• Blackstone encourages junior staff to speak at deal meetings, fostering open dialogue.
• It can be "scary," said Jon Gray, the firm's president, on a recent podcast.
• A former intern told BI last year that a senior leader said to him "rank doesn't matter here."

Blackstone's president said that senior executives often ask the most junior people in the room to speak at the private equity firm's deal meetings.

"We'll go around in many of these committees and ask the most junior people in the room, 'hey what do you think?' We want them to articulate why they have conviction," Jon Gray said on a recent podcast hosted by Norges Bank Investment Management. Norway's sovereign wealth fund has invested hundreds of millions of dollars with Blackstone.

The 54-year-old, who started his career at the firm, said that it can be "scary" for a young person, and that the committee is "not the most patient group of people."

Gray added that meetings get into questions immediately, with people "drilling" the presenters about the companies in question.

"What we try to do is make sure a lot of please and thank you's and be appreciative to the group, but there's really sort of a truth-telling exercise," Gray said.

Blackstone is the world's largest alternative asset manager, with more than $1 trillion in assets under management. The firm has 12,700 real estate assets and 240 portfolio companies as of June, according to the company's website.

Last year, an associate who interned twice at the firm told Business Insider that juniors were encouraged to make their presence known.

"Senior leaders were constantly coming out to the bullpen and asking the most junior person on the team what they thought about the deals that we were currently in process with, what they thought about up-and-coming trends," said Marshall Plumlee, who was a US Army infantry officer before his Harvard MBA. He's now working at Blackstone full time.

Plumlee said that one senior leader explained it to him this way: "Rank doesn't matter here; your thoughts are just as valuable as the next guy."

Blackstone had 4,735 employees as of December 2023.

Talent development initiatives

The private equity firm has made other commitments to developing talent, too.

In 2020, it launched Career Pathways, a program to help portfolio companies solve talent problems by creating internal trainings. Last year, it started a data program to find and train people to fill specialized technical positions. In September, the company said the portfolio companies that took part in the program have hired over 10,500 people from underrepresented groups.

"We put it inside of our portfolio operations side of the business," Gray said at the time. "It's not a charitable effort. It's designed to drive talent to companies."'

The executive is also known for being in charge of the iconic Blackstone holiday videos, which started in 2018 when the firm had grown too large to host company-wide Christmas parties. Business Insider previously reported that Gray is usually the first person to come up with the idea for the holiday video — a comical sketch sometimes filmed in the style of the television show "The Office" or with other pop-culture bents.

• Drew Barrymore says her female friendships have kept her "anchored" through the years.
• Research has shown that having strong friendships is as important as exercise for longevity.
• However, it can be difficult to make and maintain friendships in adulthood.

Drew Barrymore, 49, is grateful that she has supportive female friends to rely on.

During Wednesday's episode of "The Drew Barrymore Show," which featured guest Julianne Moore, the talk show host spoke about the strong friendships she shares with the women in her life.

"I think female friendship has been the thing that probably anchored my life the most," Barrymore said.

"Most of my friends I've had for 30 and 40 years — I'm going to be 50 — so it's like my whole life I've known these people," she said. "I trust them implicitly."

The "Never Been Kissed" star had a troubled childhood: She was 13 when she entered a youth rehab center for drug use, and she was 14 when she was legally emancipated from her mother.

Barrymore said her friends are "very honest" with her and know what she's been through.

"I feel like not having had traditional family, everything is possible through my female friendships," Barrymore said, adding that they help her get through her heartbreaks "much easier."

"Every time I've ever been dumped, my first phone call is my girlfriends. They make it so much better," Barrymore said.

In particular, Barrymore has been open about her friendships with her "Charlie's Angels" costars, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu.

The three of them have made public appearances together over the years, including the premiere episode of Barrymore's talk show in 2020.

Barrymore revealed in a 2021 Instagram Live that she was friends with Diaz long before they shared a screen.

"We met when I was 14 and she was 16. I was working at a coffee house and she was a junior model. She's still my bestie," Barrymore said.

