• Microsoft's latest round of layoffs takes place as the company revises its strategy for selling AI tools.
• The layoffs target traditional sales roles, some of which will be replaced by technical salespeople.
• Microsoft faces competition from OpenAI and Google, prompting the sales strategy overhaul.

Microsoft's latest round of layoffs come as the company revises its strategy for selling artificial intelligence tools amid increasing competition from OpenAI and Google, according to sources familiar with the plans and internal documents.

The company's recent job cuts included thousands of salespeople, the people said, and largely targeted traditional salespeople that the company intends to replace with more technical salespeople to better sell AI tools.

Microsoft on July 2 said it plans to lay off less than 4% of its workforce, which would be around 9,000 people. The company typically makes changes to its workforce around this time of year as July 1 marks a new fiscal year, but this year's layoffs are significant as the company cuts costs to make up for massive spending on AI.

Microsoft plans to replace many traditional salespeople, often called "specialists" internally, and replace them with "solutions engineers," who can show customers actual demos earlier on in the sales process, the people said.

Microsoft confirmed the company is replacing some specialist roles with solutions engineers to increase the technical and industry understanding among its salesforce, and plans to hire more salespeople outside its headquarters to get more sellers out in the field.

The company has received feedback from customers that they had to engage with too many salespeople before getting down to the technical details and demos. "The customer wants Microsoft to bring their technical people in front of them quickly," one of the people said. "We need someone who is more technical, much earlier in the cycle."

The changes come as Microsoft faces increasing competition for enterprise customers in AI. Microsoft has an advantage in that many large companies already use its other tools, but many of those companies' employees want the more well-known ChatGPT.

The sales cuts are tied to a plan to simplify how Microsoft sells AI, detailed internally earlier this year.

In a memo to the sales organization the day before the layoffs were announced, Microsoft sales chief Judson Althoff laid out a vision to revamp the organization.

Althoff called for "continued agility" and "reinventing Microsoft and MCAPS" to become "the Frontier AI Firm," and outlined the five priorities of the sales organization, including to "establish a Copilot on every device and across every role."

Althoff also internally unveiled plans in April to slash the number of the sales team's "solutions areas" by half during the next fiscal year, which starts July 1. BI obtained copies of slides from his presentation.

Microsoft previously had six solutions areas: Modern work, Business Applications, Digital & App Innovation, Data & AI, Azure Infrastructure, and Security. Beginning July 1, these areas were set to be combined into three: AI Business Solutions, Cloud & AI Platforms, and Security, according to those slides.

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• I'm an avid traveler, but I always used to avoid cruises — until I went on one with 12 relatives.
• The cruise helped us travel at our own paces, spend time together, and easily eat meals as a family.
• Even though I was a former skeptic, I'll probably book another cruise again.

When the Royal Princess pulled away from the port in Seattle with me, my husband, and my extended family on board, I wondered what the next week would hold.

My mother and sister had conspired to plan a family trip in honor of my dad's 80th birthday, deciding on an Alaskan cruise as the setting for our first-ever group vacation.

I'm an avid traveler, but I'd previously had reservations about cruises. I typically prefer to navigate a new place myself for more than just a handful of hours in port.

Not to mention my extended family of 13 hadn't spent more than a day together … well, ever. We generally get along, but eight days spent traveling together is a different story than eight hours together in someone's living room on Christmas.

This cruise from Seattle to Alaska's Inside Passage, however, turned out to be an ideal vacation for a multigenerational group of people with different abilities, travel styles, and interests.

On a cruise, we could stray apart but easily find each other again.

It was established pretty early on that no one expected us to roll as a group of 13 at all times.

Upon boarding, we split up automatically based on our various priorities: checking out the pool, finding drinks, or securing premium dining reservations. This helped set the tone for the rest of the trip.

However, because we were all effectively in the same place and had cabins in the same corridor, we never had to worry that anyone would be lost or left behind.

We each got to choose our own adventure — literally.

The variety of activities offered on off-shore excursions meant that everyone got to spend time experiencing Alaska's port towns in a way that most appealed to them.

We quickly learned how important this was on a trip with so many family members, including people of varying ages. With so many different activities, older relatives with more limited mobility were spared from having to keep pace with the younger ones.

My husband and I chose a foodie walking tour and whale-watching excursions, and we also checked out some local distilleries in each port. Meanwhile, others went kayaking, hiking, or dog-sledding.

I got to connect with different relatives over different activities.

Even on board, we could all choose our own preferred activities, from line dancing to playing games to tasting wine.

Some of my favorite moments on the trip happened when nuclear family units got reshuffled for various activities. For example, my husband and I loved to go for an early morning swim before breakfast when the deck was empty, and various family members joined us throughout the week.

This isn't to say we didn't spend time together as a group, though.

The activities we chose to do together were appropriate for everyone's interests and abilities: a scenic train ride, for instance, or an after-dinner show on board. We also ate dinner together as a family.

Cruising made it easy to plan dinner with such a large group.

Having a standing reservation at the same time and table every night meant that we never wasted time or energy trying to figure out where we could go as a large group.

I also appreciated that our cruise's menu was clearly designed to fit many diets and palates.

I'm a food writer with a fine-dining background, but my youngest relatives? Not so much. Fortunately, dining room menus on cruise ships tend to have options for everyone.

Because we'd often spent at least part of the day doing different activities, dinner was a nice opportunity to share stories and catch up. We were split between two tables next to each other, but made an effort to shuffle seating arrangements each night.

The leaders and planners in our family got to relax with the rest of us.

Every family has members who tend to take charge when it comes to meals and activities. Among friends, I am typically that person; in my family, however, I am usually out-planned by other members.

I could appreciate, though, that those in my family who typically took on these responsibilities were relieved of the pressure to plan and keep everyone entertained, and could lean into the pre-organized activities that cruising offered.

Despite my prior cruise skepticism, I'd do it again. It may not be my first choice for certain destinations, but the ease of travel and variety of activities were appealing — and it turned out to be a great option for a large group trip.

Before long, I may even end up taking a cruise with just my husband.

• Christina Starmer's son wanted to move out of the house after graduating from high school.
• She and her husband converted their garage into a studio apartment where he could live rent-free.
• Their son focused on his startup while he lived there, and the Starmers can now rent out the space.

Many parents go above and beyond to support their kids — but Christina and Jeff Starmer took it to another level when their son wanted to launch a startup just after graduating from high school.

They decided to turn their garage into a studio apartment, giving him a free place to live while he focused on his work.

The project was a boon to the young founder — and allowed the Starmers to stumble into a lucrative side hustle.

In the fall of 2022, the Starmer family was on the cusp of transition.

Christina and Jeff Starmer live in Jacksonville, Florida, where they own CenterBeam Construction, a company that renovates historic homes. They have two kids, Chloe Starmer, 29, and Lyman Starmer, 21.

In the fall of 2022, Lyman was on the cusp of graduating from high school. He planned to move out of his parents' home after graduation and devote himself to launching his startup, Deli, which uses AI to help people with the house-hunting process.

But Christina, 55, was concerned her son couldn't afford to live on his own and start his company, particularly because rent was high in their area in the wake of the pandemic.

"He was having to figure out how to get programmers and stuff like that, and I was like, 'You don't have any money and any money that people do put into your company, you don't want to spend that on housing,'" she told Business Insider.

The family's garage offered the perfect solution.

The Starmers have lived in their home for 19 years. During that time, they added a separate garage to the property.

The partially finished, 378-square-foot garage mostly served as a storage space for the family, housing things like bikes, workout equipment, and a second refrigerator, though it had electric and plumbing capabilities that had yet to be hooked up.

Since they were no strangers to construction and home renovation, Christina suggested turning the space into an apartment where Lyman could live rent-free. She and Jeff could also list it on Airbnb when their son moved out, giving them another income source.

"He was working so hard," Christina said. "We started a business, and I know what it takes to start a business, so I'm like, 'I would give my kids all the opportunity in the world.'"

It was a no-brainer for the whole family.

The Starmers started working on the renovation in November 2022.

Christina told BI she initially set a budget of $48,000 for the remodel.

She and Jeff were able to serve as their own contractors for the project and do most of the labor themselves, only outsourcing work for changes to the electricity and plumbing.

Their daughter Chloe helped her parents with the design and layout of the space, visiting them on weekends to help with the renovation, and Lyman contributed to physical work like tiling and framing.

The structure originally had two garage doors, and the renovation kicked off with closing up one of them.

"The other garage door remains today," Christina said. "That way, if somebody else ever wanted to convert it back, they could have a garage that they could drive in."

The completed space functions like a cozy studio apartment.

