• My fiancé travels for work, and I work remotely, so we are in a long-distance relationship.
• To prioritize our relationship, I travel wherever she is and work from there.
• Our flexible jobs make our relationship possible.

My fiancé and I met on Bumble in September 2021. She lived in Columbus, Ohio, and I lived in Pennsylvania.

When we met in person for the first time, she flew down to Atlanta from Columbus, where I was visiting family. I had been at my family's home for a week and was working remotely.

She flew down on a Friday evening, and I picked her up at the hotel the next day. On our first date, we went to Helen, Ga, and had a wonderful time. The following day, she went back home.

The following weekend was Labor Day weekend. I planned to head back to Lancaster on Sunday, but she asked me if I could go to Columbus instead and spend Labor Day with her. Although I wasn't off on the Tuesday after Labor Day, I only had meetings and could take those on the road back home.

That was the start of our unique long-distance relationship. My now-fiancé travels for work, so we had to get creative building something special.

We knew that if we wanted this to work, we would have to make our work arrangements work for us. Since I had the most flexibility as a remote worker, I decided to travel wherever she worked to spend time together and build our relationship.

Our relationship became a story written across many adventures

Since that decision, we have been to many places. One of the most memorable was a two-week stay in Miami in February 2023. I flew to Miami for the first time and stayed with her in the hotel. During the day, we both worked, but in the evenings and on weekends, we would explore. From beach trips to Miami Beach to enjoying local restaurants, we enjoyed every minute of South Florida.

In April 2023, we spent a week together in California. On one day, she had to drive to different client sites. I could attend my work conference calls while on the road.

One of our memorable stops was an overnight stay in Monterey. We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and had lunch at the Fish Hopper, where it is the best Bloody Mary I have ever had.

That same year, in September, I joined her in Phoenix. I was able to visit the Grand Canyon for the first time. It was the most fantastic experience I've had to this day. As I looked across the canyon, I was in awe of its beauty and how fortunate I was to enjoy one of the world's wonders with my now-fiancé — all because of our work arrangement.

In 2024, we spent the whole month of January in an Airbnb in Rincon, Puerto Rico. Since her job is seasonal, she was off, and I worked remotely during the day. We enjoyed everything that Rincon had to offer.

Entering the long-distance relationship was the best decision of my life

The coordination of our schedules wasn't complicated. In the rare chance that I had to travel for work, I simply adjusted my travel to wherever she was at a time that worked for me but still gave us plenty of time together. It was a lesson in communication and coordination.

Typically, a long-distance relationship would be an obstacle. But my remote status and her work travel were reasons our relationship flourished.

In the end, if I wanted our relationship to work, I needed to see our work arrangement as an opportunity to enjoy each other's company and spend time together doing fun things committed couples do.

• Yope, a photo-sharing app, is gaining traction with 2.2 million monthly active users.
• Users can create private groups to share photos, videos, and audio with.
• Trying out Yope was a good reminder that it's hard to convince your friends to download yet another social media app.

The buzzy new social media app Yope's focus on your private friend circle is also what made it tough for me to start using it easily.

"The difference with Yope is that you're not taking photos just for the sake of taking photos," Yope cofounder and CEO Bahram Ismailov told Business Insider. "Every photo on Yope is captured to be shared with the people closest to you."

Yope is a photo-sharing platform that says it has about 2.2 million monthly active users. Venture capitalists also seem keen on it. The app raised an initial seed round of $4.65 million at a $50 million valuation, Business Insider confirmed.

Yope users share photos, videos, and audio with a private group of friends to maintain a daily streak and view recaps of their days.

I set out as a 25-year-old Gen Zer intending to do a week-long review, but Yope requires users to have friends to work and it took a few days to convince my friends to join another social media app.

When they finally did, it was a fun way to keep up with my long-distance BFF. Their pictures showed up on my iPhone lockscreen as a "Live Activity" when the feature was enabled.

From getting started to maintaining streaks, here's what my 72 hours on Yope looked like before I hit my deadline to file my first impressions.

It's easy to get started if you already have a group in mind

Yope is straightforward and easy to use once you've downloaded the app. I created a profile and enabled Live Activities before making a group called "Jordan's Besties."

The hard part was getting said besties to join the app to make it usable for me. Without them, I was in the private group alone with only myself to post pictures to the collaborative wall.

Your posts aren't at risk of being seen by users outside of the group chat, and there's no "explore" section. You can search for others, but you can only see their content if you're in a joint group.

I finally got my friends to join

Usually, my long-distance BFF and I do weekly recaps of our lives with photos over text. Yope was a cool way to have real-time updates on her daily life.

However, I'm still on the fence about Live Activities. I don't use the feature at all outside of Yope, so it was sort of intense having photos and streak reminders every time I looked at my lockscreen. I enjoyed it the most when I first received a picture; it was a nice surprise.

As working adults, it's hard to remember to snap photos of your day, so the Live Activities choice made sense. Our schedules caused us to slack on updating each other, and that came with multiple warnings that our 24-hour timeframe to send pics was closing.

If I wasn't so distracted by scrolling TikTok and sharing my life on Instagram Stories, it likely wouldn't have felt like a chore to have another place to exist online.

That might just be the point.

Maybe I'm too old and too online

As a 25-year-old, I'm not completely sold that Yope would fit into my life as it is today. However, I see a number of scenarios where it seems like a great app to choose.

I can see myself using Yope while on vacation to give my friends a highlight reel of my trip. If I want to take a break from Instagram and hundreds of people watching my stories, it seems like it would be a way to scratch my "chronically online" itch without being perceived by the masses.

Yope's Ismailov described it as a "shared camera roll" between friends. It's a space without content by influencers or strangers. It's reminiscent of a time when social media was limited to the Facebook walls of people you knew — an era that younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha missed out on.

"Back in 2012, we had Instagram and it was amazing. Now, let's create something even better for the next generation," said Yope cofounder and CTO Paul Rudkouski.

Unlike those born in the mid-to-late-2000s, I was around for almost every era of modern social media. I've had an online presence on MySpace, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Tumblr, to name a few.

Yope has promising components that could help it reach a similar level of recognition, but its product-design choices mean it faces a particular challenge: attracting entire groups, not just individuals.

• Tech giants Amazon, Google, IBM, and Microsoft are racing to develop a functional quantum computer.
• Each has released a prototype quantum chip with different approaches and potential applications.
• The field is rapidly evolving, but major hurdles remain before it becomes commercially useful.

The quantum race is heating up.

Tech titans Amazon, Google, IBM, and Microsoft each recently announced advancements in their prototype chips, tightening the race to develop a commercially useful quantum computer that could solve some of the universe's stickiest problems faster than a classical computer ever could.

Quantum computing is a rapidly evolving — though still largely theoretical and deeply technical — field. But cracking it open could help discover new drugs, develop new chemical compounds, or break encryption methods, among other outcomes, researchers say.

Naturally, each of the major players in Big Tech wants to be the one to take quantum computing mainstream.

"You're hearing a lot about it because this is a real tipping point," Oskar Painter, the director of quantum hardware at Amazon Web Services, told Business Insider in late February, following the company's announcement of its Ocelot chip.

Stick with us — here's where it gets complicated.

Where classical computing uses binary digits — 0s and 1s, called bits — to represent information, quantum computing relies on a foundation built from the quantum equivalent of bits, called qubits. When they behave predictably at a large enough scale, qubits allow quantum computers to quickly calculate equations with multiple solutions and perform advanced computations that would be impossible for classical computers.

However, qubits are unstable, and their behavior is unpredictable. They require specific conditions, such as low light and extremely cold environments, to reduce errors. When the number of qubits is increased, the error rate goes up — making advancement in the field slowgoing.

Small-scale quantum computers already exist, but the race is on to scale them up and make them useful to a wider audience rather than just scientists.

Recently, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have announced new prototype chips, and IBM has made strides in its existing quantum road map. Each company is using unique approaches to solve the error reduction and scalability problems that have long plagued the field and make useful quantum computing a reality.

Here's how each approach stacks up.

Microsoft

Approach to quantum: Topological qubits

Most powerful machine: Majorana 1

In February, Microsoft unveiled its new quantum chip, Majorana 1. The aim is for the chip to speed up the development of large-scale quantum computers from decades to years.

Microsoft said the chip uses a new state of matter to produce "topological" qubits that are less prone to errors and more stable. Essentially, this is a qubit based on a topological state of matter, which isn't a liquid, gas, or solid. As a result, these quantum particles could retain a "memory" of their position over time and move around each other. Information, therefore, could be stored across the whole qubit, so if any parts fail, the topological qubit could still hold key pieces of information and become more fault-resistant.

"Microsoft's progress is the hardest to get an idea about because it's very niche," said Tom Darras, founder of quantum computing startup Welinq. "Even experts in the industry find it difficult to assess the quality of these results."

Quantum experts agree that Microsoft still has many roadblocks to overcome, and its peer-reviewed Nature paper only demonstrates aspects of what its researchers have claimed to achieve — but some in the quantum ecosystem see it as a promising outcome.

Google

Approach to quantum: Superconducting qubits

Most powerful machine: Willow

In December, Google announced Willow, its newest quantum chip, which the company claims takes just five minutes to solve a problem that would take the world's fastest supercomputer 10 septillion years.

Perhaps more impressive was Google's breakthrough in how quantum computers scale. Historically, the more qubits that are added, and the more powerful the computer becomes, the more prone it is to errors. With Willow, Google's researchers said that adding more physical qubits to a quantum processor actually made it less error-prone, reversing the typical phenomenon.

Known as "below threshold," the accomplishment marks a significant milestone by cracking a problem that has been around since the 1990s. In a study published in Nature, Google's researchers posit this breakthrough could finally offer a way to build a useful large-scale quantum computer. However, much of this is still theoretical, and now Google will need to prove it in practice.

Amazon

Approach to quantum: Superconducting qubits

Most powerful machine: Ocelot

In late February, Amazon Web Services announced its Ocelot chip, a prototype designed to advance the company's focus on cloud-based quantum computing.

