship with Spotify ended in 2023.

"Harry & Meghan" was also a massive success when it premiered in December 2022, on the heels of Queen Elizabeth II's death in September. Harry and Meghan returned to the UK after her death, taking a walkabout with William and Kate at Windsor Castle to greet mourners and sitting with the royal family at her funeral.

Meghan also won a handful of lawsuits in the early years after her step back as a senior royal. In 2019, she sued the Mail on Sunday for misuse of her private information, copyright infringement, and breach of the Data Protection Act 2018 after it published a handwritten letter she wrote her father, and she won on all three counts in December 2021.

In December 2020, she and Harry separately settled a suit they filed against Splash UK that said the paparazzi agency would no longer take photos of the Sussex family. In March 2023, a judge dismissed a defamation case Samantha Markle filed against her half-sister.

After keeping a pretty low profile in 2023, Meghan and Harry went on a handful of quasi-royal tours in 2024, visiting Nigeria because the country is interested in hosting Harry's Invictus Games and promoting online safety in Colombia.

In early 2025, the couple seemed to be dividing and conquering professionally, with Harry focusing on service-oriented work while Meghan turned her attention to lifestyle-focused ventures.

Her new Netflix series, "With Love, Meghan," was set to premiere in January 2025, though she postponed its release several months following the wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles. She and Harry were photographed supporting victims of the fire in its aftermath.

The show will feature Meghan sharing recipes, gardening and entertaining advice, and appearances from her famous friends. She returned to Instagram to announce the series on January 1 and used the account to reveal her new lifestyle brand, As Ever.

As Ever was originally branded American Riviera Orchard, but Meghan said she decided to change it to As Ever after Netflix signed on as her partner, as the new name would allow her to broaden the scope of the business.

Both the show and As Ever feel like a continuation of Meghan's lifestyle expertise, which she flexed with The Tig.

• Vikram Madireddy is a medical student who studied in the UK, Japan, Germany, and Australia.
• He said patients treated him differently in each country.
• He now has an appreciation for all the different ways countries provide healthcare.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Vikram Madireddy. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I started medical school in 2020. When I applied, I knew I would have plenty of late nights and coffee-fueled study sessions, but I never imagined I'd be learning remotely or doing anatomy and physiology labs in full personal protective equipment.

It felt like the pandemic had taken an already troubled medical system in the US and hurled it into an active volcano. That made me wonder how medical systems around the world were coping.

I had traveled to visit family in India, but other than that had never really left New York City until I went to medical school in Tennessee. So, I turned to the internet. I posted on Reddit, asking medical students from around the globe to get in touch.

About 12 people responded, which might not seem so significant, but it changed my life.

I started learning from TV and books about other systems

I started having Zoom conversations with other medical students. It just built my curiosity about medical systems outside the US. I wanted to know what we could learn from them and what they could learn from us.

Soon, I was watching Japanese medical shows and ordering neurology books that were only printed in Australia. Sometimes, I would bring something up in my US classes, and the instructors would ask where I heard it. I told them about my interest in foreign medical systems and how they were helping me learn medicine here in the US.

I started applying for elective courses in other countries. I went to Tokyo for three months. That confirmed for me that I wanted to spend my last year of med school working around the globe.

I saved for two years to fund my travels

During school, I worked in a lab, and I saved a few thousand dollars. I applied to electives around the world and was accepted to programs in the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia. When I spoke to my med school dean, she warned me this approach was unconventional, but I was confident I could do it.

I planned my travel over 100 days and spent about $3,000 on plane tickets. My first stop was in the United Kingdom. While I was there, I took a side trip to Germany, where I presented research findings. I then traveled to Japan, covering the whole country from top to bottom and learning a lot about the different cultures within Japan. Finally, I went to Australia.

I stayed in a short-term rental in the UK and briefly in a hostel in Australia. In Japan and Australia, I also stayed in the homes of other medical students, which helped me save money and gave me a front-line view of their day-to-day routines.

In Japan, I worked to overcome a language barrier

In each place, I was interacting directly with patients and learning from doctors. The most difficult, obviously, was in Japan, because of the language difference. I had started studying Japanese before I went to Tokyo for the first time, and I understood enough of the language that I could take patient histories.

Patients in Japan were amazed I could speak their language. To me, it was an important sign of respect. Still, I sometimes had to ask my teachers or my medical school friend to fully understand what a patient was saying, especially if they used an idiom. One popular Japanese saying is roughly translated as "fall down 7 times, get up 8." However, patients use it to convey their stubbornness around avoiding the hospital or not taking medication. I didn't want meanings like that to get lost in translation.

I learned to appreciate national medical systems

As I interacted with patients and medical systems, I saw differences in how patients spoke with me. In the US, I often have to gently probe patients about what's bothering them, being very sensitive. In Japan, patients were direct, telling me exactly what was wrong and what treatment they wanted. The UK and Australia were similar to the US but had different medications and treatments available.

I ended my trip, having learned about all the different ways countries care for their people.

I'm preparing to take my final medical licensing exam for the UK's national health system. If I pass, I'll start working there in August for at least two years.

I'm grateful that medical school has allowed me to see the world.

• A piece of Apple memorabilia auctioned for tens of thousands of dollars.
• A colorful bow tie worn by late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs sold for $35,750.
• He wore it when he debuted the company's Macintosh computer at an annual shareholder meeting in 1984.

When it came to fashion, Steve Jobs was perhaps best known for his signature black turtlenecks. But he wore a more obscure and much more colorful bow tie to unveil a monumental product in the company's history.

The pink-and-green striped bow tie belonging to the late Apple cofounder just sold for $35,750 to the highest bidder after Julien's Auctions concluded an auction called "Spotlight: History and Technology" on Thursday.

Jobs wore it at an annual shareholder meeting in 1984, where he introduced the Macintosh computer. It had 27 bids, according to the item listing and was only estimated to sell for $1,000 to $2,000.

He also wore the bow tie on a few other occasions, including two photo shoots surrounding the computer's release.

A year prior, Jobs had also worn the tie while speaking at the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado, where he joked, "They paid me sixty dollars, so I wore a tie."

Other relics from Steve Jobs-era Apple have hit the auction block before, including a turtleneck of his, as well as his old business cards.

Products from Apple's early days have also been auctioned. In 2022, for example, an unopened first-generation iPhone from 2007, still in its original box, sold for more than $39,000 to the highest bidder. A year later, another unopened first-gen iPhone auctioned for a whopping $190,000.

Besides Jobs' bowtie, Julien's Auctions also listed other items in its auction, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's old Facebook hoodie, which went for $15,875, and a photo of a SpaceX rocket launch signed by CEO Elon Musk, which sold for $10,400.

• Before OpenAI, Altman was well-known in Silicon Valley as president of Y Combinator.
• The release of ChatGPT in 2022 catapulted Altman to worldwide fame.
• Since then, he's led the charge to turn OpenAI into a for-profit company as its success continues.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had an eventful 2024, and 2025 is shaping up to be just as big.

While the 39-year-old entrepreneur has been a household name in Silicon Valley for years now, the rest of the world has gotten to know him more recently through the success of OpenAI's AI chatbot, ChatGPT, which launched in 2022.

So far, his year has involved Altman's efforts to transform OpenAI into a for-profit company, planning for GPT-4.5 (referred to as Orion) and GPT-5, and battling a lawsuit from OpenAI cofounder Elon Musk. On February 27, Altman announced the release of GPT4.5 to ChatGPT Pro users and API developers.

He's also embarking on a new life journey: fatherhood. Altman, who's married to Oliver Mulherin, announced the birth of his son on February 22.

In April 2024, Altman was added to Forbes' billionaires list. OpenAI launched GPT-4o — its newest large language model —the following month. In June, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference that the tech giant would partner with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to iPhones.

Before the AI boom, Altman spent years as president of startup accelerator Y Combinator. He also owns stakes in Reddit, a nuclear fusion startup known as Helion, and other companies. In his free time, he races sports cars with his husband and preps for the apocalypse.

