• US media agency giant Horizon Media is on the hunt for acquisitions, CEO Bill Koenigsberg told BI.
• The agency wants to enhance its expertise in retail technology, influencer, and sports marketing.
• Industry observers expect a raft of ad agency acquisitions in 2025.

Advertising company Horizon Media is actively searching for acquisitions as it sets its sights on aggressive expansion in 2025.

Horizon Media CEO Bill Koenigsberg told Business Insider in an interview that the agency is particularly interested in teams with strong expertise in areas such as retail technology, influencer marketing, and sports marketing.

Koenigsberg said Horizon feels reinvigorated following a series of significant moves over the last 18 months. It's added a number of senior hires, restructured the agency to embed product teams with its business-solutions groups, launched a creative agency, and significantly increased investment in its data platform Blu.

"We're 35 years old as a company, but I'll tell you that we're a startup all over again," Koenigsberg told BI.

"Now I have to figure out how to add significantly more resources to get us even faster," he said, though he added Horizon isn't looking for additional investment itself.

Advertising industry insiders have predicted that 2025 could be a banner year for acquisitions in the sector, kickstarted by the merger of Omnicom and Interpublic Group. That deal, which is expected to close in the second half of the year, will create the world's largest ad agency holding group.

"The Omnicom-IPG merger process will likely bring about a period of friction in which agencies compete for accounts and employees," wrote Tim Nollen, senior media tech analyst at Macquarie, in a research note earlier this month. "It could quite possibly also usher in more M&A, whether large or small."

Horizon hasn't been an active acquirer in the past

With around 2,400 people responsible for about $8.5 billion in annual media investment, Horizon is the largest media agency in the US, according to industry trade Ad Age. It's also the biggest global independent media agency — which means it isn't attached to a wider holding company like many of its similar-sized peers — per marketing benchmarking company COMvergence. Media agencies plan and buy ad campaigns across platforms, from digital and TV to billboards and newspapers.

While Horizon has expanded its services into areas like retail media and influencer marketing, it has largely kept to the sidelines when it comes to M&A. Advertising holding companies like WPP, Publicis Groupe, and Stagwell typically do at least half a dozen investments or acquisitions in any given year. Horizon's last acquisition — the sports marketing agency Blake Sports Group — was completed in 2023.

"We probably looked at over 20 acquisitions over the last two years with Temasek," said Koenigsberg, referring to the Singapore-based investment firm Horizon sold a minority stake to in 2021.

Koenigsberg said there was "nothing out there that we felt was worth what some of these companies were asking."

Horizon is looking at international expansion

According to the media advisory firm R3, Horizon ranked 12th among US media agencies for new business. The agency brought in an estimated $6.7 million in new revenue in 2024 through November, per R3, winning clients including Wegmans, ADT, and Auctane.

Greg Paull, president of growth at R3, said Horizon had diversified its services into data, retail media, and social media but added that it needed more of an international edge.

Horizon has offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto. For clients with international needs, it works with the Local Planet Network, a consortium of independent media agencies across 85 markets.

"While all media is local, more and more big media reviews are global — Horizon needs to find partners, or else it will struggle to access the world's largest clients," Paull said.

Koenigsberg said he's focused on helping Horizon get stronger outside the US.

"That's one of our top three priorities," Koenigsberg said. "How do we get more aggressively globally, keeping in mind there's a massive amount of US business for us to go after."

Bob Lord, an advertising veteran formerly of IBM, AOL, and Publicis Groupe, joined Horizon this month as the company's president and will lead the agency's acquisition hunt.

"I acquired nine different companies when I was at AOL in a span of two years to build up that platform," Lord told BI.

"If you think about the small little speed boats that can be added from a technology standpoint, that's the hypothesis I have," Lord said.

• The UAE ranks second in the world for average hours worked a week.
• Employees there work an average 51 hours a week, far beyond the US average of 38.
• Expats in Dubai, the UAE commercial hub, told BI their work is intense but richly rewarded.

"I've been on a treadmill before on my work phone, doing barrier options," said Nick Fowler, 33, a British man who moved to the United Arab Emirates two years ago. "It can get a bit ridiculous sometimes."

(Barrier options are a financial product common in asset management, Fowler's industry.)

He is one of the millions of foreigners drawn to Dubai by its year-round sunshine, tax-free income, and its abundant luxury.

But it comes with a catch: they end up working more than nearly anyone else in the world.

The UAE ranks second globally for the highest average weekly working hours per employed person, according to the International Labour Organization.

Employees in the UAE work an average of 50.9 hours a week, far exceeding the 38-hour average in the US and the 35.9-hour average in Fowler's native UK.

The top spot goes to the reclusive Himalayan nation of Bhutan, with 54.4 hours.

Fowler told Business Insider that his typical workday starts around 8 a.m. and ends at 6:30 p.m., often without a proper break as he eats lunch at his desk. His day rarely ends there.

"I've been on dates before [where] I've had to send emails," he said, "and colleagues have rung me when I've sat down to eat dinner."

Luxury, but at a cost

Patrick James, 32, also from the UK, moved to Dubai six years ago.

He had been there on vacation before and was largely unimpressed, but was still drawn to the city by its financial opportunities.

He told BI he was offered a salary twice what he earned as a teacher in London.

While his teaching job in London often ran from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., a recent teaching role in Dubai had him working 12 to 14 hours a day.

Across a five-day week with a shorter Friday, that puts him around 50 hours a week, close to the UAE norm.

"My child is two now," he said. "I wasn't seeing him. He'd wake up, I'd leave at home, and he'd be asleep, and I'd get home, and he'd be asleep."

For a short while, James could justify the sacrifice. "You're working, you're grinding, you're saving your money, and then you get to go on these luxurious holidays," he said.

Eventually, it became too much. Last March, he switched to a remote role with a Japanese health and wellness company, giving him the flexibility to set his own hours while still in Dubai.

James said that he believes that so many expats in Dubai just accept the long hours because of the competitiveness of its job market.

"If you are not good at your job, they'll get rid of you and get someone else," he said.

A highly competitive market

"It is commonly known that in the expatriate market in the UAE, supply is higher than demand," Fiona Robson, a professor of human resources management at Heriot-Watt University, Dubai, told BI.

"This can lead to less power for expatriates if they can be replaced easily, particularly if specialist skills are not needed at the point of recruitment," she added.

For some, the pressure to perform can feel overwhelming. Eigher Noceda, a Filipina who spent seven years in Dubai working in sales, felt an unspoken expectation to exceed her contractual hours.

"They will not say no if you like to overwork," she said. "If you want to stay after six, it's up to you. If you work on Saturday, they'll not tell you, 'Oh, why are you here? You should go home.'"

Eventually, Noceda realized that Dubai's work culture wasn't for her.

"If you always like to work and you always have the energy to network and really work your ass off, this is the place for you," she said.

But for Noceda, having a work-life balance was more important, so she moved to Italy, where she said she found a work culture that suited her better.

A 'high-context culture'

Rizwan Tahir, professor of International Business at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Dubai, attributes the UAE's intense work culture, in part, to its "high-context culture," which relies on implicit understandings and unspoken expectations.

Unlike "low-context cultures" in Western countries like Italy — where employees typically adhere strictly to contracts — Tahir said employers in high-context cultures may expect longer hours, additional responsibilities, and availability outside regular work hours, even if not explicitly outlined in contracts.

Tahir highlighted that this dynamic is particularly prevalent in the UAE's private sector, where expatriates form the majority.

"The expectation of long working hours is often deeply ingrained, with many expatriates feeling pressure to demonstrate commitment and loyalty through their availability," he said.

Tahir said: "This cultural difference can lead to misunderstandings, increased stress, and significant challenges in maintaining a healthy work-life balance for expatriates."

Despite the challenges, for some, the trade-offs are still worth it.

Fowler, the British expat in finance, feels the rewards outweigh the sacrifices.

Thanks to his work in Dubai, he has been able to afford a sports car, live alone, and travel extensively.

He said: "I have a much better life here than I had in London by a long way."

• Spirit Airlines has updated its rules for passengers.
• It said passengers with lewd tattoos or who are inadequately clothed can be denied boarding.
• Being "inadequately clothed" includes "exposed breasts, buttocks, or other private parts."

Spirit Airlines has tightened its rules for passengers.

Effective as of last Wednesday, the changes outline unacceptable clothing and appearances for travelers.