An Amazon spokesperson told Business Insider the Ocelot prototype demonstrated the potential to increase efficiency in quantum error correction by up to 90% compared to conventional approaches. The chip leverages a unique architecture that integrates cat qubit technology — named for the famous Schrödinger's cat thought experiment — and additional quantum error correction components that can be manufactured using processes borrowed from the electronics industry.

Troy Nelson, a computer scientist and the chief technology officer at Lastwall, a cybersecurity provider of quantum resilient technology, told Business Insider that Amazon's Ocelot chip is another building block that the industry will use to build a functioning quantum computer. However, its error rate needs to be substantially lowered, and its chips would require more qubit density before they're useful.

"There's lots of challenges ahead. What Amazon gained in error correction was a trade-off for the complexity and the sophistication of the control systems and the readouts from the chip," Nelson said. "We're still in prototype days, and we still have multiple years to go, but they've made a great leap forward."

IBM

Approach to quantum: Superconducting qubits

Most powerful machine: Condor

IBM has been a quantum frontrunner for some time, with several different prototype chips and its development of Q System One, the first circuit-based commercial quantum computer, unveiled in January 2019.

IBM's Condor chip is the company's most powerful in terms of its number of qubits. However, since its development, IBM has focused its approach on the quality of its gate operations and making its newer quantum chips modular so multiple smaller, less error-prone chips can be combined to make more powerful quantum computing machines.

Condor, the second-largest quantum processor ever made, was unveiled at the IBM Quantum Summit 2023 on December 4, 2023. At the same time, IBM debuted its Heron chip, a 133-qubit processor with a lower error rate.

Rob Schoelkopf, cofounder and chief scientist of Quantum Circuits, told Business Insider that IBM has prioritized "error mitigation" over traditional error correction approaches. While IBM has so far been successful in what Schoelkopf calls "brute force scaling" with this approach, he said the methodology will need to be modified in the long run for efficiency.

Who leads the race?

Sankar Das Sarma, a theoretical condensed matter physicist at the University of Maryland, told Business Insider that the Amazon Web Services Ocelot chip, Google's Willow, and IBM's Condor use a "more conventional" superconducting approach to quantum development compared to other competitors.

By contrast, Microsoft's approach is based on topological Majorana zero modes, which also have a superconductor, but in "a radically different manner," he said. If the Majorana 1 chip works correctly, Das Sarma added, it is protected topologically with minimal need for error correction, compared to claims from other tech companies that they have improved conventional error correction methods.

Still, each company's approach is "very different," Das Sarma said. "It is premature to comment on who is ahead since the whole subject is basically in the initial development phase."

Big Tech companies should be cautious about "raising expectations when promoting results," said Georges-Olivier Reymond, CEO of quantum computing startup Pasqal. "Otherwise, you could create disillusionment."

Reymond's sentiment was echoed by IBM's VP of quantum adoption and business development, Scott Crowder, who told Business Insider he is concerned "over-hype" could lead people to discount quantum technology before its promise can be realized.

"We think we are on the cusp of demonstrating quantum advantage," said Crowder, referring to when a quantum computer outperforms classical machines. "But the industry is still a few years from a fully fault-tolerant quantum computer."

• Consulting attracts young professionals for prestige, pay, and flashy exit opportunities.
• Many consultants go on to found hugely successful companies.
• DoorDash, Warby Parker, and Faire were all founded by former consultants.

Young professionals are drawn to consulting for its prestige, competitive pay, and breadth of on-the-job experience — but also for its exit opportunities.

It's why many young consultants say they don't plan to stay in the industry for the long haul. Instead, they plan to put in a few years for the doors it will open when they leave, as well as the wide range of skills they expect to pick up very quickly.

Consultants often end up in the C-suite at the world's biggest companies, or launching businesses that go on to become hugely successful.

A LinkedIn career history analysis conducted by the small business-lending platform OnDeck in 2023 found consulting firms were the most common places for founders to begin their careers. The analysis found the companies that produced the most founders were Bain & Co., Oliver Wyman, and McKinsey & Co — all of which are considered leading management consulting firms.

From eyewear to healthcare and travel to e-commerce, here are 11 successful companies founded by former consultants.

Warby Parker

Founders: Dave Gilboa, Neil Blumenthal, Jeffrey Raider

Three of the cofounders of Warby Parker worked in consulting before starting the popular glasses brand in 2010.

Jeffrey Raider spent two years at Bain & Company from 2004 to 2006, according to his LinkedIn, before going on to business school at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Going back to school to get an MBA, especially from a prestigious program, is common for young consultants.

Dave Gilboa also worked at Bain from 2003 to 2006 before attending Wharton, and Neil Blumenthal had a brief stint as a summer associate at McKinsey while he was attending Wharton.

Raider, Gilboa, Blumenthal, and Andrew Hunt, another cofounder, launched Warby Parker while they were still students at Wharton.

Warby Park went public in 2021. The company reported a net revenue of $771.3 million in the 2024 fiscal year, a 15% increase from the year prior, with a market value of $1.8 billion, according to CNBC.

Harry's

Founders: Jeffrey Raider and Andy Katz-Mayfield

Raider, the Warby Parker cofounder who formerly worked at Bain, also founded the popular shaving brand Harry's in 2012 along with Andy Katz-Mayfield, another former Bainie. Katz-Mayfield worked at Bain from 2004 to 2007 and later got an MBA at Stanford University, according to his LinkedIn.

Harry's was valued at $1.7 billion during its Series E funding round in 2021, making it a "unicorn startup," or a privately owned company valued at over a billion. Reuters reported last year that the company filed for an IPO. In 2020, Harry's was set to be acquired by the shaving and skincare conglomerate Edgewell in a $1.4 billion deal, but it fell through after the Federal Trade Commission sued to block it.

DoorDash

Founder: Tony Xu

Before founding the massively popular food-delivery service Doordash in 2013, Tony Xu worked as a consultant at McKinsey from 2007 to 2009, his LinkedIn said. He went on to work at eBay and get an MBA from Stanford before starting Doordash with Andy Fang, Stanley Tang, and Evan Moore.

DoorDash had its IPO in 2020. The company reported a 24% revenue increase year over year in 2024, generating around $10.7 billion.

Kayak

Founder: Steve Hafner

Kayak founder and CEO Steve Hafner worked a couple consulting jobs early in his career before founding the travel search engine with Paul English in 2004, according to his LinkedIn. Hafner spent three years at Boston Consulting Group from 1997 to 2000.

"One of the best powerpoint monkeys on their staff," he wrote under the job history on his LinkedIn. "I quickly realized that producing one good slide a day kept me on the payroll."

After its IPO in 2012, Kayak was bought by Priceline.com, now called Booking Holdings, in 2013 for $2.1 billion.

Hafner also served as the CEO of OpenTable from 2018 to 2025.

Bonobos

Founder: Andy Dunn

Dunn, cofounder and the first CEO of the clothing company, worked at Bain for three years early in his career, according to his LinkedIn. His profile on the social networking site refers to Bonobos as "a remarkable brand, team and culture."

Dunn cofounded Bonobos in 2007 along with fellow Stanford Business School student Brian Spaly. The company was bought by Walmart for $310 million in 2017. It was acquired from Walmart by Express and management firm WHP Global in 2023 for $75 million.

Betterment

Founder: Jonathan Stein

Stein was the founder and board member of the financial robo-adviser Betterment and served as the company's CEO for 13 years, according to his LinkedIn. Stein remains on Betterment's board and has gone on to found Warmer, which focuses on client relationship intelligence.

Stein worked at First Manhattan Consulting Group for four years early in his career.

Ginger

Founder: Karan Singh

Singh, cofounder and COO at Ginger, which provides mental health services through an app, spent several years as a consultant at the management consulting firm ZS.

Singh was also appointed COO at Headspace, which also focuses on mental health, in 2021.

Wellhub

Founder: Cesar Carvalho

Cesar Carvalho is the CEO and cofounder of Wellhub, which was formerly called Gympass, a corporate wellness platform that serves more than 15,000 companies in 11 countries. Carvalho spent two years as a business analyst at McKinsey — from 2008 to 2010.

"During my time at McKinsey, I learned something fundamental that shapes everything we do at Wellhub: people matter," Carvalho told BI in an email. "The most successful leaders weren't just technically skilled — they genuinely cared about their people. This lesson has been the cornerstone of my approach at Wellhub. Being a good leader and being a good person should never be mutually exclusive. When you treat employees like actual people, not just resources, and give them the tools they need to be well, they naturally do well."

Komodo Health

Founder: Arif Nathoo

Nathoo, the CEO and cofounder of Komodo Health, spent seven years at McKinsey & Company before turning to entrepreneurship. He was a leader in McKinsey's medical affairs practice, where he focused on developing analytics products and services.

He cofounded Komodo with Web Sun, who previously worked at companies including Merck and Campbell Alliance, in 2014.

Komodo, which was worth over $3 billion at its Series E round in 2021, uses data, analytics, and machine learning to map patient insights.

"A lot of the inspiration for Komodo came out of a world where I was doing analytics on de-indentified data ten years ago and being constantly frustrated with the quality of it," Nathoo said in an interview with Axial in 2022. "The quality of the data that has existed in the market to date is massively inferior to solve problems that require, or that are, ones of machine learning — and where we kind of want to take the world."

Hippo Insurance

Founder: Assaf Wand

The founder and executive chair of Hippo Insurance, Assaf Wand, worked at McKinsey in the summer of 2004 and from 2005 to 2006.

Hippo went public through an SPAC merger in 2021 and now has a market capitalization of $720 million, according to Yahoo Finance.

Before launching Hippo in 2015, Wand founded Sabi, a company that sought to improve the functionality and design of everyday products. Sabi was acquired in 2015.

Faire

Founder: Jeffrey Kolovson

Jeffrey Kolovson, one of four cofounders of online wholesale marketplace Faire, worked at McKinsey in his early career from 2009 to 2011.

According to Kolovson's LinkedIn, he worked across industries from tech to retail during his time at the firm. He also noted that he was a member of the "SF office social committee" in which he was "responsible for officewide Friday Lunch entertainment" and "pioneered innovative gameshows such as 'Are you Smarter than an Intern?' and '2 Truths and a Pie,' a tepidly received program in which a contestant reveals two truths about themselves and is subsequently pied in the face."