Here's a look at Altman's life and career so far.

Altman grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and he was a computer whiz from a young age.

He learned how to program and take apart a Macintosh computer when he was 8 years old, according to The New Yorker. He attended John Burroughs School, a private, non-sectarian college-preparatory school in St. Louis.

 

 

He told The New Yorker that having a Mac helped him with his sexuality. Altman came out to his parents when he was 16.

"Growing up gay in the Midwest in the two-thousands was not the most awesome thing," he told The New Yorker. "And finding AOL chat rooms was transformative. Secrets are bad when you're eleven or twelve."

Altman came out as gay to the whole community after a Christian group boycotted an assembly at his school that was about sexuality.

"What Sam did changed the school," his college counselor, Madelyn Gray, told The New Yorker. "It felt like someone had opened up a great big box full of all kinds of kids and let them out into the world."

Altman studied computer science at Stanford University for two years before he and two of his classmates dropped out to work full time on their mobile app.

The app shared a user's location with their friends. Loopt was part of the first group of eight companies at startup accelerator Y Combinator. Each startup got $6,000 per founder, and Loopt was in the same batch as Reddit, according to The Business of Business.

Loopt eventually reached a $175 million valuation, but it didn't garner enough interest, so the founders sold it for $43 million in 2012.

The $43 million sale price was close to how much it had raised from investors, The Wall Street Journal reported. The company was acquired by Green Dot, a banking company known for prepaid cards.

One of Loopt's cofounders, Nick Sivo, and Altman dated for nine years, but they broke up after they sold the company.

After Loopt, Altman founded a venture fund called Hydrazine Capital, and raised $21 million.

 That included a large part of the $5 million he got from Loopt, and an investment from billionaire entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel. Altman invested 75% of that money into YC companies, and led Reddit's Series B fundraising round.

He told The New Yorker, "you want to invest in messy, somewhat broken companies. You can treat the warts on top, and because of the warts the company will be hugely underpriced."

In 2014, at the age of 28, Altman was chosen by Y Combinator founder Paul Graham to succeed him as president of the startup accelerator.

While he was YC president, Altman taught a lecture series at Stanford called "How to Start a Startup," in the fall of 2014. The next year, Altman was featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for venture capital at 29 years old.

After he became YC president, he wanted to let more science and engineering startups into each batch.

He chose a fission and a fusion startup for YC because he wanted to start a nuclear-energy company of his own. He invested his own money in both companies and served on their boards.

Mark Andreessen, cofounder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, said to The New Yorker, "Under Sam, the level of YC's ambition has gone up 10x."

 

He finds interesting — and expensive — ways to spend his free time.

In April (the same month he made Forbes' billionaire list,) Altman was spotted in Napa, California driving an ultra-rare Swedish supercar. The Koenigsegg Regera is seriously fast, able to go from zero to 250 miles per hour in less than 30 seconds. There are only 80 of these cars known to exist, and they can cost up to $4.65 million. 

He once told two YC founders that he likes racing cars and had five, including two McLarens and an old Tesla, according to The New Yorker. He's said he likes racing cars and renting planes to fly all over California.

Separately, he told the founders of the startup Shypmate that "I prep for survival," and warned of either a "lethal synthetic virus," AI attacking humans, or nuclear war.

"I try not to think about it too much," Altman told the founders in 2016. "But I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to."

Altman's mom is a dermatologist and told The New Yorker, "Sam does keep an awful lot tied up inside. He'll call and say he has a headache—and he'll have Googled it, so there's some cyber-chondria in there, too. I have to reassure him that he doesn't have meningitis or lymphoma, that it's just stress."

Altman has a brother, Jack, who is a cofounder and CEO at Lattice, an employee management platform.

Along with their brother Max, the Altmans launched a fund in 2020 called Apollo that is focused on funding "moonshot" companies. They're startups that are financially risky but could potentially pay off with a breakthrough development.

 

In 2015, Altman cofounded OpenAI with Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX at the time.

Their goal for the non-profit artificial intelligence company was to make sure AI doesn't wipe out humans.

"We discussed what is the best thing we can do to ensure the future is good?" Musk told The New York Times in 2015. "We could sit on the sidelines or we can encourage regulatory oversight, or we could participate with the right structure with people who care deeply about developing A.I. in a way that is safe and is beneficial to humanity."

Some of Silicon Valley's most prominent names pledged $1 billion to OpenAI along with Altman and Musk, including Reid Hoffman, the cofounder of LinkedIn, and Thiel.

After the 2016 election, Altman, who tweeted that he voted against Donald Trump, said he decided to talk to 100 Trump supporters around the US to understand what they did and didn't like about the president.

 He also wanted to know "what would convince them not to vote for him in the future." In a thread on X, formerly Twitter, Altman said he was "voting against Trump because I believe the principles he stands for represent an unacceptable threat to America."

He also said Thiel, who was still working with YC at the time, "is a high profile supporter of Trump" and that "I disagree with this."

But, he said, "YC is not going to fire someone for supporting a major party nominee."

YC and Thiel stopped working together a year later in 2017 for unspecified reasons.

During his interviews, Altman said he "did not expect to talk to so many Muslims, Mexicans, Black people, and women in the course of this project."

He said almost everyone he approached was willing to talk to him, but they also didn't want to share their names in fear of being "targeted by those people in Silicon Valley if they knew I voted for him." Altman said one of the people he talked to in Silicon Valley made him sign a confidentiality agreement before talking because she was scared of losing her job for supporting Trump.

Altman stepped down as YC president in March 2019 to focus on OpenAI. He stayed in a chairman role at the accelerator.

At a StrictlyVC event in 2019, Altman was asked how OpenAI planned to make a profit, and he said the "honest answer is we have no idea."

Altman said OpenAI had "never made any revenue" and that it had "no current plans to make revenue." 

"We have no idea how we may one day generate revenue," he said at the time, according to TechCrunch.

Altman became CEO of OpenAI in May 2019 after it turned away from being a nonprofit company into a "capped profit" corporation.

"We want to increase our ability to raise capital while still serving our mission, and no pre-existing legal structure we know of strikes the right balance," OpenAI said on its blog. "Our solution is to create OpenAI LP as a hybrid of a for-profit and nonprofit — which we are calling a 'capped-profit' company."

OpenAI received a $1 billion investment from Microsoft in 2019.

Altman flew to Seattle to meet with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, where he demonstrated OpenAI's AI models for him, WSJ reported.  The pair announced their business partnership on LinkedIn.

Current and former insiders at OpenAI told Fortune that after Altman took over as CEO, and after the investment from Microsoft, the company started focusing more on developing natural language processing.

Altman and OpenAI's former chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, said the move to focus on large language models was the best way for the company to reach artificial general intelligence, or AGI, a system that has broad human-level cognitive abilities.

 

In 2021, Altman and cofounders Alex Blania and Max Novendstern launched a global cryptocurrency project called Worldcoin.

It wanted to give everyone in the world access to crypto by scanning their iris with an orb. The company was started in 2020, but stopped operating in a few countries in 2022 due to logistics issues, Bloomberg reported. In January, Worldcoin tweeted that it had reached 1 million people and has onboarded over 150,000 first-time crypto users.

Under Altman's tenure as CEO, OpenAI released popular generative AI tools to the public, including DALL-E and ChatGPT.

Both DALL-E and ChatGPT are known as "generative" AI, meaning the bot creates its own artwork and text based on information it is fed.

After ChatGPT was released on November 30, Altman tweeted that it had reached over 1 million users in five days.

ChatGPT was made public so OpenAI could use feedback from users to improve the bot.

A few days after its launch, Altman said that it "is incredibly limited, but good enough at some things to create a misleading impression of greatness." Altman posted that ChatGPT was "great" for "fun creative inspiration," but "not such a good idea" to look up facts.

