• Daniel Peebles left his film career to care for his two sons, one with special needs, full-time.
• Peebles' wife, Courtney, started a toy business in 2023, which she runs full-time from their home.
• The family business, Solobo, supports them now as Peebles embraces stay-at-home dad life.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Daniel Peebles, a 27-year-old stay-at-home dad in Arizona. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

While I was growing up with my dad in Virginia Beach, he would surf often. When I was eight, he asked me to start filming him surfing.

I learned to love telling stories, and as I got older, I picked up the camera again to make videos for my family and friends in our town for $100 each.

I grew that into a successful film career, but I quit to stay home and care for my two children, one with special needs, while my wife runs a company.

When I was 18, I started making real money with film projects

I decided not to go to college because I knew what I wanted to do for a career. At first, filming was just a hobby, but I started to get serious and charge more.

Through word of mouth, local businesses in our area contacted me to ask if I offered filming and editing services. I charged local companies between $1,000 and $3,000 per project.

I met the woman who would become my wife in 2017

Courtney was working as a producer at a mega church. We worked together on film projects and hit it off. We married in 2018 and moved in together.

I realized that the film projects I was doing here and there would not be enough income for a family — I needed a real job.

In 2018, I worked for six months at a mortgage company. Courtney was a multimedia specialist at the time. We were making good money but were miserable and wanted to spend more time together. We both quit at the end of that year.

I went back to freelancing for film projects in 2019

Our firstborn son was born in December. Courtney stayed home with our son, and I picked up freelance film work, but I lost all my film clients when the pandemic hit. Since opportunities were scarce, I networked and got a full-time job as a film director at Ironclad.

I was grateful for the work and the $80,000 salary. With bonuses, it was well into the six figures annually. Our second son was then born in May 2021.

My youngest son was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, which meant a lot of care

I traveled constantly. There were some weeks where I was gone three weeks out of the month. Every time I left home, I felt a ping because I didn't want my sons to grow up with a dad who wasn't around.

After my son's diagnosis, I started scaling back and moved into more post-production, which kept me at home.

My son requires supervision at all times and is on long-term care through our state. I'm the registered provider under the program. If I weren't registered, attendants would come to our home whenever needed.

Courtney became frustrated with our youngest son's toys

Courtney found that the toy industry lacks toys for neurodivergent kids. My youngest son had a lot of mobility issues with his hands. She couldn't find any toys to help him with those movements.

She started making things just out of cardboard, and then she kept having more ideas. Courtney started Solobo LLC, our family toy business, in March 2023. We invested $10,000 we had saved into prototypes.

At first, she worked on product creation, marketing, sales, and logistics for the business at night while I worked during the day.

We decided I would quit my job and let Courtney pursue her dream

As the business grew, I told Courtney how miserable I was being away from her and the boys, and we talked about her passion for the business. I hesitated about becoming a stay-at-home dad, but it seemed to be the right choice.

I was on my way to becoming the lead director of production when I quit my job at Ironclad in June 2023. I took the leap even though we had no savings at that point.

My dad traveled a lot for work while I was growing up, and I didn't get to see him as much as I wanted to. Staying home with my sons was more important to me than the money.

My day-to-day life as a stay-at-home dad is totally different

One of my kids wakes me up — they're my alarm. I get up and cook breakfast for the family. Courtney goes upstairs to work while I play with the boys.

We have activities a few times a week. I teach them practical things, like how to swim. The boys go to school a few times a week, too — it's an inclusive learning space through play.

I help Courtney with fulfillment coordination, inventory, and logistics at night. We have a few regular subcontractors and a team of pediatric experts.

Money is tight at times, but the business pays our bills

Our relationship has become stronger. Courtney and I first met through work, so it's cool to be working with my best friend again. I get the privilege of spending more time with my boys than most dads, and it's beautiful.

I've had people approach me who are genuinely puzzled that Courtney and I don't get tired of always being around each other. We work, laugh, cry, and dream together, and I wouldn't have it any different.

How I grew up — dads work, moms stay home — I felt there was a stigma for stay-at-home dads, but I did it anyway. I can see how we're building a better future for our boys.

The toy business continues to grow

I love the stay-at-home dad life. The only reason I would consider returning to work depends on the level of care our son needs (as he gets older) and where our business is by then.

Everyone thought I was crazy when I quit my film industry job to become a stay-at-home dad, but it was the best decision for our family.

• About a fifth of recruitment ads in 2024 were "ghost jobs," a Greenhouse report found.
• Ghost jobs frustrate candidates and erode trust, but hiring managers continue to see the benefits.
• Greenhouse and LinkedIn now offer verification features to help identify potential ghost jobs.

Everyone has a story about a role they thought they were perfect for, only to hear nothing back or be ghosted later on.

You may have even been love-bombed during an interview and told you were the ideal candidate, only for it to be crickets afterward.

Greenhouse may have an explanation. It found that between 18% and 22% of jobs listed with it in 2024 were appeals for new workers that never actually got filled.

The hiring platform surveyed 2,500 workers across the US, UK, and Germany, finding that three in five candidates suspected they had encountered a "ghost job."

In analyzing the data, Greenhouse found that about a fifth of the jobs posted on its platform could be classified this way — jobs that go up on boards but don't actually exist.

"The data highlights a troubling reality — the job market has become more soul-crushing than ever," Jon Stross, Greenhouse's president and cofounder, said in a statement.

Spotting a fake job ad

Ghost jobs are not a new phenomenon. Business Insider reported in 2022 on a survey of 1,000 hiring managers conducted by the lending firm Clarify Capital. Half of managers said they kept job postings live even when they weren't actively recruiting because they were "always open to new people."

A Resume Builder survey last May found that seven in 10 hiring managers also think it's "morally acceptable" to post ghost jobs, while three in 10 companies have posted fake listings.

Other reasons for putting up these ads include giving the impression of company growth, placating frustrated staff members, or holding out hope for the perfect "unicorn" candidate.

While hiring managers may see the benefit, in reality, ghost jobs frustrate candidates and erode trust in the process, BI's Tim Paradis reported last year.

The Wall Street Journal reported that in response to persisting ghost jobs, Greenhouse and LinkedIn now have a verification feature to help candidates weed out ads that may be a waste of time.

Some ways to identify a ghost job, BI previously reported, include it being up for 30 days or more, can no longer be found on the company's website, or a vague description of the role and its requirements.

• Almost 50 years ago, a young Donald Trump had a career breakthrough redeveloping a NYC hotel.
• Now, developers want to replace the property with the country's most expensive tower.
• The project's builders need almost $5 billion of federal loans to do it.

Donald Trump was a young developer eager to make a name for himself in the Manhattan real estate industry when he struck a career-making deal to redevelop the Commodore Hotel next to Grand Central Terminal into a 1,300-room Grand Hyatt clad in dark glass.

Nearly half a century later, Trump may again have an opportunity to play a role in the site's destiny when he returns to the White House.

New York developers RXR and TF Cornerstone have proposed leveling the property and raising a 1,575-foot-tall office and hotel tower in its place that would cost as much as $6.5 billion to construct. It would be both the tallest skyscraper by roof height ever built in America as well as the most expensive.

Renderings of the mega-tower show how it will dwarf surrounding structures, including the neighboring landmark Chrysler Building and even a new headquarters tower being built nearby for JPMorgan Chase.

As part of the work, the pair have imagined making improvements to portions of the historic neighboring train terminal and the subway station below the site.

To help pay for the immense project — called 175 Park Avenue — the developers are taking an unusual approach at a moment when lenders have remained wary to finance such large-scale office development.

The property was recently included on a list of mostly transportation related projects that are seeking access to federal money earmarked for transit infrastructure development and upgrades.

RXR and TF Cornerstone are planning to apply for as much as $4.84 billion of federal loans to help pay for the tower, according to the document. The developers expect to spend as much as $6.5 billion on the project, a sum that includes about $550 million of accompanying transit improvements they will make as part of the project. The team is listed as having submitted a draft letter of interest in the federal money, a preliminary and non-binding step in applying for the funding.

The federal money is discretionary and administered by the US Department of Transportation, meaning that the incoming Trump administration — and possibly even the president himself — will have decision-making authority over which projects are ultimately awarded.

"I would expect he'd be supportive and excited about it, and obviously at the appropriate time we're going to be reaching out," Scott Rechler, the CEO and chairman of RXR, said, noting that he hadn't yet attempted to discuss the tower project with the president-elect or anyone in his circle. "He understands office buildings better than any president before."

A shortage of capital for office development

Rechler said the project team behind 175 Park Avenue is exploring the federal loans because of lingering dislocations in the lending market that have made it difficult to source financing from private sector lenders.

Banks, life insurance companies, debt funds, and other sources of mortgage debt have pulled away from office financing as a result of concerns about the stresses of higher interest rates on property values and vacancies created by the enduring popularity of hybrid and remote work.

Trey Morsbach, an executive managing director at JLL who co-leads the firm's real estate debt advisory practice, said that multi-billion-dollar office projects are tricky to finance even during favorable leasing and lending conditions, requiring collections of lenders to divide the loan and spread their risk.

One Vanderbilt, a roughly 1,400-foot-tall tower that opened in 2020 on the other side of Grand Central Terminal from 175 Park Avenue, for instance, received a $1.5 billion construction loan from a group of six banks in 2016 in order to proceed.

Morsbach said that lenders were still funding office construction today, in large part because there is a growing belief that newly built, high-end spaces will outperform the broader market. The pool of active financing groups has shrunk, however, challenging deals like 175 Park Avenue that rely on lending consortiums and benefit from market depth.

Lenders "are interested, but just aren't willing to commit the same scale," Morsbach said.