When you enter the apartment, you walk right into the kitchen, which has a small island with bar seating, a refrigerator, a stove, and a dishwasher.

Maximizing space was a top priority as they renovated. For instance, the kitchen was designed with a built-in pantry.

"While we were framing, I was like, 'I know it's a 2-by-4 wall, but I think I can make a pantry out of this 2-by-4 stud here,'" Christina said. "So instead of just drywalling it up, we made a large, long box and put some doors in the front."

"I put wallpaper in the back and a couple of shelves, and now all of a sudden, you have a pantry for canned foods," she added.

Bringing light into the living area was a challenge.

A small living area sits across from the kitchen, and it includes an air conditioning unit.

Christina said the biggest challenge with designing the living area was the limited natural light in the room, as the whole apartment had only one glass door and one window. The glass door was in the bedroom, which was separated from the living area by a wall, so the Starmers decided to add an internal window to the space.

"We went to one of those old salvage yards and got a glass door from like the 1900s, turned it sideways, and it became a window in between the two rooms," Christina told BI.

High ceilings make the space feel bigger than it is.

"The garage was originally built with a hip roof, which makes the ceiling higher," Christina said.

The ceilings are closer to 11 feet instead of the typical 8 feet. Plus, there are some exposed beams for a touch of character.

"It feels so much bigger," she added.

The apartment even has a washer and dryer, though Christina has one regret about it.

The apartment's bathroom is across from the bedroom, and it sits a step above the rest of the space.

"The plumbing was already stubbed out there, so we didn't want to have to jack up concrete and stuff," Christina said of why there was a step.

Instead, they just raised the whole bathroom by about 7 inches, which saved the Starmers money and allowed them to create separation between the bathroom and bedroom.

They also put a full-size washer and dryer in the mini hallway between the bedroom and bathroom, stacking them atop each other just across from a closet.

Christina put a drawer beneath the machines for storing detergent and other laundry supplies, which she said still "bugs" her to this day because it made the dryer a little too high to reach easily. A step ladder easily solves the problem, though.

Designing the small space wasn't an easy task.

Christina said designing the layout for the apartment was the biggest hurdle of the project, as she wanted it to feel like a true studio despite the limited square footage.

"We wanted a really good flow in a super tiny space and for someone to not feel boxed in," she said.

She tried to avoid some of the pitfalls of mini spaces, like creating a bunk bed that was too small to stand up in or ultra-slim stairs.

Instead, she focused on creating a one-story space that felt spacious and inviting.

The renovation ended up costing about $69,000 and took about four months.

Christina and Jeff wrapped the project in March 2023, creating a space that worked for their son while he finished high school and launched his career.

It will also be easy to rent out eventually. "We haven't put it on Airbnb yet, but that's coming," Christina said.

Although the project was over budget, the Starmers still saved tens of thousands of dollars by working as their own contractors.

"If you do hire a contractor and you are paying all of that labor, which comes with trim out, framing, installing cabinetry, and all that stuff that we did ourselves, you will definitely be in that $120,000-ish range of today's market," Christina told BI.

Lyman moved into the apartment when it was finished and lived there until he relocated to New York City in 2025.

"My parents turning their garage into a studio apartment gave me the one thing first-time founders never have enough of — runway," Lyman told BI. "Skipping roughly $1,500 in monthly rent for almost two years meant I could funnel every spare dollar into Deli, the AI home-search platform I was building — hiring contract devs, covering cloud bills, and stretching our early runway instead of a landlord's pocket."

"I had a door I could close for all-night coding marathons and investor Zooms, yet I was still close enough to step inside for dinner or a quick pep talk," he added. "That mix of independence and family support turned a simple remodel into the launchpad for my startup."

Christina said the transition to her son living in the apartment went smoothly, and she was grateful she could make things a bit easier for him.

"When he started living outside, in the mornings, he would come in and have coffee before he went to school, even though he had a coffee pot out there," she said. "Then in the evenings, by the time he got home and showered and worked a little bit, he would be back in and we would all eat dinner together."

"I thought it was lovely," she added.

Now, the rest of the Starmer family is helping others transform their garages.

The Starmers shared videos about the apartment project on their social media platforms, and the videos went viral, amassing millions of views on TikTok.

Because of the interest in their videos, Christina, Jeff, and Chloe decided to share what they learned about renovating small spaces online. They sell plans for garage conversions on their website, Her Home Reno. In June, they also launched an online course to teach novices how to take on a project like theirs.

Christina said they have sold hundreds of plans so far, and she hopes their knowledge can help others make the most of their spaces.

• Tesla reported its second quarter of underwhelming sales in a row on Wednesday.
• Elon Musk's automaker could really use its long-promised affordable EV right now.
• Tesla said it would start making cheaper models in the first half of 2025, but there's still no sign of them.

Tesla could really use the affordable EV it's been promising, but the timeline keeps slipping.

As recently as April, Tesla said it would begin production of its mysterious new "affordable" EVs in the first half of 2025. But the deadline came and went on Tuesday with no word, and Wednesday saw the automaker report its second consecutive year-over-year decline in deliveries.

When Tesla announced similarly bad delivery numbers in April, an analyst told Business Insider it made making an affordable EV even more crucial.

In addition to brand damage from CEO Elon Musk's political interventions, Tesla faces pressure from cheaper rivals in China like BYD, and rising competition from Western manufacturers expanding their EV lineups, like Cadillac.

A more affordably priced model is all the more compelling as the automaker simultaneously grapples with an overall slowdown in EV adoption.

Musk first mentioned launching a cheap EV in 2020, but since then, concrete details on what the car might actually look like, and when it might be coming, have been scant. Here's what's been said about the long-awaited model:

September 2020

"We're confident that long term, we can design and manufacture a compelling $25,000 electric vehicle" — Elon Musk

At Tesla's "Battery Day" presentation, Musk said he was confident the company would be able to ship a "fully autonomous" $25,000 electric car "about three years from now," adding that such a vehicle had "always been our dream."

January 2022

"We're not currently working on the $25,000 car. At some point we will, but we have enough on our plate right now, too much on our plate frankly," — Elon Musk

Asked about the status of the $25,000 EV in an investor call in 2022, Musk said Tesla's affordable electric car had taken a back seat to other projects.

January 2024

"They should be taken with a grain of salt, since I'm often optimistic," — Elon Musk

In a January 2024 earnings call, Musk said Tesla would start production of a next-generation mass-market EV near the end of 2025, but admitted that he was "often optimistic" regarding timelines.

April 2024

"Tesla has canceled the long-promised inexpensive car that investors have been counting on to drive its growth into a mass-market automaker," — Reuters

A Reuters report, citing anonymous sources, said it had seen internal messages and notes from meetings about the project being scrapped. Musk quickly fired back, denying the report in a post on his X.

"Reuters is lying (again)," — Elon Musk

Reuters said at the time that Tesla had not responded to a request for comment, and noted Musk had not shared any specific inaccuracies about the story.

"If you have a great product at a great price, the sales will be excellent," — Elon Musk

After Tesla's stock price dropped following the Reuters report, the company said in an investor call later in April that it would accelerate plans for more affordable models. Musk said they could go into production in late 2024 or early 2025.

October 2024

"I think having a regular $25,000 model is pointless. It would be silly. It would be completely at odds with what we believe," — Elon Musk.

Asked about when Tesla investors could expect a "$25,000 non-robotaxi regular car model" in an earnings call, Musk made it clear that Tesla was going all in on robotaxis and autonomous vehicles.

January 2025

"Plans for new vehicles, including more affordable models, remain on track for start of production in the first half of 2025," — Tesla.

After a glitzy robotaxi launch in October fell flat with shareholders, Tesla stuck to Musk's timeline but provided no further details about the automaker's affordable models in its January 2025 earnings report.

April 2025

"Global production of the lower-cost Model Y, internally codenamed E41, is expected to begin in the United States," — Reuters.

Reuters reported that the planned affordable model would be a stripped-down version of Tesla's best-selling Model Y, and that production had been delayed by several months. It cited three sources "with knowledge of the matter."

The company did not respond to a request for comment on the reported delay.

"As with all launches, we're working through the last-minute issues that pop up," — Lars Moravy.

During its Q1 earnings call, Tesla reiterated that production of the affordable models would start in the first half of the year and said it had retooled its factories to prepare to launch the new models.

Tesla's vehicle engineering VP, Lars Moravy, said the production ramp might be "a little slower" than the company had previously hoped, but added Tesla still expected to meet the deadline.

July 2025

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on the status of the company's affordable models.

• ChatGPT almost had a different name.
• OpenAI changed the chatbot's name in a "late-night decision," ChatGPT head Nick Turley said.
• The 2022 launch made ChatGPT a viral hit and helped push OpenAI's valuation higher.