ChatGPT recently began testing a paid version of ChatGPT called "ChatGPT Professional" that is supposed to give better access to the bot. In December, Altman posted that OpenAI "will have to monetize it somehow at some point; the compute costs are eye-watering."

In January 2023, Microsoft again announced it was making a "multibillion dollar" investment into OpenAI.

Although specifics of the investment were not shared, it is believed it is worth $10 billion. Before Microsoft's investment, other venture capitalists wanted to buy shares from OpenAI employees in a tender offer that valued the company at around $29 billion.

Altman is still interested in nuclear fusion and invested $375 million in Helion Energy in 2022.

"Helion is more than an investment to me," Altman told TechCrunch. "It's the other thing beside OpenAI that I spend a lot of time on. I'm just super excited about what's going to happen there."

He told TechCrunch that he's "happy there's a fusion race," to build a low-cost fusion energy system that can eventually power the Earth.

 

Last year, OpenAI launched its pilot subscription plan for ChatGPT Plus, which costs $20 a month.

People who pay $20 a month for ChatGPT Plus get benefits such as access to the site even when traffic is high, faster responses from the bot, and first access to new features and ChatGPT improvements.

The subscription is only available for people in the US, and OpenAI said it will soon start inviting people on the waitlist to join.

Altman wrote that OpenAI's mission is to make sure AGI "benefits all of humanity.

"If AGI is successfully created, this technology could help us elevate humanity by increasing abundance, turbocharging the global economy, and aiding in the discovery of new scientific knowledge that changes the limits of possibility," Altman wrote on OpenAI's blog.

Despite its potential, Altman said artificial general intelligence comes with "serious risk of misuse, drastic accidents, and societal disruption." But instead of stopping its development, Altman said "society and the developers of AGI have to figure out how to get it right."

Altman went on to share the principles that OpenAI "care about most," including "the benefits of, access to, and governance of AGI to be widely and fairly shared."

Altman said he and OpenAI are "a little bit scared" of AI's potential as it continues to develop.

In an interview with ABC News, Altman said he thinks "people should be happy that we're a little bit scared" of generative AI systems as they develop.

Altman said he doesn't think AI systems should only be developed in a lab.

"You've got to get these products out into the world and make contact with reality, make our mistakes while the stakes are low," he said.

 

 

 

In April 2023, OpenAI announced the option to turn off chat history in ChatGPT so the data can't be used to train and improve its models.

In a blog post, the company said it hoped the option to turn off chat history "provides an easier way to manage your data than our existing opt-out process."

When a user turns off their chat history, new conversations will be kept for 30 days for OpenAI to review them for abuse, then are permanently deleted.

In his first appearance before Congress, Altman told a Senate panel there should be a government agency to grant licenses to companies working on advanced AI.

Altman told lawmakers there should be an agency that grants licenses for companies that are working on AI models "above a certain scale of capabilities." He also said the agency should be able to revoke licenses from companies that don't follow safety rules.

"I think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong," Altman said. "And we want to be vocal about that, we want to work with the government to prevent that from happening."

OpenAI launched a ChatGPT app for iPhones and Android users in 2023.

The app, which is free, can answer text-based and spoken questions using Whisper, another OpenAI product that is a speech-recognition model. Users who have a subscription to ChatGPT Plus can also access it through the app.

Altman met with leaders in Europe to discuss AI regulations and said OpenAI has "no plans to leave" the EU, despite his earlier concerns over the EU's proposed AI Act.

At the start of his trip, Altman told reporters in London that he was concerned about the EU's proposed AI Act that focuses on regulating AI and protecting Europeans from AI risks.

"The details really matter," Altman said, according to the Financial Times. "We will try to comply, but if we can't comply, we will cease operating."

However, he shared on X later in the week that OpenAI is "excited to continue to operate here and of course have no plans to leave."

In an October 2023 interview, Altman expressed "deep misgivings" about people befriending AI.

Altman made it clear that he doesn't believe humans should try to be friends with AI in an interview during Wall Street Journal's Tech Live event.

"I personally really have deep misgivings about this vision of the future where everyone is super close to AI friends, and not more so with their human friends," Altman said.

 

On November 17, 2023, OpenAI shocked tech fans by announcing that Altman would no longer be the company's CEO.

In November, the OpenAI board of directors announced that Altman would be stepping down from his role as CEO and leaving the board, "effective immediately."

In a blog post, the board said it "no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI," and added that Altman was "not consistently candid in his communications."

"We are grateful for Sam's many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI," a statement from OpenAI's board says. "At the same time, we believe new leadership is necessary as we move forward."

Altman issued his own statement via a post on X.

"i loved my time at openai. it was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit. most of all i loved working with such talented people," Altman wrote.

He added: "will have more to say about what's next later."

But days after the ouster, Sam Altman returned to the helm of OpenAI.

After a chaotic weekend over his firing, Altman and OpenAI announced that he would return to the tech company as CEO.

"We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo," the company wrote on X.

In January 2024, Altman confirmed he married his partner Oliver Mulherin.

Altman is married. The OpenAI CEO wed his partner Mulherin, with photos from the wedding circulating on social media in January 2024.

An attendee of the wedding confirmed to Business Insider that the pictures weren't AI-generated. His husband is an Australian software engineer who previously worked at Meta, according to his LinkedIn profile.

OpenAI launched its text-to-video model Sora.

In February 2024, OpenAI unveiled Sora to the public. The program — named after the Japanese word for "sky" — creates up to 0ne-minute long videos from text prompts. 

"We're teaching AI to understand and simulate the physical world in motion, with the goal of training models that help people solve problems that require real-world interaction," OpenAI wrote in Sora's announcement.

Sora is still in the midst of risk and harm assessments by red teamers, but Altman is already showing off its capabilities on social media, and the company is reportedly shopping the tool around to Hollywood.

Altman and his husband signed the Giving Pledge in 2024.

A few weeks after Forbes declared Altman a billionaire, he and his partner signed the Giving Pledge, vowing to give away most of his fortune.

"We would not be making this pledge if it weren't for the hard work, brilliance, generosity, and dedication to improve the world of many people that built the scaffolding of society that let us get here," the pledge letter read.

They continued: "There is nothing we can do except feel immense gratitude and commit to pay it forward, and do what we can to build the scaffolding up a little higher."

OpenAI introduced GPT-4o in May and demonstrated its capabilities.

During its "Spring Update" on May 13, OpenAI announced GPT-4o, an updated version of its large language model that powers ChatGPT. OpenAI CTO Mira Murati made the announcement, and Altman didn't make an appearance despite actively promoting the event on X. 

Altman might've been absent from the presentation, but the demonstrations of ChatGPT's voice and video capabilities created buzz online. It also led to Altman and his company being called out by actor Scarlett Johansson, who alleged that the OpenAI chatbot Sky's voice sounded "eerily similar" to her own after she declined a partnership.

Altman's post on X referencing a movie in which Johansson voices someone's virtual girlfriend was quickly called into question, and the company soon said that it would not move forward with the voice heard in the demo.

Apple announced a partnership with OpenAI at the Worldwide Developer Conference in June.

After much debate about how it would enter the AI arms race, Apple announced at WWDC 2024 that it would partner with OpenAI to close the gap between it and its rivals.

Although Bloomberg reported that Apple isn't paying OpenAI in cash, the tech titan's solid installed base of over two billion users means more people may use ChatGPT if it comes integrated with Siri. According to the presentation, Siri will be able to handle more complex requests with help from ChatGPT.

Altman was spotted attending WWDC the day the partnership was announced and speaking to high-ranking Apple employees ahead of the keynote. 

Altman might finally get equity as OpenAI considers restructuring.

Altman confirmed reports that OpenAI was planning a corporate restructuring during a talk at Italian Tech Week in September 2024. 

"Our board has been thinking about that for almost a year, independently, as we think about what it takes to get to our next stage," Altman said. "I think this is just about people being ready for new chapters of their lives and a new generation of leadership."