There are plenty of celebrity best friends in Hollywood, including Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King, who became friends after a snowstorm in 1976, and Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, who have known each other since meeting on set in 1980.

Research has found that having good friendships could be as important as exercise and diet for living longer.

However, adult friendships can be tricky to form and maintain, Dr. Frederick Smith, a psychologist, told Business Insider previously.

"As adults, we have many obligations," Dr. Smith said. "We may have responsibilities to our job, family, children, or education. We spend a lot of time doing these things, so we may not have enough time to devote to going out and developing friendships."

However, there are ways for people to improve their friendships, he said. This includes practicing healthy boundaries, communicating clearly, and actively working to keep the relationship alive.

"Both people have to work to maintain it," he said. "Friendship should not be one-sided. If you only call me when you need something, or you only call me when you're going through some type of turmoil, and then I never hear from you, then that's a problem."

A representative for Barrymore did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by BI outside regular hours.

• The International Fact-Checking Network warned of Meta's move to crowdsourced fact-checking.
• A group of 71 fact checkers said the change is "a step backward" for accuracy.
• The group proposed crowdsourcing in conjunction with professionals, a "new model."

The fact-checking group that has worked with Meta for years wrote Mark Zuckerberg an open letter on Thursday, warning him about the company's move toward crowdsourced moderation in the US.

"Fact-checking is essential to maintaining shared realities and evidence-based discussion, both in the United States and globally," wrote the International Fact-Checking Network, part of the nonprofit media organization Poynter Institute.

As of 11:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, 71 organizations from across the world had signed the letter. Poynter is updating its post as the list of organizations grows.

The group said Meta's decision, announced Tuesday, to replace third-party fact-checkers with crowdsourced moderation on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads in the US "is a step backward for those who want to see an internet that prioritizes accurate and trustworthy information."

Meta told the IFCN about the end of its partnership less than an hour before publishing the post about the switch, Business Insider reported. The change could have serious financial repercussions for the fact-checking organizations that rely on Meta for revenue.

The organization said Meta has fact-checking partnerships in more than 100 countries.

"If Meta decides to stop the program worldwide, it is almost certain to result in real-world harm in many places," IFCN wrote. Meta has not announced plans to end the fact-checking program globally.

Meta said it plans to build a crowdsourced moderation system this year similar to the community notes used by Elon Musk's X, where people can weigh in on posts ranging from the serious to the mundane. Musk laid off hundreds of X's trust and safety workers after he bought the company in 2022, and X has since been slow to act on some misinformation, BI previously reported.

IFCN wrote that community notes could be used in conjunction with professional fact-checkers, a "new model" for collaboration.

"The need for this is great: If people believe social media platforms are full of scams and hoaxes, they won't want to spend time there or do business on them," IFCN wrote.

Nearly 3.3 billion people used a Meta product every day in September, according to the company's most recent financials — more than 40% of the world's population.

Ad insiders who spoke to BI this week said they didn't expect the changes to hurt the company's business. Meta has more than a fifth of the US digital ad market — in second place behind Google, per data from BI's sister company EMARKETER.

A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment.

• Google is joining tech companies like Amazon and Meta in donating to Donald Trump's inauguration.
• The search giant said it is giving $1 million, more than triple what it gave Trump in 2017.
• In September, Trump threatened to prosecute Google if he was elected president.

Google said it is donating $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump's coming inauguration.

"Google is pleased to support the 2025 inauguration, with a livestream on YouTube and a direct link on our homepage. We're also donating to the inaugural committee," the company's global head of government affairs and public policy, Karan Bhatia, told CNBC.

Google's contribution, which will help fund the celebratory events after Trump takes office, is more than triple what it gave in 2017. The search giant donated $285,000 to Trump's first inauguration, per Federal Election Commission filings.

Back in September, Trump said in a Truth Social post that he would prosecute Google "at the maximum levels" if he won the election.

In his post, Trump accused Google of "illegally" using its system to display only "bad stories" about him while surfacing positive reports about his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Google and Trump's transition team did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Trump's second inauguration, on January 20, has seen donations pour in from multiple companies and business leaders.