Section 4.3 of Spirit's Contract of Carriage says passengers won't be allowed to board or may be required to leave a plane if they are "inadequately clothed."

For example, it lists "see-through clothing; not adequately covered; exposed breasts, buttocks, or other private parts."

The rules also say clothing or body art, like tattoos, that are "lewd, obscene, or offensive in nature" may also result in removal.

Passengers also aren't allowed to be barefoot.

Most airlines have fairly vague policies on things like clothing, meaning it is usually left to employees like gate agents and the flight crew to decide what is, or is not, acceptable.

Spirit is now being more precise with the definition of "inadequately clothed."

It comes after several incidents across US airlines have made headlines in recent years.

Fliers have said they have been denied boarding or escorted off a plane for such reasons as wearing leggings, shorts that were too short, and not wearing a bra under a T-shirt.

Disruptions during or after the boarding process can cause delays. These might not only be annoying for fellow passengers but can also impact the airline's bottom line. As a budget airline, Spirit relies on having its planes flying as much as possible.

The airline has been struggling in recent months.

Spirit filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last November. It announced plans to sell $500 million worth of planes and cut staff.

• New Zealand is easing visitor visa rules to allow tourists to work remotely while there.
• The country has faced economic headwinds, with a recession and rising unemployment in 2024.
• The digital nomad initiative aims to boost tourism, a vital industry for New Zealand's economy.

New Zealand's government is relaxing visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while in the country, in a bid to boost its struggling economy.

Starting Monday, tourists will be allowed to work remotely for a foreign employer while vacationing there, as part of a new "digital nomad" initiative.

"The change is part of the Government's plan to unlock New Zealand's potential by shifting the country onto a faster growth track," the country's economic growth minister, Nicola Willis, said in a joint statement.

Last year, New Zealand's economy faced significant challenges, with the OECD describing its economic momentum as "weak."

In the third quarter, New Zealand sank into a technical recession, and in November unemployment rose to a nearly four-year high.

New Zealand experienced the largest GDP contraction among developed nations in 2024, Paul Bloxham, HSBC's chief economist for New Zealand and Australia, told RNZ.

The relaxation in rules aims to bring in digital nomads, who have already flocked to countries such as Spain, Portugal, and Malta.

Many countries are targeting this market of often affluent young people. Twenty-nine other countries offer residence visas for remote workers, or "digital nomad visas," Business Insider reported last year.

"Making the country more attractive to 'digital nomads' — people who work remotely while traveling — will boost New Zealand's attractiveness as a destination," Willis said in the statement.

Tourism, once New Zealand's largest export earner before the COVID-19 pandemic, remains a vital industry for the country. Now the second-largest earner, it generates billions of dollars annually and supports nearly 200,000 jobs, Willis said.

Louise Upston, New Zealand's Minister for Tourism, said in the statement that digital nomads are a "brand-new market of tourist" that New Zealand can tap into.

She said they have the potential to spend more time and money in the country, including during the "shoulder season," when fewer tourists traditionally visit.

"Many countries offer digital nomad visas and the list is growing, so we need to keep pace to ensure New Zealand is an attractive destination for people who want to 'workcation' abroad," Upston said.

The rules have been relaxed for all visitor visas, including those for tourists, family visits, and partners or guardians on longer-term stays.

"This Government is committed to supporting a smarter, efficient and predictable immigration system to grow our economy," Erica Stanford, New Zealand's immigration minister, said.

However, New Zealand's Immigration Department urged digital nomads who intend to work remotely in the country for more than 92 days in a 12-month period to be aware of the tax implications.

• A video of Bridgette Vong, a former marketing specialist, breaking up with her partner went viral on TikTok.
• She leveraged the engagement to create a side hustle and then a full-time career as an influencer.
• The breakup was the "best thing that's ever happened" to her, she said.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Bridgette Vong, a 26-year-old content creator based in Toronto. It has been edited for length and clarity.

In July 2022, I posted a TikTok video of the final hug my ex-partner of five years and I shared before we broke up. Two years later, the breakup and posting about it are possibly the best thing that ever happened to me.

It never crossed my mind that recording our final goodbye wasn't a "normal" thing to do. I was into recording little moments of my life as sentimental keepsakes. I have a background in marketing and content creation so it was a creative outlet of mine.

I posted it to my few hundred followers and used hashtags — like #healingjourney and #postbreakup — but didn't expect it to blow up.

When I woke up the next day, I had 22,000 followers and the video had a million views. I thought it was a one-off, but the next few videos I posted, about how I was feeling and our last moments, also got millions of views.

People started sharing their breakup stories with me and asking for tips on how to stay strong. My content was inspiring, comforting, or relatable.

I had never seen anyone post about their breakup journey on TikTok before, but I thought I'd keep documenting my healing process to help all the girls who were sending me comments and asking for advice. It gave me so much purpose.

I knew I couldn't waste the opportunity

I thought to myself: "Okay Bridgette, you have some choices here. You have 30,000 followers all of a sudden, your comments and DMs are going crazy, you have always wanted to be Kylie Jenner — why don't you just keep posting?"

With a background in marketing, I knew I would be an idiot not to do something with the opportunity.

So, I started posting regularly. I didn't hope for financial gain or a career out of it, I just wanted to show people my journey and help those who resonated with it.

Even if the video hadn't gone viral, I would have kept posting regardless — I was just so passionate about encapsulating emotions into little videos. I wanted to document myself every day and see the progress I was going to make in my heartbreak journey, so that one day I could look back and see how far I had come.

I was 100% authentic and just shared how I was feeling that day, something my therapist said, or what was working for me at that moment. It was fun to do, and never felt like a task.

I owe my life to posting those silly videos. It gave me a project to dive into, and the community I found was single-handedly the most amazing resource for healing from the breakup.

I started to take it more seriously and earn money from influencing

Because marketing was my job, I already had a tripod, and knew to tag brands in posts and do simple things like have my contact email in my bio.

I was going to the gym a lot trying to "glow up" after the breakup, so I tagged lots of activewear brands in my posts in the hope they would repost my content. That's when brands started reaching out to me to invite me to events.

I got my first brand deal with Notion — $100 to use a product that I used anyway. Two months after it all kicked off, an agent reached out to me. I put my marketing hat on and started to think about how I could make a few hundred bucks a month as a little side hustle.

For the first year, I'd maybe get two brand deals a month. I was posting consistently, sometimes twice a day without really thinking about it, which built my personal brand and kept the followers coming.

By April 2023, I had healed from the breakup, and I didn't want to keep talking about it.

So I started posting more content about living alone in Toronto. I would still answer DMs about breakup advice, and the original video was still gaining traction, but I didn't want to be known as the "breakup girl."

I posted a video about my $15,000 of credit card debt, which blew up and got brand interest, so I was super strategic and used that to finally move away from posting about the breakup.

I started spending more time on my social media feeds than on my full-time job at the time, and it went incredibly well.

By January 2024, I realized I either needed to quit my full-time job or scale back on my content because I was spreading myself too thin. I took the chance and quit.

I've paid off my debt, do five-figure brand deals, and am making more than my corporate salary while working way fewer hours on my own schedule. It took a while to get used to, but it's been incredible, beyond my wildest dreams.

• People can't get enough of Timothée Chalamet's unusual marketing campaign for "A Complete Unknown."
• He performed deep-cut Bob Dylan songs on "Saturday Night Live!" and arrived at the London premiere on a rental bike.
• He's nominated for an Oscar and these stunts could help get the attention of the Academy Awards voting panel.

From rocking up to a premiere on a rental bike to performing a medley of Bob Dylan songs on "Saturday Night Live!" Timothée Chalamet has taken an unusual approach to his press tour for his latest movie, "A Complete Unknown."

These unconventional stunts are a smart tactic to break through the noise during a competitive awards season, marketing experts told Business Insider.

If they pay off, they could help clinch Chalamet his first Oscar, making him the youngest best actor winner in Academy Awards history.

Chalamet keeps going viral

In the last few months, Chalamet has gone viral for a number of unexpected side quests while promoting the James Mangold-directed biopic. Before the publicity campaign began in earnest, he showed up to a lookalike contest of himself last October, making him appear "down-to-earth," Katharina Stolley, a marketing lecturer specializing in the creative industries at the University of Birmingham, UK, said.

He kept up the stunts as the film hit theaters in December by surprising people with his "elite ball knowledge" on an ESPN panel, copying an unexpectedly casual and memed outfit of Dylan's at the New York premiere, and arriving to the London red carpet on a bright green e-bike that has become synonymous with young Londoners.