As part of those changes, Altman might finally get equity in OpenAI, which is now worth about $157 billion after it closed its most recent, $6.6 billion funding round. 

In October 2024, Altman weighed in on how close he is to achieving OpenAI's mission.

At OpenAI's developer conference, Dev Day, Altman said o1, OpenAI's latest set of AI models, which it says has "reasoning" abilities, represented a breakthrough toward artificial general intelligence. 

While Altman said he believes AGI — a still hypothetical form of AI that can solve any task a human can — is still a ways away, there will be "very steep" progress over the next two years.

OpenAI announced in January that it'd be involved in a $500 billion project called Stargate.

On January 21, Altman joined Oracle CTO Larry Ellison, President Donald Trump, and SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son to announce a partnership to fund a $500 billion investment in US AI. The companies would form Stargate, a project that seeks to build US AI infrastructure and create jobs.

"Together these world-leading technology giants are announcing the formation of Stargate," Trump said, adding: "Put that name down in your books, because I think you're going to hear a lot about it."

He declined a $97.4 billion bid to buy OpenAI from a group led by Elon Musk.

Though the pair founded OpenAI together, Altman's relationship with Musk has become increasingly tense over the years. Musk offered to run OpenAI, but his proposal was rejected, Semafor reported in 2023. He departed OpenAI in 2018 and went on to start xAI.

Since then, they've had heated exchanges, shared words of appreciation, and entered a legal battle. Musk sued Altman and OpenAI in March 2024, alleging the company violated its founding principles.

In an August 2024 lawsuit, Musk claimed he was "deceived" into cofounding OpenAI.

The most recent development in their feud is a $97.4 billion bid to buy the AI company by a group led by Musk. Altman declined, telling Sky News reporters at an AI summit in Paris, "The company is not for sale, neither is the mission."

He announced the birth of his first child in February.

welcome to the world, little guy!

he came early and is going to be in the nicu for awhile. he is doing well and it’s really nice to be in a little bubble taking care of him.

i have never felt such love. pic.twitter.com/wFF2FkKiMU

— Sam Altman (@sama) February 22, 2025

On February 22, Altman announced the birth of his son on social media. Altman said the newborn will be in the neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU, which offers medical treatment after birth, "for awhile."

"i have never felt such love," Altman said in his post.

Days later, OpenAI released GPT-4.5.

Altman introduced the new model in a post on X, where he described it as "the first model that feels like talking to a thoughtful person." He added that the model will be "giant" and "expensive," and Altman said it offers a "different kind of intelligence and there's a magic to it."

OpenAI released GPT-4.5 to pro tier users who pay $200 a month and developers in the API with plans to offer it to ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Edu users the following week.

Correction: February 2, 2023 — An earlier version of this story defined AGI incorrectly and listed the incorrect age at which Altman was named president of Y Combinator. AGI in this context stands for artificial general intelligence. Altman became president of Y Combinator at 28, not 31.

• Trump's Education Department removed online applications for income-driven student-loan repayment plans.
• The move was in response to a federal court upholding a pause on the SAVE plan.
• This means that borrowers cannot access plans intended to give them more affordable monthly payments.

Student-loan borrowers lost access to online applications for repayment plans meant to allow for affordable monthly payments.

In response to a federal court ruling that upheld a preliminary injunction on the SAVE student-loan repayment plan, President Donald Trump's Education Department removed online income-driven repayment applications from Federal Student Aid's website.

A three-sentence notice on FSA's website stated: "A federal court issued an injunction preventing the U.S. Department of Education from implementing the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan and parts of other income-driven repayment (IDR) plans. As a result, the IDR and online loan consolidation applications are temporarily unavailable. Borrowers can still submit a paper loan consolidation application."

Income-driven repayment plans, established by Congress in 1993, give borrowers monthly payments intended to be affordable based on the income they receive. After 20 or 25 years of payments, the plans allow for forgiveness of borrowers' remaining balances. Many borrowers seeking relief through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness plan, which cancels student debt for government and nonprofit workers after 10 years of qualifying payments, used income-driven repayment plans.

The remaining available repayment plans include the standard 10-year repayment plans, which typically have the highest monthly payments.

The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider on the impact of the application pause and what borrowers should do in the meantime.

The removal of the income-driven repayment plan applications follows a tumultuous legal battle surrounding former President Joe Biden's SAVE plan. The plan was intended to give borrowers cheaper monthly payments with a shorter timeline for loan forgiveness.

A group of GOP-led states filed a lawsuit last summer to block the plan, and 8 million enrolled borrowers have been in an interest-free forbearance since then as the legal process continues. A federal court most recently upheld a pause on the plan, sending it back to a district court to issue a final ruling.

Guidance from the Education Department on January 15 said that borrowers enrolled in SAVE will not have to make payments until December at the earliest while student-loan servicers update payment plans for impacted borrowers.

Persis Yu, deputy executive director and managing counsel at the advocacy group Student Borrower Protection Center, said in a statement that "shutting down access to all income-based repayment plans is not what the 8th Circuit ordered."

"This was a choice by the Trump Administration and a cruel one that will inflict massive pain on millions of working families," Yu said.

Do you have a story to share about student loans? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• With much hype, the Justice Department released documents in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
• Pundits were seen at the White House carrying binders that said "declassified."
• Though AG Pam Bondi said "a lot" would be released, little, if anything, is new to the public.

The saga of Jeffrey Epstein continues.

The Justice Department under the Trump administration promised to release documents related to the Epstein investigation. Its first delivery left some disappointed, however. Most, if not all, of the information was previously known to the public.

Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News this week that flight logs and "a lot of names" would be released. On Thursday, multiple conservative political commentators were seen at the White House with binders that read "The Epstein Files" and "declassified."

Hours later, the DOJ published a series of redacted files, saying that the release "largely contains documents that have been previously leaked but never released in a formal capacity by the US Government."

A redacted contact book included names like Mike Bloomberg, Alec Baldwin, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, David Koch, several Kennedys, and dozens upon dozens of other prominent business and cultural figures. Many of them — including those named above — were never accused of misconduct related to Epstein.

A list of 254 "masseuses" was fully redacted to "protect potential victim information."

Epstein was accused of sex trafficking women and girls for more than a decade.

Despite the fanfare, the files released by the Justice Department did not include any new bombshells, which frustrated some who seemed to be waiting for watershed revelations.

Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna posted on X that the release was a "complete disappointment."

The DOJ release comes years after Business Insider obtained and authenticated one of Epstein's little black books in 2021. A woman found the book lying on a Manhattan sidewalk in the 1990s.

It also wasn't the only volume of Epstein's little black books. BI compiled a previous little black book — which was discovered in 2009 court proceedings and made public in 2015 — into an exclusive searchable database in 2020.

Over the years, additional names of associates have come out through unsealed court documents. In one unsealed set of documents that included over 200 names, less than a dozen were accused of wrongdoing in the case.

With ties to some of the world's most well-connected business and cultural figures, Epstein's case has drawn international intrigue and conspiracies. Among those named in Epstein's books have been former President Bill Clinton, President Donald Trump, and Prince Andrew, Duke of York.

It was August of 2019 when Epstein, the disgraced financier who was facing sex trafficking charges was found dead in his cell at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center. A medical examiner ruled he died by suicide.

• The measles vaccine first became available to the public in 1963.
• Before the vaccine, measles was an endemic disease. Most children got it before turning 15.
• By 1981, the number of reported measles cases in the US had dropped 80%.

Before the measles vaccine was developed, over 30 million cases of the disease were reported worldwide each year.

What began as a fever, cough, and rash could develop into complications such as pneumonia or brain swelling, leading to hospitalization or death.

The vaccine became available in 1963, and endemic measles was eliminated in the US by the year 2000. However, outbreaks still occur among unvaccinated populations.

In February, an unvaccinated child in Texas died of measles amid an outbreak of the disease — the first reported measles fatality in the US in nearly a decade.

Here's a look back at what life was like before the measles vaccine.