"Chat with GPT-3.5" doesn't really roll off the tongue, but it's almost what OpenAI named ChatGPT.

On the latest episode of the OpenAI podcast, two leaders involved with the chatbot's development, research chief Mark Chen and head of ChatGPT Nick Turley, spoke about the days leading up to the launch that made the tool go viral.

"It was going to be Chat with GPT-3.5, and we had a late-night decision to simplify" the name, Turley said on the podcast published July 1. The team made the name change the day before the version's late 2022 launch, he said.

"We realized that that would be hard to pronounce and came up with a great name instead," Turley said.

They settled on ChatGPT, short for "generative pre-trained transformer."

Since then, ChatGPT has gained millions of users who turn to the chatbot for everything from routine web searches to guidance on how to give a friend career advice. Rivals, including Meta AI, Google's Gemini, and DeepSeek, have also sprung up.

Before ChatGPT's launch, few within OpenAI expected the name to be so consequential, said Andrew Mayne, the podcast host and OpenAI's former science communicator.

He said the chatbot's capabilities were largely similar to those of previous versions. The main differences included a more user-friendly interface and, of course, the name.

"It's the same thing, but we just put the interface in here and made it so you didn't have to prompt as much," Mayne said on the podcast.

After OpenAI launched ChatGPT, though, the chatbot took off, with Reddit users as far away as Japan experimenting with it, Turley said. It soon became clear that ChatGPT's popularity wasn't going to fade quickly and that the tool was "going to change the world," he said.

"We've had so many launches, so many previews over time, and this one really was something else," Chen said on the podcast.

ChatGPT's success represented another kind of milestone for Chen: "My parents just stopped asking me to go work for Google," he said.

• I bought a 40-foot Morgan ketch for $1. I'm at least the third person to buy it for this amount.
• Some say there's nothing more expensive than a free boat, but I've been pleasantly surprised.
• My husband and I recently sailed for over four months and traveled over 1,000 miles on this boat.

"Simon! Lara!" shouted Bill the bartender as we entered the town brewery. "You know anyone who wants a free 40-foot boat?"

Simon, my husband, began frantically shaking his head no. The adage in the boating community is that there's nothing as expensive as a free boat, but I asked Bill to tell me more.

Bill was friends with a couple who had aged out of sailing and needed to get rid of their 1970 40-foot Morgan ketch, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time.

I bought a boat for $1

The boat wasn't actually free — when I spoke to the sellers, they wanted $1 for it. Turns out, I'm not the first person to buy this boat for a dollar. In fact, I'm at least the third.

One former owner sailed it almost from the North Carolina coast to Bermuda before experiencing issues that caused it to partially sink.

The owner before us bought it with severe damage and restored it. He kept the dollar tradition because the boat was too old to insure and needed too much cosmetic work to list it with a broker.

The dated interiors and worn surfaces were just right for us, though. The boat even had the tiny cast-iron wood stove I'd been coveting.

We love the adventures we've had

We set to scrubbing off a few years of dust and grime. We repainted the interior in sunny golds and oranges, leaning into the 1970s vibe.

After changing the oil and replacing some filters, she was ready to sail. All in all, we didn't have to spend too much fixing her up — our biggest cost was a few cans of paint.

We cast off the lines three months after purchase, setting sail from our home port in Oriental, North Carolina — a lovely small town of about 800 people, known as the sailing capital of the state.

One of our first stops was Georgetown, South Carolina, where we ate perlau fritters. A few weeks later, we were enjoying lionfish sushi in the Keys.

Our wood stove kept us warm through a freak winter snowstorm. We spent entire days watching nurse sharks and parrotfish by the seawalls in Marathon, Florida.

Because we could anchor for free or just a few dollars in most places, we had all the time to ourselves and didn't need to toil away at jobs for financing.

We sailed over 1,000 miles from North Carolina to the Florida Keys. In all, we spent over four months traveling, spending little to do it.

We made friends in anchorages whom we would never have met otherwise. Buying this boat has truly been a game changer for us.

I got into boating because housing was too expensive

When Simon and I got married, we started looking for a house in Dunedin, Florida. However, the few houses we found in our price range were less than appealing.

One home tour left us scratching flea bites after; another had a plant room built into the garage that had grown very moldy.

With a mortgage preapproval expiring, we were getting discouraged. One day, Simon showed me his laptop screen and said: "Alternate plan?"

It was a Craigslist ad for a 25-foot sailboat. That was the beginning.

10 extra feet doesn't sound like a lot, but it changes everything

We bought the 25-foot sailboat for $3,000. Since then, I've purchased several boats, each one a bit bigger and less expensive than the last.

Before buying the $1 boat, Simon and I were living on a 30-foot boat I'd purchased for $1,000. Anyone who's done the tiny home thing can tell you about the cluttered surfaces and the utter lack of time alone.

When you live on a boat that small, you don't get to sail it very much, either. Items on counters need to be stowed, and maintenance goes undone because you don't have the room to work.

The 10 extra feet that came with the 40-foot Morgan ketch were a welcome relief. We now have room to stow all our gear, so we spend time sailing instead of sitting at the dock. There's also less tension between us because we have enough space to do our own thing.

Our 1,000-mile shakedown cruise showed us this $1 boat is sturdy enough for any seas and comfortably equipped enough for us to live here without climbing the walls. Next winter, we'll take her to the Caribbean. After that? Only the wind knows.

• China's first passenger jet, the Comac C909, celebrated nine years since its maiden flight.
• Air China launched its first international service with the type on Tuesday.
• It's another sign of Comac's growing ambitions to cut into the Airbus-Boeing duopoly.

China's first homegrown passenger jet is picking up steam as the planemaker Comac builds a foothold to compete with aviation's big players.

The Comac C909 is designed for regional journeys, with a capacity between 78 and 90 seats.

That makes it smaller than any jet currently produced by Airbus or Boeing, instead likelier to compete with those built by the Brazilian manufacturer Embraer.

It attracts less attention than the larger C919 — a similar model to the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 — but is still a key part of Comac's ambitions.

As Saturday marked nine years since the C909's maiden flight, China's official state news agency Xinhua interviewed the jet's chief designer, Chen Yong.

He called it "a pioneer in my country's commercial aircraft field," adding that it achieved "a breakthrough" by being China's first commercial aircraft.

Tuesday then saw flag carrier Air China launch its first international service with the C909. A water-cannon salute greeted the plane as it landed in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar after a 90-minute journey from Hohhot, in China's north.

"We look forward to it continuing to write the pride of domestic aircraft in the future," the airline said in a post on Weibo.

That came after Lao Airlines, the flag carrier of Laos, leased two C909s from Comac and started operations in April, Xinhua reported. Later that month, Vietnam's VietJet also leased two of the jets from Chengdu Airlines, launching daily flights between Ho Chi Minh City and the nearby Con Dao archipelago.

These are promising developments for the small jet, which Comac renamed from the ARJ21 last November, unifying its brand in a sign of growing ambitions.

However, only 166 such planes have been delivered, Chen said.

The plane also looks very similar to the McDonnell Douglas MD-80. One of Comac's predecessor companies partnered with the American planemaker in the 1980s.

Meanwhile, Comac has faced allegations of corporate espionage over the C919.

In 2022, a Chinese intelligence officer, Yanjun Xu, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after a US jury found him guilty of trying to steal technology related to GE Aviation's engines.

The aviation industry remains divided on Comac's chances of competing with the likes of Boeing and Airbus.

"Comac is years away from being certified outside China … It's going to be a very limited market for quite some time," John Schmidt, Accenture's aerospace and defense lead, told Business Insider in an interview at last month's Paris Air Show.

Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said in February that the sector could go "from a duopoly to a potential triopoly."

He added that Comac was more likely to succeed thanks to its "privileged access" to the Chinese market, which accounts for a fifth of global aircraft demand.

• President Donald Trump announced a trade deal with Vietnam that leaves tariffs on the major exporter at 20%.
• The US imports about 10 times more goods in value from Vietnam than it exports each month.
• Apparel brands like Nike could soon hike prices due to a large number of suppliers in Vietnam.

From Lululemon leggings to Nike sneakers, your favorite apparel may soon get pricier.

With less than a week left for the US to strike deals before additional higher tariffs imposed on April 2 come back, Wednesday morning started with President Donald Trump announcing a deal with Vietnam, saying that details of the deal would follow.

Apparel stocks like Lululemon, Nike, and Columbia Sportswear immediately spiked following his announcement.