An unused pot of tens of billions of federal dollars

RXR and TF Cornerstone are aiming to tap lending programs called the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act and Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing. The programs, known by their acronyms Tifia and Rrif, respectively, offer projects access to low-cost financing and long payback periods stretching 35 years or more.

The cost benefits of sourcing a loan at the scale necessary to fund the construction of 175 Park Avenue from the federal government versus the private market would be "absolutely astronomical" for the developers, according to Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, the Earle W. Kazis and Benjamin Schore Professor of Real Estate at Columbia Business School.

Although the programs are aimed at transit upgrades, they were updated as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021 to allow funding for private development located "within a half mile walking distance of transit — commuter and intercity passenger rail stations," according to a DOT spokeswoman.

Few builders, however, have tapped the money, even though the Rrif program holds about $30 billion of unused funds, in part, because of the tedious qualification process.

To receive the financing, the 175 Park Avenue project must receive an investment grade credit rating from a major ratings agency and pass through a federal environmental review.

"It's extremely cumbersome to access that money," Van Nieuwerburgh said.

There has been optimism in the commercial real estate industry that the Trump administration will be more accommodative of business, including by stripping back regulation.

"Donald Trump comes in, his team cuts through the red tape, navigates through and unleashes a $6 billion project that's going to improve transit, create the biggest building in the Western hemisphere," Rechler said of 175 Park Avenue's potential appeal to the president-elect. "It speaks to a lot of his policies and the administration's approach to wanting to get things done."

Unflattering politics

Rechler, however, was for years closely aligned politically with former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo — a Democrat and nemesis of Trump's during his first term in the White House.

Rechler, who noted he is a registered independent, is hoping that economic development will prevail over politics.

But a person who is in line to become a Trump administration official said that Rechler's past associations may not be lost on the new administration.

"I'm not speaking for Trump, but I would be in utter shock if the transportation department, which must oversee the railroads, if they signed off on that deal," the person said.

• Jack Clark was a reporter at Bloomberg when I was an editor there.
• He told me he was quitting to join OpenAI in 2016.
• I told him that was a terrible idea. The rest is history.

In 2016, Jack Clark walked up to me in Bloomberg's San Francisco newsroom and asked if we could go for a walk. As an editor, it's often not good when one of your reporters makes a request like this.

Sure enough, as we sat on a bench looking over the Bay Bridge, Jack told me he was quitting to join a nonprofit called OpenAI.

I said this was a terrible idea. OpenAI was less than a year old at the time and was still a relatively obscure AI research group. Its major claim to fame was Elon Musk's (uneven) financial support.

I pressed my case. As a reporter on Bloomberg's Big Tech team, Jack had a pretty stable job. In contrast, OpenAI didn't seem to have much of a direction, and I couldn't see a path for it to become financially sustainable beyond asking Musk for more money. I selfishly also wanted Jack to stay at Bloomberg and keep covering Google and AI, which he was good at.

I thought I was pretty persuasive, but Jack ignored me and left.

"Just read the research papers"

He went on to be an influential expert and advisor on AI safety and related topics, co-authoring several AI research papers. Jack also built one of the most popular AI email newsletters, called Import AI, which researchers widely follow in the field. He still writes this regularly.

He often told me to "just read the research papers" when I asked how to learn more about AI and get better stories about the technology. He was right. There's a lot of valuable information buried in these papers.

Jack stayed at OpenAI for over four years, doing strategy and communications before becoming a policy director. He may have gotten some equity in that startup, but I'm not sure.

Then, in 2020, he left OpenAI and I didn't hear from him for a while. He popped up a few months later as one of seven cofounders of Anthropic, which was started by a bunch of early OpenAI employees.

Cofounders reminisce

Anthropic is now challenging OpenAI at the forefront of generative AI and large language models. It's backed by Amazon and Google, along with several top venture capital firms.

The cofounders got together last month to talk about the start of Anthropic. Jack holds court with his colleagues, who reminisce about the early days.

"I met Dario in 2015 when I went to a conference you were at, and I tried to interview you, and Google PR said I would've read all of your research papers," Jack says to Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, who used to work at Google.

"I think I was writing 'Concrete problems in AI safety' when I was at Google," Amodei replies. "I think you wrote a story about that paper."

"I did," Jack says, with a cheeky smile.

Not his style

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Anthropic was raising money at a $60 billion valuation. Then, Forbes reported that the seven cofounders, including Jack, are set to become billionaires.

I asked Jack about this last week and said I wanted to interview him for a story. 

"Haha, Ali, thanks, but really not my style," he replied.

It's true. Jack is among the gentlest, kindest, and most self-deprecating people I've ever met. He's not classic billionaire material. 

I'm still stunned and trying to process his new situation. What I do know is that Jack's decision to ignore me was a testament to his passion, single-mindedness, and vision.

Back in 2015, when very few people thought about AI, he was obsessed with it and was constantly pushing to write about the technology at Bloomberg. 

Jack knew that AI was important. When his chance came, he took a risk and went for it.

• Mark Zuckerberg wants more "masculine energy" at Meta. There's some disconnect with the user base.
• In the US, 61% of men use Facebook — while 78% of women do.
• Academic studies suggest men and women view frequent posting to social media as a less masculine trait.

Mark Zuckerberg said he thinks Meta needs more "masculine energy" and that the company's culture has been "neutered" in the last few years.

There might be a disconnect between Zuckerberg's ambitions — which he shared on Joe Rogan's podcast last week — and the actual social platforms he runs. In the US, more women use Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp than men. (Global numbers aren't available.)

Facebook — still the most popular social network — is where the gender divide gets even more obvious. A 2024 Pew Research Center report on social media use showed that 61% of adult men in the US used Facebook "at all," while 78% of adult women did. That 17-point difference is greater than the divide between men's and women's use of any other social network except Pinterest.

If you look back at a similar 2013 Pew report, 66% of men and 72% of women used Facebook. However, the most current metric is slightly different, measuring internet-using adults, not all adults. But even a decade ago, there was still a noticeable gap between the genders — and it's gotten bigger.

Quite simply, Facebook is in some way a women's platform — or at least it leans that way.

Now, of course, it's an exaggeration to say that men "don't" use Facebook — a majority of them say they use it or have an account.

But that doesn't tell us how they're using it, exactly — if they're frequently posting or engaging or just checking in once a month. I don't have data about which gender actually uses Facebook more, but I have some ideas based on both research and my own anecdotal experience that suggest that women are driving the daily conversations on the platform.

It's important to note that these stats are for US users, which makes up only a fraction of the 3 billion-plus users. Globally, the gender breakdown may be quite different; Meta doesn't release its own statistics on gender and declined to comment for this story.

So why don't more men use Facebook?

Why do more women than men use Facebook? I have some theories, some of which are sweeping generalizations about gender — like that some men don't find as much value or pleasure in keeping up with old acquaintances as women do.

You can see in the Pew study that other platforms like X (Twitter) and Reddit have more male users. This doesn't seem surprising at all, and you can probably come up with some easy theories in your mind right now as to why.

For our purposes, we're talking about traditional gender roles here. (I recognize the irony in talking about gender this way when Meta has just changed its content rules to allow for more hateful rhetoric about trans people). I am sure that there are many people out there — perhaps even you, dear reader — who don't use Facebook this way and can't relate to any of this. That's OK.

Frequent posting on social media is perceived as "feminine"

There is some interesting academic research that can help us try to make sense of this female energy. A study published last year looked into perceptions of masculinity and the use of social media. Participants were to rate the masculinity or femininity of a person who posts either frequently or infrequently. What they found was that consistently, people rated men who post frequently as being less masculine.

Andrew Edelblum, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Dayton, who authored the paper, and his coauthor tried different "bias-breakers" in their surveys: What if the man wasn't posting about himself but posting about other people? Or what if the man was posting not as a regular person but as a professional influencer who was doing it for work? They found that the perception remained the same — frequent posting was viewed as feminine.

Perhaps men, sensing this perception, stop themselves from being active on Facebook.

"What we found is, and we're drawing on, what at this point is kind of a well-known phenomenon of 'precarious manhood,'" Edelblum told Business Insider. "It's essentially the idea that 'man card' credentials are really hard to gain but very easy to lose."

Anecdotally, I have noticed that Facebook seems to be predominantly used by women. My male friends rarely use Facebook, and as I poke around many corners of the platform, either for professional or personal reasons, I tend to see fewer men posting in groups or even listing things on Marketplace.

I'm incredibly active on Facebook — I spend hours there a week, mainly in groups that are nearly all women — groups for parenting, fans of "Vanderpump Rules," shopping, or decorating (now that I think about it, perhaps Facebook being a matriarchal society is why I have more unregretted user seconds spent on there than, say, X).

I also see some well-worn gendered division of household labor dynamics play out: For example, my kid's school has an active Facebook Group, but it's almost all moms. Same with a group for hiring local babysitters. Even a non-gendered general local town group or a Buy Nothing group seems to be mainly used by women.

My husband deactivated his own Facebook account in 2009 after deciding it was "uncool," but I recently whined to him that it was unfair that I had to be the sole Facebook admin for the family. (He made a new account with a fake name so he can browse Marketplace at least.)

So what does this mean?

Mark Zuckerberg's comment about wanting more "masculine energy" was about his company's internal culture and the need to be more aggressive instead of accommodating external critics.

This has seemed to play out in some ways that appear boorish, like removing the tampons in the men's bathrooms that were meant to accommodate a handful of trans or nonbinary employees and visitors.

I do wonder if part of Zuckberg's apparent personal King of the Bros rebrand is hoping to entice younger men back to Facebook, trying to demonstrate that you can be both masculine and a frequent Facebook poster.

It seems that his comments and his actions aren't really meant for the nosy housewives who are among the biggest users of his platforms. His peacocking, new politics, and Joe Rogan appearances are meant for Silicon Valley workers who work at or invest in his products — and many of them seem to love it.

