Legendary college basketball coach Jim Boeheim had high praise, and a lofty comparison, for Duke star Cooper Flagg.

Boeheim, 80, was asked how good Flagg is when compared to some of the NBA’s greats. 

"I think he is almost – to me, he’s [Larry] Bird-like, a little bit. Except he is quicker, faster, more athletic, doesn’t shoot it as well, but his shot’s coming," Boeheim said during a recent appearance on OutKick’s "Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich."

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In 27 games played, Flagg is averaging 19.5 points per game while averaging nearly eight rebounds and four assists per game. 

The 18-year-old Maine native is the catalyst for a 24-3 Duke team that is currently ranked second in the nation behind Auburn. 

To Boeheim, it’s clear that Flagg is the best player in the college game. 

"People that say other people are better than him just don’t know anything about basketball. I mean it’s just crazy.  I mean they’ve got to be – I don’t know what they’re watching. Maybe they are just trying to be contrarian or something, I don’t know," Boeheim said. 

DUKE STAR COOPER FLAGG, PROJECTED TO BE NO 1 PICK IN NBA DRAFT, MAKES SURPRISE ADMISSION ABOUT FUTURE

"Cooper Flagg, he’s the best all-around player in terms of doing all the things in college basketball that I’ve seen. I mean there’s better shooters, better rebounders, better passers, but he’s a defender."

There is something else Boeheim says Flagg brings to the table in addition to being one of the best all-around players.

"I’ve talked to [former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski] about this. He’s got an edge to him. He’s not backing down from nobody, and in a good way," he said.

Boeheim has seen a lot of great basketball players throughout his long coaching career, including Carmelo Anthony, who helped lead Syracuse to a National Championship in 2003. 

Boeheim was Syracuse’s head coach from 1976 to 2023 and amassed a career record of 1,015-441.

Boeheim led Syracuse to the Final Four five times and was the Big East regular champion 10 times while winning the Big East tournament five times. 

If Boeheim is right, and Flagg turns out to have a career like Larry Bird's, whichever team that drafts him will be thrilled.

Bird is in the Basketball Hall of Fame. He was a three-time MVP and three-time NBA Champion while making 12 All-Star games.

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• Grant Sabatier built wealth by saving and investing the majority of his money in index funds.
• He'll always recommend index funds, but he also thinks people should be investing in themselves.
• Specifically, he advises developing AI skills.

Grant Sabatier understands better than most the power of index-fund investing: The strategy helped him build a seven-figure net worth and hit financial independence by age 30.

Today, at 40, he still primarily invests in index funds.

"Ninety-plus percent of my assets are still just in a Vanguard total stock market index fund. I've been keeping it simple since I started investing in 2010 and we've all seen what the market has done over that time," he told Business Insider. "So, just being a passive investor in that sense has continued to pay dividends. I really haven't changed a whole lot, and I still stand by the strategy."

The self-made millionaire, author, and new bookstore owner will always recommend buying index funds. But there's one, perhaps overlooked investment that he recommends additionally: "Invest in your skills because skills are future currency."

Skills allow you to adapt to a world that's "changing faster than ever," he said. "Having those skills and keeping those skills up to date is something that you often don't have to spend much money on — it just takes some time — but it is really, really valuable. I would double down on that."

Specifically, he'd invest time into learning about artificial intelligence — how it works and how you can leverage it.

"AI is poised to transform most industries in ways we are only beginning to predict. Savvy entrepreneurs are already looking for ways to adopt and adapt so they're not left behind," he writes in his new book, "Inner Entrepreneur," which he describes as a blueprint he's designed after 15 years of launching, acquiring, and selling business.

Sabatier, who built wealth by buying, scaling, and selling websites, has always leveraged technology to save him time and money.

"We use technology to manage our payroll, health insurance, 401(k), human resource support, podcast editing, email funnels, and more," he writes. "AI is making this even more accessible and affordable."

Learning AI is beneficial to any working individual, not just entrepreneurs and business owners.

"More recruiters and companies are going to be adding those questions about AI fluency and experience to their interviews and screenings," he told BI. "The more you know about it and the more well-versed you are, the more attractive of a full-time job candidate you are, so it's just as useful in your full-time job hunting as it is pursuing entrepreneurship."

He acknowledges that AI is a massive space and "it's impossible to keep track of everything, so try to pick a lane and spend a couple of hours a week experimenting with one or two tools just so you can have a conversation and stay relevant."