The shares, however, tumbled within the next hour when Trump announced that not only would a 20% tariff apply to Vietnam, which is higher than the 10% baseline tariff currently on all imports, the tariff would be 40% if the companies reroute products from a different country through Vietnam, known as "transshipping."

Nike and Columbia Sportswear eventually recovered their gains, and Lululemon broke even at the end of the day.

In exchange, Trump said that Vietnam has agreed to zero tariffs on all US exports to the Asian country. According to data from the US Census Bureau, the US imports more than 10 times of goods in value from Vietnam each month compared to what Vietnam absorbs from the US.

Popular apparel makers remain vulnerable to a 20% tariff on Vietnam.

According to Lululemon's latest active supplier list from April, 38 out of 144 of their suppliers are located in Vietnam. Based on Nike's sustainability interactive map, the company works with more than 130 factories in Vietnam, which make up around 25% of all its factories. In comparison, only 5% of Nike factories are in the US.

Similarly, according to Columbia Sportswear's "corporate transparency map" more than 230 out of the 1017 suppliers the company works with are located in Vietnam.

Since April 9, when Trump announced a 90-day pause on some of the highest tariffs imposed on 75 trading partners, there have been talks of negotiations with Japan, Thailand, and the EU. But the talks have thus far only yielded one completed deal with the UK aside from the new agreement with Vietnam.

Over the past week, Trump had said on Fox News Channel's "Sunday Morning Futures" that he would be sending out tariff letters on July 9 when the tariff pause expires, signaling that there may not be an extension of the same scale.

"Congratulations, we're allowing you to shop in the United States of America, you're going to pay a 25% tariff, or a 35% or a 50% or 10%," Trump said of what would happen.

"We'll look at how a country treats us — are they good, are they not so good — some countries we don't care, we'll just send a high number out," Trump added.

• Banking could be "redefined" by as much as 40% by 2030, a new report predicts.
• The report says AI will fundamentally reshape many aspects of what banks do.
• It was prepared by ThoughtLinks, led by veteran banking exec Sumeet Chabria.

A new report attempts to put hard numbers on a question hanging over every Wall Street corner office: just how much of banking work will AI actually change?

Artificial intelligence is on track to redefine 44% of the work done at banks by 2030, according to ThoughtLinks, an independent consulting firm.

ThoughtLinks — which is led by founder and CEO Sumeet Chabria, a former tech and operations COO at Bank of America and a Wall Street veteran — mapped nearly 5,000 individual banking "processes" to see which roles or units at banks will experience the most upheaval in their roles.

ThoughtLinks found that tech, engineering, and infrastructure—collectively considered one sector — would be most susceptible to transformation, with a projection of 55% of the work involved in that sector being redefined by 2030. It's a logical outcome, considering how many of the tasks in these fields are precisely the kinds that automation is best suited to handle.

Front office, client-facing sectors are hardly immune. Commercial banking could be redefined by as much as 49% by 2030, wealth management to the tune of 42%, and investment banking by as much as 33%, according to the report.

Wall Street banks are investing heavily to compete. JPMorgan has deployed a large language model suite to its 200,000 employees, while Goldman Sachs has rolled out its own ChatGPT-like sidekick, GS AI Assistant. Citigroup also last week announced a new leadership team to drive AI strategy for its nearly quarter-million workers worldwide.

It's important to note that these numbers do not reflect ThoughtLinks' predictions about how many jobs could be lost or created as a result of AI — rather, they look at how much of the work done by those who work in banks could be done differently thanks to the implementation of artificial intelligence.

To assess how much each banking process could be redefined, ThoughtLinks developed a framework that maps what bank employees do to nearly 5,000 individual "processes." "'Redefined' reflects substantial AI-enabled, process-level change via automation, resequencing, elimination, or redesign," the firm wrote in its report.

In an interview, Chabria said that breaking finance jobs down to their most basic components would be critical to understanding how to retrain workers in the face of the AI revolution. "Clearly, you've got to keep the level of agility," he said, "because things are going to change."

Chabria shared three examples with Business Insider of how he anticipates sectors to respond to AI-driven changes. We got a look at snapshots for commercial banking, investment banking, and wealth management. Take a look at what's already transforming, what will be adapted by 2030, and the parts of the job that may stay mostly in the hands of humans for now.

Commercial banking: 49% redefined by 2030

What's already being automated:

• First-generation banking advisor copilot services are now live, helping bankers obtain insights on clients, quickly summarize notes or files, draft basic memos, or flag policy exceptions.
• Some manual workflows — like creating spreadsheets, drafting emails, and navigating legacy systems — are being replaced. This reduces time doing manual work, as well as human error.
• Customers have access to virtual AI-enabled assistants on corporate banking systems that give them personalized insights and enable them to do routine transactions more quickly.

What is expected to be redefined by 2030:

• Client onboarding: GenAI will help guide client onboarding conversations and tailor explanations, while the next iteration of AI will likely be able to verify forms and assess risks.
• Banks will leverage AI to assess small business creditworthiness to expand credit access.
• Banks will use AI to adjust loan pricing, fee structures, and product terms based on clients' behavior, financial patterns, and market conditions.
• AI tools will help detect some breaches and generate internal alerts in real time, increasing security 24/7.

What is likely to resist being redefined by AI:

• Large corporate lending will still require human credit judgment and board oversight.
• Banks will need to rely on legal, tax, risk, and structuring teams.

Investment Banking: 33% redefined by 2030

What's already being automated:

• Drafting documents like prospectuses or pitchbooks is being digitized. Generative AI tools can now pull in some market data, past deals, financial comps, and company-branded slides to build draft pitchbooks in minutes.
• Internal AI copilots are accelerating deal prep. Bankers can now use GPT-based tools to instantly summarize earnings calls, analyst reports, and client financials.
• Generative AI tools can now review documents, flag missing disclosures, and summarize new regulatory changes.

What is expected to be redefined by 2030:

• Banks will leverage AI to simulate investor demand or model pricing scenarios for equity and debt offerings. (Final allocation will remain human-led.)
• AI will help bankers test thousands of ways to structure a deal by adjusting debt, equity, pricing, and covenants to find the right balance for clients.

What is likely to resist being redefined by AI:

• Final IPO and syndicate pricing will remain human-led. Setting the price for a new issuance will require banker judgment, market feel, and live investor feedback.
• Winning mandates and advising the C-suite will remain relationship-driven and led by humans, who will use AI to enhance their knowledge or judgment and land new mandates.

Wealth Management: 42% redefined by 2030

What's already being automated:

• AI copilots can now answer questions, generate meeting prep docs, and summarize client portfolios — in seconds.
• Financial planning is faster and becoming more scalable. Tools powered by generative AI can aid advisors in building personalized plans that simulate life events, goals, and risk tolerance without starting from scratch.
• Client reporting is now becoming personalized with custom commentary on investment performance, market moves, and risk tailored to each client's portfolio.

What is expected to be redefined by 2030:

• Tax management will become more automated and timely.
• AI will help tailor advice and investment strategies to reflect individual preferences, financial behavior, and goals.
• On the flip side, clients may use AI to manage their wealth in their own portfolio with smart triggers.

What is likely to resist being redefined by AI:

• Client engagement and coaching will remain human. During market downturns or personal events, clients still want empathy, reassurance, and value judgment that only a trusted advisor can provide.

• Regulators will ensure that advisors remain responsible for advice, not AI.

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• "28 Years Later" introduces a cult leader inspired by Jimmy Savile, a BBC star outed as a prolific abuser.
• Chi Lewis-Parry, who played an infected Alpha in the film, called the character "masterful."
• "It's hard to come up with something original," he told BI.

Fans of "28 Years Later" were divided by the ending that introduces Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell), a cult leader who bears more than a passing resemblance to Jimmy Savile, the BBC presenter outed as a prolific sexual abuser after his death in 2011.

In an interview with Business Insider in June, the film's respective director and producer, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, confirmed that the character is based on Savile.

Chi Lewis-Parry, who plays Samson, a new, super-strong type of the infected called an Alpha, told BI that he thinks introducing Crystal was a bold decision but said "you have to test the boundaries."

Boyle has always challenged audiences with his films, including "28 Days Later" and "Trainspotting," a dark comedy about people in Glasgow addicted to heroin. In the world of "28 Years Later," the Rage Virus would have broken out before Savile's crimes could be unearthed. It seems likely the sequel, "The Bone Temple," will explore this further.

Lewis-Parry said: "It's hard to come up with something original" in the horror genre.

"Introducing that character is a different type of horror. It's taking real horror and sticking it in a fantasy horror scenario. I think that's masterful because you're not just relying on the jump scares and the stereotypical gore.