The president-elect has received contributions from tech companies like Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Uber. Like Google, all four companies have donated $1 million each.

That's on top of the personal donations made by tech executives like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Both Altman and Khosrowshahi donated $1 million each as well.

"One of the big differences between the first term, in the first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend," Trump said at a press conference in December.

"I don't know, my personality changed or something," he added.

Since winning the election in November, Trump has raised more than $200 million in donations, of which at least $150 million will go toward the inauguration, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

Trump raised $106.8 million for his first inauguration in 2017, per the FEC.

• Microsoft has approximately 228,000 employees worldwide.
• Microsoft is one of the most sought-after workplaces in the tech industry, so jobs are competitive.
• Here's what to know about the various jobs at Microsoft, skills you'll need, and the best salaries.

Since its 1975 founding, Microsoft has grown into one of the largest companies in the world, and its software has changed the way the world uses computers and other devices.

Currently, Microsoft employs roughly 228,000 people, globally.

A publicly traded company since early 1986, the multinational business has long been a darling of investors, and it has been a much sought-after workplace by people in the tech world.

Getting a job at Microsoft is much easier said than done, though.

Is Microsoft hard to get into?

Anyone hoping for employment at Microsoft should expect to compete against a flood of other highly qualified applicants at any given time. There are usually multiple rounds of interviews — as many as five in some cases, depending on the position — and different positions require different types of experience.

For technical roles, Microsoft's hiring process includes things like testing you on problem-solving skills and coding.

All jobs at Microsoft require at the minimum a college degree, usually in an applicable field, such as data science or mathematics, or demonstrable experience in a directly related position elsewhere. Some positions require several years of relevant experience, and others require more advanced degrees.

Experience at other large tech companies can be a huge bonus. One former Microsoft product manager who shared his resume with Business Insider said he believed his experience at Facebook, plus his entrepreneurial experience, gave him a competitive edge.

It is, in short, hard to get a job at Microsoft, but a rejection upon your first application is no reason not to try again. Many people are hired by the software giant only after applying multiple times, with their persistence and commitment seen as a positive sign by the company.

What types of jobs can you get at Microsoft?

Microsoft is a massive organization, being a software maker, and has a number of divisions that often have job postings, like the cloud-computing software Azure, the productivity suite Microsoft 365, or the legacy operating system Windows. The list of jobs one could potentially get at Microsoft is long and varied.

But Microsoft also owns a number of companies, and it may be worth expanding your job search to workplaces like GitHub, Skype, or LinkedIn.

At Microsoft or its companies, you could work in everything from data analytics to hardware engineering to digital sales to legal and corporate affairs. There are software designers, marketers, supply chain specialists, and so many more different roles needed to keep the company working.

On the software side, specifically, Microsoft often has openings for developers, software engineers, product managers, and more.

How to get a job in Microsoft?

If you have the requisite education and experience, and have done your research on the role and perfected your resume, you can start by applying online at the Microsoft Careers page.

Microsoft offers internships for those early career job-seekers lacking in experience, and, of course, it's always a good idea to network with anyone you know who works there before you apply. Note that Microsoft often implements hiring freezes, so don't try to join up during one.

Like any massive company, sometimes Microsoft has to restructure itself, and Microsoft layoffs can be massive, with thousands of employees dismissed at the same time. The post-pandemic period has been particularly brutal at Microsoft, with multiple rounds of job cuts throughout 2023 and 2024 in divisions like Azure, Xbox, and Activision Blizzard.

Know as you are going in that even if you do an excellent job in your role with Microsoft, your job may be cut in the future. The tech industry is in a period of flux, so it's always wise to have a Plan B.

What is the highest paying job at Microsoft?

The CEO of Microsoft makes nearly $50 million in total each year when you count the cash, stocks, and other compensation, and that makes being the boss the highest paid job at Microsoft.

Other very well-compensated jobs — compared to regular salaries, not the CEO's package — are Corporate Vice President, which has a salary around $650,000 plus stock compensation.

But even non-executive roles at Microsoft are widely known for their high salaries. For example, the role of Principal Software Engineer, typically pays about $215,000 plus stocks, and that of Senior Data Scientist, pays just under $200,000 annually.