But somewhere, I do worry that people have forgotten something that seems clear to me: Facebook is powered by feminine energy.

• "Shark Tank" investor Barbara Corcoran is one of many celebrities to lose homes in the LA wildfires.
• Her property was in a mobile home community in Pacific Palisades that's been razed to the ground.
• She spent $150,000 renovating the trailer, which she called her "Taj Mahal."

The oceanfront mobile home that TV star and real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran spent hundreds of thousands renovating burned down during the Los Angeles fires.

The "Shark Tank" investor, 75, is among a growing list of celebrities and Hollywood A-listers to lose homes in the fires that continue to cause havoc in Los Angeles.

Corcoran's spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that her two-and-a-half bedroom trailer, located within the Tahitian Terrace mobile home community in Pacific Palisades, was razed to the ground by the flames and that she has launched a GoFundMe page to raise funds for the residents.

"I'm absolutely heartbroken about the mass devastation throughout Los Angeles," Corcoran said in a statement to BI. "Pacific Palisades and the Tahitian Terrace community in particular is a little slice of heaven."

Corcoran said she owned her home in the community for five years, during which she befriended many neighbors.

The park was originally built in 1963 and comprised 250 "manufactured homes," according to real estate group Compass.

"Many of the residents, most of them elderly, had built their lives here over many decades and planned to live out their retirement here," Corcoran added. "They've lost absolutely everything."

Corcoran's GoFundMe has raised more than $145,000 toward her goal of $600,000. She herself donated $100,000.

In 2023, a tour Corcoran gave of her mobile home, which has unobstructed views of the Pacific Ocean, went viral.

Shared by TikToker Caleb Simpson, who is known for posting videos of unique homes, the video included Corcoran joking that her trailer was her "Taj Mahal."

Corcoran said she bought the property for $800,000 and spent another $150,000 on renovations, including a pricey freestanding bathtub. "You're in a million-dollar home," she added.

• Business Insider asked high-end stylists about the clothes and accessories the rich are wearing.
• Tailored blazers and suits are extremely popular among wealthy clientele.
• Accessories like luxury handbags and statement jewelry are also staples in many wardrobes.

Many of us know the big names in the high-end design space, like Louis Vuitton or Gucci — but just knowing the brands isn't enough to build a fashionable wardrobe.

So, Business Insider asked high-end stylists what their wealthy and celebrity clientele are reaching for right now to determine which styles and accessories are actually in.

Tailored blazers never go out of style.

Kim Appelt, personal and celebrity stylist, told BI that tailored, relaxed blazers are easy to throw on and wear effortlessly.

"This is the ultimate 'power casual' piece, delivering sophistication without being too formal," she said. "They work with everything from jeans to silk slip skirts, creating an understated, polished look that feels effortless."

Some popular styles include those from brands like The Row or Celine that have clean lines for a sharp, precise look.

Leather and suede pieces scream high-end.

Desiree Miranda, a New York City-based stylist, personal shopper, and founder of Miranda New York, said many people opt for leather and suede pieces to elevate their looks.

"These pieces give off a feeling of prestige and status while also offering timeless style," she said. "When you find the perfect piece, whether it be a coat, pants, or a jacket, they will mold to your body over time, providing a unique and comfortable fit."

You can't go wrong with a classic pair of leather shoes.

Leather shoes are versatile and go with both tailored and casual looks, making them ideal for everyday wear, the office, and more formal occasions.

"Timeless loafers, often penny styles from Hermès or Chanel, and sleek, ankle-high leather boots are popular," Appelt told BI. "The quality leather softens beautifully over time, and because they never go out of style, they're the perfect fusion of comfort and class."

Monochromatic looks are chic.

Lindsey Bernay, a leading fashion expert, stylist, and author of the book, "You Can't Leave the House Naked," told BI that monochromatic looks are luxe.

"Monochromatic looks signal luxury through subtlety," she said. "Wearing one color head-to-toe, especially in neutral tones, creates a sleek, sophisticated look that feels both fresh and timeless."

The stylist emphasized the use of clean lines and high-quality fabrics for an extra bit of posh elegance.

Structured, minimalistic handbags elevate any outfit.

Appelt told BI that handbags with minimal branding, like the Hermès Picotin and the Bottega Veneta pouch, are in demand right now.

"The understated look is the new status symbol," she said. "This shift toward subtlety shows a confidence in one's style without needing to prove anything — it's the ultimate 'if you know, you know' vibe."

If the weather calls for knitwear, cashmere is best.

Appelt said high-quality cashmere sweaters, cardigans, and turtlenecks in neutral tones are popular among rich clientele right now — especially when they're from brands like Loro Piana or Brunello Cucinelli.

"Cashmere lasts and gets softer over time, making it a true investment," she told BI.

The celebrity stylist said the knitwear is a good example of the current influx of "quiet luxury" in the fashion world. They're well-made and high-quality while still being comfortable and low-key.

Bespoke jewelry stands out from the crowd.

Accessories can be just as important as the clothing itself in high-end fashion, and Appelt said bespoke jewelry is in right now.

The trend can include customized pieces, like a gold signet ring, and vintage fare, like heirloom-quality earrings.

"There's a lean toward pieces that tell a story or have sentimental value rather than flashy logos," the stylist told BI. "Custom jewelry feels intimate and luxurious, especially in an age when personal expression is key."

• A Chinese social media app called Xiaohongshu is one of the biggest winners from a looming TikTok ban.
• It's so popular in the US that Chinese users have started a new hashtag to welcome Americans.
• The cultural exchange frenzy has birthed posts of people asking for help with English homework, among other requests.

A Chinese social media platform has grown so popular in the US that it's this week's most downloaded iPhone app — and it's become the site of a sudden East-Meets-West cultural exchange.

Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, hit the top spot on the US Apple store's ranking this week as a divest-or-ban law threatens to shut off American access to TikTok.

The app, commonly referred to as China's version of Instagram, has been flooded with posts from Chinese users greeting the influx of US newcomers.

One post titled "American please help me" went viral on Monday and received over 10,000 comments after its poster, from Zhejiang, requested help with their English homework.

Other popular posts also featured users, who listed their location as being in the US, offering their assistance for Chinese users' homework.

"Ask me any questions! I can help with your English homework, or answer questions about America (Texas). Thank you for welcoming us TikTok refugees," one post read. Several commenters uploaded photos of English-language worksheets in response.

The surge in American users on Chinese apps has also led to a rise in the hashtag #TikTokRefugee on Xiaohongshu, with dozens of Chinese creators posting guides on how to use the platform. The hashtag itself has been viewed over 64 million times, according to data seen by Business Insider.

"If you see a video that's downright awesome, just comment 6 or 66 or 666," said a cowboy hat-toting user, Big Tooth Chinese Redneck, in one viral video, referencing a Chinese internet slang term.

The sudden interest in Chinese social media platforms comes as TikTok continues to challenge the divest-or-ban law that the Senate passed in April. According to the law, TikTok will have to stop operating in the US on January 19 if its Chinese-based owner, Bytedance, doesn't sell the app.

The divest-and-ban law was passed amid widespread security concerns that the Chinese government could access user data if Bytedance continued to own the platform. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told The Wall Street Journal in 2023 that such concerns are unfounded since the company would work with Oracle to store user data in the US.

TikTok argued its case with the Supreme Court on Friday, saying it will "go dark" in January if the court doesn't extend its divestment deadline. The court is expected to rule on the company's fate this week.

There's a lot on the line for TikTok now — it lost a challenge to the law in December when it brought the case before a panel of three judges from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

In December, President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to pause the law until after his inauguration. Trump is set to take office on January 20.

Allowing TikTok to operate in the US is a reversal of Trump's policy position on the company. Trump pushed for a TikTok ban in 2020 when he was still president. But more recently, the president-elect told reporters in December that he had a "warm spot" in his heart for TikTok.

Still, TikTok's troubles have brought unexpected benefits to platforms like Xiaohongshu and Lemon8, which both surged to the top two spots on Apple app store rankings. Lemon8 is also owned by Bytedance.

Meagan Loyst, founder of the investor collective Gen Z VCs, told Business Insider on Monday that users were flocking to these platforms to protest the government's planned TikTok ban.

"It really is just retaliation towards the government in the simplest way, but in a way that feels very native to Gen Z," Loyst said.

Representatives for TikTok and Xiaohongshu did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

A typical weekend for 28-year-old Olivia looks something like this: On Friday night, she'll catch a game, either in the stands or from the comfort of her couch in her home city of Philadephia. Saturday is for the girls — her book club might go out to brunch or convene at one of their houses. Sunday is for bonus activities like shopping and chores to help get ready for the week. While there might be alcohol at some of those events, Olivia won't be partaking. She's one of a growing cohort of Gen Zers who are opting out of America's drinking culture.

It's a choice that's become increasingly popular in Olivia's peer group. A few years ago, some of her friends would look at her like she was "crazy" for abstaining at social events. Now, some don't even notice — and more are joining her in cutting out alcohol completely, even in a city with a heavy drinking culture.

"I've noticed a lot of my friends have also started to give up drinking, or they're just not interested in spending the money," Olivia, who works in finance, said. "They don't like the feeling of it. Part of that I think, is getting older; part of it is it's just not as cool."

This year, Dry January came with a new warning for Americans: The US surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, published an advisory that said alcohol should come with a cancer warning, as multiple studies pointed to a link between the two — even as many Americans did not recognize it as a potential danger. Alcohol stocks tumbled immediately. But if the fresh warning about alcohol shocked millennials and older Americans, many Gen Zers met it with a shrug.