From McKinsey he moved on to mobile payment company, Square where he overlapped with Faire cofounders Daniele Perito, Marcelo Cortes, and Max Rhodes.

Faire, which was last valued at $12.6 billion at its Series G funding round in 2022, connects small independent brands with retailers that can stock their products in their stores.

• This post originally appeared in the BI Today newsletter.
• You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. I'm Steve Russolillo, BI's chief news editor, filling in for Jamie Heller these next couple of weeks.

I've got Katie Notopoulos' impassioned argument about daylight-saving time on my mind. She says the Monday after it starts should be a federal holiday. Where do you stand? Let me know: [email protected].

On the agenda today:

• The four biggest multistrategy firms' dominance has made it harder for under-the-radar funds to compete.
• Meet the PR maverick Bari Weiss and Sam Altman can't get enough of.
• Elon Musk is wielding a chainsaw at DOGE. Management experts call it 'comically clumsy.'
• Millennials have a terrifying new role: being full-time adults.

But first: Blocked.

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

This week's dispatch

Meta has these lists

Getting rehired at Meta could be more challenging than you might think.

In a bombshell report this week, BI's Meta correspondent Pranav Dixit uncovered how Mark Zuckerberg's company maintains internal "block" lists that can prevent some former employees from being rehired.

Pranav has delivered scoop after scoop since joining BI a few months ago. I sat down with him this week to learn more about his latest exclusive and what it all means for Meta's future.

Q: What's the reaction been to your coverage of Meta's "block" lists?

A: We've had a wave of outreach since publishing. More former employees, both from Meta and other tech companies, have come forward to share similar experiences of being blocked from rehire. Their initial accounts suggest that this practice may be more widespread than initially thought. The story really took off when Laszlo Bock, Google's first HR head, shared it on LinkedIn. That sparked a robust debate.

Q: What's the most important thing you learned from your reporting?

A: I was struck by the remarkable lack of transparency in corporate hiring practices. While we have laws designed to prevent discrimination and retaliation, those protections only extend so far. There's a vast gray area where companies have near-complete discretion.

I was particularly surprised by how much influence middle managers seem to have in this process. In some cases, a simple form or classification from a single manager can profoundly impact someone's future employment prospects.

Q: Meta has undergone a pretty big transformation in the past few months. How does the story fit into what's next for the company?

A: This story captures a key tension in Meta's evolution. The company is still in what CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls the "Year of Efficiency," making aggressive cuts while simultaneously competing fiercely for AI talent. These "block" lists represent the collision of those two imperatives.

Hedge funds' growing divide

Smaller hedge funds used to outperform their larger rivals. Now, the tide has turned, and the Big Four — Millennium, Citadel, Point72, and Balyasny — have taken over.

BI heard from over a dozen fund founders, allocators, and industry experts about how difficult it's gotten for under-the-radar names to compete. The key for smaller firms is doing something bigger multistrats can't: recreate the same returns but with fewer people.

David faces four Goliaths.

The book of Lulu Cheng Meservey

Silicon Valley's highly sought-after comms guru won the hearts of startup founders with her edgy, direct, and nontraditional style. Bari Weiss loves her. Sam Altman's in her corner.

Less enchanted with the PR maverick are her peers. "She does not have a thriving business. What she has is a thriving Twitter following," one sniped. That doesn't change the fact Cheng Meservey's style is effective — even if she ruffles some feathers in the process.

PR's fiercest pitbull.

DOGE's report card

When Trump announced the Department of Government Efficiency under Elon Musk's leadership, management and policy experts told BI they were cautiously optimistic about its efforts to cut governmental waste. But six weeks in, they've got serious concerns.

Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, Musk has challenged the limits of the law by dismantling USAID, and his engineers have infiltrated government IT systems. Those same experts now describe DOGE's tactics as "clumsy," "wrongheaded," and full of "political recklessness."

A case study in bad management.

Also read:

• We found a DOGE guy at NASA because his Google Calendar was public

Millennials are in charge now

The generation once known for being young is coming to terms with the fact that's no longer the case. Millennials are buying homes, starting families, and getting promoted at work. They're moving up the ladder in their personal and professional lives — and it's a bit daunting.

In addition to the exhaustion that comes with this new phase of life, millennials are losing the automatic cool factor bestowed by youth. Their jeans and side parts are out of style. But the good news is they're so wrapped up in the trappings of "adulting" that they probably don't have the time to care.

The new grown-ups.

This week's quote:

"It takes too long to performance-manage folks out."

— A Microsoft executive describing the tech giant's performance review process, which the company is currently reevaluating.

More of this week's top reads:

• 'Bond King' Bill Gross says he's scared to wake up and check the news each morning. He shares 4 stock picks with BI.
• I worked at Amazon during its early years. Jeff Bezos didn't seem to care about anything but his mission — but it was hard not to like him.
• Millennial moms want more kids — they just can't afford them.
• TV networks like Fox, NBC, and ABC finally figured out how to boost ratings — and it took them forever.
• Young Americans are finally buying homes. It may not pay off.
• A new DOGE staffer at the Department of Labor has helped run a fertility clinic and has pronatalist ties.
• This chart shows just how bad things have gotten for software engineers.
• We sent our reporter to Kyiv. Here's what he learned from a top Zelenskyy advisor just days after the disastrous Trump meeting.
• Shopify was cutting resources for diversity groups before it was trendy.
• Post-Roaring Kitty: Meet the new class of day-traders attracting swaths of followers online.

• Pulse check: 6 months of Brian Niccol's 'Back to Starbucks' plan.

  ---

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

• The Grand America Hotel is one of the few 5-star hotels in Salt Lake City.
• I stayed in an 880-square-foot suite with a living room and a marble bathroom for $340 a night.
• The room was so spacious and luxurious that I thought it would have cost much more.

I've stayed at many upscale hotels that charge upward of $1,000 a night. And my $340-a-night stay at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City was just as luxurious as any of those.

As one of the few 5-star hotels in Salt Lake City, the Grand America Hotel boasts spacious suites, Italian marble surfaces, and spectacular skyline views.

After looking around my suite, I could see why it was recently ranked one of the best hotels in the world by CN Traveler's 2024 Reader's Choice Awards.

There are 775 rooms at the Grand America Hotel.

A hotel representative told Business Insider that there are four tiers of rooms, with starting rates ranging from about $300 to $8,500 (depending on hotel occupancy).

In January 2025, I booked a two-night stay in the second-tier room — an executive suite with a base rate of $340 per night, though BI received a media rate.

Once I got to my room, I was shocked by how spacious and luxurious it was for the price point.

Though the hotel was built in 2001, the representative told BI that it began "refreshing" its suites in 2024. The refresh is ongoing, but I was lucky enough to stay in an updated room.

My 880-square-foot suite opened into a living and working space.

Scott French, the director of hotel operations, told BI that when redesigning the suites, they aimed for an old-world European ambiance with modern comforts and luxury.

The teal, English wool carpeting filled the living room and bedroom. In the living room, a TV was across from a couch. The coffee table was tall enough for me to eat breakfast on.

On the other side of the room was a desk with a large leather chair in front of a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. Working there made me feel like an exec.

Double doors revealed the bedroom — and one of the most comfortable mattresses I've ever slept on.

French said they considered a variety of luxury mattress brands for the suites and customized their top choice.

"We handpicked and influenced some of the contents of the mattress. We asked them to add this and that until we got it exactly where we wanted it to be," he said. "We applied that process to most items we've added."

French said the room is filled with custom-made furniture, including the bed platform, which was redesigned and tweaked multiple times to showcase the wood exactly this way.

He added that the platform design also considered housekeepers by eliminating ledges that would make it harder to make the bed.

On one side of the bedroom, floor-to-ceiling windows opened to a small balcony with a city view.

I could also see the brightly lit hotel courtyard below my balcony at night.

I found the walk-in closet and bathroom on the other side of the bedroom.

The walk-in closet was about the size of my bedroom in my NYC apartment. It held extra pillows and linens, a rack of hangers, an iron, a steamer, and a safe.

I especially appreciated the terry cloth robes with pleated pockets and the matching slippers.

The white marble bathroom was bright and spacious.

The bathroom had a shower and a separate soaking tub on one side and a toilet behind a closed door on the other.

It seemed like every detail was considered — even the trash can was gold-tinted with intricate carvings.

The Italian marble was handpicked.

"We have it throughout the hotel, and it was picked to be a timeless stone," French said of the Italian marble. He added that they only used slabs with minimal veining.

"We bought pallets and pallets of that stone that we won't use because the owner, Mr. Holding, would only use certain crates of it," French told BI.

The bathroom had toiletries from a brand I'd never seen before.

The product's scents and soothing feel on my skin were nothing short of luxury. I even took some home.

The Grand America Hotel is a great option for anyone looking for luxury on a budget.

The Grand America Hotel offered such great value that I could see myself staying there again and again.

• Ankit Masrani shared the résumé that landed him a Microsoft role building security infrastructure.
• Prior to Microsoft, Masrani studied IT, got a Master's in computer science, and worked at AWS.
• He said data experience and security knowledge are needed to transition to cybersecurity.

Breaking into the cybersecurity field can be a challenge for some — but 36-year-old Ankit Masrani stumbled into it.

The Seattle-based Microsoft employee told Business Insider that while he had plans to become a software engineer, he didn't expect to work in the security space. Now, he develops sovereignty controls for the tech giant's security platform, ensuring sensitive customer information remains within geographic boundaries.

After studying information technology in college and working in roles building software systems, Masrani came to the US to get a Master's degree in computer science. After completing a six-month co-op internship at AWS while he was in school, he converted to a full-time employee, where he focused on securing data and networks until he felt the need for a change.

"To be honest, it was very tiring," Masrani said about his six and a half years at AWS. "And I wanted a change in my job to try something different."

Masrani said his final project before joining Microsoft involved building a customer-managed key encryption feature, which required research into best practices for data security. He said he found the work "really interesting" and began exploring teams focused on data governance and security. He said working alongside engineers who were truly "passionate" about their work was a top priority for him.