Federal data from 2020 showed some of Microsoft's highest-paying jobs, including up to $240,000 for a research role, $220,000 for a program manager, and $204,000 for a hardware engineering role.

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• The US Supreme Court on Thursday rejected Trump's request to block his NY hush-money sentencing.
• The decision means Trump must attend sentencing Friday morning, though he can do so by video.
• Prosecutors said Thursday that they will not seek jail, fines, or probation at sentencing.

The US Supreme Court on Thursday rejected President-elect Donald Trump's last-ditch effort to block his New York hush-money sentencing, which now remains set for 9:30 a.m. on Friday.

The high court's decision means Trump must attend or face a potential bench warrant for his arrest just 10 days before Inauguration Day.

Four conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito, Neil M. Gorsuch, and Brett M. Kavanaugh — had sided with Trump.

Two conservatives on the panel — Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett — broke ranks and supported Manhattan prosecutors.

In their one-page order, the five-judge majority gave two reasons for rejecting Trump's attempt to halt the sentencing.

"First, the alleged evidentiary violations at President-Elect Trump's state-court trial can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal," meaning post-sentencing, they wrote.

"Second, the burden that sentencing will impose on the President-Elect's responsibilities is relatively insubstantial," they wrote, given that Trump faces a no-punishment sentence and can attend the hearing virtually.

Trump's lawyers last week asked that he be allowed to attend by video, a request approved by his trial judge, state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg did not oppose Trump attending virtually and said Thursday that his office would not seek jail, fines, or probation at what will likely be a very brief hearing.

Under New York sentencing guidelines, Trump had faced as little as zero jail time and as much as four years in prison for his May 30 conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

A Manhattan jury found he altered Trump Organization invoices and other records throughout his first year in office to retroactively hide a $130,000 hush money payment that silenced porn actress Stormy Daniels eleven days before the 2016 election.

"Every legal scholar stated, unequivocally, that this is a case that should never have been brought," Trump said in a Truth Social post on Thursday night.

"There was no case against me," he added. "This was nothing other than Weaponization of our Justice System against a Political Opponent. It's called Lawfare, and nothing like this has ever happened in the United States of America, and it should never be allowed to happen again."

Speaking minutes after the SCOTUS order from Mar-a-Lago, Trump promised to appeal his conviction and repeated that the prosecution is an "attack on a political opponent."

"That's much more important than tomorrow," he said of his planned appeal.

Trump had fought hard to avoid sentencing, despite facing little inconvenience or penalty beyond some potential issues with his New Jersey liquor licenses.

Over the past week, his lawyers had argued in four courthouses — in Manhattan, Albany, and Washington, DC — that any invocation of presidential immunity automatically entitles Trump to a stay pending appeal, even before he is sworn in.

In their opposition filings, Manhattan prosecutors scoffed at the idea that "president-elect immunity" exists. The US Supreme Court's landmark July 1 opinion granted presidents broad immunity from prosecution, but made no mention of immunity before swearing in, lawyers for Bragg said.

"Defendant's novel invocation of President-elect immunity does not warrant his Court's premature intervention" in an ongoing state criminal case, Bragg told the high court in papers filed Thursday morning.

Defense lawyers have promised to file a post-sentencing appeal of the conviction, with SCOTUS if necessary, given what they say were violations of Trump's constitutional rights before and during the trial.

In their primary example, they say grand jurors and trial jurors in the hush-money case improperly heard evidence that includes acts Trump took in his official role as president, which prosecutors are now barred from using.

That official-act evidence, all from 2018, includes tweets Trump sent, a federal form he signed, and a conversation he had in the Oval Office with Hope Hicks, then his communications director.

Prosecutors and the trial judge, Merchan, have argued that even if this was official-act evidence, it was a "harmless error" to share it with jurors, given the other overwhelming proof of guilt.

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• The Los Angeles firestorms show how quickly wildfires can turn into urban fires.
• Flying embers, not direct flames, often ignite homes first.
• Homeowners can mitigate fire risk by maintaining a clear perimeter around their properties.