Choosing to invest in yourself by honing a skill doesn't mean abandoning your investment portfolio.

"You should simultaneously be building your skills while you're growing your investment portfolio," he said, which is easier to do if you simplify your investment strategy. "It's pretty easy to passively invest in an index fund. Use all that additional time you're saving from tracking individual stocks to learn some new skills or beef up the skills that you have. The world's just changing so rapidly. I'd rather future proof my skills than add complexity to my investments."

One of America's greatest love affairs is with cheap stuff. Yes, consumers generally want things to come fast, and sure, they'd like them to be of decent quality — but above all, what they really care about is the price tag.

Many retailers understand this obsession and are eager to cater to price-sensitive customers. But serving this desire does not guarantee success: The single-minded focus on price means that often we can be pretty disloyal about where our cheap stuff comes from. And in a race to the bottom, there's always someone willing to go lower. At the moment, that's the Chinese online retailers Temu and Shein, whose rock-bottom prices are proving almost impossible to beat for American companies.

Some formerly hot big-name retailers have had a tough go of it as of late. Liberated Brands — the operator of the beloved millennial brands Billabong, Quiksilver, and Volcom — filed for bankruptcy in February and said it would close all its US locations. The fast-fashion retailer Forever 21 is reportedly mulling filing for bankruptcy for the second time in five years. According to the research and advisory firm Coresight, major US retailers announced 7,325 store closures in 2024, up by 33% from 2023 and the highest number since 2020. The bloodbath has continued into 2025: More than 3,000 store closures have already been announced this year. Names such as Big Lots, Party City, Joann, Kohl's, Dollar Tree, and Macy's are shuttering locations. And it's not just physical retailers that are struggling — shares of the online retailer Etsy tumbled after it reported disappointing sales numbers during the holiday season.

When a retailer is having a hard time, it's usually for a multitude of reasons — poor management, a declining brand, changing consumer tastes, etc. But in many of these cases, one quite new factor is contributing to their troubles: supercheap Shein and Temu, which are increasingly hard to contend with. Many American consumers love to cycle through stuff rapidly and thoughtlessly, and the Chinese retailers let them do that in an unrivaled manner.

"What they've done that hurts the competition the most is compete so strongly on price that, yes, it makes it very difficult for anyone else to compete in that way without losing that money," said Sky Canaves, a principal analyst of retail and e-commerce at EMARKETER. "It puts other retailers on the back foot."

In the realm of cheap stuff, there's no such thing as cheap enough.

Liberated Brands has blamed several factors for its bankruptcy, including inflation and a volatile economy, but inexpensive online retailers are also contributing to its woes. In a sworn declaration accompanying the company's bankruptcy filing, its CEO, Todd Hymel, said the company had faced challenges from "shifting consumer preferences" toward fast fashion and e-commerce that harmed its pricing power and profitability.

"Consumers can cheaply, quickly, and easily order low-quality clothing garments from fast fashion powerhouses and have such goods delivered within days," he said. "These fast-fashion companies can cater to micro-trends as opposed to the traditional seasonal trend-forecasting retail model."

Forever 21 finds itself in a similar position, struggling to contend with Chinese e-commerce companies that can undercut it on price and are relatively indistinguishable, quality-wise. (You probably can't tell if a dress was from Shein or Forever 21 without looking at the tag.) In 2023, Forever 21 announced a partnership with Shein in an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" move. But apparently, even that hasn't been enough. For its part, Etsy made its name as a marketplace for personalized, handcrafted items from tiny creators. In recent years, though, it has expanded into offering inexpensive mass-produced goods in an effort to keep up. The problem is that whatever T-shirt you can get printed off Etsy for cheap you can probably find on Temu (or Amazon) for even cheaper.

Liberated pointed to a press release about its bankruptcy filing and otherwise declined to comment for this story. Forever 21, Shein, and Temu did not respond to requests for comment. Etsy declined to comment.

Most retailers don't outright say that Shein and Temu are a problem for them. It's not a great look to admit that you're hemorrhaging customers because you can't compete with e-commerce companies selling the lowest-quality, lowest-priced versions of everything you make. But if you read between the lines, the issue is present.