Before a measles vaccine existed, the disease was endemic, meaning it was consistently present in specific regions and populations.

Most children came down with measles by the age of 15, according to the CDC.

A highly contagious disease, measles caused over 2 million deaths globally each year, according to the World Health Organization.

The mortality rate was higher than whooping cough and scarlet fever, and there was no known cure.

Authorities tried to contain outbreaks by instituting quarantines.

The quarantines often weren't strictly enforced, causing epidemics to worsen.

In the US, medical warnings were posted on the doors of some households where residents were infected with measles to prevent further spread.

Quarantines were more difficult to enforce in lower-income neighborhoods with tenement buildings and multiple families per household.

Measles was so common that it became part of pop culture with portrayals in Hollywood films.

Characters contracted measles in movies such as the 1959 film "Count Your Blessings."

All of that changed when John F. Enders developed the first measles vaccine, which became available to the public in 1963.

Enders and Thomas C. Peebles isolated the measles virus in the blood of a 13-year-old boy named David Edmonston and developed it into the first measles vaccine, according to the CDC.

In 1968, Maurice Hilleman developed a new measles vaccine that remains in use today.

By 1981, the number of reported measles cases had dropped 80% in the US.

After a resurgence of measles outbreaks in 1989, health officials instituted a second dose of the measles vaccine for children.

Children are 93% immune after their first dose of the measles vaccine and 97% immune after the second dose.

The Centers for Disease Control marketed the vaccine with bumper stickers, buttons, and comic strips in their efforts to eradicate the disease.

Endemic measles was eliminated in the US in 2000, according to the CDC, but anti-vaccine misinformation has gained momentum in recent years. The disease continues to spread among children and adults who are unvaccinated.

In 2019, there were more measles cases in the US than in any year since 1994.

Robert Redfield, then director of the CDC, attributed the outbreaks to widespread vaccine skepticism.

"Measles is preventable and the way to end this outbreak is to ensure that all children and adults who can get vaccinated, do get vaccinated," he said. "Again, I want to reassure parents that vaccines are safe, they do not cause autism. The greater danger is the disease the vaccination prevents."

In February, an ongoing measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico killed one unvaccinated child and sickened over 130 people, marking the first measles fatality in the US since 2015.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent anti-vaccine figure who was recently confirmed as health secretary of the US, said in a Cabinet meeting Wednesday that "we have measles outbreaks every year" and the situation was "not unusual."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• I'm a vegetarian who works from home and relies on Trader Joe's items for quick lunches and snacks.
• Trader Joe's shredded hash browns are perfect for a homemade brunch.
• Impossible chicken nuggets and Trader Joe's vegetable fried rice make great filling meals.

As someone who works remotely from my Brooklyn apartment, I value quick, easy-to-prep lunches and snacks to keep me full throughout the day.

Once or twice a month, I go to Trader Joe's to stock up on vegetarian staples, frozen foods, and shelf-stable products.

Here are some of my favorite items to buy that keep me fed and fueled up through the workday.

Trader Joe's frozen vegetable fried rice makes a great base for easy lunches.

Trader Joe's frozen vegetable fried rice has a spot of honor in my freezer. I usually spruce it up with some extra chopped vegetables, an egg or two, some edamame, and a drizzle of Sriracha.

It takes less than 10 minutes to make, is just as good as takeout, and costs much less than a lunch special at local restaurants.

I always grab a bag or two of Trader Joe's frozen fruit.

I've found that Trader Joe's bags of frozen fruit are much cheaper than those at other grocery stores near me.

I drink a lot of midday smoothies, so it makes financial sense to stock up on my beloved frozen berries and mango chunks at Trader Joe's.

Greek yogurt is a versatile staple.

Trader Joe's plain Greek yogurt can be used in so many different meals. In my opinion, it's as good with granola and fruit as it is a base for a savory sauce, mixed up while I roast a tray of vegetables and legumes in the oven.

I can never have too many cans of beans.

I go through enough cans of beans that they're worth lugging home on the subway. I like roasting chickpeas with olive oil, salt, and spices for a crunchy snack.

Recently, I also cooked a delicious white bean soup for dinner and used the leftovers for my lunch the next day.

Trader Joe's shredded potato hash browns are perfect for homemade brunch.

I love frying up Trader Joe's shredded potato hash browns with an egg, some shredded cheese, and a few shakes of hot sauce.

If I have kale on hand, I'll shred some and cook it on top of the potatoes to add a green vegetable.

Impossible chicken nuggets aren't just for kids.

Do these plant-based chicken nuggets make me feel a bit like an 8-year-old vegetarian? Yes.

But are they a good source of protein for when I remember I'm going to the gym after work and should eat accordingly? Also yes.

I like to make these delicious nuggets in my toaster oven.

Freeze-dried fruit makes oatmeal more fun.

If you can't tell, I love having breakfast foods for lunch. Oatmeal takes just a few minutes to make, is so filling, and is a real choose-your-own-adventure when it comes to toppings.

I love adding Trader Joe's freeze-dried strawberries, which add great flavor and texture. If I want more of an apple pie flavor, I'll cook the oats in applesauce instead of water or milk and mix in some cinnamon and nutmeg.

Sometimes, I even add some Greek yogurt and nuts for a tasty and filling lunch.

Trader Joe's Sublime ice cream sandwiches make the perfect snack.

The Sublime ice cream sandwiches make me feel like a kid eating a Chipwich on the beach — even when it's 1 p.m., and I'm about to join a Zoom meeting.

These ice cream sandwiches are my favorite single-serve frozen treat from Trader Joe's.

Click to keep reading Trader Joe's diaries like this one.

• Citi sustained an $81 trillion "inputting error" last year, although no money left the bank.
• This follows a series of operational blunders that have drawn regulatory scrutiny.
• In 2020, Citi accidentally transferred $900 million to Revlon creditors.

Citigroup's fat-finger blunders may not be over.

The Wall Street bank accidentally credited a client's account with $81 trillion instead of $280 million, The Financial Times reported on Friday. This follows the accidental transfer of $900 million in 2020 to Revlon creditors due to human error and outdated technology.

A Citi spokesperson did not confirm the figures involved to Business Insider, but described the latest incident as an "inputting error" that highlights improvements to the bank's operational controls because no money was transferred out of the bank.

"Despite the fact that a payment of this size could not actually have been executed, our detective controls promptly identified the inputting error between two Citi ledger accounts, and we reversed the entry, " the spokesperson said in a statement to Business Insider. "Our preventative controls would have also stopped any funds leaving the bank," the spokesperson said, adding that there was "no impact to the bank or our client."

The mishap comes as Citi CEO Jane Fraser seeks to convince shareholders and regulators that she is turning the bank around. It highlights Citi's ongoing struggle to iron out the kinks in its tech and compliance frameworks — the central goal of a sweeping, multiyear plan called the Transformation, which aims to help the bank prove to regulators that its risk controls have improved over the years.

This is the latest in a series of glitches for Citi, which has had to pay US regulators $400 million in fines for poor data management and risk controls. Last July, shortly after the $81 trillion mistake, Citi was hit with $135.6 million in fines for failing to make enough progress to satisfy regulator watchdogs the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

British regulators also fined Citi about $79 million last May for a 2022 incident in which a Citi employee accidentally added a zero to a trade, causing a flash crash in Europe.

The blunders and fines add to the mounting pressure on Fraser, who inherited its outdated systems and regulatory issues when she took over Citi in March 2021. US Sen. Elizabeth Warren in October urged the OCC to place growth restrictions on Citi, arguing the bank had become "too big to manage."

Fraser has dedicated billions of dollars to a firmwide initiative to overhaul the bank's technology. The bank has about 12,000 employees working on its "Transformation" project, which is overseen by Citi consumer-bank veteran Anand Selva.

After the July fines, Fraser tapped Tim Ryan, the bank's head of tech, to lead the effort to improve its data controls alongside Selva.

Fraser has defended Citi's progress in earnings calls, reiterating that improving its systems is a yearslong process.