The firestorms razing Los Angeles show how quickly wildfires can turn into devastating urban conflagrations.

Two fire management experts say there's a common misunderstanding about how homes ignite under these conditions. Understanding how a brush fire becomes urban can help homeowners prepare their properties for future fires.

Take a look at the below photo. Not all the homes on this block are up in flames yet, and blazes in the distance appear to be spaced apart.

"These are scattered ignitions. It's not this wave of destruction," Jack Cohen, a former fire research scientist at the US Forest Service, told Business Insider.

Cohen isn't in Los Angeles, but he studied wildland-urban fires for more than 30 years, both in the lab and in the field. The magnitude of the LA fires is unprecedented, he said, but the process by which they burned down homes probably is not.

It's not a wall of flame or radiative heat from a wildfire that overtakes neighborhoods, he said. Often it's flying embers landing in flammable spots on and around homes.

These "spot ignitions" are like kindling. Embers accumulate on roofs or in yards. Soon ornamental plants, leaf-filled gutters, firewood piles, or deck chairs are up in flames.

If those little fires are close enough to the house, the flames can start to overtake the building.

How homeowners can reduce future fire risk

Homeowners can help prevent future fires from spreading to their homes by maintaining a five-foot perimeter of no flammable materials — no mulch, no ornamental plants, no layers of fallen pine needles, and no piles of wood.

Even better is a 30-foot perimeter that's "lean, clean and green," according to FEMA. If you have that much space around your house, keeping it clear of dead branches and keeping trees and bushes well-spaced can help.

"You are where the rubber meets the road. The things you do on your house and around your house are going to make the difference," Pat Durland, a wildfire-mitigation specialist and instructor for the National Fire Protection Association with 30 years of federal wildfire management experience, told Business Insider.

With the proper perimeter, Cohen said, even homes caught in conflagrations like the Palisades and Eaton fires could survive.

However, photos from the aftermath so far in the Palisades don't seem to show surviving houses unique amid burned blocks.

Cohen noted that trees are still standing in some of those areas, which is visible in live news coverage, showing the fires didn't move through neighborhoods like a wall of flames.

Because embers can travel far, spot ignitions can crop up in various, seemingly random locations throughout a wildfire-adjacent neighborhood. Suddenly a house is on fire here, and another one over there.

Then the houses spread the fire to each other.

Sometimes that happens when a burning house's roof collapses, Cohen said, which sends a convective column up into the wind, which can then push flames into other houses.

Alternatively, the wind can loft burning material from a house and carry it to other homes, igniting new fires.

The extreme winds that have buffeted LA this week spread those embers and bits of burning debris far and wide.

Some houses are close enough to their neighbors that, if the next house has flammable siding — made of wood, perhaps — the mounting flames can quickly overtake it.

Even when houses are close together, building with non-flammable materials can help.

Once houses are up in flames in a place like the Palisades, Cohen and Durland said, it's no longer a wildfire. It's an urban fire.

With thousands of homes ablaze and powerful winds stoking the flames, firefighters have been unable to contain the fires in Los Angeles.

To stop things from getting to that point — before fires ever start — it's crucial for cities and communities to clear dry, highly flammable grasses and brush, whether through controlled burns, livestock grazing programs, or other means.

"This is a team sport, okay? Nobody can solve this alone," Durland said. "It is going to take community planning and it's going to take leadership at the political level and the community level and the state level."

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Satellite images from January 6th to 8th show just how quickly the California wildfires spread and the sheer scale of the devastation.

• Margarita Komarova and Colin McDarmont, were desperate to start a family and underwent IVF.
• They were shocked after learning six embryos fertilized during their fourth cycle had to be discarded.
• The couple claims it is the victim of gross negligence by a pharmaceutical giant.

Margarita Komarova and her husband, Colin McDarmont, were thrilled to learn their fourth round of IVF had produced six promising embryos.

Komarova, 37, who works in tech, told Business Insider that "everything was tracking positive" following the procedure in November 2023.

But seven days after the fertilization, their doctor called to say none of the embryos had gone on to develop and were suitable for transfer.