"The younger generations are just a little more risk averse than we were," Mary Charlton, a professor of epidemiology and the director of the Iowa Cancer Registry at the University of Iowa, told me. "I think they're a little less fatalistic about things." If older generations embraced an ethos of "I'm going to die anyways, I might as well smoke," Gen Z is rejecting that, Charlton said — or, at least, they're more aware of who's making money off of getting them hooked on those substances.

Existential considerations aside, for many younger Americans, drinking has become incidental to a good time. If millennials killed off everything from golfing to casual dining, Gen Z might put the final nail in the coffin of social and economic life centered on alcohol. It's cheaper and more rewarding for them to opt for a different kind of connection. And, for a growing subset of businesses, that could translate into huge dollar signs.

Becca Borowski, a 25-year-old Wisconsinite, said that she drank "way too much" in college. When she was 22, she began getting terrible hangovers and decided she wanted to cut down on her consumption.

"I feel like everyone kind of realized after COVID that we don't really have to drink to have fun," she said, adding: "That's kind of when I started to realize, oh, I really don't enjoy drinking as much. I kind of just enjoyed more so that everyone was there."

That seems to be a common sentiment among her peer group. Gallup polling found that the share of 18- to 34-year-olds who drink alcoholic beverages has tumbled to a record low.

Meanwhile, the share of 18- to 34-year-olds who think even drinking in moderation is bad for health has doubled since the early 2000s. Chloe Richman, a 29-year-old in New York City who cohosts the podcast "Litty and Sh*tty," has been sober for nearly a year. Her decision to ditch drinking came after she started watching videos about popular online wellness trends such as 75 Hard and cold plunges.

"It really got to me, and I was thinking, oh, that's an easy fix for me," Richman said.

She says she only drank on weekends but would go hard when she did. That meant a lost day on Sundays recovering from the inevitable hangover. So cutting out drinking completely seemed like a logical next step. At first, the decision felt "extremely isolating" — going out for a drink was an easy option for socializing that no longer existed. But soon, she became "obsessed with the idea of just treating my body the best it can be," and decoupled fun from alcohol. These days, her evening activities include going to paint at an art café.

The shifting attitudes toward drinking affect not only how Gen Zers spend their time, but it's also had a dramatic effect on how they spend their money. For some businesses, this has become a serious issue: Concert venues are struggling with lower alcohol sales, and some bars are having to pivot their offerings, bolstering their non-alcoholic options and crafting spaces for optimal socializing. At the same time, a Gen Z nonalcoholic economy is quietly booming — and creating an opening for new types of businesses. The global non- and low-alcoholic beverage business has ballooned to $13 billion and is projected to grow even more. An analysis from IWSR found that nonalcoholic drink volume rose by 29% from 2022 to 2023, and the industry is projected to grow by 7% from 2023 to 2027. Nonalcoholic beverages have also captured new fans: In 2023, for instance, 17% of the industry's consumers were new to the nonalcoholic market. It turns out that Gen Zers still want to see each other; it just doesn't have to be over a drink.

As with any social movement, some big corporations are trying to capitalize on the recent shift. The big alcohol companies have already been gearing up for the anti-booze revolution, with many launching alcohol-free versions of their products. Heineken's CFO Harold van den Beck said in an October earnings call that 4% of the company's portfolio is nonalcoholic beverages and that that could increase to 6% or 7% of the total portfolio in the foreseeable future. Even Gen Z icon Tom Holland — who has been sober since 2022 — has launched his own nonalcoholic beer, Bero, which touts itself as "the new gold standard in beer."

Beyond the big businesses trying to get in on the trend, local entrepreneurs are also trying to create a smaller-scale community that caters to Gen Z's booze-free proclivities. Alexandra Zauner, 34, quit drinking 10 years ago. She wanted to create a way for people to socialize without alcohol, something she felt was missing in her own sobriety journey. That led her to create Lucille's, a nonalcoholic bottle shop and tasting room in St. Paul, Minnesota.

"We're seeing more and more people that are craving opportunities to connect, and it's less about the alcohol and it's more about just creating spaces for people that feel exciting and fun and gets people out of the house," Zauner said. She thinks people still want to experience nightlife — they're just opting not to do that at bars. Whether she's at one of her own nonalcoholic events or someone else's, she feels she gets to connect with other people on a deeper level — and have "genuine fun."

That rings true for Borowski, the Gen Zer in Wisconsin, who wants to get out and meet people without feeling the need to down boozy drinks. For her, that's meant pursuing some of her more creative hobbies: She's a student at local pottery studio Cream City Clay, where she's been cultivating a few friendships out of class. Connecting with peers who share her hobbies — rather than just a drink — has led her to more like-minded, creative folks.

"It's really fun to be able to take our friendship out of the class," she said.

At Chaotic Good Cafe in Manhattan — a new board game and role-playing venue — Gen Zers are flocking to play weekly games of Dungeons and Dragons. After being laid off in January 2023, the café's owner, 39-year-old Andrew Panos, combined his love for board games and coffee to create a space that doesn't revolve around alcohol (although it's still available for patrons who want it).

"We get a lot of people in their 20s and 30s coming in just to sit down and do work. We have WiFi and lots of outlets and 45 seats," Panos said. "We encourage people to sit down. So we're getting a lot of people who just want a cozy, warm spot right now."

That's pretty much the definition of an ideal third space — a place to gather that isn't home or the office but open to those who want to hang out for longer unstructured stretches. If millennials found themselves constricted by a loss of third spaces that funneled primarily into bars, Gen Zers' appetite to hang out sans alcohol might bring third spaces back and then some. A quick glimpse at the type of activities Gen Z is resurrecting — like speed dating or book clubs — shows that there's a larger cultural shift undergirding the patrons keeping these businesses afloat.

Gen Z sobriety still has its own nuances — many Gen Zers are still drinking, even if just a little. Others might be more motivated by current wellness trends and an acute need for connection than a long-term dedication to sobriety.

In Ohio, the rock-climbing walls at RockQuest are hopping on a Friday night. The general manager, 34-year-old Tyler Carson, has noticed an influx in younger folks who aren't just serious outdoorsy types. That includes everyone from older high schoolers to college groups to first dates. Carson said that the pandemic was a catalyst, of sorts — people were stuck inside and getting antsy. Now, some are opting for the thrill of the climb instead of the high of an alcohol buzz.

"There's enough fear even when doing it properly that's like, ooh, this is kind of a rush for people, especially new to the industry. And so they get that excitement, they get that thrill," Carson said.

Indeed, some of the Gen Z focus on sobriety might be tied to the overarching wellness culture and a focus on weight-loss and body transformations fueled by drugs like Ozempic. As Meir Statman, a professor of finance at Santa Clara University, said, "thin is in" in America right now, and younger people (many of whom are frequently on camera, whether it be a Zoom call or an Instagram story) are more concerned about how they look to potential mates. Emily Wilson, a 28-year-old in New York City who cohosts the "Litty and Sh*tty" podcast with Richman, said, much of the new wellness culture — including the sober-curious movement — is centered on selling new products to Gen Zers.

"Wellness is kind of a scam, but I think the fact that it's making people be healthier in some ways — like sobriety — is good, but there's definitely other ways where it's like the Ozempic culture is terrible," Wilson said.

While more members of Gen Z are sober-curious or cutting out alcohol, it doesn't mean all members of the younger generation are dialing back, and other substances might see more Gen Z support: 19% of 18- to 34-year-olds surveyed by Gallup in 2023 and 2024 said they smoke marijuana, the highest among age groups. Even weed companies are adapting to the younger generation's desire for a less intoxicating experience — Curaleaf recently launched a new seltzer with a 2.5-milligram dose of hemp THC, half the dosage of its 5-milligram seltzer launched over the summer. Curaleaf chairman and CEO Boris Jordan said their products are getting a boost as young people search for alcohol-free alternatives.

"As cannabis legalization expands and the hemp market grows, we are seeing adults shift from alcohol use to cannabis consumption, particularly in the 21-27 age group," Jordan told me in a statement.

These changes started taking hold even before the surgeon general's advisory, which may help to accelerate Gen Z's shift — and grow the market for alcohol-free fun. After completing her own research on the link between drinking and cancer, Charlton abandoned her habit of having a glass of wine at night as a reward for getting work done. Now, she only drinks socially. She thinks the longer-term effect of the prominent cancer warning might help people broaden their perspectives on how they want to spend their time.

Kam Kobeissi, 44, has witnessed the Gen Z transformation firsthand. Kobeissi, an elder millennial and a nonprofit worker in the Albany region, has never been much of a drinker; in the past year or so, he's been trying to find a community of people who don't rely on drinking-based socializing. But who he finds isn't exactly his cohort: "I'm definitely a minority in my age bracket." As a millennial, he's familiar with the generation's reputation for killing off certain activities and brands (rest in peace, diamonds). Now, he's getting to see the younger generation perform their own economic sleight of hand. When Kobeissi went to check out a board game café the other night, he was the oldest person there by 10 to 15 years.

"I really like this new generation and how it stands out in such different ways from what traditional business and marketing kind of is used to," he said. "I think it's challenging everything across the board."

Juliana Kaplan is a senior labor and inequality reporter on Business Insider's economy team.

• As a TikTok ban looks more likely, several apps are vying for its crown.
• Sister app Lemon8 has soared in popularity, but would likely get the ax, too.
• Meta, YouTube, and Snapchat have been competing in short-form video for years.

As TikTok inches toward potential extinction in the US, creators are trying to transition viewers to other platforms, while some viewers are already in a state of mourning.

The Chinese-owned platform is set to be yanked from US app stores on January 19. That's unless it's tossed a last-minute life raft by the Supreme Court or President-elect Donald Trump, who has asked the court to pause an enforcement deadline.

The former scenario is looking increasingly unlikely, however, as legal experts tell Business Insider that the Supreme Court appears to be leaning toward upholding the divest-or-ban law.