"We know what we need to do," she said in a fourth-quarter earnings call with analysts in January. "We've got our arms around all of this. We're just getting on with execution."

"Food Wars" hosts Harry Kersh and Joe Avella travel across Los Angeles to find the best burrito in the city. They'll be visiting four locations in just one day to see what the city has to offer. This is "Food Tours."

• Trump told an interviewer that he dined with Jeff Bezos on Wednesday night.
• That's the same day Bezos announced a major shake-up at the Washington Post's opinion section.
• Trump said little about the dinner, but marveled that so many billionaires are cozying up to him.

President Donald Trump says he had dinner with Jeff Bezos, the executive chairman of Amazon and the owner of the Washington Post, on Wednesday night.

That's the same day that Bezos announced a major shake-up of the Post's opinion section, including a new focus on defending "personal liberties and free markets."

Trump told The Spectator in an interview conducted on Thursday that he "had dinner with Jeff Bezos last night."

The president offered few details of the encounter, and it's unclear who else was at the dinner, or what was discussed. A White House spokesman declined to comment further, while representatives for Bezos did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump demurred when asked whether he trusts Bezos: "Who do I trust? I mean, who do you trust? Do you trust anybody? These are very smart guys."

But he also marveled at how Bezos and other billionaires, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, have cozied up to him since his 2024 election victory.

"We have dinners together, usually started by them. I'm so busy with all of this. Between China, Russia, Ukraine, I've got more things happening," Trump told the outlet. "I said, 'would you have been here if I lost,' you know? 'Would you have been here if I lost it?' They never answer that question. Actually, they just sort of shy away from it."

Bezos, Zuckerberg, and other major tech billionaires and CEOs attended the inauguration in January, with prime seating in front of Trump's Cabinet. It was a stark reversal from Trump's first term in office, when he had a more antagonistic relationship with many of those tech leaders.

In October, Bezos blocked the Post from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

• There are 21 Oscar categories for feature-length films, which means that 90 films can be recognized.
• However, some outstanding films were completely ignored by the academy.
• Stanley Kubrick's last film, "Eyes Wide Shut," is regarded as a classic, but it was snubbed in 2000.

Each year, the Academy Awards recognize the best films of the year — at least, that's what's supposed to happen.

However, some quality films fail to receive any nominations, even if they've been generating buzz all year, star academy favorites, or tell stories the academy typically loves.

This year, for example, the tennis romantic drama "Challengers" — a critical and box-office hit — was snubbed, even though fans assumed, at the very least, it would be recognized in best original score or best original song.

Ahead of the 97th Academy Awards on Sunday, here are some movies you'd be surprised to learn weren't nominated for a single Oscar.

"Zodiac" (2007)

"Zodiac," directed by David Fincher, is about the hunt for the Zodiac Killer in '70s San Francisco.

The academy typically loves to reward the true-crime genre (see: "Killers of the Flower Moon," "Monster," and "Goodfellas"), but it completely overlooked this film, which stars Oscar favorites Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo, and was highly regarded by critics upon its release.

If anything, Fincher, his cinematographer Harris Savides, and his production designer Donald Burt deserved nominations, if not wins.

"Much Ado About Nothing" (1993)

Kenneth Branagh wrote, directed, and starred in this Shakespeare adaptation in 1993 — Branagh had previously been nominated for his direction and acting for a different Shakespeare adaptation, "Henry V."

However, the academy ignored this film, even though Branagh, and his costars Emma Thompson and Denzel Washington — who had each won an acting Oscar by 1993 — easily could've been nominated.

"Widows" (2018)

"Widows" is a heist thriller starring major talents including Viola Davis — who'd won the best supporting actress Oscar the year before for "Fences" — Cynthia Erivo, Elizabeth Debicki, Colin Farrell, Daniel Kaluuya, Michelle Rodriguez, and others.

While the film didn't receive Oscars attention, it was highly critically acclaimed. It was atop multiple top-10 lists, and Davis was nominated for a BAFTA.

"The Good Dinosaur" (2015)

It's impossible to deny the academy loves Pixar. Since the best animated feature category was introduced in 2001, Pixar has released 25 films, and all but six received nominations (with 11 wins).

The first non-sequel Pixar film to not receive a nomination was "The Good Dinosaur" which, even if it's not the most loved Pixar movie, still felt like a shocking snub.

"Hustlers" (2019)

If you were on the internet in 2019, you probably remember that everyone was expecting to wake up on Oscar nomination morning to find out that Jennifer Lopez had received her first nod.

Instead, Lopez, who played a cutthroat stripper Ramona in "Hustlers" and also produced the box-office smash, had to settle for Golden Globe, Indie Spirit, and SAG Award nominations.

You can even see how upset she was about the snub in her documentary "Jennifer Lopez: Halftime."

"Eyes Wide Shut" (1999)

In 2022, IndieWire released a list of the 100 best films of the 1990s, and "Eyes Wide Shut" took the No. 1 spot.

However, the final film directed by iconic director Stanley Kubrick received zero Oscar nominations. As well as being considered one of cinema's greats, Kubrick had previously been nominated four times without a win — this would've been the academy's last chance to award him.

That's not even mentioning stars Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, and Sydney Pollack, or the cinematography by Larry Smith.

"Shutter Island" (2010)

Martin Scorsese has directed 26 films, and 18 have been nominated for at least one Oscar.

That leaves eight that have been snubbed by the academy, including 2010's "Shutter Island," which at the very least could've received an adapted screenplay nom for Laeta Kalogridis, best actor for Leonardo DiCaprio, or best editing for Thelma Schoonmaker.

"Boy Erased" (2018)

"Boy Erased" received multiple Golden Globes nominations and one Critics' Choice nomination for star Nicole Kidman.

The film is based on the 2016 memoir by Garrard Conley, which details his experiences at a conversion therapy camp as a young adult.

This type of heartbreaking true story is typically Oscars catnip, but the academy didn't go for it this year.

"Portrait of a Lady on Fire" (2019)

The BFI Sight & Sound poll is one of the most respected movie rankings in the entertainment industry, with over 1,600 professionals in the film industry voting on their top 10 films.

An updated version comes out every 10 years, with the most recent list being published in 2022.

There are not many films from the 21st century, and even fewer from the 2010s — just 12 of 100. And the highest-placing film from last decade was the 2019 French film "Portrait of a Lady on Fire."

However, this film didn't even get a best international feature film nomination at the Oscars. France chose a different film entirely to submit as its country's representative, "Les Misérables."

"Battle of the Sexes" (2017)

"Battle of the Sexes" is another "based on a true story" film that the academy didn't appreciate, even though both Emma Stone and Steve Carell have earned nominations (and in Stone's case, two wins) before.

The academy loves to acknowledge a physical transformation — see: Charlize Theron, Rami Malek, and Gary Oldman — so it was a surprise to some that Stone (playing Billie Jean King) and Carell (playing Bobby Riggs) were blanked.

At the very least, a hair and makeup nomination would've been deserved.

• Some posts on social media fueled panic that Washington's housing market was rapidly weakening.
• Agents and an economist said the president's efficiency efforts haven't yet affected the DC market.
• While return-to-office mandates and layoffs sow uncertainty, it may take time to see their impact.

A federal worker renting outside Washington, DC, is house-hunting for a property to buy — in Baltimore.

According to the worker's real-estate agent, Shanna Moinizand, they've been summoned back to the office and extended their house hunt to Baltimore, about 40 miles outside the nation's capital, because properties are less expensive and the commute is reasonable.

"They can't afford to be in DC proper," Moinizand told Business Insider. "They reached out to me about the possibility of buying in Baltimore near Penn Station so they can afford their house, be a little bit closer, and feel like they can get a cheap house — and feel stable and commute to DC."

As thousands of workers await news of layoffs or firings as a result of the Trump administration's efforts to reduce the federal government's size, the Washington, DC, housing market is in limbo.

