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Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. The devastation from fires this week in Los Angeles worsened the state's insurance crisis. Business Insider's Dan Latu spoke to experts about how premiums will continue to rise and why securing a loan may even get harder.

On the agenda today:

• Donald Trump won. Now Mark Zuckerberg is reshaping Meta.
• A leaked AWS org chart shows the 11 executives reporting to CEO Matt Garman.
• From building wealth to suburban homes, millennials are starting to look a lot like their boomer parents.
• The tough-love advice Morgan Stanley CIO Mike Wilson gives his new hires to prepare for a career in banking.

But first: Back to the office.

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here. Download Business Insider's app here.

Five years

It's been nearly five years since corporate America sent its white-collar workforce home amid the onset of the pandemic.

Five years later, RTO v. WFH, a.k.a. working in an office vs. at a kitchen table, remains hotly debated. Business Insider keeps delivering the scoops.

Dominick Reuter and Tim Paradis recently broke the story that AT&T would follow Amazon with a 5-day mandate.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan officially told employees on Friday it expects most workers back in the office five days a week starting in March. Read the full memo here.

It's one thing to set a mandate, and it's another to make it work for workers.

Ashley Stewart broke the news in December that Amazon would delay its policy in select locations due to workplace shortages. This past week, Ashley exclusively reported a list of some 40 locations where the Amazon rollout was delayed, from Santa Clara, Calif. and Austin to hubs in China and India.

Meanwhile, Dominick came back with an exclusive about bumps in AT&T's rollout for workers, such as waits for elevators and jockeying for parking spots. (I put his article on my Linkedin and got some spicy comments.)

Tim wrote about why companies can't seem to stick the landing once they make the decision to return five days.

And Aki Ito jumped in to write that despite the headlines, corporate America is far from a full return to the office.

We'll stay on this story in the weeks and months to come.

Please let me know your thoughts on our coverage, on this or any other subject!

Meta's Trump era

Content moderation has gotten Meta into plenty of hot water before. But the abrupt ending of its third-party fact-checking program was done specifically for Donald Trump, BI's Peter Kafka writes.

The new policy includes adopting "Community Notes," which would have users police one another à la Elon Musk's X. It's the latest in a series of moves Mark Zuckerberg has made to curry favor with the president-elect and his conservative allies.

Zuckerberg in Trumpland.

Also read:

• Meta employees react after the rollback of DEI programs — both for and against

Leaked AWS org chart

Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman has made a few changes to the cloud business since stepping into the role last June.

One of his biggest changes has been hiring Julia White as chief marketing officer. A leaked organization chart shows the 11 executives under Garman who are helping him lead the unit through an intense competition period of cloud computing and AI.

Meet the 11 executives.

Behold, the millennial boomers

Millennials have long had a "forever young" air to them. They're a generation marked by a sense of arrested development.

But in reality, millennials are starting to mirror their boomer parents in terms of wealth and earnings. They're buying homes and settling down in the suburbs. And in some areas, they're actually doing better than their parents.

Becoming mom and dad.

Also read:

• Millennials were celebrated for their minimalism. Turns out it was all a lie.

Mike Wilson's tough-love advice

Sometimes you have to flop before you fly. That much is true, even on Wall Street.

Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson says the key to success is learning to accept failures. He wants newly minted Wall Streeters to know the road ahead is only going to get harder — and how to prepare themselves for it.

Words to the wise.

This week's quote:

"We have a captured industry where the middlemen get to kind of do whatever they want."

— Josh Tucker, an appraisal manager and cofounder of the Appraisal Regulation Compliance Council, on homebuying's giant hidden cost.

More of this week's top reads:

• The Getty Villa survived LA's firestorms while everything around it burned, revealing a key lesson for homeowners.
• Internal Microsoft document shows one way managers decide which employees they can't afford to lose — and it's all about AI.
• Fed up with HR, people are reporting their horrible bosses on social media.
• Exclusive: Microsoft is planning job cuts and focusing more on underperforming employees.
• Polymarket is taking bets on the Palisades fire in California.
• The wildfires have a Hollywood producer wondering: Should I even stay in LA?
• Vox Media shakes up leadership and lays off staff for the 2nd time in about a month.
• The gambling industry's sly new way to suck money from desperate Americans.
• I've interviewed dozens of self-made millionaires, early retirees, and 'super savers' and plan to use one of their top wealth-building strategies in 2025.