"We were devastated," Komarova said, noting that they were discarded almost immediately. "We thought we'd done everything right before the retrieval."

The couple had eaten healthily and reduced stress by doing acupuncture and yoga as part of the process. The period in which she'd had to inject herself with fertility medication had been particularly taxing, Komarova added.

"You find yourself searching for answers," she said of their despair. "We started to blame ourselves — and each other —because we didn't know what had gone wrong."

The pair received an email from their fertility clinic three weeks later. It alerted them to an issue concerning the IVF "culture media," the liquid used in the technique to grow embryos. It said the outcome of their particular cycle "may have negatively impacted."

"It was confusing," Darmont said. "We had a lot of questions."

In January 2024, they learned of a recall notice issued to IVF clinics across the US by CooperSurgical, the giant pharmaceutical company that manufactured the solution used in their procedure. It was later established that three lots of the liquid had been missing the important ingredient of magnesium. The essential nutrient is key to the development of embryos in the lab, typically in a petrie dish.

Komarova and McDarmont have filed a $15 million lawsuit

A year on, Komarova and McDarmont are suing Cooper for $15 million, claiming they may have lost their chance of having children. The suit said the firm failed to implement proper testing and quality control during manufacture.

The pair, from Los Angeles, hired attorneys from the Clarkson Law Firm — which represents a number of the hundreds of IVF patients believed to have been impacted — and filed a complaint of gross negligence.

"We're hoping this will force them to provide actual information and details in terms of how this happened, and more importantly, the safeguards to prevent it from ever happening again," McDarmont, a 52-year-old product manager, told BI.

The lawsuit said that Cooper's "reckless disregard" had severely impacted the couple's ability to have a biological baby, leaving them "distraught they may never be able to start the family they imagined."

It said Komarova had suffered depression and McDarmont "continues to experience severe emotional distress as a result of the incident."

The would-be mom said her body had taken nearly a year to recover

According to the filing, Cooper "failed to adequately monitor their manufacturing system" when "it knew, or should have known, the inclusion of magnesium in the culture media is critical to embryo development."

Business Insider has contacted CooperSurgical, which has not immediately responded.

Komarova, an only child who'd always wanted a big family, told BI that she and her husband had spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to get pregnant since they got married in 2020.

She said that every month that passed without them conceiving felt like a lost opportunity, made more pertinent because of their age.

It had taken almost a year for her body to recover from the ordeal of the impacted procedure before she underwent IVF for the "fifth and final time" last October.

"It was hard to rebound from the failed cycle and prepare for the next," Komarova said. "It's not something where you can just jump in and do another one."

The lawsuit said she had struggled with abdominal pain for weeks, weight gain from the hormonal injections, and fluctuating moods after the attempt.

It said she had undergone "significant physical strain due to the original wasted cycle, as well as the new cycle necessitated" made by Cooper's "faulty product."

Meanwhile, it said the couple continued to experience "deep sadness, guilt, hopelessness, shame, disappointment and anger."

McDarmont said the recall notice read as if it was a product recall of cereal boxes

Komarova described how she and McDarmont — who'd previously spent tens of thousands of dollars on three attempts at IVF — had meticulously prepared for the 2023 retrieval.

"You do everything you're supposed to do, like eat organic food and reduce the amount of stress you're under," she told BI. "Then you do the procedure, the results come in, and it's a punch to the gut."

McDarmont said he was infuriated by the outcome, which, he said, could have been avoided if Cooper had followed the correct protocol. "The despair, disappointment, and anger haven't gone away."

He said the recall notice was cold and perfunctory. "It sounded like it was a recall of something like cereal boxes or furniture items," he told BI.

The couple filed the lawsuit in Bridgeport, Connecticut — the city where CooperSurgical is headquartered — and asked for a jury trial. They are seeking at least $ 15 million in damages.

Meanwhile, Komarova and McDarmont were relieved to discover that their fifth cycle of IVF has been successful — at least so far. It resulted in a number of embryos that remain frozen.

Still, Komarova told BI she found the thought of the "next chapter" — which will involve the transfer of an embryo into her body — "scary."