Here's the résumé he used to get his job at Microsoft, where he started on Microsoft's Purview security team as a senior software engineer. Now, he's a principal software engineer working on Microsoft's Security Platform.

Masrani said he applied by going to the company site and didn't have any references. He said if he were to apply again today, he might not include such a lengthy education section because people would probably focus on his 10 years of experience. When he was a year or two out of school, though, he said he thinks it helped him get interviews.

Specializing in security

Masrani came into the role with a background in IT, computer science, and data experience — all of which are recommended routes to enter the field, according to industry veterans.

Masrani's pivot wasn't drastic, but he said certain skill sets are needed to transition from general software engineering to the security side.

As a software engineer building cybersecurity services, Masrani said he handles large volumes of security logs, user activity data, and threat intelligence data. Masrani said he isn't "actively doing security threat hunting" but is building services for a platform that does.

Masrani said experience with big data technologies like Hadoop, an open source framework that processes large amounts of data for applications, is important for learning how to build data pipelines. He added that machine learning and anomaly detection is also useful for working on security product services.

Masrani also recommends experience with cloud services like AWS or Microsoft Azure to understand scalable data processing.

"Storage is very important since cloud services are leveraged everywhere from small to large software systems," Masrani said.

Masrani also said security knowledge is necessary to pivot to the cybersecurity sector. Masrani said safety protocols and data processing guidelines are often specific to regions.

He said domain knowledge around data governance and other security products is important, as well as familiarity with regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation. He said it's also important to know fundamentals around data encryption, network security, and application security.

"Any handling of customer data must be done in a safe and secure manner," Masrani said. "Having knowledge of best practices for handling data is very important.

• My husband and I got married in our early 20s, and we loved being DINKs.
• Then, my father-in-law told us he wanted grandkids. We decided to have children.
• Having our son changed our lives in so many ways, but I regret nothing.

My husband and I married at the tender ages of 21 and 24. I loved our child-free life — biking to nearby bars and restaurants, staying up late and sleeping in, and road-tripping with friends. We were young, in love, and the world felt wide open. Deep down, I wasn't even sure I wanted children. It felt like we could go on being DINKs forever.

Then, in 2012, a conversation with my father-in-law changed everything.

My father-in-law told us he wanted grandkids on his birthday

For his 60th birthday, we celebrated at an all-you-can-eat buffet inside a smoky casino. I sat next to him. "We didn't know what to get you for your birthday," I said, feeling guilty that my husband and I showed up empty-handed. "What do you want?" I asked. "We'll bring it next time we see you."

"Grandkids," he said, matter-of-factly as he split open a crab leg.

My face turned red.

"Oh, don't listen to him," my mother-in-law said, swatting him playfully.

My father-in-law shook his head. "No. I'm serious." There was a sparkle in his eye. Suddenly, I saw life from his perspective. He was 60 with no grandchildren. His own father died when he was young, and his mom didn't live very long past 60. In his mind, he didn't know how many good years he had left, and he wanted to spend them with his grandbabies.

I didn't want to deny him that, but I was also young with my whole life in front of me. A baby would derail the life I loved.

Then, my husband and I babysat an 18-month-old baby for a weekend. Watching my husband push him in the swing, his little giggles erupting, tugged at my heart.

At that moment, I saw the beauty of parenthood for the first time. Later, I spoke to my husband about it. Unlike me, my husband didn't have aspirations to travel before having children — he was happy to settle into fatherhood at age 26.

By the time I'd talked myself out of motherhood, I was pregnant. I felt torn between the life I envisioned and this new future that included a baby, but ultimately, I chose to look at the circumstance through the lens of the adage: everything happens for a reason.

Though that attitude helped me feel more excited about my pregnancy, I still found it difficult. The constant nausea and exhaustion made it harder to focus on my graduate degree studies and full-time work.

My husband and I fought more, too, mostly over the new responsibilities we faced and my pregnancy hormones. The blissful days of the honeymoon stage seemed to be slipping through our fingers. Still, neither of us regarded the pregnancy with regret.

When we took my in-laws and parents out to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant, I handed them each a gift — my favorite picture book, Madeline. Inside, I'd scribbled the words, "Read to me November 18th," and then informed them we were pregnant and that was my due date.

Catching the look of joy on their faces, especially my father-in-law's face, amplified my excitement.

At our gender reveal, we told everyone we were having a boy, and his middle name would be Ignacio, after my father-in-law. When I turned to catch his reaction to the news, tears flowed down his cheeks.

Having a baby early in our marriage changed things

I became a mother three weeks after turning 24. Having a baby added strain to our marriage; our focus was now on the child and not our connection. However, watching my husband care so much for another human being gave me a deeper respect for him. As parents, we learned to be more selfless, and our marriage is better for it.

Motherhood turned out to be the sweetest gift for other reasons, too. At a "Mommy and Me" class, I met a group of extraordinary women. We bonded over sleepless nights, breastfeeding woes, and baby milestones. Our friendship dug deep, and 12 years later, I am still close to this group.

I don't regret anything

My in-laws turned out to be the most devoted grandparents in the world. Our son is an important part of their life. Their phones are full of photos and videos of him — they say he gave them a new calling and purpose.

And, of course, I wouldn't trade my son for anything, either. If we'd waited to have kids longer, I'd never have known this child, this joy, this love.

• An entrepreneur launched a plushie that purrs, targeting millennials and Gen Zers.
• Plushie sales are booming among adults who find comfort in the things they enjoyed as kids.
• Research shows cat purrs have calming effects, aligning with Purryfuls' stress-relief mission

An entrepreneur set up a company making purring plushies — and is aiming them at stressed-out millennials and Gen Zers.

Katharine Burke was burned out while working in tech. On one particularly bad day, she came home to her cat, Wren, and all she wanted was a cuddle.

Wren, being a cat, operates on her own terms and was not in an affectionate mood at that moment.

"I thought to myself, it'd be nice if I could just find a little purring hot water bottle to take her place when she was uncooperative," Burke told Business Insider. "I went online because I was just going to buy it. I was really surprised when I could not find what I was looking for."

Burke decided to start making plushies herself and set up a company called Purryfuls, and left her job a couple of months later to focus on the project.

They launched at Toy Fair New York last weekend.

Plushies are hot

There has been a boom in plushie sales among adults in recent years.

Plushies are "hot right now," Brian Benway, the senior tech and gaming analyst at Mintel, previously told BI. In Mintel's Traditional Toys and Games report, published in October 2024, Benway said that plushies were particularly in demand, with sales growing significantly.

Some attribute plushie popularity to millennials clinging onto their youth, but others think it's because there is less judgment about alternative interests and hobbies.

Burke said she wasn't aware of this when launching Purryfuls, but it's the age group she's targeting. She isn't surprised that Gen Zers and millennials are turning toward stuffed toys.

"I still remember my teddy bear — that was the first comforting device that I had," she said. "My key mission here was just to make something that would bring a little bit of calm to someone's day."

Burke realized that a lot of the things that stressed her out — fights with insurance companies, DMV bills, unexpected expenses from leaking pipes — would probably be stressing others out too.

"It's meant to be a little moment of calm, a little moment of joy in your day, so that you can take a break," Burke said.

The idea isn't to replace real pets but to be there when you need their comfort, and they have better things to do.

There are several different settings, including a sleep mode, in which the Purryful purrs quietly for 10 minutes to help you drift off.

Purring is healing

Purring is thought to be healing for cats and a sign of happiness.

In Margaret Atwood's "MaddAddam" trilogy, an idealistic, genetically spliced humanoid species has coopted the cat's purr to heal physical wounds. This may not just be science fiction, though, because academic research suggests purring could be good for us, too.

A article published in the Human-Animal Interaction Bulletin journal in 2023 featured a small study of 65 respondents of different ages, all of whom had pet cats for varying amounts of time. The cat owners reported that their cats' purrs had a relaxing and calming effect.

The authors noted the function of a cat's purr is not entirely understood, but previous research found that mechanical vibrations have been shown to promote self-healing in humans.

In another study that looked at the impact of a pet cat on mental wellbeing during the pandemic, owners described their moggy's purrs as grounding and comforting.

Millennials and Zoomers have both been described as "anxious" generations, and Burke wants Purryfuls to be there to help if it can.

"I don't know that I want to say that things are harder for one generation over another — they're probably just different," she said.

"But I do feel that now what we're getting is people saying, no, I'm not going to follow the path you prescribed for me. I am going to make my choices for myself based on what I like, and what feels right to me," Burke added. "That's something I can really relate to — and that's exactly what I did."

• Debate has swirled in tech recently around cutting "low performers."
• A former Netflix HR director says proactive firings can improve morale among high achievers.
• He also explained Netflix's culture of feedback and transparency.

From Meta to Microsoft, tech companies have recently been taking an ax to "low performers" — and their actions have caused some debate about the potentially damaging moniker.

Netflix has never been shy about its high-performance culture, embodied by its famous culture memo that debuted in 2009 and has been revised since.

"We aim only to have high performers," the memo says. Like a professional sports team, the streamer focuses on "picking the right person for every position, even when that means swapping out someone they love for a better player."

Cheick Soumaré, a former Netflix HR director, said this culture was key to keeping high performers happy.

If high-achieving employees see colleagues failing to pull their weight and it goes unchecked, "their morale goes down, and that creates other problems," Soumaré told Business Insider.

Soumaré supported several teams from 2020 to 2022, including business and legal affairs as well as government relations.

"We want to be very clear that we do think excellence in having the colleagues around you is super important," Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said on the Decoder podcast last year. "To the degree the business evolves or moves and we think there's a change that needs to be made, we will make it."

Netflix has a high level of feedback and transparency

When it came to handling performance issues, Soumaré said he admired Netflix's culture of transparent feedback.

Netflix's culture memo says "extraordinary candor" is a key value in assembling a "dream team." And rather than quarterly or annually, feedback should happen daily, "like brushing your teeth."

Soumaré said those tenants mirror practices on the ground — so much so that when he first started, the transparency took him aback.

Weeks into his tenure, he said he received a companywide email from one of Netflix's co-CEOs describing an employee who'd been replaced after not meeting expectations.