If the app goes dark, US users will have to look elsewhere for a short-form video fix. TikTok's ethos and community are unique, but competing formats exist on the world's biggest social-media apps, and are also offered by emerging competitors.

Here's who is — and who's not — in the running.

Meta, YouTube, and Snapchat have been competing in short-form video for years

Data shows that new apps often struggle to gain long-term traction when they have well-established rivals. And Meta, YouTube, and Snapchat have all been competing in the short-form space for years.

Meta launched Instagram reels in 2020 to great success — even chipping away at TikTok usage, according to two studies from last year.

YouTube, the original video giant, added short-form video in 2021, which has paid off handsomely. More recently, the Google-owned platform has used the prospect of a ban as a selling point for its ad team.

Snapchat, for its part, launched a TikTok counterpart called Spotlight in 2020, offering payouts to get creators to post.

Meanwhile, LinkedIn has more recently targeted TikTok by encouraging influencers to post short-form content. Some have told Business Insider that they've seen engagement boosts as a result.

TikTok sister app Lemon8 would likely get the ax, too

TikTok sister app, Lemon8, has soared to the top of the app charts in recent weeks. Lemon8 is reminiscent of Pinterest and contains a mix of photos and videos.

However, given that the law specifically mentions ByteDance, the parent company of the two apps, Lemon8 would likely be banned along with TikTok.

Christopher Krepich, the communications director for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, previously told Forbes the bill would ban Lemon8 unless ByteDance divested.

Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, another Chinese social app — which functions like Instagram but with more commerce features — has recently surged in popularity. It could, however, also be subject to the same divest-or-ban law as TikTok if the US government chose to target it.

Triller has long positioned itself as a TikTok rival

Triller has long sought to position itself as an alternative to TikTok — and currently offers a tool to help creators save their videos ahead of a potential ban.

Triller has gone through a series of strategy shifts over the years. After several false starts, it went public late last year through a reverse merger with a Hong Kong-based company called AGBA Group Holding Limited.

It recently hired former TikTok product head Sean Kim to run its video app, as well as several other subsidiaries.

Apps like Whatnot could fill a shopping void

TikTok helped social shopping break through in the US in a major way in 2024. The app drove $100 million in US sales on Black Friday alone, for example.

It's not the only one in the space, however. Some of its competitors include Flip and Complex Shop, formerly known as NTWRK. Flip, which raised $144 million last April at a $1 billion valuation, according to Bloomberg, launched in 2019 and enables users to post short, shoppable reviews.

Whatnot also made headlines after closing a $265 million funding round earlier this month at a $5 billion valuation. The app hosts livestreams across categories like fashion, collectibles, and storage unit finds.

• Special Counsel Jack Smith delivered his final report about the January 6 insurrection.
• The report is his final word on the 2020 election interference case.
• Smith concluded by saying that Trump would have been convicted had he not won the 2024 election.

Special counsel Jack Smith just delivered his final report on the January 6 insurrection.

The 137-page document, sent by the Justice Department to Congress on January 7 and made public early Tuesday, summarized years of Smith's investigation into the 2020 election interference case involving President-elect Donald Trump.

The report concluded that Trump would have been convicted in the case if he had not been elected president in 2024.

"Indeed, but for Mr. Trump's election and imminent return to the Presidency, the Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial," Smith wrote in the last line of the report.

In the report, Smith wrote that evidence showed Trump had disrupted a democratic process that had "operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years."

Trump wrote an early Tuesday post on Truth Social responding to Smith's report, calling the prosecutor "desperate" and "a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election."

In November, shortly after Trump's election victory, Smith asked federal judges for permission to drop the case against Trump, saying it would run counter to the long-standing DOJ policy against prosecuting a sitting president.

Read the full report here:

Representatives of Trump and Smith did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider, sent outside regular business hours.

• Starbucks is reversing its open-door policy, which lets non-paying guests sit around or use its loo.
• This means you'll have to make a purchase — or accompany someone who does — to use Starbucks facilities.
• The chain told BI that the change was made to prioritize paying customers.

You'll have to buy a cuppa to sit around at Starbucks or use its loos.

The coffee chain said on Monday that it would be reversing its open-door policy, which allows non-paying guests to use its restrooms or hang around in its stores. It will now reserve its cafés, patios, and restrooms for its customers and staff.

"Implementing a Coffeehouse Code of Conduct is something most retailers already have and is a practical step that helps us prioritize our paying customers who want to sit and enjoy our cafes or need to use the restroom during their visit," Starbucks' representative, Jaci Anderson, told BI in an emailed statement.

Anderson said the change will go into effect on January 27 in all its North American stores. She clarified that a customer is anyone making a purchase or accompanying someone making a purchase.

She also shared a company memo, which said that signs with the new code of conduct will be displayed in every store, which "makes clear that our spaces, including our cafes, patios, and restrooms, are for use by paying customers and our partners."

Anderson said its staff will be trained to enforce the code of conduct and ask anyone violating it to leave. She said they may also get support from local law enforcement if the situation calls for it.

The change reverses the company's open-door policy, which it implemented in 2018 after a controversy in one of its stores in Philadelphia.

Two Black men who had been sitting at the store were arrested after one of them asked to use the restroom. He had not purchased a drink and was denied entry by the store staff, who called the police.

The reversal of the open-door policy comes after CEO Brian Niccol in September announced his vision for the chain to become a third space for people to hang out in.

"Our stores will be inviting places to linger, with comfortable seating, thoughtful design, and a clear distinction between 'to-go' and 'for-here' service," he said in an open letter in September.

• Russia's state-owned gas giant is mulling a sweeping cut to its managing staff in St. Petersburg.
• A letter from Gazprom's board to its CEO suggested layoffs of 40% for its headquarters amid "challenges."
• The letter said wages among managers had risen to nearly $500 million a year.

Russian energy giant Gazprom is considering a 40% cut to its headquarters staff after posting its first loss in 24 years, according to a letter from one of its board members to the firm's CEO.

The letter, first reported by St. Petersburg-based outlet 47News on Monday, proposed that the central office head count be reduced from 4,100 to 2,500 people. It was dated December 23, 2024.

A Gazprom spokesperson confirmed the letter's authenticity with Agence France Presse and the state media outlet TASS.

In the proposal, Elena Ilyukhina, the board's deputy chairperson, wrote that wages for Gazprom managers had risen several times in the last two decades to about $486.5 million a year.

"The challenges facing the Gazprom group require a reduction in the time required for preparing and taking decisions," she wrote to CEO Alexei Miller.

Ilyukhina added that the company could instead rely on "automation and digitalization" for roles like accounting and planning.

47News wrote that Ilyukhina also estimated a 40% cut would align Gazprom's management-to-employee ratio with that of Rosatom, a state-owned nuclear energy firm.

Gazprom said in June 2024 that it had 498,000 employees for 2023. In comparison, Rosatom's director general told Russian leader Vladimir Putin in October that his company planned to have about 400,000 employees in 2024.

Ilyukhina added that some money saved in the proposed job cuts could be diverted to offering new performance bonuses for remaining employees.

Gazprom Group, which is mostly owned by the Russian state, posted its first annual loss in 24 years in May as wartime Western sanctions pushed its European customers to sever ties with Russian energy.

The company announced a net loss of 629 billion rubles, worth about $6.84 billion at the time, for the year 2023. It last suffered a net loss in 1999.

The gas producer has continued to face headwinds, with its flagship company announcing a $3.2 billion loss for the nine-month period ending in September 2024.

It's unclear if Miller has approved the layoffs suggested by Ilyukhina, and TASS reported that the company declined to comment beyond confirming that the letter is real.

Gazprom's press service did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

Russia had for years been a major supplier of natural gas to the European Union until Moscow's invasion of Ukraine prompted most of the region to start weaning itself off Russian energy. The transition has taken years, with the EU whittling down Russia's share of gas imports from 40% in 2021 to 8% in 2023.

Much of the gap has been filled by American gas supplies, with US gas imports to the EU jumping from 18.9 billion cubic meters in 2021 to 56.2 billion cubic meters in 2023.

More recently, Kyiv allowed the expiration of a pre-war contract to pipe Russian gas to Western customers such as Austria. Ukraine declined to renew the contract in early January.

• Microsoft Teams is a live meeting platform and virtual collaboration space.
• Microsoft first launched teams as a direct competitor to Slack.
• Here's what to know about Microsoft Teams and how to use various features.

If you need to set up a remote meeting wherein you can conduct video calls, swap notes, share files, align calendars, and much more, the Microsoft Teams just might be the right platform to use. A part of the Microsoft 365 subscription service that includes programs like Word, Excel, Outlook, and more, Teams easily integrates with much of the software and many apps you are likely already using.

Teams was first created because Bill Gates was against buying Slack, the workflow management platform. In 2016, Microsoft almost made an $8 billion bid for Slack, but the company's founder and former CEO was opposed to the move.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, agreed with Gates, and the offer was never made. Instead, Microsoft would develop Teams as a competitor to Slack, releasing it the next year.

Let's take a closer look at Microsoft Teams and what it allows its users to do.

What is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams is a collaboration app that allows users to communicate and work together in real time. It's designed to help users stay organized and connected, and can be used for a variety of purposes, including meetings, during which people can use features like PowerPoint Live, Microsoft Whiteboard, and AI-generated meeting notes.

Teams can also be used as a phone call platform. Users can make group calls, send voicemails, and transfer calls to others.

It's also a chat platform, letting users message individuals or groups, and access features like emojis and suggested replies.

Teams users can share files and share apps, and can use the program to help align and manage their calendars and schedules.

Is Microsoft Teams still free?

There is a free version of Microsoft Teams that offers many of the same functions as the paid version, albeit in scaled down form. Called "Teams for personal life," the free version limits video calls to 60 minutes, but it allows chat, file sharing, and up to five gigabytes of cloud file storage. The free version limits participants in a single session to 100 users.