Some residents fear that newly jobless federal workers will leave the city en masse, causing for-sale and rental inventory to skyrocket and prices to fall dramatically. Others believe that return-to-office mandates might prompt people to flood into the city, heightening demand as they look to move closer to work.

Multiple videos posted to TikTok in February saying that nearly thousands of homes had been listed for sale in recent weeks stirred anxiety that inventory had already started to pile up.

Listing data, however, shows that the number of homes currently on the market is typical for this time of year. Local brokers told BI that any conclusions about the Washington market so far are premature.

While high-end real-estate in Washington, DC, has experienced a "Trump bump" as a few of the president's appointees buy up luxury mansions and power players try to sidle up to the White House, brokers said they are waiting to see if the rest of the housing market follows suit or falters.

The DC market has not crashed since Trump took office

Washington- and Maryland-based Compass agent Jaime Willis said that while some federal workers she's heard from feel uncertain about their job security, that uneasiness has yet to affect the market meaningfully.

"There was some histrionics happening on social media about how the price of homes in DC has gone down $150,000, and there are a million more listings than normal — and that is not true," she said. "Neither one of those is true."

New listings data from Bright MLS, which operates a major multiple listing service in the Mid-Atlantic region, show that the return-to-office and reduction in the federal workforce have had little impact so far on the number of homes for sale in Washington, DC.

During the first half of February 2024, 423 listings hit the market. In 2025, during the same time span, a total of 452 were on the market — about a 7% increase. In the greater Washington, DC, region, which Bright MLS defined as 18 surrounding counties and cities in Maryland and Virginia, there was no significant change in new listings.

Factors outside DOGE's reforms, like interest rates and cold weather, contribute to any fluctuation in listings, Bright MLS Chief Economist Lisa Sturtevant told BI. It's also unlikely that the tumult across federal agencies over the last month would affect the sales market immediately, she added.

"Walking through the exercise of how a household or family might respond to a job cut, the first thing you'd do is not list your home for sale," Sturtevant said. "We wouldn't have expected an onslaught of new listings as a result of federal cuts."

Part of an explanation for the relatively steady listing volume might be that while Washington, DC, has a large number of federal employees, they do not completely dictate what happens to its housing market.

Office of Personnel Management data from September 2024 showed over 162,000 federal civilian employees assigned to offices in Washington, DC.

To put that number in perspective, Washington's population is 702,250, according to the US Census Bureau's 2024 estimates. If every federal worker assigned to a DC office actually lived within city limits, they would make up only about 23% of the population.

DC's luxury market is humming along

What anxiety? Washington's luxury market is doing just fine.

Washington, DC, Sotheby's agent Daniel Heider told BI that the market for homes priced $5 million and up is going "absolutely gangbusters" with record-setting purchases. One is the $25 million sale of a French Château-style property with five bedrooms across about 16,000 square feet to commerce secretary appointee Howard Lutnick, a transaction that Heider confirmed he brokered in December.

Heider also said that his brokerage had its best fourth quarter ever in 2024 and is carrying the momentum into the first quarter, with over $130 million in deals in 2025 so far. BI was unable to independently verify that sales figure.

According to the New York Post, Trump's nominee for Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, Jacob Helberg, spent $7 million in February on a home in Kalorama, the same Washington, DC, neighborhood where Ivanka and Jared Trump used to live.

Even though the luxury sector is having a moment, Heider said he thinks people could soon start vacating the suburbs in favor of areas closer to offices in the city center.

"As those return-to-work mandates come into effect — and not just for the federal government, but for private business — I would expect that more in-town markets are going to see a reaction from that," he added.

Willis, the other agent in DC, said she hasn't received calls from clients trying to offload their farther-away homes or find new ones near work. She has, however, heard from people trying to figure out what to do who haven't taken action — yet.

"Yeah, people are nervous," she said. "People have lost their jobs. People haven't lost their jobs, but they're just worried about what's happening. The market doesn't like people afraid."

• Microsoft said it plans to shut down Skype in May.
• It paid $8.5 billion for the internet calling platform in 2011.
• Skype said users would be invited to switch to Microsoft Teams ahead of the switch off.

Microsoft is shutting down Skype, the internet calling service it bought almost 14 years ago for $8.5 billion.

Users are set to be invited to switch to Teams before the service is turned off in May.

Skype posted on X on Friday: "Starting in May 2025, Skype will no longer be available. Over the coming days you can sign in to Microsoft Teams Free with your Skype account to stay connected with all your chats and contacts. Thank you for being part of Skype."

Jeff Teper, Microsoft's president of collaborative apps and platforms, said in a statement: "Hundreds of millions of people already use Teams as their hub for teamwork, helping them stay connected and engaged at work, school, and at home. In the past two years, the number of minutes spent in meetings by consumer users of Teams has grown 4X, reflecting the value Teams brings to everyday communication and collaboration." 

Paid Skype features will not be offered to new customers, Microsoft said.

"Current Skype subscription users can continue to use their Skype Credits and subscriptions until the end of their next renewal period. Skype Credit users can also continue to use their remaining Skype Credit. After May 5, 2025, the Skype Dial Pad will be available to remaining paid users from the Skype web portal and within Teams," Microsoft said.  

Skype was launched in 2003, and Microsoft acquired it in 2011. It was the Windows maker's biggest acquisition at the time.

eBay paid $2.6 billion in cash and stock for Skype in 2005.

• My husband and I spent time on the Amalfi Coast while on our honeymoon in Italy.
• I underestimated how tiring it would be to get from the US to Rome to Naples to the Amalfi Coast.
• We should've booked a boat tour and spent more nights on the Amalfi Coast.

When my husband and I chose the Amalfi Coast for our honeymoon, we knew we were in for a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

Everything about this part of Italy sounded dreamy, from the stunning cliffside views and the tasty local cuisine to the charming coastal towns and stunning beaches.

In many ways, our honeymoon was incredible. However, looking back, there are three things I wish we'd done differently to make our trip even better.

I underestimated how exhausting it would be to get to the Amalfi Coast

Getting to the Amalfi Coast wasn't as simple as hopping on a direct flight.

Our journey from the United States involved a long-haul flight to Rome, a train to Naples, and then a car ride along winding cliffside roads to reach our final destination.

In theory, we knew this would be a long travel day, but we didn't fully appreciate just how exhausting it would feel after an overnight flight.

By the time we arrived, jet-lagged and slightly carsick, we felt too drained to truly enjoy our first evening as much as we'd hoped.

In hindsight, I wish we had planned a night's stopover in Rome to break up the journey. This would've allowed us to rest, adjust to the time zone, and ease into vacation mode before heading to the coast.

If you're traveling a long distance to the Amalfi Coast, you may also want to consider giving yourself a buffer day in Rome, Naples, or even Sorrento to make the journey less overwhelming.

A boat tour could've been a great addition to our trip

One of the most iconic ways to experience the Amalfi Coast is from the water — I'd seen amazing photos of private boat tours that pass beautiful villages and stop at hidden coves and caves.

However, we decided not to book a tour since our time on the coast was limited, and they can be pricey (most are over 100 euros a person).

At the time, we assumed that taking in the coastline from land would be more than enough. The views from our hikes and hotel terrace were breathtaking, but we both felt we had missed an opportunity by skipping a boat tour.

We only got to enjoy the coastal beauty via water taxi a few times while going from our hotel in Praiano to Positano — and part of me regrets not extending our journey further to explore places like Capri.

I wish we'd stayed longer

We spent four nights on the Amalfi Coast before heading to Rome.

With such limited time, we packed as much into our schedule as possible and split our time between Praiano and Positano.

Although we had a fantastic experience, our time on the coast felt rushed.

There's something about this part of Italy that made us want to slow down for a long lunch with a view or leisurely wander the streets without an agenda. I found myself wishing for more downtime.

Another couple of nights would have allowed our trip to have a more relaxed pace while giving us a chance to explore lesser-known spots or savor an extra dinner at our favorite restaurant.