"I was like, 'Wow, talk about transparency,'" Soumaré said.

A Netflix spokesperson said it no longer sends companywide emails explaining why someone was let go, but declined to specify when the practice stopped.

Soumaré said Netflix's culture wasn't unjustly cutthroat. He said anyone with performance issues received "several rounds of feedback" before being let go.

Netflix's 'keeper test'

Netflix is known for its distinctive culture, which includes its "keeper test," another practice used to weed out underperformers.

The company updated its culture memo last year, including a slight tweak to the "keeper test." That part of the memo says if a manager would not fight to keep an employee or rehire them in hindsight, "we believe it's fairer to everyone to part ways quickly."

In 2017, former Netflix CEO Reed Hastings — currently its executive chairman — used the test to fire a close friend, former chief product officer Neil Hunt.

"You have to separate the emotion from the logic," Hunt said at the time.

And Hastings has said he's also applying the conceit to his latest venture: the Utah ski resort Powder Mountain.

• The US has sent Ukraine a small number of powerful M1 Abrams tanks.
• These tanks are being used in combat, though they — and other armored vehicles — are taking damage.
• A Ukrainian lawmaker said Trump's pause on military aid will make it harder to repair them.

KYIV, Ukraine — President Donald Trump's decision this week to stop the flow of military aid to Ukraine could be a serious blow to Kyiv's arsenal of US-made Abrams tanks and other US-made combat vehicles.

Ukraine was already facing a shortage of Abrams tanks, and Trump's move to stop arms shipments — which includes the supply of crucial spare parts — will only exacerbate the problem. Kyiv won't be able to keep tanks in working order or repair ones damaged in combat. The US has also ceased sharing some critical intelligence with Ukraine.

Serhiy Rakhmanin, a member of Ukraine's parliamentary committee on national security, defense, and intelligence, said Ukrainian forces operating inside Russia, specifically in its western Kursk region, rely on a significant number of American armored vehicles.

These include Abrams tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, and Stryker armored personnel carriers, Rakhmanin told Business Insider in Kyiv.

"Some sustain damage but remain operational," he said through a translator. "However, repairing them is difficult because the US has provided very few spare parts. Now, there will be none at all."

"This means that while we have the equipment, we may be unable to use it due to maintenance constraints. This is not about new supplies but about sustaining existing equipment," Rakhmanin added.

The US sent 31 M1A1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine in the fall of 2023. The following summer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that this number wouldn't be enough to make a difference on the battlefield, which has been the case. The Abrams features a powerful gas turbine engine and has a reputation for requiring more maintenance than other tanks.

By contrast, the Biden administration sent over 300 Bradleys, more than 400 Strykers, and hundreds of other armored vehicles to Kyiv.

Complicating matters is the fact Ukraine has also received Germany's Leopard 2 and Britain's Challenger 2 tanks, which each require their own spare parts.

The Australian government said in October that it planned to send nearly 50 of its aging M1A1 Abranks tanks to Ukraine, a move that would more than double the size of Kyiv's existing inventory.

Still, it's unclear when those additional tanks might arrive, meaning that Ukraine has had to be somewhat conservative with its limited number of Abrams.

A lack of spare parts will only increase the risk. According to Oryx, an open-source intelligence site that tracks war losses on both sides, at least 19 of Ukraine's Abrams have been damaged or destroyed. BI is unable to independently verify these figures.

For much of the war, it had been the US policy that when American-provided military equipment suffered damage in Ukraine, it would be transported out of the country to NATO soil, like Poland. This, however, is a timely process.

Rakhmanin said the US has always had a strict policy about allowing its military hardware to be repaired inside Ukraine, which will only get worse under the Trump administration.

"This leads to absurd situations," Rakhmanin said. "For example, we might have a tank that is fully operational except for a small missing part. We cannot manufacture it because we lack the blueprints and authorization. We also do not have the necessary expertise to produce such components independently."

"As a result, the tank sits idle in a parking lot while we wait for months to receive the spare part," he added.

He said the US could allow European countries to buy and send spare parts to Ukraine, but it's unclear if this will be authorized. If it isn't, Kyiv will have to cannibalize more equipment by stripping parts from one vehicle to keep another working.

The US decision to pause the flow of military aid to Ukraine earlier in the week was the first in three major moves aimed at curbing support to Kyiv following an explosive meeting where Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Zelenskyy at the White House days prior.

On Friday, Trump told reporters who asked about his decision to stop US arms shipments that "I want to know they [Ukraine] want to settle and I don't know they want to settle." He said he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is open to ending the war.

The Trump administration's intelligence stoppage deprives its partner of crucial warning signs for its air defenses and for its efforts to defend its territory, as the White House adds more pressure on Zelenskyy to sign a deal that gives Washington revenue from Ukraine's natural resources.

• Justin Mauldin built an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, in his Austin backyard for $41,500.
• Mauldin said the ADU office allows his family of four to live comfortably in a smaller home.
• The ADU also boosted his home's property value, according to his real-estate agent.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Justin Mauldin, 40, who built an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, in his Austin backyard. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I'm the founder and CEO of Salient, a PR agency that partners with tech startups.

By 2019, before the COVID-19 outbreak, my team had already shifted to a mostly remote setup, with many freelancers working from home or shared office spaces like WeWork. My wife and I decided to make the most of our property and build a dedicated home office.

Our property is within Austin city limits. We live on a quarter-acre lot with a relatively small main house of about 1,200 square feet. At the time, our large backyard was undeveloped, with only a small farmhouse shed on the property.

We added an accessory dwelling unit of just under 200 square feet to our backyard. The cost for the ADU was $32,542, which covered the products, shipping, and installation. I believe prices have increased since then, but we were able to take advantage of a sale and a 10% discount at the time. The total cost of the entire project was about $41,500.

It's been the best decision we could have made for our property. We purchased our home in 2020 for around $450,000, and its value has definitely increased. When we asked our real-estate agent for an estimate, she said it could be worth $750,000 today. (Editor's note: The median home price in Austin has increased 12.8% since 2020, according to Redfin.)

Working from the ADU has been fantastic — it's allowed me some quiet time. We have two young children, so I can "go to work" without being in the main house with all the chaos and noise. It's truly been a game changer.

The construction process was simple and fast

Even though it's separate from the main house, the home office is the most beautiful room on the property — everyone who sees it is completely wowed.

I went all out with super-tall, dramatic ceilings and a massive wall of windows. We also built a fire pit in front, which has become a real focal point.

When we decided to build an ADU, COVID made it difficult to get bids, materials, and reliable contractors, so a pre-fabricated option seemed like the best choice. I went with Studio Shed, a Denver-based company that builds the structure in their warehouse and then ships it to be assembled on-site.

The process was simple, like building with Lego bricks or designing a car. You pick your model, customize the size, ceilings, and windows, and select your upgrades. You can go as basic or as fancy as you want. It's all done online — just like ordering anything on Amazon — and you get the price immediately.

Before the ADU arrived, I cleared the site and poured the concrete pad, which cost about $1,500.

When it was delivered, I didn't want them to just drop off the materials and leave me to figure it out, so I paid a few thousand dollars for them to assemble the structure. The walls, windows, and roof were up in just two days.

After the structure was assembled, a local handyman and I worked on the finishing details, including installing the flooring, painting, adding door handles, electrical work, and other touches. Since the ADU was too far from the main house to connect to our central AC, I also added a mini-split system that I purchased for $600 and paid about $500 to install.

Everything was built and finished quickly. The ADU was delivered on February 1, 2021, and completed by the end of the month.

The ADU allowed our family of 4 to live more comfortably in a smaller house

Given the price of our home, it's clear we're not in a fancy, McMansion-filled neighborhood. Most homes here are 1950s bungalows.

When we first moved into our home, instead of following the common trend — where people tear down these homes to build new constructions — we took the opposite approach.

We wanted to preserve the character, so we did a lot of renovations: replacing the siding, repainting, completely redoing the interior, and reworking the landscaping. I think the neighbors really appreciated that.

Still, we have two girls, so a 1,200-square-foot home with just one bathroom can be a challenge, especially when we have visitors.

Of course, we'd love a bigger home, but with prices still unaffordable, it's tough. When we bought our home, our interest rate was locked at 2.5% — rates now are much higher. Most homes in desirable areas are in the $1.5 million range, and with the high property taxes here, it's just not realistic. We could not afford a place in Austin now without doubling or tripling our housing costs.

For now, we're happy with our place, and maybe we'll add a bathroom one day.

ADUs are becoming popular in Austin, and I can see why

Austin has a housing crisis, yet people still want to live here and continue moving to the city. I think creative solutions like ADUs are necessary.

Over the past few years, the city has made it much easier to add ADUs to properties, especially the type I built, which is under 200 square feet.

Historically, with a permit, you could divide a quarter-acre or smaller property into two lots — one for your main home and the other for an ADU, often for uses like Airbnb. But now, with relaxed regulations, you can simply add a small structure in the back of your property without needing a permit.

While some may have concerns about homes being closer together, I believe this is the best solution for making it easier for people to build ADUs and own homes — and it's working well.

The office has certainly made living in our house much more comfortable.

In today's world, there's so much background noise, whether you're at the office or working remotely, making it hard to focus and be creative. You can try blocking it out with headphones, but there's a big difference between that and being in a truly quiet space.

I'm used to my kids running in and out — that's just part of being a dad — but when I close the door, it's so serene.

Beyond avoiding interruptions, sometimes you just need real focus time, especially for the creative stuff. With all the noise around us, having a quiet space feels like a complete escape.

Nolan Saumure, a 28-year-old Canadian YouTuber, walked into Afghanistan from Pakistan last summer. He spent a week traveling through the Taliban-controlled country with a local guide and a camera in an attempt to show what he called "the other side of Afghanistan" — the natural beauty, warm hospitality, and rip-roaring good times he says aren't depicted in Western media.