Then there was his circuit of interviews with niche internet celebrities with cult followings: Theo Von, Brittany Broski, and the eccentric journalist Nardwuar, who typically interviews musicians not actors.

Chalamet then used a more traditional promotional tactic this weekend: hosting the sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live!"

Even then he pushed the envelope, becoming the first actor to host and perform as an episode's musical guest, singing a selection of deep-cut Dylan tracks.

The appearance gave those who have not yet seen "A Complete Unknown" a glimpse of Chalamet's take on Dylan, while "endearing him to a new, wider audience," said Markus Wohlfiel, a senior lecturer in marketing at De Montfort University, UK.

Stolley said that these stunts cultivate a "relatable public image" and "reveal his commitment to staying connected with his audience."

Chalamet is at the center of a clever "guerrilla marketing campaign"

They also amount to, more or less, free publicity. Searchlight Pictures, the Disney-owned production and distribution company behind the film, rolled out a traditional marketing campaign for "A Complete Unknown," including press junkets, as well as advertising in print and in cinemas and on billboards.

But Wohlfiel said Chalamet's stunts have collectively delivered a "clever out-of-the-box guerrilla marketing campaign."

"As everyone is talking about it in the traditional and social media, creating interest in the actor and the movie, they are clearly achieving their objectives with hardly any financial investment," he said of Chalamet and his publicity team.

Carl Jones, a senior lecturer in digital media at the University of Westminster, UK, agreed that Chalamet's stunts are a cost-effective way of getting his name — and, by extension, the movie — out there.

"This type of activity is a free way to get a film talked about in the media. Usually advertising a film costs Hollywood studios millions of dollars, but doing a stunt only costs the price of the stunt," he said.

Better yet, the gambits match the theme of "A Complete Unknown," which covers a controversial period in Dylan's career in the 1960s when he switched from acoustic to electric guitar and took a gamble on a new sound; Chalamet is similarly walking an unorthodox path as a young star.

Chalamet's promotion of 'A Complete Unknown' has a second target — awards voters.

Although the actor lost out on a Golden Globe earlier this month, he is still in the running for a BAFTA, SAG Award, Critics' Choice Award, and the most coveted of all, an Oscar. These awards are chosen by panels of industry insiders and critics whom nominees must impress.

Ashanti Omkar, a film, TV, and culture critic and broadcaster who is a member of the voting body for the BAFTAs, said Chalamet's virality could help keep him on voters' radars.

"Promotions which are memorable can stick in the minds of busy voters who are juggling their full time jobs while also assessing what to vote for," Omkar said. "The stunts here are great for visibility, but it is Timothée's sheer hard work and talent that has gotten him this level of awards buzz for 'A Complete Unknown.'"

• FOBO was the new buzzword floating around Davos this year.
• The term represents employees' fears of being made obsolete by AI advances.
• Reverse mentoring and targeted upskilling can help employees stay relevant, business leaders told BI.

Rapid AI advances present an alluring opportunity for businesses to boost productivity and efficiency.

But while CEOs battle their FOMO and race to adopt the new technology, their employees are experiencing a different side of the AI revolution — FOBO, the fear of becoming obsolete.

It refers to workers' fears that the speed of AI development is outpacing the reskilling of employees, leaving them redundant in the workplace.

According to recent Gallup polling, FOBO is on the rise. 22% of US workers surveyed said they were worried their jobs would become obsolete because of technology, up from 15% in 2021.

FOBO was a buzzword that kept popping up around this year's Davos last week.

In a panel titled "Closing the Jobs Gap," Singapore's president, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, warned that a global jobs crisis is looming and called for governments and employers to continually invest in workers to increase the chances that AI complements their skills instead of rendering them obsolete.

Business leaders should be just as interested in doubling down on upskilling initiatives as they are purchasing the latest AI tools, Ravin Jesuthasan, a renowned future-of-work expert and author of "The Skills-Powered Organization," told Business Insider.

There's an ROI incentive to ensure their workers don't get left behind, he said.

"Just giving people access to Chat GPT, won't get you a return," said Jesuthasan. Adoption rates tend to be low when workers are just handed a tool, he said.

First, companies should make all training mandatory and set aside time for learning during the working day to encourage engagement, Jesuthasan said. But they should also be strategic in how they train the workforce, he said.

Where you really get the ROI is by identifying exactly what work is going to be substituted by AI, Jesuthasan explained. Employers can then take workers who have been freed up, assess what new skills they need, and retrain and deploy them with those skills to drive more growth, he said.

Rafee Tarafdar, Chief Technology Officer of Infosys, the Indian tech giant, also said that his company was seeing great success with its in-house learning platform.

Infosys has updated the system with Gen AI courses and created an incentive program that rewards employees when they complete modules. Employees are spending an average of 30 minutes a day learning on the platform, he said.

The platform's on-the-go nature was a big draw, he said. "If an employee wants to learn anytime, anywhere, on any device, they should have access to it."

Tarafdar also agreed that differentiating employees based on how they'll use AI was key to upskilling them effectively.

"We recognize that some of them will be consumers of AI, which means they will use the AI tools in order to become more productive and efficient, and some of them will be creators of AI. And then somewhere in between, we'll have builders, those whose skills will change."

He said that by developing courses in such a focused way, each employee is learning how to drive value for their specific job.

Reverse mentoring

FOBO could be a particular problem among more senior workers, Jesuthasan said. They might delegate tasks to a secretary or team rather than AI, and may not have received any significant technical training for 20 years, he said.

An approach Jesuthasan thinks will be effective in bridging the age gap is "reverse mentoring," where more mature workers partner up with younger folks who may be more adept with modern technology.

But it's not just digital skills, Jesuthasan said. Younger generations also have transversal skills and a different worldview that will become more useful in the AI future, he said.

"They're more adept because they've grown up in a much more volatile world. They've not had the luxury of saying, I'll be an engineer for life," said Jesuthasan.

Ultimately, though, individuals have to motivate themselves to avoid becoming redundant, the future-of-work expert said.

"Every one of us has to really force ourselves to be curious," he said. "The company can provide resources, the company can provide the space for re-skilling and upskilling, but the individual really has to bring the impetus for change."

• Lambda Labs COO Mitesh Agrawal has left to head AI hardware startup Positron.
• Lambda focuses on deploying cloud infrastructure to customers and is valued at over $2 billion.
• Positron aims to compete with Nvidia by offering faster, energy-efficient AI hardware.

Lambda Labs, a Nvidia partner, has lost its chief operating officer to a little-known company building hardware for the AI industry.

Lambda COO Mitesh Agrawal told Business Insider he stepped into a new role as CEO of Positron earlier this month. Positron builds hardware for transformer model inference, which is how chatbots like ChatGPT respond to user requests.

Agrawal's departure is significant given his role in shaping Lambda into one of Silicon Valley's best-funded and most valuable startups.

During its Series C round last February, the company was valued at about $1.5 billion. Agrawal declined to share the company's exact valuation but said it has grown to over $2 billion since then.

Agrawal told BI that when he joined Lambda in 2017, the company was focused on building machines for image generation models. This was five years after twin brothers Stephen and Michael Balaban founded it as a company developing facial recognition technology. It wasn't long after Agrawal's arrival, however, that the company shifted its focus, designing infrastructure for full-scale data centers and pivoting into cloud services.

He said Lambda's business now focuses on deploying cloud infrastructure to customers, renting out servers powered by Nvidia's graphics processing units. It also offers the requisite software, including APIs for inference and machine learning libraries for customers.

Agrawal said that his move to Positron comes amid a growing appetite for inference — the capacity for AI models to apply their training to new data.

Between chatbots like ChatGPT and xAI's Grok, and new reasoning models like OpenAI's o1 tackling PhD-level problems, "the curve of technology for inference is just going up, which means the computational requirement is really going up," Agrawal said. So, he said he's thinking a lot about "how to solve and how to run these models with as much efficiency as possible."

He believes Positron is well-positioned to take on that challenge.

Positron was founded in 2023 by Thomas Sohmers, whom Agrawal met in 2015. The two also overlapped at Lambda during Sohmers's stint at the company between 2020 and 2021. Sohmers, who will move into the role of chief technology officer, told BI that, in simplest terms, the company is "building hardware competing against Nvidia."