How to join a Teams meeting — even without an account

You don't need to install Microsoft Teams join a meeting. You can join a meeting using your browser, or you can download the Windows app. On your computer, you need to use Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome as your browser to join a Teams meeting.

You can also join a Team's meeting even if you don't have a Microsoft Teams account, and that's true on a smartphone or tablet or on a computer.

To join without an account, first find the meeting invite in your email or on your calendar, then select "Join Microsoft Teams Meeting." On a computer, choose "Join on the web," whereas on a mobile device, you will be prompted to download the Team app. Enter your name, allow the device to use your camera and microphone, then hit "Join now."

The meeting organizer will then be notified that you've joined, and someone in the meeting can admit you.

Which is better: Teams, Zoom, or Google Meet?

Each better serves different users and use cases, so it's not a matter of which platform is better, but rather which is better for a given situation. Google Meet is a stripped-down and easy-to-use platform ideal for more casual meetings, as among friends or small groups of coworkers. Zoom allows for a high number of participants, so it's good for major presentations or remote conferences.

And Microsoft Teams offers a robust suite of features, as discussed here, making it ideal for ongoing use by groups that need to regularly collaborate in productive ways.

• Eric Sim retired from his 20-year banking career in 2017 after achieving financial freedom.
• But the former investment-bank managing director says he's not a fan of the FIRE lifestyle.
• Sim became a professional speaker and executive coach after he left banking in 2017.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Eric Sim, 54, a former banker who became a published author, professional speaker, and career coach. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider previously published an essay about Sim's banking career.

When I started my career in banking, I didn't give much thought to retiring early.

I figured I would retire at age 65 and engage in typical retirement activities like going on cruises and hanging out with old friends.

But things changed after I became a managing director at UBS. After working for a few years there, where I managed to earn multiple annual bonuses, I realized that I was actually financially free.

That got me thinking: If I didn't need to work for someone else, what would I do?

I knew that I couldn't just quit my job without a plan. I needed to find a meaningful project to which I could devote my energies.

After much thought and reflection, I decided to leave banking to run my own training institute for young professionals. I started the Institute of Life in 2015 with the mission of helping young people achieve success at work and in life.

FIRE isn't as great as you think it is

Even though I have achieved financial freedom, I'm not a fan of the Financial Independence Retire Early, or FIRE, movement.

To achieve FIRE, you must save a lot of your income during your working years. But the truth is, people often don't have a clear idea of what retiring will look like for them or if they'll enjoy it — especially if they're in the weeds and working toward it.

Of course, when you first retire, you can do whatever you want. You can travel overseas, hit the spa, or play golf.

After working for 10 to 20 years, being free from the grind for the first three months feels good. But you'll get bored very quickly.

When you are working, you don't have to plan for what you want to do. Your day job will give you more than enough things to do.

But if you are financially independent, without a regular schedule to adhere to, you need to find projects to occupy your time. If you don't do that, then your days are wasted.

A good retirement isn't just about having money in the bank

To have a good retirement, you will need three types of capital. Besides financial capital, you need human and social capital if you want to make the most of your time.

Human capital refers to the knowledge you possess. You can build this up through your career or through your side hustles and hobbies. By developing your interests and skills, you will know what activities you want to do when you go into retirement mode.

Social capital refers to the goodwill you accumulate with others. The small help that you offer to others can come back in a big way when you retire.

Ultimately, you need to know what you want to do after leaving your day job. If there is something that you always wanted to do, and is meaningful, I would say go for it.

But if you have nothing to look forward to and don't have a mission yet, just stay in your day job. You can still pursue your own interests on the side without quitting your job.

• Nicola Prentis doesn't enjoy spending time messaging on dating apps and prefers to meet in person.
• She created a poll on Hinge to help her find men who are happy to meet face-to-face early on.
• The poll is helping her find spontaneous men who have time to go on dates.

I've noticed that people on dating apps tend to fall into two categories: "messagers" and "meeters."

The first kind wants to message for a while to make sure there's enough common ground to meet up in person. The second type is like me, people who want to meet face-to-face as soon as possible. For me, that's the only way to tell if there's a connection worth investing time in.

After a two-year break from dating apps, the one thing I was sure of when I downloaded Hinge in 2024 was that I wanted to spend as little time chatting on the app as possible. My previous experiences with lengthy text conversations that dragged on for weeks, only to fizzle out or lead to disappointing dates, had left me thoroughly burned out on online dating.

In the past, I only brought up the idea of meeting in person when it felt natural.
But even that was often a waste of time, as a lot of men never seemed interested in an actual date. Maybe they were married, or maybe they used dating apps as an ego boost or for entertainment on their phones.

I run my own company and work from home, which offers few opportunities to meet people organically, so I view online dating as a shortcut to real-life dating, not a replacement for it.

To cut to the chase sooner, I've started using one of Hinge's prompts — the poll option — and it's proving efficient at getting me the matches I want.

The poll is simple but effective at getting to an IRL date

The poll reads: Do you want to meet…

a) Today?

b) Tomorrow?

c) Swap "How are you?" messages for weeks on end?

If someone votes for either of the first two options, I always make it a match and reply. Best of all, I can get straight to the point and make arrangements for how to meet instead of wasting time in chit-chat.

Dating coaches and matchmakers told Business Insider that it's important to ask pre-date questions to ensure safety and compatibility before agreeing to meet in person. Suggestions included asking for their last name and looking it up on LinkedIn to confirm their age and occupation, as well as hopping on a phone call before the first date. I only ever meet in busy public places to keep myself safe.

As I've found that a lot of guys I've spoken to don't really read profiles, a poll works because it spotlights the fact that I prefer to meet than chat.

It's not perfect — I don't think any method on a dating app ever could be. But, so far, I've ended up meeting over half the guys who took the initiative to vote, successfully avoiding endless messaging.

It's true that some people vote and never reply. But one of the best things about this approach is that I've invested nothing. I barely notice if they disappear before we meet.

My method helps repel the wrong guys

It might seem like my poll signals that I'm only looking for hookups, but so far, that's not been my experience.

A possible downside is that I live in a major tourist destination, so I often get men who are just passing through on vacation. But that doesn't bother me.

It reminds me of the years I spent traveling and how life-enriching it can be to meet someone you hit it off with instantly, even if your paths only cross for a few hours. In fact, one hiking date led to drinks that same evening. It went so well that I'm now planning to visit him on the third date.

To my surprise, some men choose the third option of sending endless text messages. At first, I thought it was their way of jokily showing they got my point and were on board. But no. Nine times out of 10, those guys weren't proactive about meeting, so now I skip them completely.

An unintended benefit of the poll is it makes me much less of a target for scammers and married men. After all, both always have excuses for why they can't meet in real life.

So far, I've been going on dates with spontaneous action-takers who prefer to do something rather than just talk about doing it. Crucially, they actually have time in their lives for dating and prioritise it. All of these qualities are what I'm looking for, and mercifully, they mean I spend a maximum of 15 minutes a week on the app.

Got a personal essay about dating that you want to share? Get in touch with the editor: [email protected].

• Spencer Pratt asked fans to buy and stream his wife's music after the couple's LA home burned down.
• As a result, Heidi Montag's 2010 album "Superficial" reached No. 1 on the iTunes chart.
• Pratt said this would help raise money for their family to rebuild, but the feat is mostly symbolic.

Spencer Pratt may have lost almost everything to the Pacific Palisades fire, but he believes his wife's music career may be what helps them afford to rebuild.

Pratt and his wife, Heidi Montag, are among the dozens of celebrities whose homes burned down in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood. But unlike other victims of the fires, who have opted for GoFundMe campaigns to help get back on their feet, the former stars of "The Hills" have devised a much more publicity-friendly plan.

"Please stream any of @heidimontag music on any platforms it will make a huge difference!" Pratt wrote on TikTok Friday alongside photos of himself standing on the ashes of their home, set to Montag's song "Look How I'm Doin."

His campaign triggered a spike in downloads for Montag's 2010 album, "Superficial," which rose to No. 1 on iTunes on Saturday.

Both Pratt and Montag shared their reactions to the news, thanking friends and fans for "rallying behind us in this devastating time," as Montag said in a video on Instagram. But despite the insinuation that more streams will directly result in a significant amount of money for Pratt, Montag, and their family, the couple's feat is likely more symbolic than productive.

iTunes revolutionized the music industry when it was launched by Apple in 2001, solidifying the shift from physical media to digital downloads. But little more than two decades later, it has been rendered mostly obsolete by the rise of streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music.

Unlike music streamers, which charge users monthly subscription fees for unlimited consumption, iTunes relies on individual payments for each download.

This setup is more lucrative for the artists but proved to be far less popular among fans. In 2019, Apple announced it would discontinue iTunes and remove the app from its newer operating systems. These days, the iTunes Store is still accessible from Apple's primary Music app, but as its own entity, iTunes only exists for Windows and older Macs.

Very few music fans still use iTunes regularly, which makes its charts less consequential — and easier to manipulate. The daily, ongoing updates are susceptible to fickle fluctuations in download activity.

"Relatively small organized efforts can lead to the most purchased songs drifting far from what's actually receiving the most attention," Jonah Krueger reported for Consequence last year.

"Because fewer people are shelling out $1.29 to download their own copy of a song," Krueger wrote, "it takes proportionally fewer people to sway the numbers and launch whatever song's being pumped to the top of the charts."

So why do iTunes achievements still cause chatter? Rich Juzwiak argued in Jezebel that it's because artists and their most ardent supporters — people like Montag and Pratt — leverage these charts on social media for headlines and bragging rights.