Saumure, whose YouTube channel, Seal on Tour, has 650,000 subscribers, is something of a shock-jock Zoomer Anthony Bourdain: His popular videos include "48 Hours Living in India's Biggest Slum," "Trying the Most Addictive Substance in the Philippines," and "White Boy Becomes Jamaican in Downtown Kingston." For his Afghanistan trip, he played up the unique travel experience of hanging out with exclusively men, titling one 35-minute video "Afghanistan Has Too Much Testosterone." Since 2021, women have been effectively barred from many aspects of public life under the Taliban's modesty laws. All day, it's "all dudes, bro-ing the fuck down," Saumure says to the camera. "It's a complete sausage fest in here," he adds as he spins the camera around to show the crowd of men around him.

At one point he meets some girls playing outside. He narrates that after childhood, "everything is taken away from them," which he says makes him sad. But in the bulk of his YouTube videos, he presents the "sausage fest" as a blast, as he and Afghan men go to parks, ride a pedal boat in a crystal blue lake in Band-e-Amir, eat ice cream, and watch the slaughter of a goat.

Along the way, he bumps into men he and other travel vloggers call the "Talibros," who patrol the streets with rifles strapped over their shoulders. Saumure chats it up with several men he says are Taliban members, showing one of them how to download Duolingo so he can practice his English.

Saumure is one of several travel content creators who have gone to Afghanistan since the United States ended its longest war and evacuated the country. They're mostly men — sometimes traveling in groups on boys' trips. For a certain kind of manosphere influencer eager for an edge in the attention economy, Jalalabad is the new Nashville.

In the summer of 2021, a 21-year-old British student named Miles Routledge visited Afghanistan after seeing it on a list of the world's most dangerous places. (He had previously visited Chernobyl.) Notably, Routledge was stranded during the fall of Kabul that August and had to be evacuated by the British army. When he returned in 2023, he was imprisoned by the Taliban for several months. He claims he was treated well, watching movies and playing Xbox with members. "It was a good setup," he says in a video. "Basically, I was chilling." Routledge didn't respond to a request for comment.

The predominating sentiment in these videos is that Afghanistan is misunderstood, portrayed by the West as hostile and dangerous while it's actually warm and welcoming. "F*@K the Media: I Went to AFGHANISTAN!" one traveler titled his video; another clip is called "Afghanistan is NOT What You Think!" Some show beautiful mountains and mosques and detail warm interactions with locals. There's more shocking fare, such as "I Went Shooting with the Taliban," or videos about exploring decades-old abandoned Russian tanks. A YouTuber called Arab who runs a channel with 1.8 million subscribers calls himself an adventure traveler but says in a disclaimer that he's going for journalistic purposes. His goofy, spirited hourlong videos include "The Young Taliban Train Me For War," where he plays with children dressed in camo and holding toy guns, and "I Spent 7 Days Living with the Taliban." He didn't respond to a request for an interview.

These creators are also wading into a country that many Western governments warn against traveling to, one that has been ravaged by war and is now under an oppressive unelected government. Freedom of expression and religious practices that don't conform to sharia, or Islamic law, are restricted; girls must leave school at 12; and Taliban members have attacked queer people. In 2024, three Spanish tourists and three Afghans were killed in a shooting in a bazaar — the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. In January, two Americans were freed in a prisoner swap for a Taliban member. In late February, the Taliban arrested a British couple in their 70s, though the Taliban described their detention as a "misunderstanding." The US Department of State advises citizens not to travel to Afghanistan, citing "civil unrest, crime, terrorism, risk of wrongful detention, kidnapping, and limited health facilities."

Many of these travelers aren't strangers to some sense of danger. Afghanistan offers the kind of exclusive content certain to lure eyes, especially if the vloggers can interact and bro out with a notorious extremist group.

Saumure tells me that after traveling to several "dangerous" countries, including Iraq and Pakistan, "you kind of start to disengage from all the level-four warnings that your government might say about traveling to these places and just not trust your own government and go based on what other travelers are saying."

But he still witnessed the country's deep-rooted issues. "Even if the west is maybe selling a very sensational narrative, I still saw the oppression firsthand as far as women not being allowed in certain parks and modesty laws," he says. "It's a delicate subject. I just wanted to be like, 'this is how it is here,' instead of driving into my beliefs."

The growing interest to experience places firsthand — or at least watch some other amateur do it — underscores a growing distrust of institutions and authority. In a 2024 survey by the Pew Research Center, about one in five Americans said they got their news from influencers on social media. That figure jumped to 37% for respondents under 30.

As dangerous as Western governments say Afghanistan is, the country wants tourists, particularly those who show a different side of the country than news reports show, and it advertises tourism on its websites. Afghanistan's Ministry of Information and Culture didn't respond to my request for comment. Taliban officials told The New York Times last year that some 14,500 foreigners had visited Afghanistan since 2021, most of them men. Several tourism companies and travel agencies have popped up to help eager travelers navigate the country. The rebrand of Afghanistan has been underway for years — shortly after the fall of Kabul, videos of Taliban fighters became memeified, showing them doing silly activities like riding a carousel. Some researchers worried at the time that the content could help soften the group's image.

Carrie Patsalis, a 48-year-old British travel vlogger, toured Afghanistan with a guide for 10 days in May. "The world has a really funny narrative and a really funny idea about which countries you should shun based on unelected regimes," she says. She argues that staying away hurts the country's economy — UN officials have estimated that about 85% of Afghans live on less than $1 a day — and the Afghan people who may not support the Taliban rule.

She thinks travel vloggers should show both the country's beauty and its oppression. Patsalis tells me she made a point to seek out women on her trip. She tells me that while the women could not be seen on camera, she wanted to let them know that "I see you, I know you're here, and it matters to me how you live."

Ultimately, going to Afghanistan is good business for travel content creators competing for eyes in an online world full of travel recommendations. Harry Jaggard, a British 27-year-old who has been making videos for three years, says his series in Afghanistan in 2023 was his most successful. He tells me he's traveling to North Korea next month. "To be the best, you sometimes have to push the boundaries," he says. "Everyone wants to see it, and not many people go there."

In his series, Jaggard travels with a guide and meets men who he says are members of the Taliban in the street. (He says he learned to tell by looking at their clothing and asking his guide.) He says that while he was apprehensive, he found the Taliban members to be shockingly friendly. "They're outwardly very kind — that's how they gain your trust," he tells me. But he didn't want to highlight too much of the Taliban in his videos; he says he focused on meeting citizens, whom he described as among the most hospitable people he's encountered in the dozens of countries he has traveled to. He says it's a reminder that "a government and its people are two different things."

The videos also fill a gap in traditional travel journalism. "Frommer's would never cover travel to a place that is as dangerous as this one is," says Pauline Frommer, the publisher of Frommer's Guidebooks, the popular guidebook series that has been around since the 1950s. While encouraging other people to travel to places like Afghanistan despite government warnings is dangerous, there are insights to be gleaned from watching travel vloggers have first-hand experiences there, and many people can learn from watching them. "I see nothing wrong with videos about less visited parts of the world," Frommer tells me. "I find value in looking at what daily life is like."

For now, Afghanistan isn't overrun with selfie sticks at landmarks and TikTokers crowding local restaurants. But the need to keep content interesting is pushing these creators to more controversial and dangerous places, as curious viewers want to see more of the worlds they aren't a part of. But then how many eager backpackers will follow in their footsteps to make their own content?

Amanda Hoover is a senior correspondent at Business Insider covering the tech industry. She writes about the biggest tech companies and trends.

• The US birth rate hit a historic low as Americans face rising childcare and living costs.
• Millennials and Gen Z are delaying parenthood for financial stability.
• Still, many Americans say they want more children than they currently have.

Americans want more kids — but many can't swing higher daycare, grocery, and household bills.

The US birth rate has been steadily declining for over a decade. The general fertility rate reached a historic low in 2023, per the most recently available Center for Disease Control data. Between 2014 to 2020, the CDC reported that the birth rate consistently dipped by 2% annually.

These figures come as millennials and Gen Zers are waiting longer to become parents: Americans are increasingly holding off until they're more financially stable in their 30s and 40s to have a baby or buy a house.

Financial experts, parents, and young people told Business Insider that the birth rate problem is rooted in household budgets. Even if they wanted more children, some Americans said they couldn't shoulder the expense.

"We are spending so much money just on essentials like groceries," Liv, a 26-year-old childfree adult in Grand Rapids, Michigan told BI. "It's hard to imagine giving a kid everything they could ever need or want."

Gallup polls conducted in summer 2023 found that many Americans feel the ideal number of kids is more than they currently have. The polls, which surveyed at least 1,000 US adults aged 18 and older, reported that a plurality of people with zero to two kids said two is the ideal number.

Americans' preference for larger families is also on the rise. The share of adults who believe three or more children is the ideal amount jumped four percentage points between 2018 and 2023 — reaching its highest point since 1971, per Gallup data. Black adults, more religious adults, and younger adults are more likely to favor larger families. Overall, nine in 10 adults said they have children or would like to have children.

Whether Americans will choose to grow their families, however, is more complicated. Childcare costs are outpacing average salaries in some cities, the price of many staple foods are increasing, and healthcare continues to be costly.

With a quickly aging US population and workforce, boosting the birth rate would be good news for the economy in the long run. But some policy advocates have said that America's birth rate can't be restored without alleviating financial pressure for families and young people. Policies like the child tax credit, government-subsidized childcare, and basic income programs for parents have been tried across the US as potential solutions.

"This is not just an individual parent problem," said Anne Hedgepeth, the senior vice president of policy and research at Child Care Aware of America. "That it is very much a problem that we can solve, and we can do that to the benefit of parents, communities, our economy as a whole."

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

• Some older professionals have taken blue-collar jobs in response to a white-collar hiring slowdown.
• Blue-collar roles are helping some people make ends meet while they continue their job searches.
• Transitioning to blue-collar work can come with reduced pay and résumé challenges.

After a decade riddled with layoffs, burnout, and unsuccessful interviews, Donald Malone, 65, decided it was time to take a break from the corporate world as a consultant.

Finding alternative income has been harder than he expected, and he hasn't been able to match his previous $60,000 annual salary.

After dozens of applications, the New Jersey resident found a job on Craigslist for a company that makes machines to manufacture paper and cardboard. The blue-collar position paid about half his white-collar salary but covered travel and car expenses. He also worked for various car retail companies and held a part-time security position earning $1,200 monthly, though he couldn't secure any white-collar positions.