• Silicon Valley is licking their chops at the promise of AI 'agents.' These are the startups to watch.

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  The BI Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York.

• Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart, shared some insight into his reading habits.
• His book list covers a wide range of interests — from managerial strategies to developments in tech.
• Here are 10 books that McMillon read in the last year, and the one he said impacted him the most.

While their calendars are often chock-full of meetings, some CEOs still find the time to read for pleasure — or to dive deep into a particular topic. Business leaders have long shared their picks for books that helped inform their strategies, both personally and professionally.

Doug McMillon, Walmart's CEO, posted his usual end-of-year roundup, listing 10 of the books that shaped his 2024.

"It was most impactful reading Sam's book again," he said. "Every time I read it, I pick up new ideas and am reminded of why our culture is so successful."

This time, a few more titles on AI made the cut, with three recent books on the subject included in the list.

Here are the authors McMillon has been reading, with a brief summary of what each book has to offer.

"How to Know a Person" by David Brooks

David Brooks' 2023 "How to Know a Person" draws from the world of psychology to help readers better understand how to connect with those around them.

"Just the Good Stuff" by Jim VandeHei

This book, published last year, looks to offer a practical guide to achieving success in life and career by pulling from Axios and Politico cofounder Jim VandeHei's own experiences with journalism and entrepreneurship.

"Financial Literacy For All" by John Hope Bryant

Bryant, who served on the President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy, aims to provide anyone looking to build strong financial foundations with an accessible guide to reaching their goals.

"Genesis" by Henry Kissinger, Craig Mundie, and Eric Schmidt

"Genesis," co-written by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, explores the potential benefits and repercussions that could result from the evolution of AI and debates how the technology could interact with humanity in the long-run.

"Co-Intelligence" by Ethan Mollick

"Co-Intelligence," authored by Wharton associate professor and co-director of AI labs, Ethan Mollick, encourages readers to engage with AI in a productive way — not by replacing human skill, but augmenting it. The book examines how people might be able to benefit from AI and learn to use it to their advantage.

"Competing in the Age of AI" by Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani

In their artificial intelligence-focused book, Iansiti and Lakhani provide a framework for competing in the evolving age of AI by examining the structures of what they call "AI-centric organizations."

"How Stella Saved the Farm" by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble

This book, published in 2010, is about a troubled farm threatened by bankruptcy and competition and serves as a parable to deliver a lesson on innovation.

"Collaborative Disruption" by Tom Muccio

"Collaborative Disruption: The Walmart and P&G Partnership That Changed Retail Forever" explores, from an insider's perspective, how the relationship between Walmart and Procter & Gamble profoundly affected the retail industry.

"The Wisdom of the Bullfrog" by Adm. William McRaven

"The Wisdom of the Bullfrog" draws from Adm. McRaven's extensive military career to impart the reader with fundamental lessons in leadership.

"Made in America" by Sam Walton with John Huey

Written by Walmart's founder, Sam Walton, "Made in America" was McMillon's most "impactful" read of the year, the CEO said.

Walton's autobiography, published in 1992, tells the story of Walmart's rise to become a retail giant.

McMillon said he gleans "new ideas" from every read.

• A US passport is not as powerful as it once was, according to the annual Henley & Partners Passport Index.
• The index ranks passports by visa-free access to 227 destinations, and the US is only ninth.
• Singapore holds the top spot, with access to 195 destinations visa-free.

A US passport is not as desirable as it used to be, according to the 2025 Henley Passport Index, which was first published 19 years ago.