• As an interior decorator, I avoid design choices that make bathrooms feel sterile or cheap.
• I think matching towel sets and themed bathroom art lack personality and feel dated.
• Matte paint and unprotected wallpaper can easily succumb to water damage.

As an interior decorator, I love creating tranquil, well-coordinated rooms inside the home. However, there are a few design elements I wouldn't put in my bathroom.

Here are 1o things I would never have in my bathroom.

Floor-to-ceiling tile looks too sterile.

I've found that a bathroom with floor-to-ceiling tiles usually comes across as cold and sterile instead of luxurious.

Though I think the look works for a walk-in shower or feature wall, decorating all over with tile is an expensive choice that's difficult to update as trends change.

Plastic bathroom accessories bring down an elevated design.

Consider upgrading plastic accessories, such as shower-curtain rings, soap dispensers, and trash cans, to nonplastic options for an elevated design.

Higher-quality metal or ceramic finishes can give your bathroom a luxurious appeal while adding color, texture, and charm to the space. 

Black toilets kind of scare me — plus they can be hard to keep clean.

Black toilets remind me of the uncomfortable feeling of using portable toilets — in which you really don't want to see the bottom.

A black toilet might seem like a chic, modern choice, but the color can make it harder to clean. Though a white toilet shows dust, watermarks, and smudges, a black one hides all the grime and buildup.

If you want to bring a moody-chic look into the bathroom, do it with black towel rods and fixtures rather than a toilet.

Matching towel sets are uninspiring.

Using towels with the same color throughout the bathroom creates a stagnant design and doesn't bring much fun into the space. Even patterned towel sets typically lack visual variety and color contrast. 

I prefer mixing different towel colors and patterns that work well together and coordinating them with floor mats and shower curtains. The finished look appears more dynamic and personalized.

Unprotected wallpaper can get wet and moldy in a bathroom.

Wallpaper is an awesome choice for smaller spaces but not all options will work in the bathroom. I prefer to use a peel-and-stick variety as its vinyl material is more water-resistant than the paper-based alternatives.

If you love a traditional wallpaper design, you might get away with using it in a powder room or half-bath, where there isn't a shower. But I still recommend treating the paper with a protective coating to keep it from getting damaged after installation.

Tile countertops can lead to grimy grout that stains easily.

Though grid tiles are trending, I don't recommend using them for bathroom vanities or other high-traffic areas because the grout tends to quickly accumulate dirt.

I also find that the hard-to-clean grout will eventually stain from things like colored soap, makeup, and lotion.

If you're determined to incorporate this trend into your bathroom, consider using the tiles as a backsplash or on shower walls where they're less likely to see spills.

Art doesn't need to be bathroom-themed.

Instead of choosing themed artwork you think works in a bathroom or spa, treat your wall decor as you would in any other room.

Pick elevated artwork that inspires you and uses colors from your home decor to make your bathroom an extension of your space's aesthetic.

Just be sure to choose art that can withstand the steam to avoid mildew forming on paper-based products.

Pedestal sinks are a wasted opportunity for storage.

Though pedestal sinks are a classic silhouette, they just aren't practical for most homes. The lack of storage and counter space means they're only useful for washing hands.

Unless you have space for additional storage options, I wouldn't even use these sinks in the powder room, as they can't store extra supplies for guests.

Matte paint doesn't typically hold up in a steamy bathroom.

Matte paints aren't ideal for bathrooms because they have a tendency to absorb moisture. I recommend a semigloss to high-gloss paint option to better protect the drywall from moisture damage.

If you love the matte look, you can try using limewash paint, instead. It has a similar look, but it's supposed to be naturally mold-resistant and antibacterial.

Frameless vanity mirrors can feel dated.

Though they're a neutral option, I find frameless mirrors, especially those with a beveled edge, look dated.

A framed mirror is an opportunity to add stylistic personality to your space, much like hanging art. I suggest tying your color palette and existing hardware finishes into your mirror to bring the space together.

This story was originally published on September 17, 2023, and most recently updated on January 9, 2025.