"Retailers sometimes are talking about consumer behaviors or cautious spending, and we think some of the siphoning off of sales to Shein and Temu is getting bundled up in the overall narrative of consumer caution," said John Mercer, the head of global research at Coresight. "Yeah, there's been some caution, totally, but some of what companies are reporting under that could be losing sales to Shein and Temu."

Coresight has estimated that Shein and Temu may be a $100 billion threat to traditional retailers.

Shein and Temu mostly employ well-trodden tactics from other retailers and push them to the limit in ways other companies can't. Instead of American companies manufacturing their stuff in China and shipping it over to the US, they decided to cut in on the action by making and shipping stuff themselves. The more direct supply chain allowed Shein and Temu to get agile and efficient enough to feed the American consumerist beast.

"You have to appreciate the fact that China for decades was always known as the country that merely manufactured products for other retailers," said Brittain Ladd, a retail and supply-chain consultant. "Shein and Temu, what they did is they researched retail in the US and Europe and so forth, and what they determined is we can do better. We actually can take what makes us special, our capabilities and manufacturing and supply chains and low-cost sourcing, all of that, and we can create business models where we can beat the best retailers in the United States."

Shein, which has been around since 2008, can quickly identify fashion trends and get them marketed, produced, and shipped to consumers' doors. The garments may take longer to arrive than if they came from Amazon, but the price makes them appealing. Temu, a newer entrant that sells items well beyond clothes, has the benefit of a monster parent company, the Chinese giant PDD Holdings, that allows it to set super-low prices that essentially no other retailer can stomach. It's not all that different from what Amazon did when it started out, losing money on e-commerce to get customers.

"They're backed by a very deep-pocketed parent company that is willing to lose money for a sustained period of time to gain market share in the US and elsewhere in the world," Canaves said. "It's a very aggressive strategy."

Now, I know what you might be thinking here: What about Trump and the tariffs and all this talk of taking on China? Shein and Temu have a plan for that — or at least they may not have to worry too too much.

Historically, Shein and Temu have been able to take advantage of a tax loophole that allows importers to avoid paying duties and taxes on shipments worth less than $800, known as the "de minimis" exemption. (Because what they sell is so inexpensive, it's tough to get to $800 in a single order, so they can put a bunch of orders together, too.) For some context, nearly 1.4 billion shipments entered the US through the de minimis exemption last year. Early in his term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order trying to close that loophole. Shein and Temu were prepared and had already been fulfilling more orders from the US and building up inventory stateside. Still, the executive order caused so much chaos at ports that it was put on pause. If the pause is lifted, the scenario won't be ideal for Shein and Temu, but it won't be a killer either.

"They're just simply storing the inventory in the US, just like other retailers do," Ladd said. "And even though that's a higher-cost methodology, it still allows them to sell their products at a price point much cheaper than anyone else."

It's a similar story with the 10% tariff Trump has imposed on goods from China. It's not great for Temu and Shein, but it's also well below the 60% Trump was floating on the campaign trail. It's relatively easy to pass some of that increase on to customers, and since plenty of their competitors import from China, too, they can keep their relative price advantage.

"Shein and Temu are rock bottom of the market," Mercer said. "If the whole market is rising in price, you can put your price up and still be rock bottom."

Some retailers have been able to ward off the Shein and Temu threat. Walmart and Amazon may not be able to go as low on prices, but they also offer things the Chinese e-commerce companies don't: faster delivery, groceries, different products. In November, Amazon launched Haul, a section of its app that, ironically, looks and works like a knockoff Temu. Other retailers at risk of going the way of Billabong or Forever 21 have managed to reinvent themselves and retain relevance, such as Gap and Abercrombie.

"You're not going to be able to outcompete Shein or Temu on price, so you have to build that almost emotional relationship with" customers, Mercer said. "You have to stand for more than low prices."

Ladd added, "Retailers go out of business because they lose relevance with customers."

Not to let flailing retailers off the hook here, but they're not dealing with the easiest of circumstances. Inflation has been a problem. The economy is unstable. It's not clear what tariffs and trade conflicts will mean for the retail industry. They're also managing a price-obsessed American consumer who's easily lured away.

We're attracted to cheap stuff not because of its quality but because it has a low enough price that allows us to constantly churn through the stuff, said Wendy Woloson, a history professor at Rutgers University who wrote "Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America."

"We don't have to make commitments to the things around us because if they're cheap enough and if they're available enough, then I can always buy something else," Woloson said.