In other words, the iTunes charts are not reliable sources to determine what people are actually listening to on a macro scale. They're also not likely to make Pratt and Montag rich overnight.

The most reliable source cited by music professionals is Billboard, which ranks albums and songs based on various data points, including iTunes downloads, physical sales, and streaming stats.

Billboard's charts, like the all-genre Hot 100, are updated weekly — and that's where Pratt has set his sights.

"We need radio play, I guess not just iTunes, to get No. 1 on Billboard charts, which is the ultimate goal, cause then it's like, that's a wrap," Pratt said in a TikTok video. "Heidi is the biggest superstar in the world, you know? Obviously not Taylor Swift, but it's like Taylor Swift, Heidi Montag."

But would it really be a wrap? If Pratt's goal really is cold, hard cash for his family, probably not. Montag's songs have not appeared on Spotify or Apple Music's daily charts as of yet. And even if they did, earning reliable income from streaming alone is infamously difficult even for established artists.

Still, Pratt and Montag's desire for money has always been matched by their desire to get (and stay) famous. This streaming campaign might not get them too much of the former, but it will ensure the latter.

• Tech leaders, including an early Facebook investor, launch a $30M campaign for independent social media.
• Free Our Feeds aims to counter billionaire control with the open-source AT Protocol.
• The campaign is led by executives from Mozilla, Social Web Foundation, and other tech nonprofits.

Days after Meta announced controversial changes to its content moderation policies, a group of prominent technology leaders and nonprofit executives launched an ambitious $30 million campaign to build a social media ecosystem free from "billionaire control."

The initiative, called "Free Our Feeds," aims to create independent infrastructure around the AT Protocol, an open-source technology that powers the Bluesky social network, and allows anyone to build their own social media applications, similar to how open web protocols let anyone build websites.

The project comes at a critical moment when traditional social platforms are facing intense scrutiny over their concentrated ownership and control.

"For the first time, we have a clear pathway to securing the future of social media as a tool for connection, creativity, and joy," Nabiha Syed, Executive Director of Mozilla Foundation and one of nine custodians overseeing the project, said in a statement. "But it will take community-driven resources and independent infrastructure to ensure it remains free from the pressures of venture capital and billionaire capture."

The campaign's immediate goal is to raise $4 million as part of a larger $30 million three-year effort. The funds will be used to establish a public interest foundation supporting the AT Protocol and build independent infrastructure including a second "relay" system. The relay is effectively a backup index of all content on the network that ensures developers and users can access posts even if Bluesky restricts access to its data. The capital will also be used to fund developers to create new applications on the protocol.

At the time of publishing, the campaign had raised nearly $18,000 from 273 donors on GoFundMe.

According to Syed, one of the Foundation's key goals is to operate the AT Protocol infrastructure independently from Bluesky.

"The greater the number of stakeholders who build on AT Protocol, the more countervailing power they have with regards to Bluesky or any other large company involved in the network," she told Business Insider. "The Foundation will operate AT Protocol infrastructure independently from Bluesky to ensure that there is always an alternative."

Roger McNamee, an early Facebook investor turned tech critic who is backing the initiative, told BI that the project comes at a time when users are increasingly frustrated with existing platforms.

"We're in a world right now where every new startup is either crypto or AI," McNamee said. "Show me something that might actually make the world a better place. If this works, it's going to make the world a much better place."

Over the last few months, Bluesky has seen explosive growth. BI reported last week that the company is in the final stages of raising new funding led by Bain Capital Ventures that would value it at around $700 million. The platform reached nearly 26 million users by the end of 2024, with nearly half joining in the last six weeks of the year following Donald Trump's election victory.

While Bluesky has positioned itself as an alternative to X, Free Our Feeds' backers argue that even Bluesky's venture capital-backed structure could eventually face similar pressures as other commercial platforms.

"Bluesky is built on values we share, by people we admire. However, founders are not companies," the project's FAQ states. "They will come under the same pressure all businesses face to maximize return to their investors."

The campaign's nine custodians include executives from Mozilla, the Social Web Foundation, and other nonprofit technology organizations. Development Gateway, a US nonprofit organization, will hold funds raised through the crowdfunding campaign.

The timing of the announcement comes just as Meta significantly scaled back its fact-checking program and as X continues to struggle with advertiser exodus under Musk's leadership. The initiative's backers argue that these recent developments highlight the risks of concentrated ownership of social platforms.

"We've gone a really long time since people in Silicon Valley actually solved a problem that existed," McNamee noted, arguing that the project represents a rare opportunity to address fundamental issues with how social media platforms are structured and controlled.

The foundation aims to be operational by the end of 2025. While ambitious in scope, the project's backers acknowledge the challenges ahead but argue that recent events at major platforms have created an opening for fundamental change in how social media operates.

"Centralized ownership of platforms — our digital public square — leads to a constantly shifting, opaque digital environment in which people can lose their digital public square and livelihoods from a single billionaire's decision," Syed said.

"We can do better. The internet doesn't need to be like this, and if we work together, it won't be."

• Netflix's "American Primeval" is inspired by the true story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
• The massacre is depicted in episode 1 and is the inciting incident for the main characters' journey.
• The real-life tragedy took place in 1857 in Utah. 120 people were murdered.

Netflix's dark new Western series, "American Primeval," draws inspiration from a real-life American tragedy to depict the harsh landscape of the West in the 1800s.

The six-episode limited series, released Thursday, focuses on the clashes between Native Americans, Mormons, settlers moving West, and the U.S. government through the lens of two people experiencing the conflicts in real time: Sara (Betty Gilpin), a mother going West with her son, and Isaac (Taylor Kitsch), a mountain man who grew up among the Shoshone tribe who's tasked with transporting her there safely.

While Sara and Isaac are fictional characters, many of the events in "American Primeval" are rooted in history. Case in point: the first episode's bloody massacre is a dramatization of a real incident that occurred in Utah.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857 claimed the lives of 120 men, women, and children in southern Utah

In September 1857, emigrants traveling from Arkansas to California were attacked and murdered on a wagon trail by about 50 or 60 local Mormon militiamen with assistance from Paiute Indians in Mountain Meadows, Utah. Seventeen children who were 6 years old or younger were spared.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre stemmed from a feud between the Latter-day Saints (more commonly referred to as Mormons) and the American government that was later known as the Utah War.

The Mormons, led by Brigham Young, feared that they would be attacked by US troops and driven off the land, so they created their own army called the Nauvoo Legion.

Despite multiple people being involved in the massacre and subsequent cover-up, John Doyle Lee, a militia major, was the only person who faced severe punishment.

Lee and Isaac Haight, who was also involved in the tragedy, were excommunicated from the church in 1870. Lee was later convicted and executed for his involvement in the massacre. He was sentenced to death by firing squad and executed at the massacre site in 1877.

In 'American Primeval,' the massacre is the inciting incident that drives the plot

In the first episode, Gilpin's character Sara Rowell scrambles to protect herself and her son Devin (Preston Mota) when the group they're traveling with is attacked by Mormon soldiers disguised as Native Americans. Sara and Devin are about to be killed, but they're saved by Isaac, who hides them in the woods and helps them get away on horseback.

The brutality of the scene, which also depicts a man getting partially scalped, sets the stage for the rest of the season, and is a key part of the season's narrative.

"The Mountain Meadows Massacre did happen … and it became, for our narrative purposes, an inciting incident of conflict for our cast of characters," executive producer Eric Newman told Tudum, Netflix's editorial site.

Sara, Devin, and Isaac are doggedly pursued by the Mormon soldiers who want to cover up their part in the attack.

"It was driven by the Nauvoo Legion, but we have to understand that they perceived it as a threat," writer and executive producer Mark L. Smith added. "They were coming in to defend their world. It is just another step — a very violent step — in the lengths that they went to."

"American Primeval" is now streaming on Netflix.

• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook have criticized each other's companies for years.
• They've traded barbs over Apple's prices and Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal. 
• The latest exchange is Zuckerberg saying Apple is "squeezing people" for more money and lacks innovation.

Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Apple's Tim Cook have a long-standing feud.

The two tech titans have been bickering since at least 2014, trading barbs over each other's products and business models. Over the years, their battle has escalated to include public jabs, pointed ad campaigns, and even a legal dispute.

In January, Zuckerberg went on Joe Rogan's podcast and said Apple hasn't "really invented anything great in a while" since the iPhone launched under Steve Jobs.

Here's when the rivalry began, and what's happened since.

The feud between Zuckerberg and Cook became public in 2014, when Cook lambasted Facebook's business model.

In September 2014, Cook gave an in-depth interview with Charlie Rose that touched on a range of topics, including privacy.

During the interview — which took place in the weeks following the infamous leaks of multiple female celebrities' nude photos stored on their iCloud accounts — Cook espoused Apple's commitment to privacy while denouncing the business models of companies like Google and Facebook. 

"I think everyone has to ask, how do companies make their money? Follow the money," Cook said. "And if they're making money mainly by collecting gobs of personal data, I think you have a right to be worried. And you should really understand what's happening to that data."  

Shortly after, Cook reiterated his stance in an open letter on Apple's dedicated privacy site. 

"A few years ago, users of Internet services began to realize that when an online service is free, you're not the customer. You're the product," Cook wrote. 

Cook's comments rankled Zuckerberg, who called the claims "ridiculous" and blasted Apple products as being expensive.

In an interview with Time later that year, Zuckerberg was reportedly visibly irritated by Cook's assertions. 

"A frustration I have is that a lot of people increasingly seem to equate an advertising business model with somehow being out of alignment with your customers," Zuckerberg told Time's Lev Grossman. "I think it's the most ridiculous concept. What, you think because you're paying Apple that you're somehow in alignment with them? If you were in alignment with them, then they'd make their products a lot cheaper!"