"You are kind of teasing the psyche of an audience with a real-life horror that has been discovered," he added. "For me, it's almost scarier because that really happened. Whatever you attach to that character is the fear element. I think it's brilliant, personally."

Boyle and Garland told BI how Crystal's scenes in "28 Years Later" set up the sequel. Garland said the bizarre cult leader taps into bigger themes of a "misremembered past" and "how selective memory is."

O'Connell will no doubt have a larger presence in the second film as Crystal, while Lewis-Parry will reprise his role as Samson.

BI previously reported how Lewis-Parry said he scared Boyle into casting him in the role during his audition.

Lewis-Parry teased that fans "might fall in love with Samson," but didn't reveal any plot points, adding: "it's magical when you watch something and know nothing about any surprises."

• Military officials and experts warn that air superiority may not be possible in modern warfare.
• Israel, however, was able to quickly achieve it against Iran.
• Iran, though capable, isn't bringing the same fight that a foe like Russia or China could.

Israel swiftly seized air superiority over parts of Iran during the latest fight, showing that it's still possible in modern, higher-end warfare to heavily dominate an enemy's skies.

But there's a risk in taking the wrong lesson from that win. Iran isn't Russia or China, and as the West readies for potential near-peer conflict, it really can't afford to forget that, officials and experts have cautioned.

Western military officials and warfare experts have repeatedly warned in recent years that achieving air superiority against those countries would be a daunting task.

Russia and China, especially the latter, boast sophisticated, integrated air defense networks with ground-based interceptors well supported by capable air forces, electronic warfare, and reliable space-based and airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

Air superiority in a limited theater is not the same as breaking through a complex anti-access, area-denial setup.

Israel's victory in the air war over Iran shows that air superiority is "not impossible" in modern warfare, former Australian Army Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan, a warfare strategist, explained. That said, he continued, a Western conflict with Russia or China would be "very different."

A victory in the air for Israel

Israel attacked nuclear and military sites in Iran in bombing runs and eliminated dozens of Iranian air defense batteries.

Justin Bronk, an airpower expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said it "highlights what you can do with a modern air force against some, on paper, fairly impressive defenses."

Iran maintained a capable layered air defense network featuring domestic systems, foreign-supplied defenses, and some modernized older systems. Though only semi-integrated compared to fully networked air defenses, it presented an obstacle.

Israel dismantled Iranian defenses over multiple engagements through extensive planning, detailed intelligence, and the employment of combat-proven airpower, specifically fifth-generation F-35 stealth fighters built for penetration and suppression of enemy air defenses and fourth-generation F-15s and F-16s, which can also support that mission.

Important to Israel's success in the latest fight with Iran were the engagements last year that substantially weakened Iranian air defense capabilities, as well as Israel's skills in this mission. Failures and aircraft losses in the 1973 Yom Kippur War led it to reevaluate how it approached enemy air defenses, in many ways leading to the emergence of the kind of missions used against Iran.

Ed Arnold, a security expert at RUSI, said that Israel reporting no aircraft losses "was significant, and it just showed that, yeah, you can get air supremacy very quickly." The caveat there is that doing so requires the right tactics, weapons, and intelligence, but even then, it is not guaranteed.

Retired Air Commodore Andrew Curtis, an airfare expert with a 35-year career in the Royal Air Force, told BI "the situation that everybody's been used to over the last 30 years is air supremacy," but when it comes to high-intensity war against a near-peer adverary, realistically, "those days are long gone."

Russia and China

Iran had air defenses, but not airpower. It's air force is largely made up of obsolete Western, Soviet, and Chinese aircraft. The ground-based surface-to-air missile batteries are more capable, but that's only one part of the defensive picture.

Curtis explained that Iran has "very little in the way of air defense aircraft, whereas of course Russia, and especially China, has stacks of them." Both Russia and China field fourth-generation-plus aircraft, as well as fifth-generation fighters.

China, in particular, has multiple fifth-gen fighters in various stages of development, and there are indications it's working on sixth-generation prototypes. By comparison, Iran's air force looks a lot like a plane museum.

But they also boast more advanced and more effective air defenses. Bronk said Russia's defenses are "better networked, more capable, more numerous, and more densely layered than Iran's." He said that if the West rolled back the SAM threat, it would likely be able to overcome Russia's air force, but China is a different story.

China has a complex integrated air defense network supported by ground-based air defenses, naval air defenses, and what Bronk characterized as "an increasingly very capable modern air force," among other capabilities. And China also has a "far greater and more sophisticated missile arsenal for striking bases" to hamstring an enemy's airpower. Additionally, it holds a strong economic position with an industrial base that is turning out high-end weapons.

China has also been tremendously increasing its number of interceptors without really expending any, unlike the US, which has been burning through interceptors in Middle Eastern conflicts.

Not all of China has the same protections, but breaking through defenses would likely represent a substantial challenge in a conflict, especially in something like a Taiwan contingency.

A conflict between the West and China could look like "a more traditional air war" — something not seen in a long time, Curtis said, explaining that air-to-air combat could make a comeback, with pilots again shooting down enemy planes. "In a peer-on-peer conflict, certainly with China, you would see a lot of that, because China has got a lot of air assets."

Future air battles

Achieving air superiority, as Israel did recently and as the US did in the Gulf War in the 1990s and in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s, has been crucial to the Western way of war, often serving as a tool to enable ground maneuvers.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which failed to knock out Ukraine's air defenses, now far more robust than at the start of the war, has shown what a conflict looks like when it isn't achieved. Aircraft are shot out of the sky, and ground forces are locked in grinding slogs. Devastating long-range attacks are still possible, but quick victory is generally not.

It has resulted in some stark warnings for future warfare.

Speaking on air superiority, Gen. James Hecker, the commander of NATO's air command, warned last year that "it's not a given." He added that "if we can't get air superiority, we're going to be doing the fight that's going on in Russia and Ukraine right now."

Other military leaders have said that air superiority may only be achieved in short bursts. War is full of surprises, but evidence indicates that's a real possibility. Achieving

Curtis said air planners now have to focus on specific priorities, like protecting air bases, and figuring out how to achieve a "localized time-bound air superiority or air supremacy in support of a short-term mission or operation."

"It's a different mindset," he said.

The key in future wars will be to seize control of as much of the aerial battlespace as possible to do what's necessary in the moment, all while holding firm defensively, as Israel did against Iran's retaliatory ballistic missile strikes, experts said. That means maintaining a strong air force and strong air defenses.

"Nothing in Ukraine or Israel has shown that air superiority isn't needed in the future," Ryan shared. "I think they've both shown that having air superiority is an extraordinarily important part of warfare and remains so.

• Motherhood is challenging, especially when you have six kids.
• As my kids have grown, life hasn't gotten any easier. It's just different.
• I try to remind myself that parenting is supposed to be hard.

Some mornings, I wake up and feel like I'm already behind. Someone can't find their shoes, someone is fighting over who gets to sit in the front seat, and I'm pouring cereal into a cup because all the bowls are somehow in the dishwasher — again. And in the middle of the chaos, I catch myself thinking, "How am I still so bad at this?"

I've been a mom for nearly 20 years. I have six kids, ranging in age from a teenager down to a 1-year-old. I've homeschooled. I've worked. I've done it all with and without a support system. If experience came with a trophy, I'd probably have a shelf full of them. And yet, I still have days when I go to bed wondering if I was patient enough, present enough, or just enough.

Life doesn't get easier, it gets different

I'm in what I call the messy middle of motherhood. During this time kids aren't babies anymore, so people assume it must be easier. But it's not. It's just different.

The sleepless nights are traded for emotional exhaustion. You're no longer chasing toddlers — you're navigating curfews, attitudes, identity, and the constant tug-of-war between boundaries and independence.

Your kids you, but in ways that are harder to define. They need guidance, empathy, and snacks every 15 minutes. They need deep conversations late at night, even when you feel like you have nothing left. They need your strength when you're running on fumes.

And the whole time, you're expected to hold it all together with grace, with gratitude, and preferably without falling apart in the middle of the grocery store.

This is supposed to be hard

But here's something I'm learning: Motherhood is only hard for the ones who are trying. If you didn't care so much, it would be easy.

You wouldn't overthink your decisions or question whether your child needs therapy or just a nap. You wouldn't stay up worrying, praying, googling symptoms, or wondering if you're doing any of it right.

That weight you're carrying? That doubt? That relentless voice in your head wondering if you're failing? It exists because you care.

And that matters more than we give ourselves credit for.

Because the truth is, there's no such thing as a perfect mom. There's just a present one. A mom who shows up. A mom who keeps trying. A mom who loves deeply, messes up often, and starts over again each morning.