When the barrier to entry is so low, there's no significant consequence of consuming like this. Hate that mousepad you got on Temu? Who cares; it was $2.74. Woloson noted that some people can't afford to buy something nicer, but even if everyone could, it's not clear they would. We live in an era of flash fads. People don't want a $200 pair of jeans that'll last for a decade — they want a $20 pair they can toss when the next trend cycles through.

"I think we're really bored," Woloson said.

At the moment, Shein and Temu are winning a race to satiate the insatiable American consumer, and they're undercutting retailers big and small in the process.

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

• Chipotle is using AI chatbot "Ava Cado" to hire 20,000 workers for burrito season.
• AI hiring tools streamline recruitment but can frustrate applicants.
• It's unlikely AI hiring chatbots are going anywhere soon, they just have some kinks to work out.

Evalyn Mendoza has applied to work at Chipotle twice in the last 12 months. Last June, submitting her materials was a breeze. This January, the 33-year-old worked with a new kind of recruiter: an AI chatbot named "Ava Cado."

After asking some simple questions about her name, contact information, and availability to work, Ava Cado scheduled an interview for Mendoza at a Chipotle location 35 minutes away in Selma, California.

But the chatbot misled her. "There was pretty much no way to really contact them," Mendoza said of trying to reach the store. Upon arriving, the manager told her there were no open positions and that the AI system had mistakenly scheduled the appointment.

"I was really frustrated at that time because I had that problem with McDonald's and other AI," Mendoza said. "Having this problem be the third or fourth time that I've had issues with AI — it was just getting to me."

Chipotle is one of several major companies that use AI-powered recruiting. Paradox, the company that supplies the software for Chipotle's Ava Cado, has been working with other large retail, fast food, and service companies like Lowe's, FedEx, and McDonald's to hire new talent using AI. Other workplaces like Mastercard and Stanford Health Care partner with Phenom's AI-recruiting platform. A recent survey by Resume Builder found that 70% of surveyed business leaders were using AI to hire.

We're about to enter "burrito season," Chipotle's busiest time of the year from March through May when customers awaken from their winter slumber craving the fast-casual Mexican grill. This year, the chain is firing up Ava Cado to help hire 20,000 new workers to meet the demand.

"'Ava Cado' has helped streamline our processes in order to capitalize on top talent faster and remain competitive in high volume hiring," Ilene Eskenazi, Chipotle's chief human resources officer, wrote in an email to Business Insider.

While companies like Chipotle are reaping the benefits of expediting their hiring process, it hasn't necessarily made it easier for every candidate to apply.

Mendoza said the opaqueness of the AI hiring process has left applicants like her stranded and isolated.

"It's made the whole process a lot less personal and I feel like that's why it's become a harder time finding a job through AI because it just treats the people like me like a number," she added.

Pros and cons of AI hiring

In a press release, Chipotle said applications have nearly doubled since it started using the recruiting software Paradox to power Ava Cado last October. The completion rate has increased from 50% to over 85% and the average time it takes for a candidate to start work after applying has been cut from 12 days to just four.

Adam Godson, the CEO of Paradox, said the key to recruiting for these kinds of roles is making it easy and fast.

"That's actually the paradox for which we're named," Godson said. "By using technology, you actually spend more time with people and not software."

Answer a few fact-based questions like contact information, availability to work, and ability to physically lift items and voilà, a candidate is scheduled for an interview that could happen as soon as the next day.

"If you make it easy with the device they have, through text messaging, for example, and you can make it fast, then people will come to work," Godson said.

More and more companies are trying it out, said Andrew Chamberlain, a former chief economist at Glassdoor, even if small businesses aren't likely to use such technology.

"Less than 1% of employers have 500 or more employees, but those are really huge companies, and they employ a lot of people," Chamberlain said, referring to Glassdoor's US research. "This is the future that they're going to increasingly invest in this technology, and they'll be more and more automated."

He added that young people, those without a college degree, and lower-skilled workers in retail and customer service are most likely to encounter AI in their experiences. While companies stand to gain dividends from this hiring technology, candidates applying for roles might not equally share those benefits.

"I wouldn't be very excited about going through an interview process just dealing with a chatbot," Chamberlain said. "The tools are better today than ever before, and they're getting better. They're definitely not as good as talking to a human being."