Their squabble came to a head following the Cambridge Analytica scandal when Cook criticized Facebook's actions.

In 2018, a whistleblower revealed that consulting firm Cambridge Analytica harvested user data without consent from 50 million users. 

During an interview with Kara Swisher and Chris Hayes in the months following, Cook was asked what he would do if he was in Zuckerberg's shoes.

Cook responded: "What would I do? I wouldn't be in this situation."

Cook said that Facebook should have regulated itself when it came to user data, but that "I think we're beyond that here." He also doubled down on his stance that Facebook considers its users its product. 

"The truth is, we could make a ton of money if we monetized our customer — if our customer was our product," Cook said. "We've elected not to do that."

Zuckerberg hit back, calling Cook's comments "extremely glib."

"You know, I find that argument, that if you're not paying that somehow we can't care about you, to be extremely glib. And not at all aligned with the truth," Zuckerberg said during an interview on The Ezra Klein Show podcast.

He refuted the idea that Facebook isn't focused on serving people and once again criticized the premium Apple places on its products. 

"I think it's important that we don't all get Stockholm Syndrome and let the companies that work hard to charge you more convince you that they actually care more about you," he said. "Because that sounds ridiculous to me."

Privately, Zuckerberg was reportedly outraged by Cook's remarks — so much so that he ordered his employees to switch to Android devices.

In November 2018, The New York Times published a blockbuster report detailing the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The Times reported that Cook's comments had "infuriated" Zuckerberg, who ordered employees on his management team who used iPhones to switch to Android. 

Soon after the report published, Facebook wrote a blog post refuting some of the reporting by The Times — but not the Zuckerberg-Cook feud. 

"Tim Cook has consistently criticized our business model and Mark has been equally clear he disagrees. So there's been no need to employ anyone else to do this for us," Facebook wrote. "And we've long encouraged our employees and executives to use Android because it is the most popular operating system in the world."

In 2019, Zuckerberg and Cook had a meeting at the annual Sun Valley retreat in Idaho that went poorly, according to The New York Times.

According to The Times, Zuckerberg asked Cook for his advice following the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Cook told Zuckerberg Facebook should delete the user data his company collects from outside of its family of apps, which "stunned" Zuckerberg and was akin to Cook saying Facebook's business was "untenable," The Times reported.

In August 2020, Zuckerberg jumped in the fray as Apple faced criticism over its App Store policies.

During a company-wide meeting, Zuckerberg openly criticized Apple, saying it has a "unique stranglehold as a gatekeeper on what gets on phones," according to a report from BuzzFeed News. 

Zuckerberg also said that the App Store blocks innovation and competition and "allows Apple to charge monopoly rents," BuzzFeed reported. 

Apple has been facing antitrust scrutiny from Congress and has been strongly criticized by developers — most notably "Fortnite" creator Epic Games — for the 30% fee it takes from App Store purchases. In 2020, Facebook said Apple blocked an update to Facebook's iOS app that would have informed users about the fee Apple charges.

Apple's iOS 14.5 software update angered Facebook, which says the privacy features could destroy part of its business.

That version of Apple's smartphone operating system, iOS, made it so that iPhone app developers would need permission from users to collect and track their data. While this affects any company that makes iOS apps, it also has a direct impact on Facebook's advertising business: It uses data tracking to dictate which ads are served to users. 

In an August 2020 blog post, Facebook said it may be forced to shut down Audience Network for iOS, a tool that personalizes ads in third-party apps. 

"This is not a change we want to make, but unfortunately, Apple's updates to iOS 14 have forced this decision," Facebook said. 

The complaints from Facebook and other developers led Apple to temporarily delay the new privacy tools, saying it wanted to "give developers the time they need to make the necessary changes."

Facebook escalated the feud to a full-page ad in The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal.

 

 

 

 

 

—Dave Stangis (@DaveStangis) December 16, 2020

In the ads, Facebook argued that the changes would hurt small businesses that advertise on Facebook's platform.

"Without personalized ads, Facebook data shows that the average small business advertiser stands to see a cut of over 60% in their sales for every dollar they spend," the ad reads, which was posted by Twitter user Dave Stangis. 

Apple hit back, telling Business Insider that it was "standing up for our users." 

"Users should know when their data is being collected and shared across other apps and websites — and they should have the choice to allow that or not," an Apple spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, Facebook also said it would help Epic Games, the company behind "Fortnite," in its legal battle against Apple.

Epic Games had accused Apple of violating antitrust laws and engaging in anticompetitive behavior regarding the App Store's fees and policies.

Facebook said it planned to help Epic with discovery for the trial. 

Zuckerberg also lashed out at Apple during an earnings call in 2021, saying the company frequently interferes with how Facebook's apps work.

When discussing Facebook's suite of messaging apps during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call, Zuckerberg made a clear dig at Apple, saying the iPhone maker made "misleading" privacy claims. 

"Now Apple recently released so-called nutrition labels, which focused largely on metadata that apps collect rather than the privacy and security of people's actual messages, but iMessage stores non-end-to-end encrypted backups of your messages by default unless you disable iCloud," Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg went on to describe Apple as "one of our biggest competitors" and said that because Apple is increasingly relying on services to fuel its business, it "has every incentive to use their dominant platform position to interfere with how our apps and other apps work, which they regularly do to preference their own."

"This impacts the growth of millions of businesses around the world," he added.

But Cook hasn't backed down from his view that Facebook's business model of harvesting user data and selling it to advertisers is harmful to consumers.

During a speech at the European Computers, Privacy and Data Protection Conference the same week, Cook discussed business models that prioritize user engagement and rely on user data to make money. Though he didn't mention Facebook by name, Cook made several references that alluded to the platform.

"At a moment of rampant disinformation and conspiracy theories juiced by algorithms, we can no longer turn a blind eye to a theory of technology that says all engagement is good engagement — the longer the better — and all with the goal of collecting as much data as possible," Cook said.

Facebook launched another ad campaign in 2021 aimed at proving the need for personalized advertising amid its ongoing battle with Apple.

The initiative, titled "Good Ideas Deserve to be Found," makes the case that personalized ads help Facebook users discover small businesses, particularly during the pandemic. 

"Every business starts with an idea, and being able to share that idea through personalized ads is a game changer for small businesses," Facebook said in a blog post announcing the theme. "Limiting the use of personalized ads would take away a vital growth engine for businesses."

Cook called Facebook's objections to the privacy update "flimsy arguments" during an interview with The New York Times.

During a podcast interview with Kara Swisher, Cook said that he believes society is in a privacy crisis and that he's been "shocked" that there's been pushback to the new feature to this degree. 

"We know these things are flimsy arguments," Cook told The Times. "I think that you can do digital advertising and make money from digital advertising without tracking people when they don't know they're being tracked."

Cook also said he doesn't view Facebook as a competitor, contrary to what Zuckerberg has said.

"Oh, I think that we compete in some things," Cook said. "But no, if I may ask who our biggest competitor are, they would not be listed. We're not in the social networking business."

Apple's iOS 14.5 update finally rolled out in April 2021, and Facebook paid steeply for it.

"The impact of iOS overall as a headwind on our business in 2022 is on the order of $10 billion," then-Meta CFO David Wehner estimated in an earnings call that year.

In March 2024, Meta, Microsoft, X, and Match Group joined Epic Games in arguing that Apple has been flouting a 2021 court-ordered injunction that required the company to let developers show users links to alternative payment systems beyond the App Store.

Apple, for its part, said in January 2024 that it had "fully complied" with the injunction.

One of the latest battlegrounds in Apple and Meta's feud is their work on virtual and augmented reality.

Apple released its Vision Pro headset in February 2024, and Zuckerberg was quick to offer his critique of the competitor to Meta's Quest headsets.

"I have to say that before this, I expected that Quest would be the better value for most people since it's really good and like seven times less expensive, but after using [Vision Pro] I don't just think that Quest is the better value, it's the better product, period," Zuckerberg said in a video on Threads. "They have different strengths, but overall Quest is better for the vast majority of things that people use mixed reality for."

Zuckerberg says many people "assumed that Vision Pro would be higher quality because it's Apple and it costs $3,000 more."

"I know that some fanboys get upset whenever anyone dares to question if Apple's going to be the leader in a new category," he said. "But the reality is that every generation of computing has an open and a closed model. And yeah, in mobile, Apple's closed model won, but it's not always that way."

In Meta's first quarter earnings call in April, Zuckerberg said he didn't think AR glasses would find mainstream success without "full holographic displays."

"I still think that that's going to be awesome and is the long-term mature state for the product," he said. "But now, it seems pretty clear that there's also a meaningful market for fashionable AI glasses without a display."

Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth has also taken shots at Apple over its Vision Pro.

"As soon as I put the headset on, I can see what trade-offs they made and why they made them. And, perhaps definitionally, those aren't the trade-offs I would have made," he said.

Bosworth called the Vision Pro's motion blur "really distracting" and said the headset was "very uncomfortable to use."

The companies also reportedly had a disagreement over a potential AI partnership.

Apple months ago rejected the possibility of integrating Meta's Llama AI chatbot into the iPhone because it doesn't consider Meta's privacy practices up to par, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported in June 2024, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

Apple has since launched iOS 18, which includes a partnership with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into the iPhone's software.

Zuckerberg recently leveled some new insults against Apple.

In an episode of the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast released in January 2025, he said Apple hasn't "really invented anything great in a while" since the iPhone.

"It's like Steve Jobs invented the iPhone and now they're just kind of sitting on it 20 years later," he said on the podcast.

Zuck added that Apple has been "squeezing people" for money with the 30% commission the company charges developers for selling paid apps through the App Store.

"They build stuff like Airpods, which are cool, but they've just thoroughly hamstrung the ability for anyone else to build something that can connect to the iPhone in the same way," he said.