Positron says its hardware outperforms Nvidia's H100 and H200 GPUs — which fueled the AI race before it released its more powerful Blackwell chips — in performance, power, and affordability.

Going up against a behemoth like Nvidia — which overtook Apple as the world's most valuable company last week — is no easy task for an up-and-coming company. But by focusing more narrowly on providing hardware for transformer model inference, Sohmers said Positron can differentiate itself from the competition.

Transformer models — neural networks that learn the context and meaning of data to generate new data — are behind some of the most popular generative AI applications. Unlike convolutional neural networks, which underpinned previous decades of machine learning advances, transformer models have greater memory demands. Sohmers said he saw an opportunity to capitalize on those demands.

"I would say the whole reason we started Positron is we thought that there was a better way to do things," Sohmers said. "Nvidia, as a large company that also has a lot of other product focuses wasn't going to really optimize and focus on the particular niche that we're focused on, which is transformer model inference."

Agrawal, too, is confident in the performance and energy efficiency of Positron's hardware. Its compatibility with a range of transformer models will also help it attract customers from competitors, he said.

"Nvidia has such a strong ecosystem in the world of AI models. You hear about their CUDA moat, and you heard about the software moat," he said, referring to the software network the company has built between its products to retain customers.

"What Positron really did was completely remove this friction of anything," Agrawal said. That means a company can take a model trained on an Nvidia GPU and "run that model's inference on a Positron card just like you would run on an Nvidia GPU," he said.

Agrawal said the jump from an established player like Lambda to a young startup like Positron presents an "exciting challenge."

"You get to compete against an industry veteran as well as in a field that is just so big," he said.

• The lowest-income households have experienced the highest level of inflation in recent years.
• Lower-income people spend much of their income on items like food and housing, for which costs have spiked.
• Moderating rental rates and steady wage growth could help these households feel relief.

Rising prices across the US economy have impacted every American over the past few years, but the lowest-income households have faced the greatest burden.

The dynamic is reflected in the chart below, which shows low-income inflation increases outpacing those for the other four quintiles since 2006, and over a nearer-term timeframe.

From the end of 2005 through June 2024 — the latest available data — the lowest-income cohort saw prices increase 64%, outpacing the roughly 57% seen by the highest-earning Americans, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The same discrepancy exists on a nearer-term basis, with low-income inflation growth exceeding that of top earners by nearly two percentage points since 2020.

This is largely explained by the fact that lower-income people spend the highest percentage of their earnings on consumer goods that have seen some of the biggest price increases over time, most notably food and housing.

"Lower-income households spend more of their money on necessities, so if categories like food, housing, and utilities are experiencing faster price growth, these households will be hardest hit," Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at NerdWallet, told Business Insider.

What the future holds

One economist says lower-income Americans could struggle to see relief due to a lack of spending-habit flexibility.

Jeff Horwich, senior economics writer for the Minneapolis Fed, said lower-income individuals are more hamstrung in their ability to pivot to lower-priced goods. While higher-income people might shop more at a dollar store when prices rise, their lower-income counterparts who already frequent these stores have limited alternatives.

"When times get tight, they have less wiggle room to change their spending," Horwich said of lower-income individuals.

Persistently high food prices also present a continued headwind. They're expected to keep rising, albeit at a slower rate than they did last year, according to Department of Agriculture data from December.

Another issue facing lower-income people is the Trump administration's plans to implement widespread tariffs on many or all imported goods. Renter said any related price increases could have the biggest impact on the lowest-income Americans, although she's skeptical that Trump will be as aggressive as some expect.

Despite these forces working against low-income people, moderating rent increases could provide some relief. Lowell Ricketts — a data scientist at the St. Louis Fed — said the moderating rent growth can be a positive, at least relative to higher-earning households, since lower-income Americans are more likely to rent.

"If some of that pressure in rents mitigate a bit, then that would be very helpful for low-income Americans to have more purchasing power," Ricketts said.

Still, Ricketts acknowledged that this rent-growth slowdown could be complicated by housing-supply constraints that reduce inventory and keep pushing prices higher.

Beyond that, wage growth could also play a role in offering relief — as long as it continues to exceed inflation, which it has over the past year as consumer-price expansion has moderated. Adding support to the possibility of more wage growth is the fact that layoffs across the US are low compared to historical levels.

Have you adjusted your spending habits to avoid high prices of certain goods or services? Are you willing to share your story? If so, reach out to this reporter at [email protected].

• When my marriage ended, I moved out of our family home and into a new apartment.
• At first, downsizing was difficult, and decorating my own space was daunting.
• My friends helped me make the space my own, and I realized it was a fresh start.

When my marriage unraveled, so did the vision I had for my home life. I found myself staring out the tiny window of a small second-floor apartment. It was barren and unassuming, but it was mine — a space where, for the first time in over a decade, I could make my own decisions, including how to decorate.

Friends helped me move my basic belongings and brought thoughtful gifts — tea, houseplants, and freshly baked bread — but the sudden change left me with a heavy sense of uncertainty about the future. I mourned the life I'd built for my three children and questioned how this small rental, with its white walls and creaky floors, could ever feel like home. Leaving our spacious four-bedroom family house, with its garage and basement packed with the remnants of a busy, adventure-filled life, felt daunting.

Starting over in a new home was overwhelming

For years, I had tucked away plastic tubs of long-forgotten toys, baby clothes, preschool artwork, and other keepsakes. I imagined one day, far in the future, I'd sit on the floor and revisit it all once my youngest child had grown. Instead, the task came suddenly, with me sitting in the living room, deciding what to keep and what to let go. Crafts the kids had made, old photos, school artwork — each piece tangled with emotion.

At first, downsizing felt like a loss. But as I unpacked, it became an opportunity. Friends didn't just move furniture; they helped me create a space true to my sensibilities and visions for my future. They brought lamps, rugs, and kitchen goods, finding pieces in their homes or in their orbits that "felt like me." One friend gifted me a round cream-colored mirror with intricate vine-like patterns, while another shared a link to an upcycled warm golden velvet chair, which eventually found its home in the corner of my new bedroom next to my bookcase.

One special piece of furniture helped me see the vision

Then, my best friend sent me a photo of a vintage mid-century sofa with bold pink floral upholstery. It clicked immediately. That playful piece became the centerpiece of my fresh start — a reminder that even one meaningful choice can spark rebuilding. Friends graciously and surprisingly chipped in to help me buy it, and when it arrived, we carefully carried it up the narrow staircase. "She's perfect," I said as my friend experienced the honor of taking the first seat.

From there, it was a cascade. I began seeking out kitschy, grandmotherly furnishings — pieces that brought comfort and nostalgia, like stepping into a cozy living room from the 1970s, minus the plastic couch coverings. I dug through bins of my late grandmother's belongings, placing her crystal candy dish and my parents' communion cup on the built-in kitchen shelving. These objects, rooted in family and memory, brought me comfort and connection.

When my kids visit, I hope these small touches bring them the same sense of belonging. I'm working toward a larger place with room for them, but this time, I'll have a different approach, extending this new way of curating a home into the next. I kept only what felt grounding: my children's drawings and artwork, a psychedelic painting from 1972 that once hung in my dad's old office, and books I re-read that have carried me through hard times.

Rebuilding my home became an act of self-discovery

I learned I loved warm tones, vintage-bohemian influences, cozy textures, and plants — so many plants. I embraced more open space, appreciating how it could feel intentional. The gifts I received mirrored my growing sense of self and playfulness: a whimsical horse-head lamp from my boyfriend, hand-knitted drink coasters from my best friend. Decorating my own space became an act of self-discovery.

The process taught me that my home could reflect who I was becoming, not just who I had been. Rebuilding my home became a metaphor for rebuilding myself — one deliberate choice at a time.

• The boss of Emirates thinks Airbus should make a new version of the double-decker Airbus A380.
• Tim Clark suggested new lighter materials and more fuel-efficient engines could make it more viable.
• "If we were to put $20 billion on the table for Airbus, they'd probably build it for us," he told BI.

A revamped version of the Airbus A380 could get orders from several airlines, the president of Emirates told Business Insider.

Asked if he'd like Airbus to resume production of the superjumbo, Tim Clark replied, "Well, they know we do. I've given them the designs."

The "compelling nature" of a four-engine plane remains "quite clear to many, many people," he said.

Emirates is by far the largest operator of the double-decker plane, with a fleet of 118. Singapore Airlines is next with just 13.