The index, which ranks 199 passports based on how many out of 227 destinations they offer visa-free access to, has placed the US passport in ninth place, slipping from the top spot in 2014. This year, it allows American travelers to enter 186 countries and territories without a visa, not including Nigeria, India, and Russia.

Stemming from data provided by the International Air Transport Authority and updated using internal research and open-source online data, UK-based consulting firm Henley & Partners listed Singapore as the world's most powerful passport for the second year in a row. It has access to a total of 195 destinations.

Ranked in second place is the Japanese passport, with a visa-free score of 193. The third space is shared by six countries: Finland, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea, and Spain. The United Arab Emirates is the only Middle Eastern country to make it into the top ten. It has risen 55 places overall in the index since 2010.

A strong passport provides more freedom to travel without needing to apply for a visa.

Nepal, Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan are ranked in the bottom five spaces. Compared to Singapore, which allows visa-free access to 195 countries and territories, holding an Afghan passport only allows visa-free access to 26 countries.

When Taylor Kitsch finally shows up onscreen in his new Netflix show "American Primeval" about 10 minutes into its premiere, one of the first things the audience sees is his bare butt.

Those who know Kitsch from his breakout role as Tim Riggins in the mid-2000s NBC series "Friday Night Lights" would be forgiven for assuming this shot is playing into Kitsch's former teen heartthrob status. But in "American Primeval," Kitsch is far more interested in nakedly depicting the roughness of life in the 19th century American West than in providing eye candy to nostalgic millennials.

The streamer's gritty miniseries is blood, dirt, and warfare on an epic (and expensive) scale, chronicling the brutal 1857 clashes between the US Army, Native Americans, Mormons, and settlers in Utah Territory, with a cinematic yet deliberately unsentimental eye ("Yellowstone," this is not.)

As the troubled Isaac Reed, a white man raised by the Shoshone tribe who begrudgingly agrees to guide Sara Rowell (Betty Gilpin) and her son across treacherous territory, Kitsch is all lumbering physicality and intense stares. So much so that when he's first introduced to Sara while climbing out of a river, he hardly notices or cares about the impropriety of his nude body being exposed to a stranger.

With a wardrobe comprised mostly of tattered rags and a scraggly beard obscuring the clean-cut good looks that once landed him in a 2000s-era Abercombie ad, this is not a role one might expect from Taylor Kitsch. That's exactly the way he likes it.

"I take a lot of pride in taking very, very different roles," Kitsch, 43, told Business Insider, adding that being uncomfortable helps him do his best work.

"I try and chase fear and things where when you first read it, you're like, 'Oh, fuck. How am I even going to do this?'"

'American Primeval' re-teams Kitsch with the man who helped make his career

Kitsch was a struggling model-turned-actor who'd endured periods of homelessness when he first met "American Primeval" director and executive producer Peter Berg while screen-testing for "Friday Night Lights" in 2006.

Berg, who developed the football series based on his hit film of the same name, said he knew Kitsch had to be Riggins from the moment he saw him step out of his manager's car on the NBC lot. Though the studio had already shortlisted several hot young stars to play the Panthers' troubled running back, Berg managed to sell the unknown Canadian actor to the show's producers, and the rest is history.

The series would mark the start of Kitsch and Berg's fruitful creative partnership, which has endured for almost two decades, as the two have gone on to work together on movies like "Lone Survivor" and "Battleship" and other television shows like "American Primeval" and the 2023 Netflix series "Painkiller."

Kitsch said his symbiotic relationship with Berg has allowed him to grow exponentially as an actor.

"I hope I challenge him as much as he challenges me for authenticity, to keep each other on our toes," Kitsch said. "I think that's why he comes and brings me along these rides. I think he knows that I will try and make him look incredible and make him look right every time he casts me."

Berg's buy-in kickstarted Kitsch's career. But six years and five seasons on the "Friday Night Lights" set ironically left him unprepared for the very thing he was expected to chase after next: movie stardom.

"'Friday Night Lights' was no marks, no rehearsal, natural light, a lot of improv, which I love," said Kitsch, who was known for sometimes scrapping Riggins' lines entirely and replacing them with just a look. "[Berg] wants you to take risks, because that's where you're going to uncover something. And I love that."

