• I compared the same meal at Applebee's, TGI Fridays, and Chili's.
• I ordered Buffalo bone-in wings and a classic cheeseburger at each chain.
• Applebee's impressed me with its juicy burger but I thought Chili's served the best overall value.

In the casual-dining "value wars," Applebee's, TGI Fridays, and Chili's are three of the biggest competitors.

To determine which of these chains should be crowned the winner, I ordered the same meal — a drink, an order of Buffalo wings, and a classic cheeseburger — at all three and compared them on taste and value.

When it comes to performance, Applebee's, TGI Fridays, and Chili's are faring differently.

TGI Fridays filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November and Reuters reported the chain is facing $37 million in debt. In November, Applebee's also reported a 5.9% decline in same-restaurant sales in the third quarter compared to the year before.

Chili's, meanwhile, has been gaining momentum. In January, the chain's parent company reported a 31% growth in same-restaurant sales from October 2023 to December 2024 and a nearly 20% increase in traffic year over year.

In a conversation with Business Insider, Chili's CMO George Felix said the chain's rise has been propelled by simplifying restaurant menus, changing the chain's approach to marketing and social media, and focusing on value, quality, and hospitality at restaurants.

"You're seeing a lot of competitors throwing different combo meals and meal deals out there at different price points. But I think what's really hard to replicate is we're delivering all of that, combined with a really excellent experience," Felix said.

Here's how the same meal compared at Applebee's, TGI Fridays, and Chili's.

I visited a locally owned TGI Fridays in Massachusetts.

This location is locally owned and operated, so it is not included in the larger company's bankruptcy filing.

TGI Fridays Inc. owns 39 locations in the US, but there are 122 franchised locations in the US and 316 franchised international locations that are not included in the bankruptcy filing.

I ordered a diet soda at all of the chains I visited.

The soda at TGI Fridays was roughly the same size as the drink from Chili's and Applebee's. It cost $3.29, plus tax.

TGI Fridays also offered a cocktail menu, but it didn't seem as central to the brand as the margaritas for Chili's and Applebee's.

Chili's and Applebee's both advertised their drinks on prominently placed menus on the dining table, while TGI Fridays just had the regular cocktail section inside its standard menu.

Chili's and Applebee's also emphasized new, seasonal cocktails. Chili's offered a seasonal margarita of the month for $6, making the restaurants feel more playful.

I ordered an eight count of Buffalo wings.

The wings at TGI Fridays didn't come in a house Buffalo sauce but rather were tossed in Frank's Red Hot Buffalo sauce.

The order of eight wings cost $12.19, plus tax, which was cheaper than the wings from Chili's and Applebee's. These wings also came with a side of sliced celery sticks.

These wings were large and the meat was extremely tender.

I was given a selection of drumsticks and flats in the order. However, while these wings were perfectly meaty and crispy on the outside, the sauce didn't blow me away.

These wings tasted like standard Frank's Red Hot sauce, just like countless others I've had before, with nothing unique or exciting to set them apart.

The burger from TGI Fridays was just OK.

The cheeseburger includes all the classic toppings: tomato, lettuce, American cheese, red onion, and pickles.

While there's no sauce on the burger by default, ketchup is available on every table, and you could easily ask for mustard or ketchup to be added if you prefer.

The burger was priced at $12.49, before tax.

TGI Fridays is also offering a value meal deal that sells its classic cheeseburger with fries and a drink for $9.99, plus tax, which was the most affordable offer out of the three chains.

I thought the TGI Fridays burger needed more sauce.

The bun was dry and untoasted, setting the tone for what turned out to be an overall burger experience that lacked a lot of flavor and moisture.

Although I requested my burger medium, it leaned toward well-done and lacked juiciness. While I appreciated the flavor of the meat itself and the toppings tasted fresh, my praise for this burger ended there.

I reminded myself that this is the chain's simplest burger, so perhaps it's only fair to expect a straightforward flavor profile without much pizzazz.

My second favorite meal came from Applebee's.

I arrived at an Applebee's in Brooklyn on a busy weeknight with two other people and was seated promptly.

I also expected to pay slightly more at this restaurant than at the Chili's and TGI Fridays restaurants I visited since they were both located in Massachusetts, not New York City. However, I found that the prices didn't differ greatly between the two states.

I ordered a drink and nine classic bone-in Buffalo wings to start.

At my local Applebee's in Brooklyn, an order of nine classic bone-in wings costs $18.99, excluding tax and fees. They came with celery sticks and sides of ranch and blue cheese.

I also ordered a diet soda. It cost $3.29, plus tax.

The wings were crispy and the largest out of the three chains.

The wings were tender and juicy, with the sauce delivering a rich, buttery flavor. The Buffalo sauce struck a great balance between its spicy kick and savory, buttery notes, creating a well-rounded flavor.

The Applebee's burger really impressed me.

I ordered the burger as part of the chain's "2 for $2X" deal, which also allowed me to get an order of boneless wings and a chicken tender basket for about $30.

However, the burger typically costs $16.99, excluding tax, at the location I visited in Brooklyn, New York.