Airbus ended production of the A380 in 2021 — 18 years after it began.

The four-engined plane received 251 orders from 14 customers, with many airlines wary of its high operating costs.

However, Clark suggested that a modernized version of the A380 could be up to 25% more fuel efficient.

He pointed to using lighter and more aerodynamic materials, as well as new engines with UltraFan technology being developed by Rolls-Royce.

Clark said the Airbus A380 is "probably the most profitable asset we've got," while a more fuel-efficient version would be cheaper to operate as well as more environmentally friendly.

"I believe there is a case," Clark told BI. "The risk-averse nature of my peer group, CEOs, and boards is probably a major inhibitor to that But if we were to put $20 billion on the table for Airbus, they'd probably build it for us."

Airbus did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

While some airlines, such as Air France and Thai Airways, retired their A380s during the pandemic, the superjumbo has since seen a resurgence.

Lufthansa brought eight of its 14 out of retirement, and Etihad has reactivated six A380s. Global Airlines, a British startup, has acquired one formerly used by China Southern Airlines and hopes to launch commercial flights between London and New York this year.

The A380 has been popular with passengers because its size offers more comfort, and it's quieter than other wide-body jets, especially when seated on the upper deck.

Its mammoth size has also allowed airlines to install luxurious amenities, like Emirates' bar and shower for first-class passengers.

But its huge capacity of about 500 passengers means it needs to be used on very popular routes. This works well for Emirates' hub-and-spoke route model — connecting passengers to destinations around the world via Dubai — but less so for others. Airbus did not get any orders from airlines in North or South America, for example.

Capacity constraints

Yet, Clark thinks the A380 could be a solution as some major airports face constraints as demand for air travel keeps rising.

"If you look at the demand as it stands for all of us, not just Emirates, all of us today, there is a high-class problem in the making," he said.

Clark pointed to increasing passenger numbers at New York's JFK, Boston, Paris, Frankfurt, and London Heathrow — where a debate has been ongoing for many years about constructing a third runway to cope with demand.

"It's a no-brainer for the aviation community, particularly in the airport world, to see the passengers getting off, say, an Emirates A380, 500 at a time into Heathrow —or join it, empty their pockets in the departure lounge or the fast food or the merchandising — rather than a slot occupied at 50 seats," Clark said.

• Nimisha Sharath is a product manager at Uber and said she uses AI to automate around 30% of her job.
• She estimates AI saves her 100 minutes of notes a day and allows her to read research in minutes — not hours.
• AI allows her to focus more on human aspects like relationship building and stakeholder management.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Nimisha Sharath, a Seattle-based Uber product manager. Her identity and employment were verified by Business Insider. This essay has been edited for length and clarity.

I've been leading the immigrant life for 8 years now.

I was on a student visa when I moved to the US to pursue my Master's degree, and moved to a work visa when I became a data scientist for Microsoft. I was a data scientist for the first couple of years and then I transitioned to be a product manager.

I moved from Microsoft to Instacart because I wanted to try out a startup. Making that kind of a move from a company as secure as Microsoft is not something that a lot of people in my position do. It worked out for a while, but there were layoffs at the company and I lost my job.

I had about 90 days to find a job or leave the country.

It was very harsh and the job market was bad at the time. So it took a lot of grit and hard work, but I ended up accepting an offer as a product manager at Uber and I work in road safety.

A lot has happened in the AI world since I left Instacart. We have so many versions of chatbots including Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT. I didn't have this kind of AI automation in my last role.

Knowledge about what AI is and how it can be misused does not feel like a choice at the moment. As a product manager, it's important to learn about it — and as an immigrant, I feel it's a necessity. I really need to know how it's going to be affecting my livelihood and I think it's key to staying in this country.

When looking for job, it's important that a huge part of your role isn't likely to be automated in the future. It should need a lot of human involvement.

Around 30% of my job involves automation

I'd say maybe 30% of my role has gotten automated by AI — and out of choice.

As a product manager, I'm in a lot of meetings. AI takes my meeting notes and summarizes them so that I'm able to figure out who said what and who is leaning toward what decision. I don't need to take specific notes and send them out to people so that they're on track. AI does it for me.

It saves 15 or 20 minutes after every meeting when I would typically put stuff together and mail it to people and make sure everyone's on the same page. On average, I attend about four or five meetings per day, so that's 100 minutes a day saved.

If it weren't for AI, I would still be in the office putting things together, and sending out notes after everyone leaves.

I'm also able to upskill myself at a very fast pace. I can read research papers in a matter of minutes as opposed to a few hours. I'm able to understand what research or literature is out there about a specific solution area that I want to explore and do a complete SWOT analysis to figure out whether we should build something or not.

I'm able to prepare strategy decks with much more information and conviction as opposed to a few years earlier, when we all had to spend a lot of time doing a ton of research.

I have more time for the human side of the job

AI gives me time to do the more human side of things, like relationship building and stakeholder management — and I think that's a part of the job that can never really get automated.

As a product manager, you're the glue that holds seven or eight different kinds of teams together. Why would an operations team ever work with a data science or a design team? They wouldn't really. But as a product manager, we have the capacity to bring all of these people together and create magic.

Now, I'm actually getting time to talk to people and do that.

Judgment is also something that I think can never be eliminated by AI. Even if an AI tool is trained on the entire world's data, that data available is still biased. It's never going to be 100% representative of everybody's thoughts and opinions.

So, at the end of the day, you do need some sort of human intervention to make sure the decisions you're making are globally relevant.

I think parts of every role will get automated by AI. It's inevitable. Instead of waiting for AI to come and encroach on your job, become the person who uses AI to do your job better. Sure, 30% of your job may get eliminated. That's fine.

Become the person who teaches other people how to use it. That's a whole new skill in itself.

Has AI changed the way you work? Reach out to the reporter from a non-work email and device at [email protected]

• A review of regulatory filings of the biggest multimanagers reveals New York's continued supremacy.
• Managers like Citadel and Balyasny have most of their PMs in New York, even if they are headquartered elsewhere.
• Despite interest in places like Miami, investing talent remains in established locales.

This week, the $4.5 trillion hedge fund industry is gathered in Miami for iConnections' annual Global Alts conference. Nearly all of them will leave the Magic City after the conference concludes.

While some big names have fled high-tax cities like New York and Chicago for sunny spots like Miami and West Palm Beach, especially amid the pandemic-era buzz over Wall Street South, the data show that New York is still the place to be for money-managing talent.

Regulatory filings for the industry's largest multimanagers, including Citadel, Millennium, and Point72, show that a vast majority of those who "perform investment advisory functions" work from the Big Apple. Including the three aforementioned managers as well as Balyasny, Schonfeld, ExodusPoint, Verition, Walleye, and Hudson Bay, more than 75% of investing talent works in New York, a Business Insider review of ADVs and internal metrics from certain funds show.

(Story continues after graphic. The ADVs, while updated throughout the year, show a snapshot of the investing head count for each firm from March, so the data reflects firms' staffing from last spring.)

Even managers not based in New York — such as Citadel, Point72, Verition, Hudson Bay, and Balyasny — have more investing talent in Gotham than their respective headquarters in Florida, Connecticut, and Illinois. Walleye, which was once based in Minnesota and still has 21 investors in Minneapolis, moved its headquarters to New York at the end of 2023 and now has dozens more traders there than any other office.

"It's an apprenticeship business," Adam Kahn, founder of headhunter firm Odyssey Search Partners, told Business Insider. "For the most part, the opportunity to surround yourself with the best people is going to be in major money centers."

"If you want to sit next to your PM, you need to be where your PM is," he said. And while there are senior leaders who have decamped to sunnier, cheaper spots around the country, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco still have a significant concentration of people.

Greenwich and Stamford, a pair of bedroom communities of the New York metro, have also continued to be important centers of gravity for hedge funds, which have become a part of the social fabric of these Connecticut towns.

Citadel's talent breakdown, according to its ADV showing data from last March, is interesting given the firm's billionaire founder's preference for Miami. Ken Griffin, who is originally from Florida, moved his firm's headquarters south from Chicago in 2022 and has commented that one day, the city could surpass New York as a financial center — though he still referred to Manhattan as the "epicenter of thoughtful people passionately engaged in their careers" in 2023.

While Griffin and some of his executives, including chief risk officer Joanna Welsh and commodities head Sebastian Barrack, have relocated, the firm's investing talent has not yet moved en masse to Florida.