I know I'm not alone

If you're feeling stretched thin, emotionally worn down, or like you're somehow still not doing enough — you're not alone. Even moms with big families and years of experience can feel like they're drowning in the demands of the everyday.

But here's the good news: you're not failing. You're in the thick of it. You're living out the most important (and often overlooked) part of motherhood, the in-between years. The not-so-cute, not-so-Instagramable, fiercely formative middle.

And one day, when the house is quieter and the shoes are where they're supposed to be, you'll look back and see that all your invisible work mattered. That even when it felt like too much, you were enough.

So if today was loud and messy and imperfect — same here. We're not failing. We're mothering. And that's more than enough.

• Southern cities dominate RentCafe's top 10 list for renters in the US.
• RentCafe analyzed housing affordability, local economies, and quality of life.
• The South claims 41 of the top 50 cities, highlighting cost of living advantages.

Go South, young man.

Well, if you're a renter, you might want to at least consider it.

According to a new analysis from research firm RentCafe, the 10 best cities in the US for renters are all in southern states, such as the Carolinas, Florida, Texas, Georgia, and Alabama.

To compile the list, RentCafe considered 20 metrics across three categories: housing affordability, the attractiveness of local economies, and quality of life.

From sources like the Census Bureau and Yardi Matrix, the firm looked at stats like local unemployment rates, average apartment square footage, income growth, how many apartments in the city are new, average commute times, and more.

"The South firmly establishes itself as the top region for renters in 2025, by claiming an impressive 41 of the 50 featured cities," wrote Adina Dragos in the report. "This growing interest is reflected in the region's consistently high rankings in key categories, like cost of living and housing and local economy, with nearly all leading cities securing spots within the top 30 for these criteria."

Below are the top 10 on RentCafe's list. Each city's national housing cost of living ranking, which had a 50% weighting in RentCafe's index, is included. The average apartment square footage and the share of new apartments in the city are also shown.

10. Orlando, Florida

City's national housing cost of living rank: 17

Average apartment size: 965 square feet

Share of new apartments: 19%

9. Raleigh, North Carolina

City's national housing cost of living rank: 14

Average apartment size: 947 square feet

Share of new apartments: 21.5%

8. Round Rock, Texas

City's national housing cost of living rank: 5

Average apartment size: 915 square feet

Share of new apartments: 23.8%

7. Charleston, South Carolina

City's national housing cost of living rank: 30

Average apartment size: 974 square feet

Share of new apartments: 27.4%

6. Wilmington, North Carolina

City's national housing cost of living rank: 10

Average apartment size: 952 square feet

Share of new apartments: 28.5%

5. Huntsville, Alabama

City's national housing cost of living rank: 5

Average apartment size: 945 square feet

Share of new apartments: 27.7%

4. Austin, Texas

City's national housing cost of living rank: 13

Average apartment size: 866 square feet

Share of new apartments: 26.1%

3. Atlanta, Georgia

City's national housing cost of living rank: 9

Average apartment size: 968 square feet

Share of new apartments: 21.1%

2. Sarasota, Florida

City's national housing cost of living rank: 3

Average apartment size: 969 square feet

Share of new apartments: 39%

1. McKinney, Texas

City's national housing cost of living rank: 4

Average apartment size: 948 square feet

Share of new apartments: 33.5%

• McKinsey's global managing partner said humor and vulnerability can help employees open up.
• Bob Sternfels said he likes to take walks with small groups and participate in fun traditions.
• Sternfels said McKinsey is also continuing to focus on professional development for its staff.

What does the head of McKinsey & Company, one of the world's most prestigious consulting firms, say is essential to leading high-performing teams?

Humor.

"A little levity — a joke at your own expense, a lighthearted moment — can go a long way toward building trust, breaking down barriers, and democratizing the team room," Bob Sternfels, McKinsey's global managing partner and chair of the firm's board of directors, told Business Insider in a an email last month.

Founded in 1926, McKinsey is approaching its 100th year in business. Sternfels, who was first elected by the firm's senior partners to lead it in 2021, said that while the firm might look and sound different than when it started, its mission and values have remained.

He was reelected for a second three-year term in 2024 and heads the firm's 40,000 employees around the globe, a 10% reduction from 18 months prior.

In addition to humor, one simple tool he uses to get employees to open up when he visits the firm's offices around the world is walking.

"I like to invite small groups of colleagues on walks whenever I visit one of our offices — it's a great way to get moving and hear what's really on people's minds," he said.

He also said he likes to join in on fun traditions that colleagues invite him to, like mochi-making in Tokyo, a hot wing challenge in Phoenix, and karaoke in Manila. Participating in these activities helps set a good tone before a town hall, he said, adding, "A little vulnerability on my part helps people open up."

Sternfels is leading McKinsey as the consulting industry faces disruption brought on by AI, and the global economy faces major changes.

A spokesperson for the firm said in May that AI was driving new levels of productivity and that it planned to hire thousands of new consultants this year.

Sternfels said he's drilling down on three main issues in 2025. ("If you know anything about McKinsey consultants, you'll know we rarely have a single answer," he wrote.) They are: distinctive impact with clients, unrivaled employee development, and staying global as a firm.

He said McKinsey was committed to professional development, noting Time magazine ranked it the "best company for future leaders" two years in a row.

"We're also not shying away from continuing to build a diverse meritocracy. It doesn't matter who you are or where you're from — it only matters what you've got," he wrote.

As for what he sees as the biggest growth areas looking forward, he said many CEOs are trying to navigate shifting trade policy and supply chain issues, and that "building a musical around geopolitics" is essential for this moment.

Capturing the productivity gains of AI remains top of mind, and it's clear that just incorporating the technology won't be enough.

"Companies will have to really rewire their organizations to fully benefit," he said of AI.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at @kelseyv.21. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• "Love Island USA" is a game show about finding true love and testing that connection.
• Despite the premise of the show, most of the contestants have failed to make strong connections.
• They seem too preoccupied with perception, reflecting our culture of social media and surveillance.

If you want to understand how constantly carrying a camera in your pocket has affected the way we think, behave, and fall in love, watch "Love Island USA."

On Tuesday, the 26th (!!!) episode of season seven aired on Peacock, meaning the original cast members have been secluded in an open-air Fiji villa for about one month. Based on how the show typically progresses, by this time, there should be several strong connections between the islanders, couples for the viewers to root for and, eventually, to vote for as joint winners of a $100,000 cash prize.

Instead, a common refrain among viewers online is that, at this point, no one deserves the money. Calls for the producers to "cut the cameras" and "delete the whole cast" abound.

This season has made a negative impression for various reasons, chief among them being an apparent lack of sincerity. The islanders seem hyper-aware of their role as entertainers and competitors, much too preoccupied with how they're being perceived by an invisible audience to be truly honest and vulnerable with each other.

Can we blame them?

It's not only that cameras are pointed at the islanders from every angle, in every nook and cranny of the villa, during every minute of the day — it's that reality TV has reached the point where viable cast members are already accustomed to those exact conditions.

It's painfully clear that living in an age of constant surveillance has taken its toll on these twentysomethings. This season, the cast's ages have ranged from 21 (Vanna) to 29 (Zak), though most hover in the 23-27 range. Their lives have been defined by the advent and proliferation of smartphones; the rise of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok; and with these gadgets and platforms, a new kind of celebrity known as the "influencer." These days, some genre of content creator is one of the most commonly cited dream jobs for Gen Alpha kids.

Speaking as someone who came of age in a post-9/11 world, who happily forked over my personal data to Mark Zuckerberg when I had yet to hit puberty, my generation's expectation of privacy ceased to exist pretty quickly. But when a person grows up idolizing those who found fame by broadcasting their personal lives, the value of privacy is also lost.

Meanwhile, the expectation to perform is more intense than ever. Even beyond the villa, it feels like there are spectators everywhere we go — with the way social media trends leak into real life and how people have normalized filming strangers and themselves in the hopes of going viral.

Amaya Espinal is one of the few islanders not afraid to show real emotion

Inside the villa, this expectation is dialed up to maximum levels. With the exception of Amaya Espinal — who is so raw and sincere that her willingness to express emotion has been repeatedly mocked by her castmates — the Gen Zers on "Love Island" seem to be putting up a front because they probably are; it comes as naturally to them as posing for a photo or curating a dating app profile.

This inevitably makes it difficult for the islanders to forge genuine intimacy, especially in the fires of reality TV. As April Eldemire, a licensed marriage and family therapist, previously told Business Insider's Julia Pugachevsky, vulnerability and open communication are keys to a lasting relationship. "You have to go in with open eyes," she said.

However, this doesn't necessarily make the islanders "fake." It makes them products of an environment that billionaires and tech companies created — and a tragic mirror for the rest of us.