While Kitsch was able to "learn and fail" many times on "FNL," he encountered far more rigidity on the set of his first big-budget blockbuster, 2009's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine."

"My first fucking day on 'X-Men' was like, 'Hit the mark, find the light, say your line, and don't say it like that,'" Kitsch recalled. "I've never been told this, and then it's like, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa. You guys are actually using lights and marks and this and that?' So it was a huge switch for me."

Kitsch was on the brink of movie stardom after 'Friday Night Lights,' but it all fell apart

It was the first of many obstacles in Kitsch's ill-fated pursuit of a career as a blockbuster leading man.

Much has been made of the infamous critical and commercial flop that was "John Carter," the 2012 Disney movie about an American Civil War veteran transported to Mars. But at the time, the decision to star in a movie based on a seminal sci-fi book series with major franchise potential seemed like a no-brainer.

Kitsch still stands by his choice: "When Andrew Stanton, who just won a couple Oscars, knocks at your door and he blows your mind in prep…"

He noted that at the time, the title character was a coveted role. "No one knows the people I beat out, but I can't believe at the time I beat them out."

"John Carter," along with "Battleship," a 2012 military sci-fi action flick based on the board game and directed by Berg, became the proving ground for Kitsch's post-"FNL" career. Expectations for both were high: Kitsch's contracts reportedly would have locked him into franchises for both if they performed well at the box office. Magazine profiles of Kitsch at the time anointed him the next big action hero, predicting he was poised to take over Hollywood's new A-list alongside the likes of Ryan Reynolds and Chris Pine.

He was on the brink of something major — or at least, that's what he was told.

'John Carter' was a flop, freeing Kitsch up for more interesting work

Ultimately, it didn't pan out that way. Both movies underperformed at the box office and garnered largely negative reviews. It changed the course of Kitsch's career, though it may have been kismet.

In reality, becoming the next blockbuster action star was never actually what Kitsch wanted for himself; he simply thought it would open doors.

"It's the cliché: one for them, one for you," he recalled. "You're told, 'You do this, you'll be able to do anything you want.'"

In an alternate universe where "John Carter" was a box-office smash that led to that slew of sequels, Kitsch may not have had the time to explore the character-driven stories he finds the most fulfilling, like "True Detective" season two, or the biggest challenge of his career: playing cult leader David Koresh in the 2018 limited series "Waco." Kitsch credits the latter with helping him define the kind of actor he wants to be.

"'Waco' scared the shit out of me," said Kitsch. "I had no idea how I was going to do that." He spent six months intensively preparing to inhabit the role, losing 30 pounds, learning to play guitar, and watching every clip and sermon of Koresh's he could find.

He brought a similar ethos to "American Primeval," losing 20 pounds, learning some Shoshone, and working with a medicine man to prepare to play Isaac. Doing the most is a nonnegotiable for Kitsch, who previously told The New York Times that this kind of prep is "the only thing that eliminates self-doubt."

While he had to start from scratch to build out both the charismatic cult leader and the rugged frontiersman, Kitsch already had a personal connection to Glen Kryger, the opioid-addicted car mechanic he played in "Painkiller."

"That one was so fucking important to me," Kitsch said. The subject matter hit close to home; his sister has struggled with opioid addiction.

"She's eight years clean now," he said. "She was my advisor on the show, so it doesn't get more full circle than that, to have her with me, and me ironically playing the addict and her telling me how."

Despite the rabid fandom Kitsch inspired on "Friday Night Lights," he said more people have reached out to say they were touched by his performance in "Painkiller" than about any other job he's done.

"To humanize and hopefully bring up a conversation of that and to normalize it, not put shame towards that, meant the world to me," Kitsch said.

Kitsch wants to keep telling stories he cares about

Up next for Kitsch is a return to one of his most popular roles (no, not that one). He'll be reprising his role as former Navy SEAL Ben Edwards on Amazon's "The Terminal List" prequel "Dark Wolf" opposite Chris Pratt, who plays the lead character in the flagship series.