The data showed that more investment-focused staffers were based in the firm's two Texas offices, Houston and Dallas, than in its two Sunshine State offices, Miami and Tampa. The $66 billion fund has more investors in each of its two New York offices as well as its Greenwich, Chicago, and San Francisco offices than it did in its Miami outpost last March. (Story continues below the graphic)

A person close to the manager said the firm is committed to Miami and plans to break ground on its new 54-story waterfront building that will serve as company headquarters sometime later this year or early next year.

"We've welcomed roughly 400 team members to this vibrant city since establishing the firms' global headquarters here in 2022, and we have exciting plans to keep growing our presence in the months and years to come," a statement from the firm reads. The 400 people include employees from both Citadel and Citadel Securities, Griffin's market maker.

Can always catch a flight

Investors on the ground for these managers say different locations provide different benefits. Stockpickers focused on certain industries, like energy or technology, find places like Houston and San Francisco useful to be plugged into the companies they invest in. Quants who do not need to meet with corporate leaders to run their strategies say they're generally more flexible about where they can work than stockpickers who want to hear directly from CEOs.

Meanwhile, young analysts working for portfolio managers based in Connecticut offices often reverse commute from New York to places like Greenwich or Stamford so they can still enjoy the nightlife and culture of the Big Apple.

The ongoing talent war for top-shelf PMs means funds are generally more flexible on location, said Vikram Tandon, the head of Durlston Partners US, a recruiting firm. But that flexibility has a limit.

"The only people who demand to be somewhere and get it are the senior people who are setting up a whole team," Tandon said.

This isn't to say Florida isn't on the rise. Data from hedge-fund seeder Borealis Strategic Partners shows that 11% of US hedge fund launches in 2024 were in Florida, compared to just 3% in 2020. The Tri-State area was at 52%, down from 56% the year prior, according to Borealis.

Two portfolio managers who moved to Miami and West Palm in recent years for two different multimanagers told BI that it's been a net positive for them and their families.

Plus, one of these PMs said, "It's only a two-hour flight back to New York."

• David A. Steinberg is the CEO of Zeta Global, a marketing tech company worth $4.45 billion.
• He learned seven lessons throughout his career that helped him grow his business into the billions.
• Steinberg emphasizes the importance of pivoting, informed decision-making, and employee empowerment.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with David A. Steinberg, the 55-year-old CEO of Zeta Global in Miami. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I'm a serial entrepreneur who has founded seven companies, starting with Sterling Cellular, Inc. in 1993 and, most recently, the marketing technology company Zeta Global.

I left college in 1991 during a recession and, after some time, got a job on Capitol Hill. I started learning about wireless technology and quickly realized I would not be a good government employee.

I started a series of wireless companies over 17 years. When I left my final wireless company in 2007, the private equity firm that bought it told me I had to sign a non-compete in the wireless space before we could take it public.

I went from having a lot of employees to wondering what I would do next, and formed my current firm, Zeta Global, in 2008, bringing AI to a marketing platform. Zeta Global is now worth $4.45 billion.

Here are the seven biggest lessons I've learned that have contributed to my success.

1. Don't be afraid to pivot

Nearly eight years ago, my partner, John Sculley, former Apple CEO, and I were running XL Marketing Corp, the predecessor to Zeta.

I decided that we would discard every platform we bought and design something new. We took 400 of our 500 full-time engineers and spent the next three years architecting a new platform that made AI and data native to the application layer. This removed all the legacy and latency, a fundamental shift in our platform's operation.

By triangulating, I realized we had a great business but a bad model. I believed in two points — the intersection of data cloud and marketing cloud — of our business, but we needed a third, which was building a new platform.

It was a calculated bet, and I convinced our private equity partners to say yes.

2. Take in as much information as you can before you make any bets

Consult with as many smart people as possible before you make a big move, and create the highest upside with the lowest possible downside.

We had to become comfortable with making less money for a few years. If I was wrong about referring to AI at the core, we could return to the old way. If I was right, which I was, it was a step function change for the industry, and we would be at the forefront of it.

3. The most important function of my job is recruiting, hiring, training, and empowering employees

This was a big lesson for me because I was the youngest person in the room for the first 15 years I ran companies, and I am now the oldest person in most places I walk into.

My knowledge has grown with that, and so has my ability to truly understand the importance of letting people do their jobs. Hiring capable people and empowering them in their roles is key to scaling a business.

4. Employees can't stay with you forever

It might sound heartless, but I don't mean it to be. At my first four companies, I was so loyal to the people who started with us that we could never get to where we wanted to go. Your CFO who takes you from zero to $100 million in revenue is probably not the right guy to take you from $100 million to $500 million.

I owe it to them to release them from the organization. I do it by saying, "I love you. You built meaningful wealth for you and your family through the stock that we have here, and I want you to keep it. I want you to go forth and find something you can flourish in because we believe you've outgrown your world."

We've often hired the replacement before that conversation, and it doesn't always go rosy. It's just business, but I always do the right thing. Some of these people have returned as clients because we treated them correctly.

5. Sleep four to five hours a night

I live two lives: one while my wife is awake and one while my wife is asleep. I try to work when my family is sleeping so I can spend time with them when they're awake.

I read a lot, so I consume a tremendous amount of information when my family is asleep, too. Some of my favorite books are "Freakonomics," "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression," "A Gentleman in Moscow," and "The Age of AI: And Our Human Future."

I subscribe to the idea that there's no real work-life balance. If you love what you do, you'll want to do it. I could be at a soccer game or a dinner, and if I have to look at my phone, the people in my world understand that I also have a responsibility to my organization.

6. Use your disadvantages to your advantage

As I've gotten older, my dyslexia has not improved, but I can solve mathematical equations into the billions in my head. My ADD, however, has gotten less pronounced as I've gotten older.

My dyslexia and ADD have allowed my brain to flick from personal to private to professional. When you're in growth mode — and we grew organically 42% in Q3 last year — the ability to jump back and forth is valuable.

7. Hire people to do anything that does not drive your business or allow more time with your family

When I was 27, my mentor, Michael Milken, told me the two most important things in your life are your family and your business. Hire somebody to do anything that does not drive your business or give you more time with your family.

The moment Mike told me that, I decided I needed to have people who could support me and do all the tasks I was not good at. It was a meaningful investment for me then and changed the game for me as an executive and father.

• Bill Gates said Elon Musk shouldn't be weighing on foreign politics.
• In recent weeks, Musk has commented on politics in Europe, including the German elections.
• Gates said Musk shouldn't be telling people who to vote for.

Bill Gates doesn't like how Elon Musk has involved himself in the politics of foreign countries such as the UK and Germany.

"It's really insane that he can destabilize the political situations in countries," Gates said in an interview with the UK newspaper The Times published Saturday.

Musk has become increasingly vocal about his views on UK and German politics in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, Musk called for the removal of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The Tesla CEO accused Starmer of not doing enough to prevent the rape of girls when he was Britain's chief prosecutor from 2008 to 2013.

And on Saturday, Musk spoke virtually at a campaign rally for the Alternative for Germany, Germany's far-right party. Germany is set to hold national elections in February.

In December, Musk said in an op-ed for Welt am Sonntag, a prominent German newspaper, that the AfD was "the last spark of hope for this country." He also praised the party for its "controlled immigration policy."

"I think in the US foreigners aren't allowed to give money. Other countries maybe should adopt safeguards to make sure superrich foreigners aren't distorting their elections," Gates told The Times.

Musk's political influence has increased significantly following President Donald Trump's victory in November. Musk spent at least $277 million backing Trump and other GOP candidates in last year's elections.

That bet has since paid off for Musk, who called himself Trump's "first buddy." The billionaire has joined Trump on calls with world leaders such as Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.

Musk is also leading Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The commission has been tasked with reducing government spending and cutting excess regulations.

It is unclear whether Musk has donated to foreign political parties. Last month, the British politician Nigel Farage said that Musk was giving "serious thought" toward making a donation to his right-wing party, Reform UK.

Gates told The Times that Musk shouldn't be making such outspoken political declarations.

"I thought the rules of the game were you picked a finite number of things to spout about that you cared for, focused on a few critical things, rather than telling people who they should vote for," Gates said.

"If someone is super smart, and he is, they should think how they can help out. But this is populist stirring," Gates added.

Gates and Musk didn't respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

To be sure, this isn't the first time Gates has disagreed with Musk.