On Reddit, at least half a dozen posts in Chipotle-themed forums discussed the difficulty in scheduling an interview. Candidates described arriving at a store for an appointment with a manager only to be stood up. Managers described having AI schedule appointments outside of their stated availability.

In written statements to Business Insider, Paradox said that clients have the option to integrate their calendar to schedule interviews automatically. Chipotle said that Ava Cado notifies managers when interviews are scheduled.

Godson said Paradox incorporates a short survey that allows candidates to rate their interactions with AI chatbots in the hiring process—98% of applicants, he said, report satisfaction. For Chipotle, that rating is nearly 89% positive, according to the fast-casual chain.

With any emerging technologies, there will be bumps in the road. One of the drawbacks and risks of using automation in the hiring process, said Chamberlain, is that it could negatively impact how they perceive a company's work culture. This could impact hiring as more and more young people are already feeling more alienated from work.

"If they get a reputation from their AI tool, that somehow this terrible place to apply, it definitely will hurt them in the long run," Chamberlain said. He said that companies might lose out on the best candidates if their reputation is tarnished. "It'll cancel out the benefits they're expecting to get."

So far, there's been no AI backlash at Chipotle. Since announcing their hiring spree, the company has seen a 20% increase in applications, Chipotle representatives said. And it doesn't seem they plan on firing Ava Cado any time soon.

"We will continue to leverage AI to relieve General Managers of administrative tasks, so they can focus on their day-to-day operations and providing excellent hospitality for guests," Eskenzani wrote.

Do you have a story to share about AI and the job search? Contact this reporter at [email protected] or securely via Signal at jdeng.20. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

With the help of President Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) muscled a budget package through the House — a win he claimed will give him momentum to pass "Trump's full America First agenda — not just parts of it."

Why it matters: Johnson's dream of one big, beautiful bill will live another day. But so will the reality of his razor-thin House GOP majority.

• The extraordinary evening was an early taste of the chaos to come.

Zoom in: Just before 7:30pm ET, lawmakers began filing out of the House chamber after being told votes were done for the evening. Leadership thought they had too many holdouts to risk a vote.

Just 13 minutes later lawmakers were streaming back in — the vote was on.

• "I just got a call from my office, they said 'Come back, the vote is back on,'" exclaimed a befuddled Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.).
• Some lawmakers had already been long gone. Several told Axios they were at dinner. At least one was at a Capitol Hill bar. Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) said he was "halfway home."
• "I was already in my pajamas," quipped Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wisc.). The whole dynamic was "very odd," said Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.).

Between the lines: Both parties pulled out all the stops to try and ensure their preferred outcome.

• Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.) showed up despite giving birth less than a month ago. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) voted despite being sick.
• Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-Calif.), who is recovering from a blood clot in his leg and a knee infection contracted from surgery, arrived to vote using a walker.
• Only Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Calif.), 77, who has missed nearly every vote since Jan. 3 as he undergoes cancer treatment, was absent.

Zoom out: Remember, this procedural bill was the easy part.

• Passing the actual bill — which could include deep cuts to Medicaid — will require Republicans of all stripes to subordinate their personal goals for the overall ambitions of the party and their president.
• House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is salivating at the opportunity to put Republicans on the record on their planned cuts, especially on social safety net programs.

What's next: Now Senate GOP Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has to decide whether he wants to accept, or try to amend, the House budget reconciliation package.

• Many of his members, including Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), want to make dramatic changes, including how Congress counts the cost of Trump's 2017 tax cuts.

Apple said Tuesday it's working to fix an iPhone bug after some users reported its automatic dictation feature briefly displays "Trump" when they say "racist" before the text-to-speech transcription software corrects itself.

The big picture: A viral TikTok video of the glitch that Apple says erroneously suggests the word "trump" when users dictate some words that also include an "r" consonant caused outrage among conservatives online who've accused Big Tech of political bias.

• The glitch underscores artificial intelligence's accuracy problems as the technology develops and as companies like Apple move to make AI a key differentiator in choosing a smartphone.

Zoom in: Apple says the glitch is sometimes occurring during initial analysis when the speech recognition models that power dictation have on occasions displayed words that contain some phonetic overlap, but then further analysis identifies the intended word.

What they're saying: "We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers Dictation and we are rolling out a fix today," an Apple spokesperson said in an emailed statement Tuesday evening.

Singer-songwriter scored his first hit aged 12, and was known for hits such as ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ and ‘If You Don’t Want My Love’

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The pair would now be related through their children

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