He also wants to prioritize getting his own project off the ground: telling his sister's story.

"Her story is just, it's insane and very empowering and inspiring," Kitsch said. "I'd love to direct that and keep it at a crazy low budget so I have creative control."

Not on the agenda? Stressing over things like viewership numbers or ticket sales.

"Here's a good story," Kitsch recalled. "I was living in Austin doing 'Friday Night Lights,' and it had just been the opening weekend of 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine.' And it was Monday and I was going to a different movie, and all of a sudden, all these texts came in like, 'Oh, congratulations. Oh my God, the box office. BO is at $70-something million!' and all this," he said.

"I was with my girlfriend at the time and I was like, 'I have no idea what this means,'" he continued. "All these congrats were coming in. And I'm like, 'What are we celebrating?'"

Years later, Kitsch has held onto that desire to ignore outside expectations. He's keeping that in mind when it comes to how his new projects, like "American Primeval," are received.

Still, he's hopeful the show will lead to more opportunities to immerse himself so fully in a character that he disappears — the work he loves best.

"We'll see what happens," he said. "I'll just keep swinging regardless."

• My twins are both in college, and they just so happened to go to the same school.
• Their dorm rooms show just how different their personalities really are.
• My daughter's dorm is decorated with her favorite things, while my son took a minimalist approach.

My twins both attend Fordham University in New York, but that's where their similarities stop.

Over the summer before their freshman year, my daughter asked me several times, "When can we go shopping for my college dorm room?"

Once we picked a day, we asked her twin brother if he wanted to join, and his answer was, "Nope."

Meanwhile, their younger sister was excited not only to join us but also offered to help pick out items like a comforter for her brother.

Although they're twins, this difference reflects their differing personalities. My daughter is a planner and an artist who loves colors and design. She likes to know what to expect. She also had a clear vision of how she wanted her dorm room to look. Her plans weren't extravagant; she didn't hire interior designers like some students.

My son, on the other hand, is laid back and more of a "go with the flow" type. So it wasn't surprising that he was only interested in purchasing the essentials — with no preference for colors or materials. We bought him a plain gray comforter and basic items like sheets and towels.

The process of decorating the dorms showed their personalities

When we arrived at their college, it took about twice as long to move my daughter in compared to her twin brother. He's a minimalist, so he didn't have a lot of clothes or extra furniture like his sister did. She brought a rug, chair, rolling cart with shelves, and all her art supplies.

Once they were moved in, the process of decorating began. As you can imagine, it didn't take my son too long to make his bed and unpack his clothes. Whereas his sister spent several hours lining up her posters and artwork, organizing drawers, and arranging string lights.

She brought a plant because she loves the outdoors. Over the summer, she worked at a garden center, and she frequently went on hikes or outdoor runs.

The following year showed some changes but also stayed the same

For their sophomore year, they used most of the same décor from their freshman year — with a few additions.

My daughter's plant didn't survive her freshman year, so she decided to purchase a new one from the New York Botanical Garden. As a Fordham student, she receives free admission to the gardens and goes on weekly runs along the trails. By buying a plant there, she hoped to bring her love for the outdoors into her dorm. She also bought a plant poster from the gift shop that identifies different plant varieties and added some of her own newly created artwork to the walls.

My son still has his basic gray comforter, but he added a rug and some posters. He loves music, so most of the posters reflect his musical tastes. He doesn't watch much television, but over the summer, he watched "Breaking Bad" with his friends, so he decided to get a poster from the show. Since his dorm is dimly lit in the basement, he added some LED strip lights that change colors. His personality is slowly coming through in his dorm room.

Still, their shared college has brought them together

Despite their different personalities and interests, attending the same college has brought them closer.

My daughter even helped her brother pick out the rug for his dorm this year. They've also decided to meet for dinner once a week to explore the city's restaurants.

Who knows — maybe while they dine, they will swap décor tips and start a quirky twin design business.