In 2021, Gates told Kara Swisher on her "Sway" podcast that he wasn't interested in space travel. Musk is the founder and CEO of SpaceX, a rocket company.

"No, I'm not a Mars person. I know a lot of Mars people," Gates told Swisher.

"I don't think rockets are the solution. But maybe I'm missing something there," Gates said, adding that he'd rather spend his money on vaccines than buy a ticket to space.

Editor's note — Welt am Sonntag is owned by Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company.

How excited are you about your job these days? If you're feeling pretty bleh, you're right in line with most of your colleagues. Every year, Gallup surveys tens of thousands of Americans about their jobs, and the latest results reveal an exceptionally bummed-out workforce. Only 31% were engaged at work last year — the grouchiest reading in a decade.

That alone is worrying news for employers, who need their armies to be motivated. But there's an even more alarming detail in the report: The slump is driven by a deep disillusionment among young employees. That's a startling development, given that eager-eyed rookies are usually much more enthusiastic about their jobs than grizzled veterans. In fact, morale among those under 35 has tanked so much that they're now less engaged than their older colleagues — an inversion that hasn't happened since 2007.

The question is why. Two years ago, when the engagement gap first began to narrow, I argued that the main driver was likely the sudden spike in working from home. You'd think Gen Z would be the most remote-friendly generation, but survey after survey shows that 20-somethings actually have the lowest preference for working from home five days a week. Fresh out of school, they're more likely to rely on the office to make friends. They're also in need of the most mentoring, which doesn't happen as much over Zoom. Left to flail on their own, I concluded, they're less enthusiastic about their jobs.

Since my original story, though, I've begun to wonder if other factors are playing a role. For starters, the workplace feels increasingly chaotic and unfriendly these days. Employers have initiated deep layoffs, ordered remote workers to return to the office, and eliminated DEI programs designed to make work feel more equitable and inclusive. The whiplash has sown confusion: In Gallup's survey, only 40% of those under 35 say they know what's expected of them at work.

Adding to the uncertainty is the rise of AI. In a separate survey released this month, Gallup found that 78% of adults under 30 think AI will have a negative impact on job opportunities, compared with only 45% of those 65 and older. Such anxieties are bound to be demoralizing: If you think chatbots are going to usurp your job, why put in the effort to get better at it?

But I suspect that the biggest factor fueling Gen Z's engagement slump is something deeper than all of the turmoil of the past few years. What if young people are simply more clear-eyed than older generations about what they can expect from their jobs — and what work can't provide them? Maybe it's not that they're lazy or entitled. Maybe they're just unwilling to endure all the shitty stuff that comes with a job in return for an elusive payoff decades down the road.

Of course, work has always been a drag — difficult, dull, and demanding. That's why they call it work. But for previous generations, there were enticements that made the daily grind seem worth it. For boomers, the prize was a lifetime of job security. For Gen Xers, it was the prestige of a corner office. For millennials, it was fulfilling your true potential and making the world a better place. Whatever their dreams, each generation worked for years before they discovered that the rewards they'd been promised in return for their effort often turned out to be a mirage.

Gen Zers, on the other hand, seem to have grasped the transactional nature of work from the very outset. They don't have any of the naive expectations about employment that I did when I was their age. They've seen their parents work for years in soul-deadening jobs, only to wind up without enough to retire. They get that hustle culture is a one-way ticket to burnout. And they know that no amount of putting up with shit at work will protect them from being shitcanned. They're disengaged at work because they don't trust that they'll be rewarded for working.

That's why so many Gen Zers are focused on side hustles: They're so fed up with their employers that they'd rather be their own boss. It also explains why they're captivated by FIRE, the viral movement that's short for financial independence, retire early. Just a few years into their careers, they're already dreaming of the day they'll be free of them.

So what should employers do, given Gen Z's startling level of disengagement? First off, don't order everyone back to the office. As I wrote two years ago, research shows that RTO edicts only demoralize everyone even more. Instead, employers need to be more intentional about designing jobs to meet the needs of their junior staff. They can't leave things like mentoring and networking to chance, the way they did when the office forced everyone into proximity. They also need to provide employees with more predictability and stability, rather than swinging from extreme to extreme the way they've been doing with remote work and diversity initiatives. And to ease the AI anxieties of their young employees, companies should focus on implementing technology that assists their staff, as opposed to replacing them altogether.

All of these steps would help. But to truly engage their youngest workers, companies need to give them a concrete reason to be excited about their jobs. They can shape assignments to each employee's interests and goals as much as possible, and ways to vary the tasks within each role, so an employee isn't stuck doing the same thing over and over. They can crack down on toxic managers, and offer employees a little more freedom to choose how they do their jobs. And they can cultivate a corporate culture that encourages even entry-level employees to contribute ideas and provide feedback — something that will happen only if managers actually listen to everyone's input.

This isn't about catering to the whims of Gen Z. These are the tried-and-true ways, backed by decades of rigorous research, to create more engaging jobs for everyone, regardless of age. Making jobs more interesting will motivate the entire workforce. And there's nothing fluffy about making employees happy: A disengaged workforce is linked to all kinds of factors that hurt companies, including higher turnover, lower profits, and even customer dissatisfaction. Last year, Gallup estimated that low engagement is already costing businesses $9 trillion a year in lost productivity worldwide. If companies don't do something soon to address the brewing disengagement crisis, that's going to wind up feeling like chump change.

Aki Ito is a chief correspondent at Business Insider.

• Voice AI startups raised over $398 million in VC funding in 2024, per PitchBook data.
• The technology is expanding into enterprise uses like customer service and assistants.
• BI spoke to investors about the untapped opportunities in the nascent voice AI space.

Voice is fast becoming the new AI battleground.

From buzzy virtual assistants to speech synthesis tools, the technology has taken off in the past year.

While AI voice tech isn't new, the tools have rapidly become more sophisticated, driving adoption from the call center to recruitment agencies.

Its use cases are vast, from real-time audio transcriptions to generating synthetic voices from text prompts.

Investors looking for the next opportunity in the highly competitive AI market have thrown their checkbooks behind startups. According to PitchBook data, startups developing voice AI technology raised over $398 million in VC funding in 2024.

London-based PolyAI, which has developed voice assistants for call centers, secured $50 million in a funding round from Hedosophia. London and New York-headquartered ElevenLabs, which has developed a voice cloning technology, raised $100 million in January 2024 — and is said to be raising a further $200 million, Business Insider first reported.

"Recent breakthroughs in real-time speech-to-speech processing have unlocked new use cases, including virtual assistants, customer support, and voice-based productivity," said Sivesh Sukumar, an investor at VC firm Balderton. "Companies like ElevenLabs and OpenAI are at the forefront of this space, with ElevenLabs releasing a real-time API expected to drive further adoption."

Voice AI is a comparatively nascent space, so there isn't an established incumbent yet — but it's triggering investor excitement for the untapped opportunities in the sector, Sukumar added.

An expanding ecosystem

Startups are quickly identifying how to tailor voice technology to a host of enterprise and consumer needs. And with agentic AI a hot topic for CEOs, its overlap with voice technology could hold high potential.

PlayAI, a startup that is developing an AI platform for text-to-speech models and AI voice agents, raised $21 million in seed funding in November.

"We've seen a massive increase in interest in building voice agents, which a human can speak to just like it's another human," said PlayAI cofounder Hammad Syed. "Voice AI is going mainstream and will be a key interface in how people interact with technology. Investors definitely realize this opportunity," he added.

VCs scouring the ecosystem to make their next big bet are now looking at voice AI as a technology stack, said Steve Jang, founder and managing partner at Kindred Ventures, which also backed PlayAI. The firm's investment thesis is to back startups "with multiple layers with many use cases in consumer, enterprise, and creativity."

"First, there are specialized and foundational models. Second, there are infrastructure services and tools, which offer access and integration with these models. And then, perhaps most importantly, there is the vast vertical application space," he told BI.

The sector is also attractive to investors because voice is an easy category to cash in on. "You can price it by the outcome, so it's pretty easy to monetize," said Jonathan Userovici, general partner at VC firm Headline. "That's why you have so much revenue traction — it's pretty easy to get a return on investment, especially if you're replacing a human doing that labor."

Consumer appetite for voice AI has also skyrocketed. With more users preferring to take in information through audio formats like podcasts, Sukumar highlighted the growing consumer demand for voice control and audio interfaces. He built PersuAIsion, a voice AI platform that allows users to practice real-world conversations — from job interviews to first dates — because he saw the scope for voice to cater to such consumer needs.