• Jeremiah Peoples taught himself how to code while in the military after dropping out of college.
• He got to leverage his new skills at an apprenticeship in the military but felt impostor syndrome.
• Peoples overcame his doubts and landed a job at Slack after his service.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jeremiah Peoples, a 28-year-old staff developer advocate at Slack in Austin. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I work in software engineering as a staff developer advocate without a college degree. After my first semester in Butler University's computer science program, I dropped out and joined the military in May 2016.

While in the military, I taught myself how to code. In February 2020, I started a six-month temporary duty assignment, similar to an apprenticeship, to build satellite applications.

I was immediately reminded of how little I knew. After work, I felt terrible because I felt inadequate and thought they had made a mistake by hiring me.

I ended my enlistment in the military in May 2022 and started at Slack that same month. I've overcome that impostor syndrome.

My job in the military was as an intelligence analyst

I assessed dangers around the world in real time, trying to provide value that could be helpful to the US and military operations.

I enjoyed progressing in rank, the camaraderie, and the structure. In 2019, I volunteered to deploy to the Middle East, where I worked 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, in a war zone.

While in the Middle East, I realized this wasn't how I wanted to spend the best years of my life.

I needed a change

I started to make a plan and research other careers on YouTube. I saw a few creators who became software engineers without going to college.

I reverse-engineered what they did. I decided to study their videos, essentially do what they did, and hopefully try to achieve the same success.

I started with learning Python from a book, but after a month of working with it, I realized it wasn't the type of coding I wanted to do. I switched from learning Python to JavaScript, HTML, and CSS through an online course that I bought.

Learning to code was tough but really exciting

After my 12-hour shifts, there wasn't much to do besides work out or study. I studied every single day for three hours. I was having a good time and making progress.

I blended my background as an intelligence analyst with my ability to write code, which is how I started working on some technical coding projects in my intelligence job.

After that, I used it to land my temporary duty assignment with Section 31, an Air Force unit in Southern California tasked with creating applications for the Space Force. I was simultaneously an intelligence analyst and a software engineer.

My doubt lasted for over half of the apprenticeship

The feeling of doubt lasted for around three and a half months. It eventually clicked for me that I wasn't supposed to get it that quickly.

I grew up playing sports, and I thought of learning to code as learning sports. I had only been learning to code for about a year, and I was working alongside people who had been working in the industry for longer.

I had to realize that's OK. They're not expecting me to be a professional coder, but they want me to learn and grow. That's when I finally started to turn a corner and realize that I need to increase my reps, study, and practice like I would a sport.

Having a mentor really helped me

When I got a mentor, he streamlined everything I learned, helped me apply it, and told me what I didn't need to learn. Finding a mentor I was comfortable with and someone who had already achieved success where I wanted to achieve success was probably the most important part of my learning.

When I returned home from Iraq, I had two mentors. One was in the Air Force, a senior engineer in my squadron, and I just attached myself to him and asked him so many questions. He was so patient with me. I had another mentor who was a civilian.

I have some mentors now at Slack who are able to challenge me and help me grow.

There's not a single thing I would do differently

I'm extremely grateful and blessed to be in the position I'm in today.

In the Space Force apprenticeship, I did pair programming, which means you sit with another engineer and go back and forth. One writes the technical test, and the other writes the code to make that test pass.

Every time I heard a phrase that I didn't know in a meeting or saw a line of code that I didn't understand, I made note of it. Then, for 30 minutes every single day, I would talk to my mentor and just try to get better.

If you're feeling impostor syndrome, look in the mirror and tell yourself that the people who hired you are smart people, and they hired you for a reason.

As a staff developer advocate now, it's my job to know how to create custom applications in Slack and then teach them to all of our customers around the world with content via on-site workshops, presentations, keynotes, and virtual content.

In 2020, I started a YouTube channel

I documented my process and created content about software engineering. When I was separating from the Air Force in 2022, I put out a little teaser video on Twitter saying that I was open to work. That post went pretty viral, and I got messages about job opportunities at Google, Amazon, and Slack, where I ended up.

I don't have impostor syndrome anymore because I understand what it is. The only way to get through it is by being confident in your abilities.

I'm now confident in my abilities and what I can offer my employer and my community.

Did you land a job without a college degree? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected].

• America's Frontier Fund is raising up to $315 million for its first fund, per a pitch deck viewed by BI.
• The fund will invest $175 million in government loans and $140 million in private capital in national security startups.
• Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Founders Fund partner Peter Thiel have invested in the firm's nonprofit foundation.

A national security-focused VC fund, America's Frontier Fund, is raising a large new fund, capitalizing on the sector's support as the Trump administration rallies behind defense tech.

The firm is raising up to $315 million for its first fund, called the Frontier Fund, according to a pitch deck viewed by Business Insider. In early 2023, the target for the fund was $500 million, per an SEC filing.

The fund will consist of $140 million of private capital from limited partners and $175 million of government loans, according to the deck. The fundraise hasn't closed yet, and the terms of the deal could change. Part of the funding will come through the Small Business Investment Company Critical Technology Initiative, a program launched by the Defense Department and the Small Business Administration to grow private investment in biotech, quantum science, advanced materials, AI, space, and more.

A spokesperson for the venture firm declined to comment on the fundraise.

America's Frontier Fund will receive government-guaranteed loans, matching private investments up to $175 million. The firm will repay the loan with interest over a ten-year period, according to Washington Business Journal, which first reported the fund's government loans in 2024. The fund has also raised $100 million from the state of New Mexico, Bloomberg reported in 2023. The private capital raise has not been previously reported.

The Frontier Fund will give the Arlington, Va.-based firm fresh cash to back startups building frontier technologies — advanced manufacturing, compute solutions, energy, and other highly technical fields — that support American economic and geopolitical influence. America's Frontier Fund recently invested in Venus Aerospace, which makes hypersonic engine technology, and Foundation Alloy, a metal production startup.

$315 million is large for a first fund; market downturn, delayed initial public offerings, and more have hampered venture firm's capacity to raise large sums of money from limited partners. In 2024, 121 US-based venture capital firms raised funds for the first time, notching $5.7 billion in commitments. That year, the average size of a US-based firm's first fund was just under $41 million, over $270 million smaller than the Frontier Fund, according to data firm Pitchbook.

Investments in the defense tech space have surged up to $1.4 billion in the first quarter of 2025, compared with $200 million the same period last year, according to Pitchbook.

The firm also invests out of its Roadrunner Venture Studios, which backs pre-seed and seed stage startups building frontier tech primarily in New Mexico. Silicon Valley heavyweights like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Founders Fund partner Peter Thiel have invested in the firm's separate nonprofit arm, the America's Frontier Fund Foundation, an initiative to support US technological competitiveness, like partnering with the Austin Community College District on expanding its advanced manufacturing program.

Gilman Louie, the CEO of America's Frontier Fund, previously cofounded and ran In-Q-Tel, the CIA-funded investment firm. Cofounder and managing partner Jordan Blashek formerly worked at Schmidt Futures, Eric Schmidt's family office, now Schmidt Sciences, a philanthropic organization that funds research in AI, advanced computing, biotech, climate, and other industries.

• Bild AI analyzes blueprints to streamline preconstruction processes.
• The five-month-old startup raised a $3.1 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures.
• Bild estimates material costs and will eventually streamline permitting, its cofounder told BI.

A Columbia grad who was one of Google's youngest engineers and a serial entrepreneur who built hundreds of homes starting at age 16 have their sights set on disrupting the construction industry with AI.

Roop Pal and Puneet Sukhija launched construction startup Bild AI in February and on Xday announced a $3.1 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Mission Street Capital, Ryan Sutton-Gee, and Ooshma Garg.

Bild uses AI to read blueprints and estimate the materials and costs associated with a project. This is currently a timely and error-prone process done by hand, Pal said.

The company, which consists of just Pal and Sukhija, will use its seed to hire engineers aggressively in order to expand its technology, Pal told BI.

The duo came up with the idea for Bild at a Hack for Social Impact event in San Francisco, and were accepted into Y Combinator within days of meeting.

"I was really mostly keen on the issue of affordable housing," Pal, who also previously worked at Waymo, told BI. "There's an opportunity to apply my knowledge in computer vision and AI to really make an impact."

The startup's early clients are material suppliers in the framing, flooring, and door businesses, predominantly for multifamily residences. The company makes money by charging subscription fees.

By cutting down on presconstruction costs, Pal said Bild could also spell savings for renters. "If you have elastic housing markets," he said, "this cost passes through and people save on rent."

Material analysis is just the first layer of Bild's vision, as it incorporates new sub-trades — such as windows and roofing — one by one.