The cheeseburger came with two slices of American cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion, and pickles on a brioche bun.

The exterior of the burger patty was quite dark, which initially made me worry it had been overcooked past the medium level I requested.

To my surprise, the burger turned out to be incredibly juicy and leaned slightly toward medium-rare.

The melted, tangy cheese enveloped the entire burger, creating a perfectly balanced bite. The thick slices of red onion added a bold flavor, while the lettuce and tomato were fresh.

Although this burger lacked a sauce, it remained far from dry, thanks to the melted cheese and a buttery bun.

Despite having similar ingredients to the TGI Fridays burger, this one tasted juicier and more flavorful.

My favorite meal in terms of taste and value came from Chili's.

I visited a Chili's in Massachusetts, but I've also been to the location in Queens, New York, before.

Chili's has always impressed me with its portion sizes, value-focused meals, and its famous Triple Dipper, which the company said is popular among younger customers. CNN reported in October that it accounts for 11% of Chili's sales.

Like at the other two chains, I got a diet soda.

It cost $3.29, plus tax.

I got an order of eight Buffalo wings to start.

Chili's offers boneless and bone-in wings in several flavors, including honey chipotle, barbecue, and Nashville hot.

The order of eight wings cost $14.99, plus tax.

The wings were coated in buttery Buffalo sauce.

The wings came in a selection of drumsticks and flats. Though they were a little on the smaller side compared to the wings from Applebee's, they were piping hot when I picked them up and fried to a golden crisp.

They also packed much more flavor than the other wings I tried, and the chicken meat inside was moist and juicy.

The wings paired well with the chain's signature ranch and decadent blue cheese dressing.

I also ordered a classic cheeseburger.

The Oldtimer burger, which I ordered with cheddar cheese, comes topped with pickles, lettuce, sliced tomato, diced red onions, and mustard.

It cost $13.29, plus tax, and was the largest burger I tried when it came to overall size.

I also could have ordered this burger as part of the chain's "3 For Me" menu and gotten an appetizer, the burger with fries, and a non-alcoholic drink, for $10.99, plus tax. This made me feel like Chili's was really serving up value.

The cheddar cheese was perfectly melted, and the other ingredients tasted extremely fresh.

The only downside was the generous serving of mustard smeared onto the burger patty. The mustard had a strong, sharp flavor, and while I do like mustard, it was a bit overpowering for me.

But the rest of the burger was impressive. The char on the slightly smashed patty was wonderfully crispy, and the other ingredients were incredibly fresh. The red onion added a nice punch of flavor, while the bun held everything together perfectly.

Overall, I liked my experience and meal at Chili's the most.

The food tasted high-quality, and I enjoyed the vibe and more youthful, playful atmosphere of both the restaurant and the menu.

The overall cost of the meal was pretty similar across all three chains, though, as I had expected, the Applebee's in New York was slightly more expensive than the two restaurants I visited in Massachusetts.

Even though the meal from Chili's wasn't the cheapest — the meal from TGI Fridays cost less — I thought it provided the best value when I considered the experience and taste of the food.

"I think a lot of brands mistake the lowest price point for being [the best] value, and I don't think that's giving consumers enough credit," Chili's CMO George Felix told Business Insider. "So for us, we believe value is the entire holistic experience of what you pay for what you get."

Ultimately, when it came to the most flavorful meal with the highest-quality-tasting ingredients, Chili's was the winner for me.

• Trump said he's planning tariffs on Canada and Mexico, which could risk higher gas prices.
• Most of US crude oil imports come from those two countries.
• Economists don't expect US drillers to boost production in order to keep prices down.

President Donald Trump's plan to slap tariffs on Canada and Mexico as soon as February 1 threatens to undercut one of his key campaign promises: lowering prices at the pump.

The US imports around 40% of the crude oil it refines into gas for your car and other vehicles. In 2024, about half of that came from Canada and 11% from Mexico. Economists told Business Insider that slapping those imports with tariffs could strain consumers' wallets at the gas station and have ripple effects across industries.

"Tariffs on crude oil is going to flow right through to the US consumer," Ed Hirs, a lecturer on energy economics at the University of Houston, said. "Canada may absorb some of the cost, but the US will absorb a lot of it, too."

Shortly after taking office, Trump said he could impose a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada on February 1 as a way to push those countries to crack down on illegal immigration and drugs entering the US. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday said the plan "still holds."

Trump told reporters on Thursday in the Oval Office that he's still considering whether to include oil from Canada and Mexico in his tariffs.

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told Fox Business on Thursday that consumers in the Great Lakes and Midwest regions would likely experience some of the largest impacts of tariffs. He said gas prices there could rise by more than 20 cents within days of the tariffs taking effect.

The US is producing record amounts of crude oil with domestic production amounting to about 60% of crude refined in the US, per the Energy Information Administration. But many refineries aren't equipped to process the light crude from US shale basins, Hirs said. Refineries in states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Indiana rely on heavy crude from Canadian oil sands and it would be costly and time-consuming to convert the technology.

Hirs said it's difficult to predict how much prices will rise, in part because it depends on what OPEC+ does. The oil cartel has been postponing production increases to boost global prices. Trump has called on OPEC+ to slash prices, and ministers meet on February 3 to discuss his demands.