However, after a heart attack and stroke earlier this year, he hasn't worked. He's relying on his monthly Social Security payment of $2,187, which covers his mortgage, but he's worried his skills haven't kept up and that his age and time outside white-collar work may be a detriment.

"I'm not a couch potato or someone that likes to get up and just waste the day doing nothing," Malone said, adding he's considering taking up real estate.

Do you have a story to share about working into your later years? Please fill out this quick Google Form.

Dozens of older Americans recently told Business Insider that they've struggled to reenter the white-collar workforce after a layoff. Many suspected their age or salary expectations made them less desirable hires than younger workers, leading some to pivot careers. While some said they've embraced lower-paying blue-collar jobs as truck drivers or custodians, others have begrudgingly taken whatever job they could while applying elsewhere. BI spoke to five older Americans for this story.

Older Americans have good reasons to believe their job searches have been harder this year than previously. Excluding a two-month pandemic-related dip in 2020, US businesses are hiring at nearly the lowest rate since 2013. Plus, a slump in white-collar hiring means that in sectors such as marketing, banking, and finance, job postings have fallen considerably from their peaks in 2022 to below levels seen in February 2020, as reported by job platform Indeed. Meanwhile, 2024 AARP research found that nearly two-thirds of workers 50 or above have experienced or seen workplace age discrimination.

To be sure, the unemployment rate for Americans age 55 and older was 3% as of January, which remains near historic lows. Additionally, it's not just older Americans having a harder time landing white-collar jobs. Some recent college graduates — including MBA grads from prestigious universities — are facing challenges as well.

Leaving white-collar work without a return ticket

Many older workers said they've embraced that some income is better than none, even if the work doesn't align with long-term goals.

Eric Nielsen, 50, worked for much of his career as an account and sales executive at financial institutions. He recalled rubbing elbows with billionaires and earning good money, but after a layoff in 2023, he's resorted to side hustles.

"What happens is you turn 50, and you're going to be getting interviewed by someone that might be half your age, and they're not going to make a connection with you," said Nielsen, who lives in Colorado. "I'm willing to go work at McDonald's or Burger King, which I was never willing to do when I was younger."

Nielsen works for a nonprofit and holds other part-time gig positions, including Uber Eats and hosting wine parties. He said he's sent out dozens of unsuccessful applications, many of which were for roles with hundreds of candidates.

He said he's been on the brink of homelessness. Last year, he made about $27,000. He said he has about $60,000 in student loan debt from his master's degree, which some people have told him to take off his résumé to not appear overqualified.

"I'm just trying to hang in there to see if I can get that job offer," Nielsen said. "I realize I'm not going to make a million dollars, but maybe I can get in that $65,000 to $80,000 window."

As Americans work later in their lives, many take up blue-collar jobs — some of which come with risks. In 2024, about 18% of workers in agriculture and hunting roles were 65 or older, compared to nearly 8% in retail trade, 6% in manufacturing, and over 5% in transportation and construction, BLS data shows. Dozens told BI last year that they've worked gig jobs like Uber driving, echoed by 2023 AARP statistics that found 27% of older workers do gig work or freelance jobs.

Blue-collar work is hard to find, too

To be sure, some older workers who have applied for blue-collar roles said they're often hard to get.

While some blue-collar professions have experienced worker shortages, many industries require specialized degrees or certifications that often take months or years to complete. Given the time commitment, some older Americans who worked in white-collar jobs said they haven't bothered to become certified in industries like trucking or plumbing.

David Fischer, 54, held marketing roles in the Bay Area and Portland, Oregon, before a layoff last May, adding he had never received a negative review in his career. He's struggled to find a comparable white-collar job since, despite sending over a dozen applications daily. Though he said he has enough saved to technically retire, he said it's too early to call it quits.

He applied for blue-collar jobs such as bus driving or operating a light-rail train, but he said he was rejected because the positions wanted more experienced people. He's spent much of his time attending networking events and interview workshops to get back into an office, though he acknowledges the market for his industry is saturated.

"I don't consider myself old; I know what my age number is, but I can hold my own with anybody," Fischer said.

• Matt Rosenberg, a full-time English teacher, commutes by paddleboat to maintain a Maine lighthouse.
• Rosenberg values the peace and tradition of lighthouse keeping despite its physical demands.
• Automation in the 1990s made lighthouse keeper jobs nearly obsolete in New England.

For the last 14 years, Matt Rosenberg has taken an unusual mode of transportation to his side gig after wrapping up his day job as a high school English teacher in York, Maine: A paddleboat.

Rosenberg is one of the last lighthouse keepers in Maine, where he maintains the Nubble lighthouse, a popular tourist attraction that draws a million visitors each year to York.

In 1889, there were over 70 lighthouse keepers throughout Maine that manned vital beacons of light warning sailors of hazardous conditions along the New England coastline. But automation in the 1990s made these full time jobs nearly obsolete.

Rosenberg shared with Business Insider what his duties are like on a day-to-day basis and why he loves his job so much.

His daily duties painting and repairing the lighthouse

The thousands of tourists that visit the Nubble Lighthouse aren't actually allowed to step foot on the island. Rosenberg's biggest challenge to keeping the lighthouse running smoothly is actually keeping it safe from the environment.

"We're surrounded by salt water and in Maine we have a lot of fog and it carries a ton of moisture with it," said Rosenberg, who is employed by the City of York. He said wood is constantly rotting and metal is turning to rust. He frequently has to repaint the lighthouse.

For Rosenberg, repairing the Nubble Lighthouse is a balance between updating outdated infrastructure and preserving its history of over 100 years.

"If we can't keep up with the paint, the rust eats it, and we grind that out to stop the rust. But when you're grinding out, you're grinding out history," said Rosenberg. "So we have to be really careful to preserve what's there. Because once you lose that piece, it's not the same lighthouse anymore."

The Nubble Lighthouse sits on an island about 300 feet from the mainland, making it difficult to transport supplies and make repairs. Little setbacks like leaving a box of screws on shore become huge derailments to projects on the lighthouse.

"That's going to take me more than an hour to get to the hardware store and back," said Rosenberg of having to launch his rowboat to his car to run small errands. Patience is a key part of his job and seeing his work to completion.

Being a lighthouse keeper is also a physically demanding job for Rosenberg. He's often alone carrying heavy building materials to the island across treacherous terrain.

"Where I launch the boat and land the boat, they're very slippery, the crossing," he added.

Rosenberg's job is only seasonal from April through January because weather conditions off the island become unpredictable. Waves reach heights of over 20 feet during Nor'easter storms in March and April.

"Power lines are probably 70 feet above the water," said Rosenberg. "We've had those taken out by the energy from the waves when they hit the shore and then go up into the power lines and twist them up and tear them down."

Why he loves lighthouse keeping so much

Despite the challenges of being a lighthouse worker, Rosenberg loves his job and wants to continue for the next decade into his sixties, as long as he's physically able. He is paid $21 an hour to maintain the popular tourist attraction, a duty he describes as a labor of love.

"A lot of jobs bring you stress," said the 51-year-old. "This job brings you peace, because you're spending so much time in a beautiful place by yourself." Rosenberg occasionally sees wildlife from a 20-foot basking shark to a pregnant doe giving birth on the island.

Autonomy and self-reliance are big parts of Rosenberg's daily life. He's proud to have been part of the tradition of Nubble Lighthouse stewards from its earliest days.

"They didn't have running water, they didn't have modern heat at that early in the lighthouse's history," Rosenberg said. "Lighthouse keepers of that day were also the primary rescue squad for the vicinity."

The Victorian-style, white-painted lighthouse with its gingerbread trim around the eaves stands out on the shore, a stalwart reminder of the past that is just out of reach of the public.

Rosenberg believes that the elusive nature of the lighthouse is what continues to draw around a million visitors each year to their small town of 10,000 people.

Foot traffic has generated $800,000 in gross sales annually at the gift shop, funding overhauls to the lighthouse instead of using tax payer dollars. The most recent preservation project cost around $450,000 over five years, according to Rosenberg.

The lighthouse has been the subject of many of Rosenberg's posts on Instagram, where he shares landscape portraits of the lighthouse in different seasons and his day-to-day duties with thousands of followers.

"What I've been trying to do is give people the views of the lighthouse that they can't have," he said. "I think of it kind of like a snow globe where you just appreciate it in a different way, because you can't touch it."

• Sean Evans criticized advertisers for undervaluing YouTube's 'Hot Ones' compared to shows on TV.
• YouTube is challenging traditional TV, yet some advertisers still ignore it.
• He said 'Hot Ones' success highlights YouTube's influence, despite initial fears of cancellation.

Sean Evans, the host of chicken wing-eating talk show "Hot Ones," said he's "sick of" having to make the case for his popular YouTube series to advertisers who still think of the platform as lesser than TV.

"The hurdle that I think we all want brands to get over is this idea that there's some difference between eyeballs that exist on YouTube versus eyeballs that exist on linear TV," Evans said, speaking on a creator panel presented by YouTube at SXSW.

"It's absolutely worthy of comparison and competition with all of those other shows, and in a lot of ways in those categories, it dunks on those shows," he said. "That's sometimes a hard thing for brands to wrap their heads around, but it's just an observable fact that is plainly obvious, and I'm kind of, like, sick of having to explain that over and over again."

YouTube has become the top TV viewing destination for two years running, according to Nielsen, on the strength of independent creators, increasingly threatening legacy Hollywood players and causing some to play catch up and look for their own creator-fronted shows.

However, some blue-chip advertisers still consider the platform less valuable than traditional TV, owing to its many user-generated videos.

Evans is one of the earliest and most successful YouTubers. Started 10 years ago, "Hot Ones" grew out of Complex Media, which became part of BuzzFeed in 2021. Over the years, it's hosted guests like Margot Robbie, Scarlett Johansson, and Gordon Ramsey. He and an investor group bought First We Feast, the studio behind "Hot Ones," last year from BuzzFeed in an $82.5 million deal.

During the session, Evans expressed his worry about the show being canceled in its early days.