For anyone considering a honeymoon or trip to the Amalfi Coast, I recommend staying at least five or six nights.

Overall, we still had a good trip

Our honeymoon on the Amalfi Coast was nothing short of incredible, and I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.

If I return in the future, I'd make a few small adjustments based on my experience, like booking a boat tour, breaking up the long travel day, and extending our stay to make our trip even better.

For future travelers, my other big piece of advice is to plan with intention but leave room for spontaneity.

The Amalfi Coast is meant to be savored, and the best moments of a trip often happen when you slow down, take a deep breath, and simply enjoy the beauty around you.

• In 2020, I learned how to coupon through TikTok videos.
• My CVS app says I've saved over $2,000 in the last five years by couponing.
• I can save money with relatively low effort.

When I was furloughed and pregnant in 2020, I, like many others, was addicted to TikTok. However, I wasn't on the app watching teenagers dance. I was learning how to coupon. Because I could really only go to the grocery store or drug store during this time, couponing became a way to save money and entertain myself.

Five years later, I'm proud to say that my frugal ways have helped my family save a ton of money in grocery and household costs. According to my CVS app, I've saved $2,322 in the last five years — and that's just at one store. I haven't paid for toothpaste in years and had a good couple of yearslong streak where I never paid more than $1 a gallon for oat milk.

It's social for me, too; my neighborhood group text is always buzzing with advice on what deals were good this week. With steep prices these days, couponing is an essential and easy way for me to keep costs down and have a little fun gaming the system. Here's how I do it.

Most coupons are digital

Some people have an image in their heads of a mom in the 90s with a big coupon binder. Times have evolved; all my couponing is done in-store apps and a few external aggregate apps. I have two small children, so while I'd love to get organized and go through each store app and plan my trip out, most of the time, I'm shuffling through the deals and adding them quickly to my queue as I walk into the grocery store with my girls in tow. I've only reached for a handful of paper coupons in the last five years.

Many apps now have a scan function, which allows you to scan a barcode on an item and see if a coupon is attached to it. Coupons either come off during the transaction, such as in a store app like Kroger or Publix or after you scan a receipt, such as with Fetch and Ibotta. For these, funds can be withdrawn at any time directly to your bank account.

To make it even easier, coupon influencers can guide you through coupons for stores such as Target, Dollar General, and even Sam's Club. They regularly highlight deals for name brands such as Bounty, Pampers, Arm & Hammer, and Rubbermaid.

Coupons exist for lots of categories of products, including premium groceries

Coupons can get you great deals on everyday items like canned goods, yogurt, and cheese, but premium brands give out way more coupons than people might think.

Merryfield, for example, is a couponing app with coupons for expensive brands like Applegate Farms, Vital Farms and Lesser Evil. I regularly see coupons for Siete and Dave's Killer Bread on Ibotta; I've gotten free Wow Bao buns from the app Aisle that retail for $8.79 at Kroger. I've even used coupons from some of these apps at Costco and Trader Joe's. If you love Sumo mandarin oranges, you'll know they can cost up to $6 a pound. There's a current coupon for them.

These cost savings add up in a major way with relatively little effort

Every time I tell someone I'm a couponer, they scoff that it's too much work to keep up with, but to me, spending a few minutes each shop doing the work is absolutely worth it. I'm saving money and getting a huge dopamine hit. I squeal with glee when I work a good deal, begging my husband to ask how much I paid for something. (The answer is often that I was paid to take the item from the store, a regular occurrence at my local CVS where I go so often they greet me by name.)

While free stuff is amazing, the real value is in the little coupons that accumulate over time. If you combine this strategy with shopping your store's weekly sales, the savings can be enormous. In today's economy, every cent counts, and coupons are a proven way to make your money go even further.

• Virtual influencer Mori Calliope performed a sold-out show at the Hollywood Palladium in February.
• These influencers, also known as VTubers, appear as digital avatars and are gaining popularity.
• I went to the concert. It was unlike anything I've seen before.

Inside Los Angeles' Hollywood Palladium, red and purple penlights glowed. Fans waved the electronic instruments popular in the anime community, danced, and cheered on a digital avatar while its creator performed from behind the stage.

The virtual influencer who sold out the 4,000-person theater isn't a household name. But she's part of a growing trend of creators who use technology to appear as digital avatars in their content and in live performances.

The VTuber, short for virtual YouTuber, goes by the name Mori Calliope. The creator conceals her true identity to fans. Mori Calliope has 2.5 million subscribers on her main YouTube channel, where she posts music videos in both English and Japanese, chats with fans on livestreams, and streams herself playing games like Minecraft. Some of her livestreams in the last three months were almost eight hours long.

On Wednesday, I went to Mori Calliope's second solo concert. Tickets ranged from $95 for general admission floor tickets to $400 for four balcony table seats, according to the show's official website. I was invited to check out the event for free with a press pass.

If you're still wondering what a VTuber is, don't worry, you're not alone. The niche creator category, which originated in Japan, reflects an anime style. Although small in terms of the overall creator economy, the genre has a surprisingly dedicated fan base — one unlike I've seen before.

I've witnessed crowds of superfans for gaming creators like DreamSMP at creator conferences, including VidCon, as well as at pop-ups for YouTube superstar MrBeast. Last year, I attended a YouTuber event in a North Hollywood theater that was packed with children for a viewing of the animated YouTube show "Battle for Dream Island."

Unlike those events, most of the fans at Mori Calliope's show appeared to be in their late teens and 20s. It was the type of engaged fandom I've really only seen YouTubers conjure with younger audiences before. The crowd seemed like one you'd find at an anime convention. Fans wore apparel like T-shirts, hoodies, jackets, and even cosplay of the VTuber.

The show was also more highly produced than other YouTuber events I'd seen. It resembled a rock show. The lasers and lighting matched the color of the VTuber's virtual stage, making it appear like she was physically there.

Mori Calliope shows the growing popularity of VTubers

Mori Calliope is one of dozens of VTubers taking over YouTube.

The creator is signed to Universal Music Japan and Cover Corporation's Hololive, a virtual influencer agency based in Japan. Hololive manages Mori Calliope's business ventures and YouTube channel, similar to the way talent agencies do for other creators and stars.

Globally, Cover is a big deal. The company's market capitalization is about $160 billion yen, or around $1 billion. It recently opened an office in Los Angeles as part of a US expansion, Cover CEO Motoaki Tanigo told Business Insider.

Hololive's English-speaking audiences are still a fraction of those in Japan, but they're growing. Combined, Hololive's VTubers had 5.9 billion subscribers in Japan and 3.2 billion subscribers overseas as of December 31, with about two-thirds of those in English-speaking regions, according to the company's February financial presentation.

Tanigo said music like Mori Calliope's is one of the top ways its talent reaches new audiences.

"The popularity of these events proves that North American audiences have a tremendous appetite for VTuber content," Tanigo said in a January interview conducted through translators. "Our goal is to elevate VTubers alongside popular Japanese exports like manga, anime, and games."

One concertgoer told me fans lined up as early as 3 p.m. on the day of the show. When I arrived about an hour before the start time, a line to get into the venue wrapped around the block. Fans held plushies of Mori Calliope and other characters from her videos. They dressed in merch and other apparel that matched her character's logo and signature pink. I also saw several fans ahead of me dressed in cosplay.

Inside, people stood in line for Mori Calliope merchandise, including T-shirts, glowsticks, a jersey, and a keychain. Hololive also sold the event merch online and at a Los Angeles pop-up earlier in the month.

Part of the show was livestreamed for free on YouTube for Mori Calliope's global audience. At one point, 28,000 fans were watching.

About a quarter of the way into the show, the VTuber directed those viewers to a link where they could buy tickets to watch the rest of the performance online. The tickets ranged from $43 to $51 on platforms like SPWN and Streaming+.

After the concert, I overheard groups of fans outside the venue exchanging information including social media handles and Discord groups. They cheered as a pink car wrapped in images of Mori Calliope drove swiftly past them.