As its blueprint-reading technology becomes more sophisticated, it will ultimately be used in the permitting process, Pal said, to catch compliance issues and cut down on the costly and bureaucratic back-and-forth for residential and non-residential projects alike.

"If you reduce 1% of the cost of a hospital, that's another hospital that we have budget to build," he said. "It can really make a big difference broadly."

In addition to Bild, AI is also infiltrating other aspects of the construction industry, with firms like Shawmut and Suffolk relying on the technology to shore up worker safety.

• Zyn owner Philip Morris International US has launched a patriotic ad blitz.
• PMI wants Americans to know more about its corporate brand.
• The push comes as Zyn has soared in popularity.

The owner of buzzy nicotine pouch brand Zyn is taking over the upper deckys of several national newspapers and websites this Independence Day weekend with a patriotic push.

Sales of Zyn have soared in the past two years. The flavored nicotine pouches, placed between either the lower ("lower decky") or upper ("upper decky") lip and gum, are beloved by TikTokers and the conservative manosphere alike.

Zyn's popularity has propelled parent company Philip Morris International's stock to all-time highs. But few Americans know a great deal about Zyn's corporate owner and its US operations.

So, PMI's US division is running an ad campaign titled "Invested in America" across newspapers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, LinkedIn, YouTube, digital news sites including Business Insider, and selected connected TV channels.

PMI said it's hoping to reach "key opinion leaders" as it reintroduces its corporate US brand to America. It wants to raise awareness that Zyn, which was acquired by PMI from Swedish Match in 2022, is manufactured in the US, from its Kentucky facility. PMI also wants its target audience to know that the company's corporate headquarters is located in Stamford, Connecticut, and that it employs around 2,500 people nationwide.

Marian Salzman, PMI's vice president of corporate development in the US, told Business Insider that she and the company's US CEO, Stacey Kennedy, embarked on a listening tour around the US in the fall of 2023, which ultimately culminated in the "Invested in America" campaign. They found commonality around people "wanting a strong and proud America," Salzman said.

Salzman added that the campaign's ambition is to spark greater recognition of PMI's investments in healthier alternatives to smoking and its investments in US communities through job creation and charitable projects.

Patriotic campaigns follow a trend, but also carry a risk

PMI's flag-waving campaign launches in "Made in the USA" month, as designated by the Federal Trade Commission. Amid a global tariff war and President Donald Trump's push to boost domestic manufacturing, brands such as Ford and American Giant have recently shifted their US advertising to proudly promote their American roots. (Some big brands have also sought to play down their Americanness in their marketing overseas.)

PMI will need to tread carefully, said Marcus Collins, a clinical professor of marketing at the University of Michigan.

PMI's heritage is as a tobacco company — with a somewhat confusing corporate history. PMI separated from Altria Group in 2008. PMI still distributes cigarette brands like Marlboro and Chesterfield overseas, while Altria Group sells cigarette brands, including Marlboro, in the US, under the Philip Morris USA subsidiary.

PMI is attempting to shift more of its global business to smoke-free products. But while generally accepted as safer than smoking, nicotine products can still pose health risks, and there are concerns among public health advocates about the appeal of products like vapes and pouches to teens. (The majority of PMI's US sales are from non-combustible products, though it operates a cigar business it acquired in the Swedish Match deal.)

Collins said patriotism in America can carry many different meanings — from MAGA, to resistance, to the idea of capitalism at all costs, to name a few — and that brands need to be intentional about which of these groups they are targeting.

"I think the idea of, let's just grab on to Americanism and let people make their own judgment call or framing about what we mean when we say 'America' or 'patriotism' leaves you open to so much scrutiny for a brand whose products are already controversial," Collins said.

Salzman said the company's aim for the "Invested in America" campaign is to "spark an intelligent dialogue around change." She added that the company follows a strict marketing code, focusing its advertising only on adults who are of the legal age to use nicotine.

"We know that there's going to be naysayers, we know that there's going to be those who challenge this," Salzman said. "We'd really like to stay out of the political debate, and we'd really like this to be a communal debate about, if you won't quit, change."

• The AI talent wars are intensifying as companies like Meta offer salaries in the mid-six figures.
• Federal filings reveal Meta's wage ranges for researchers, engineers, and other workers.
• The highest-paid research engineer at Meta makes up to $440,000 in base salary.

Meta may be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to lure top AI talent from rivals. But how much is it paying its broader workforce of software engineers, product managers, and UX researchers?

Thanks to data from federal filings, we now have a window into the company's salary ranges during a heated moment in Silicon Valley's talent wars.

Software engineers at Meta can make up to $480,000. Machine learning roles go as high as $440,000. Even product designers and researchers routinely top $200,000.

The numbers come from filings that companies must submit to the Department of Labor when hiring foreign workers through the H-1B visa program, which allows them to bring in 85,000 specialized workers annually through a lottery system. Because tech companies typically guard their compensation details closely, these government-mandated disclosures provide a peek into actual pay scales.

The numbers reflect only annual salaries, excluding the stock options, signing bonuses, and other perks that can often double or triple total compensation packages.

The data comes amid intense competition for AI talent in Silicon Valley. Meta is reportedly offering some AI researchers compensation packages worth up to $300 million over four years as it builds out a new Superintelligence lab.

A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment.

The frenzy extends beyond tech giants. Thinking Machines Lab, the secretive AI startup founded by former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, is paying technical staff base salaries of up to $500,000 before the company has launched a single product, Business Insider reported earlier this week.

The battle has gotten personal. After Meta lured away seven OpenAI researchers, including Trapit Bansal, co-creator of the company's o1 reasoning model, OpenAI's chief research officer, Mark Chen, said in an internal memo that it felt like "someone has broken into our home."

Here's what Meta is paying across key roles, based on H-1B filings from the first quarter of 2025.

Artificial intelligence: The highest-paid research engineer at Meta makes up to $440,000.

• AI Research Scientist: $179,481 to $232,000
• Artificial Intelligence Product Marketing Manager: $220,000
• Machine Learning Engineer: $165,000 to $440,000
• Machine Learning Infrastructure Engineer: $239,723
• Machine Learning Research Scientist: $232,000
• Research Engineer: $154,840 to $400,000
• Senior Machine Learning Engineer: $232,017 to $232,266

Data: A data scientist at Meta earns as much as $270,000.

• Data Analyst: $168,000 to $204,000
• Data Analytics Manager: $223,202
• Data Engineer: $125,068 to $270,000
• Data Engineering Manager: $224,028 to $275,282
• Data Science Manager: $248,920 to $301,619
• Database Engineer: $181,000 to $240,002
• Data Science Director: $320,000
• Data Scientist: $122,760 to $270,000
• Senior Data Engineer: $189,066 to $209,720
• Senior Data Scientist: $204,541 to $227,559
• Senior Manager, Data & Analytics: $280,000

Engineering: Meta software engineers take home up to $480,000 in base salary.

• ASIC Engineer: $165,568 to $299,880
• Business Engineer: $137,000 to $228,538
• Design Engineer: $185,000 to $256,270
• Electrical Engineer: $164,000 to $255,000
• Embedded Software Engineer: $169,313 to $262,822
• Engineering Director: $352,310 to $353,042
• Engineering Manager: $246,536 to $288,767
• Front End Engineer: $177,747 to $233,495
• Hardware Engineer: $176,000 to $240,000
• Network Engineer: $115,000 to $239,237
• Quality Assurance Engineer: $189,213 to $244,000
• Security Engineer: $145,000 to $258,524
• Senior Software Engineer: $194,467 to $302,134
• Software Engineer: $120,000 to $480,000
• Software Engineering Manager: $219,978 to $328,000

Product and program management: A product manager at Meta is paid up to $314,159.

• Privacy Program Manager: $181,139 to $234,461
• Product Designer: $159,000 to $283,693
• Product Design Director: $321,538
• Product Design Manager: $267,540 to $279,594
• Product Growth Analyst: $142,000 to $206,000
• Product Management Director: $356,512
• Product Manager: $161,606 to $314,159
• Senior Product Designer: $199,932
• Senior Product Manager: $224,323
• Technical Program Manager: $164,131 to $274,596

Research: The highest-paid user experience researcher pockets up to $350,000.

• Applied Research Scientist: $214,032 to $232,000
• Hardware Specialized Research Scientist: $214,311
• Perception Research Scientist: $249,369
• Research Scientist: $167,000 to $321,101
• Research Scientist Manager: $258,524
• Senior Research Scientist: $214,032
• User Experience Researcher: $170,000 to $350,000
• UX Research Scientist Manager: $302,134
• UX Researcher: $195,000 to $292,160