"It wasn't a big hit at first, and I used to joke with Chris [Schonberger, 'Hot Ones' cocreator] all the time about how we're eating this really spicy food and no one cares at all," he said. "If this were on a network or something like that, we probably would have been canceled before we never got a chance to figure out exactly what the show was and what it meant."

He also talked about his passion for reading viewers' comments, which he uses to stay connected to the audience.

"I always go through the comments," he said. "There's Nielsen ratings or whatever, but you don't have that two-way street. That is kind of a drug to me. It's actually a dopamine hit that I really look forward to every week. "

Evans also explained how he prepares for interviews. Depending on the guest, he listens to their music, watches their movies, or reads their books.

"You just dive into the material as much as you can," he said. "After you have kind of an idea of who this person is, see if you can extract an interview of that, and then do a little armchair psychology sit-down with the person."

He also revealed there's no special sauce to dealing with the aftereffects of consuming all the hot wings.

"I just ride it out, you know. I think about, you know, as painful and miserable as it could be sometimes, as uncomfortable as it is, it's a whole lot better than my life before it," he said.

• Scott Galloway, host of The Prof G Pod, ripped into tech CEOs during his SXSW talk on Saturday.
• Galloway said tech leaders are playing "dominos of cowardice," each one following the other.
• He said he refused to normalize actions taken by Elon Musk.

Since Donald Trump's victory, tech CEOs have graced the President's inauguration, Jeff Bezos overhauled The Washington Post's op-ed section, and X CEO Linda Yaccarino reportedly pressed one of the world's biggest ad groups to increase spending on Elon Musk's X.

What do these seemingly disparate events have in common?

Scott Galloway, NYU Stern marketing professor and host of The Prof G Pod, said business leaders — particularly tech CEOs — are complacently participating in America's "slow road to fascism."

During his SXSW talk on Saturday in Austin, Galloway said tech leaders enormously influence society and that their "character matters."

But so far, Galloway said, "We have seen an extraordinary kind of what I call 'cowardice domino,'" displaying a slide image of prominent tech leaders represented as said dominos, including Jeff Bezos, Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Musk, Tim Cook, and Yaccarino.

Spokespeople for The Washington Post, Microsoft, OpenAI, Meta, Alphabet, and Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Galloway said examples of the "dominos of cowardice" included business leaders texting his co-host on the tech podcast Pivot, Kara Swisher, that they "hate to be at the inauguration, but I'm doing it for shareholders."

He continued: "And this effectively emboldens the CEO of X to then demand that IPG advertise on her platform; otherwise, she will get her boss to block the merger. Which leads to one of the world's wealthiest men, who owns one of the most important newspapers, to say, 'We're no longer going to talk about opinion.' There is one kind of fascist domino following one after the other."

Galloway appeared to be referring to a recent Wall Street Journal report that said Yaccarino and her associates had pushed Interpublic Group, a large advertising company, to advertise on X. The pressure comes as IPG seeks a deal to sell itself to its competitor Omnicom. The deal could need regulatory approval from the Trump administration, with which Musk works closely.

Musk and a spokesperson for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Galloway took a moment to single out Musk and his recent gesture at Trump's inauguration, which some have interpreted as a fascist salute.

"I had a running loop of Musk doing the Nazi salute, and I thought, 'I refuse to normalize this bullshit,'" he said. "Think about what money has done to us."

• Reddit will now warn users about upvoting content that violates site rules.
• Reddit has one of the fastest-growing user bases of social sites.
• Tensions rose recently on Reddit over criticism of Elon Musk and posts about Luigi Mangione.

Worried that upvoting a sensitive post on Reddit could get you in trouble? Now, it just might.

Reddit's user base is growing rapidly as it is being hailed as one of the last truly "social" places online. Still, with growth comes volatility, and Reddit is now cracking down on users who interact with content that violates the site's rules.

In a post on Wednesday, the site's administrators said that Reddit users who upvote "several pieces of content banned for violating our policies" within a short period will receive a warning. Reddit said it made the change because the site relies on "engaged users" to downvote bad content and report potentially violative content.

"Upvoting bad or violating content interferes with this system," the post says.

The company says this policy is currently limited to a warning but is considering "adding additional actions down the road."

"Voting comes with responsibility," the post says. "This will have no impact on the vast majority of users as most already downvote or report abusive content."

One Reddit user said in a post on Friday that Reddit's description of "violent content" in the new policy seemed too broad.

"What if I strongly dislike a fictional character from a television show or video game and want to express that in a hyperbolic way?" the post reads. "Now we have to dance around what we say and be paranoid that we'll be banned?

Reddit does have broad rules for violent content. Still, the site's policy says that users can post violent content if it is "educational, newsworthy, artistic, satire, documentary, etc."

Last month, Reddit temporarily shut down the popular community r/whitepeopletwitter after several users made threatening comments against Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency.

Tensions between Reddit users and Musk grew in January after the moderators of over 100 subreddits moved to ban links to X following Musk's speech at President Donald Trump's inauguration, where he made a gesture that some interpreted as a fascist salute.

Reddit told BI at the time of the temporary ban that it wants its communities used for "civil discussion" and "one of the few places online where people can exchange ideas and perspectives."

"We want to ensure that they continue to be a place for healthy debate no matter the topic," the company said in a statement. "Debate and dissent are welcome on Reddit — threats and doxxing are not."

However, Reddit's content moderation system has not been without flaws. Reddit moderators said this week that the system flags the name "Luigi" for violent content, even when it is used in non-violent contexts. On Thursday, moderators for the popular subreddit r/popculture said they were forced to shut down the forum due to the censorship from Reddit's moderation system in a post.

Reddit did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider about the content moderation system. A spokesperson for the company told The Verge that Reddit does not have a "sitewide filter for the word 'Luigi' or expectation that users stop talking about Luigi Mangione," according to the outlet.

Luigi Mangione, 26, is the Ivy-league grad suspect charged with shooting and killing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024.

Reddit told The Verge that r/popculture recently fell to just one moderator, allowing the subreddit to filter out potentially sensitive words automatically. The community's moderator told BI that they did not make a list of possibly sensitive words and said they think Reddit's content moderation is inconsistent.

"I've reported so many comments of people calling me or other people the f-slur, and Reddit tells me it doesn't violate their policies, but saying 'Luigi' does," the moderator said.

Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, who left the company in 2020, said last week that he thinks the future of social media will be moderated by AI, where users have "sliders" to "choose their level of tolerance" about certain topics.

• Disney execs teased upcoming theme park features at SXSW.
• They touted Disney's storytelling and tech collaboration with Robert Downey Jr. and others.
• Disney's parks face competition from Universal's Epic Universe opening in May.

Two years after Disney announced a $60 billion, 10-year expansion of its theme parks and cruise businesses, the entertainment giant is sharing more details about new features coming to its parks.

Alan Bergman, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, and Josh D'Amaro, chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products, appeared onstage in a packed ballroom at Austin's South by Southwest culture festival on Saturday.

They were joined by a parade of other Disney stars, most notably Robert Downey Jr., who is trading in his Iron Man suit for Doctor Doom's uniform in "Avengers: Doomsday" and "Avengers: Secret Wars." "Avengers: Doomsday" will hit theaters in May 2026 and "Avengers: Secret Wars" will premiere in May 2027.

Also appearing were "The Mandalorian" creator Jon Favreau and a gaggle of pint-sized droids; Pete Docter, chief creative officer of Pixar; and Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios.

Here are the biggest reveals from Disney's SXSW panel.

Star Wars

Disney shared that Walt Disney World's Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run attraction, where people get to see what it's like to ride in the iconic spaceship, would be getting an upgrade, with "a brand new story" about the film's characters. Execs described how they used artwork from the Star Wars universe to create a "fully immersive experience" where guests "are fully in control of their own destiny."

Execs also hinted that Disney would extend Star Wars and other franchises online with its investment in Epic Games, the creator of "Fortnite." Meanwhile, Star Wars-inspired droids will visit Disney's theme parks in Tokyo, Paris, and Orlando later in the year.

Pixar

Docter shared two projects Pixar has in the works for Disney World: a land inspired by "Monsters, Inc." called Monstropolis and what was touted as Disney's first suspended roller coaster ride, which reimagines one of the movie's scenes.

Another feature based on "Cars" will create an off-road attraction in a spin on the movie, taking riders geyser-dodging over rocky terrain.

Marvel

At Disneyland, the Fantastic Four characters will visit the park this summer. "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" will debut in theaters on July 25 as part of phase six of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU. Disney is also doubling the size of its Avengers campus in California with two new attractions — Avengers: Infinity Defense and Stark Flight Lab.

Avengers: Infinity Defense will let guests battle alongside Black Panther and Ant-Man to fight Thanos.

Downey discussed Stark Flight Lab, an attraction that takes fans into the character's workshop. The actor said he gave Disney's Imagineering team input about the ride, which will now include DUM-E, a nod to Tony Stark's robot assistant in the franchise.

Disney's enduring franchises

Bergman and D'Amaro, along with Dana Walden, Bergman's cochair, have both been floated as potential successors for Disney CEO Bob Iger. Their public appearances are regularly scrutinized for what they imply about who might be ahead in the succession race.

Both men took turns finishing each other's sentences to emphasize that Disney's big, enduring franchises are the product of collaboration across teams and work enabled by technology but rooted in storytelling.

According to Nielsen, Disney's streaming business trails digital giants YouTube and Netflix in terms of viewing time. But none matches Disney's franchise-building ability, which has spawned a diversified global entertainment empire.

"We truly have something for everyone, with so many ways to experience it," D'Amaro said, calling this an "unprecedented era" of creating attractions, shows, and games. "This also has strong connections with our audience, which is so unique to Disney. We're constantly developing new tools that allow us to tell our stories in even more compelling ways."

Disney's behind-the-scenes look comes as one of its largest competitors, Universal, is also expanding domestically. This May, Universal Orlando Resorts' new theme park, Epic Universe, will welcome guests to explore five separate "worlds" — including Super Nintendo World.

Disney executives have navigated questions about how the arrival of Epic Universe could impact the company, including during a 2024 earnings call when CFO Hugh Johnston said it could be "beneficial."

"The early bookings that we have next summer are actually positive," Johnston said.