"If OpenAI can capture the consumer voice agent, they'll be what Siri was supposed to be," he said. "I think there's going to be a lot more interfacing with personal devices, and there's just going to be better e-commerce consumer experience on that front."

Frontier labs are catching up

Despite its growing popularity, voice AI doesn't seem to have one established juggernaut just yet. Part of the reason could be that frontier labs have largely stayed away from the space, possibly due to a concern that a misuse of voice generation capabilities could result in a potential backlash, according to Air Street Capital's 2024 State of AI report.

"Despite scraping huge quantities of audio and video data, frontier labs have been slow to release text-to-speech products," said Nathan Benaich, founder and general partner of Air Street Capital. He pointed to OpenAI's Advanced Voice Mode, which was repeatedly postponed, and Google's NotebookLM, which "is relatively locked down."

AI experts had sounded the alarm about the possible rise of deepfakes in a year marked by global elections — but that didn't end up being the case.

"In all likelihood, labs were keen to avoid being dragged into the panics about deepfakes that often accompany major elections. I think it's inevitable they will play more in this space, just because the potential commercial opportunity is so large," Benaich said.

Big Tech may be slowly pivoting toward the trend. Amazon's plans to ramp up its voice assistant offerings through Alexa were delayed until 2025, and Apple recently bulked up its Siri feature by adding ChatGPT capabilities.

Still, Benaich noted that it won't be an easy task for any one company to take the crown. "Displacing companies like ElevenLabs, who already enjoy widespread adoption and have been optimizing their tools for enterprise users for years now, could prove challenging," he said.

• The Chinese AI lab DeepSeek has rolled out AI models that are a lot cheaper than OpenAI's offerings.
• Its emergence spooked tech stocks Monday, with Nvidia down more than 10% premarket.
• DeepSeek's open-source models challenge OpenAI's proprietary approach.

The cost of using AI models has been plunging as competition intensifies — and Wall Street is spooked about the latest entrant.

Having a leading AI model is nowhere near as special as it was two years ago. These models are mostly trained on data that's publicly available on the internet, so they're not that much different from one another. Standing out in this crowd and charging premium prices is increasingly difficult.

In recent weeks, DeepSeek has taken this pricing dynamic to a new level. The Chinese AI lab rolled out models that are as good as, or better than, the best products from OpenAI, the pioneering creator of ChatGPT.

That's impressive. But what's potentially more disruptive is how cheap DeepSeek's models are.

That disruption hit the markets Monday. The Dutch chipmaker ASML fell 11% after the opening bell, and Nvidia fell more than 10% premarket. In Japan, Advantest, TOWA Shibaura, and Ibiden were all down at the closing bell.

Bernstein tech analysts studied DeepSeek's offerings in recent days and found that the Chinese AI lab was massively undercutting OpenAI on price.

"DeepSeek's pricing blows away anything from the competition, with the company pricing their models anywhere from 20-40x cheaper than equivalent models from OpenAI," the analysts wrote in a note to investors on Sunday.

The chart above shows the cost of "tokens," which have become the raw material of generative AI. Chatbots and AI models break down words and other inputs into these tokens to make them easier to process and understand. One token is about three-quarters of a word.

When AI companies are handling prompts and other model inputs and outputs, they often charge users based on a per-token price. DeepSeek's Reasoner model costs $0.55 for every million tokens inputted. OpenAI's o1 model charges $15 for the same number of tokens, according to Bernstein.

The Bernstein analysts also noted that DeepSeek's models are open-source, meaning they are available free to anyone who wants to work with them. That's a contrast with OpenAI, which keeps its top models proprietary and closed while charging relatively high prices for the products.

"The whole thing brings up some very interesting questions about the role and viability of proprietary versus open-source efforts that are probably worth doing more work on," the Bernstein analysts wrote.

But they added, "The resulting Twitterverse panic over the weekend seems overblown."

Edison Lee, an equity research analyst at Jefferies, said it was "difficult to say what the eventual impact will be, but combining our more cautious cyclical view on the chip sector in any case, it may be prudent to reduce exposure to the digital part of the semiconductor supply chain including semicap equipment stocks like ASML."

DeepSeek's newly-released flagship model is now No. 1 on Apple's free apps chart — just ahead of ChatGPT.

• Naomi Watts says she tried to freeze her eggs when she was in her early 30s.
• She wanted to prioritize her career because she was told her opportunities would "be dried up at 40."
• She joins actors like Anne Hathaway and Kirsten Dunst in speaking up against ageism in Hollywood.

Naomi Watts, 56, says she was turned away from freezing her eggs when she was in her early 30s.

During an interview with Katie Couric on Friday, the actor spoke about her struggles with early menopause and starting a family.

"By the way, I tried to freeze my eggs in my early 30s right when my career started getting going, because I had a feeling that I was going to have to work," Watts told Couric.

Part of the reason she wanted to prioritize her career over her personal life was because she started seeing professional success later in life.

Even though she had started acting when she was 18, Watts gained prominence in Hollywood at 33 after starring in David Lynch's 2001 psychological thriller "Mulholland Drive."

"I came into it late — at least with my launching — and I was told to work, work, work, because it'll all be dried up at 40," Watts said.

She decided to be "proactive" and consulted a doctor about freezing her eggs.

"And again, I was told, 'Don't be silly, you're way too young. That's fine, and it's not a perfect science anyway.' And I was sort of turned away," Watts said, recounting the doctor's words.

However, when she noticed symptoms of perimenopause at 36, she decided to try again.

"And then I came back at 36, and those eggs weren't freezable, so I just had to find a way to find my last best possibility. Like, there must have been just a couple more eggs in there," Watts said.

Watts went on to welcome two children — Sasha, 17, and Kai, 16 — with her former partner, Liev Schreiber, naturally. She has been married to "Eat, Pray, Love" actor Billy Crudup since 2023.

In 2022, the actor shared that she was told her career would end at 40 when she became "unfuckable."

"Then you think about it, and you go, 'Oh, right. When you are no longer reproductive, when those organs are no longer functioning, you are not sexy, so, therefore, you are not hirable.' That just made me so mad," Watts told Entertainment Weekly.

Watts isn't the only female celebrity who has spoken out about ageism in Hollywood.

In an interview with Porter magazine in November 2023, Anne Hathaway said she was told her career would "fall off a cliff" after she turned 35.

In March 2024, Kirsten Dunst told Marie Claire that she took a two-year break from acting because she was being typecast and only offered "sad mom" roles.

Kathy Bates told Variety in a 2024 interview that she credits her long career to not looking like a beauty queen.

But ageism against women is a problem that's prevalent in other workplaces, too.

A survey of 913 women published in Harvard Business Review in June 2023 suggested that women in leadership roles faced workplace age discrimination at every age bracket.

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

• DeepSeek, a small Chinese AI startup, released a flagship model on January 20.
• The startup caught competitors in Silicon Valley and the AI world by surprise.
• DeepSeek engineers said they're building the models with inferior Nvidia chips and less capital.

DeepSeek hit No. 1 on the Apple App Store's Top Free Apps Chart days after the Chinese startup released its flagship model, R1.

On January 20, DeepSeek, led by Chinese quant hedge fund manager Liang Wenfeng, released R1. It caught Silicon Valley and the AI world by surprise because the LLM could match or surpass some of the capabilities of rival models built by OpenAI, Google, and Meta.

Those US companies poured billions of dollars into acquiring highly advanced chips and data to build models that can solve complex problems. DeepSeek, however, appears to be building models that can perform at similar benchmarks — at a fraction of the cost.

In a paper released late December, DeepSeek researchers estimated that they built and trained their V3 model for under $6 million using about 2,000 Nvidia H800 chips.

US companies, like Meta, are racing to secure billions of dollars worth of Nvidia H100 chips to build their chatbots. H100 chips are Nvidia's flagship GPUs. Due to US sanctions, China cannot import H100s and instead imports H800s, which have lower data transfer rates, Reuters reported.

Spokespeople for Deepseek, Meta, and OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.

That a little-known Chinese startup is closing the gap with some of the largest tech companies in the world with significantly fewer resources could undercut US efforts to build an AI moat against global competitors.

Following President Donald Trump's inauguration, OpenAI announced a joint venture with the federal government to spend $500 billion on AI infrastructure over the next four years.

OpenAI's ChatGPT currently sits at number two on the same Apple chart.