Even if crude prices rise, Hirs said the signal won't be strong enough for US drillers to boost production. US refineries that handle domestic crude already have more than enough supply.

"Tariffs that increase costs but lower revenue are going to be poisonous for the US oil industry right now," Hirs said.

The American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies on behalf of the US oil and gas industry, is opposed to additional tariffs. The group in December asked the Trump administration's top trade official to exempt crude oil and natural gas from levies because they would "directly undermine energy affordability and availability for consumers while eroding the U.S. oil and natural gas industry's competitiveness both domestically and globally."

Higher gas prices would have knock-on effects in other industries, too, such as fresh fruit and vegetables that are trucked into the US and construction projects that need fuel to power heavy equipment.

Trade war could cause long-term price slumps

While economists predict tariffs would cause a short-term spike in gas prices, they also said broader economic instability may lead to longer-term price drops.

Officials in Canada, Mexico, and China have warned that they will retaliate if Trump implements new tariffs. A trade war may slow down the global economy and depress prices, Hirs said.

"It doesn't take much to throw the global economy into a recession," Hirs said. "That would help lower the price of gasoline and diesel for everybody because there would be less economic activity and less demand."

Bank of America strategist Francisco Blanch similarly told Business Insider in November that tariffs will likely curb global trade, driving down oil and gas prices.

• As a private chef, I shop for groceries via Amazon delivery at least four times a week.
• Organic carrots and multicolored bell peppers are great for crudités.
• I like the organic chicken thighs from Whole Foods when I can't make it to a butcher.

I'm a private chef and a mom, so convenience is key for me when it comes to errands and essential tasks.

I often don't have the time to run to the grocery store when I have three different clients to cook for in one day. When I'm in a pinch, I turn to Amazon's grocery delivery services.

The online retailer has a few options, like Amazon Fresh and GrubHub, but I typically choose from its Whole Foods items.

Now that I've checked out dozens, if not hundreds, of shopping carts via the Amazon app, I know exactly which items I can confidently order online.

Parmesan is pretty much always in my cart.

The one item I always add to my cart is grated Mitica Parmigiano Reggiano. The Whole Foods product costs $26 a pound, but it's worth it.

It's an imported dream of beautiful, crystalized, salty cheese that adds creaminess and complexity to my pastas, soups, and roasted vegetables.

I like the grated version because it's ready to use whenever I need it.

Bell peppers fill out a number of dishes.

I love 365's three packs of peppers for stir-fries, crudités, and frittatas.

I can order an assorted pack of three for $5 (less than $2 a pepper), which is great when I'm on a budget.

I use cilantro a lot in my cooking — at home and with clients.

I use a lot of cilantro, but unfortunately, herbs can be expensive.

Luckily, the fresh cilantro bunches from Whole Foods are generously sized and super flavorful. A regular bunch is $1, and an organic one is $2.

I can usually make one bunch last a few days between cooking for my clients and my family.

Chicken is one of my go-to protein sources.

I prefer buying meat from a butcher, but sometimes, I just don't have the time.

I'm actually very happy with the quality of Whole Foods' organic chicken. It's flavorful and cooks up tender and juicy.

I love getting skin-on thighs for grilled tandoori chicken or any one-pot dishes that call for crispy skin.

At $6 a pound, the price also feels reasonable to me.

Carrots are great for dinner parties.

Organic carrots with their tops on are my go-to for dinner-party crudités. They also go great on a pan of roasted veggies.

The $3 bunch of carrots cooks up beautifully, and the array of purple, orange, and yellow hues impresses kids and adults alike.

Tacos are a hit with my clients, so tortillas are a must.

Many of my clients request different types of tacos throughout the week, so I always make sure to order good tortillas to elevate the flavors.

Vita Hermosa tortillas aren't available everywhere, but when I order via Amazon, they're usually in stock at Whole Foods.

I get an eight-pack for about $6.

The 365 fire-roasted corn is one of a kind.

This might seem random, but not many stores carry pre-roasted frozen corn.

I love adding 365's $3.70 pack of fire-roasted corn to my cart when I'm shopping online. I'll toss the kernels in salads, pile them on top of my tacos, or even add them to soups.

• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees there will be no changes to the hybrid work policy.
• In a meeting held Thursday, the Meta chief said "the status quo is fine."
• Most staff are expected to work in an office at least three days a week.

The future of in-office work was top of mind for Meta employees on Thursday during a wide-ranging Q&A with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by Business Insider. The bottom line? No changes for now.

Most Meta employees are expected to head into the office at least three days a week, but some staff have worried the company would change the policy and demand a full in-office return.

Following a long opening monologue that touched on AI assistants, AR glasses, and the "intense" year ahead, Zuckerberg turned to questions submitted by staff. The top-voted question was about remote work.

"Basic summary: no change," Zuckerberg told staff. "There's a lot of things going on in the world. I just have not been focused on this at all. I think the status quo is fine. Carry on."

Zuckerberg's answer was met with applause by employees watching the all-hands live. The Meta chief remarked that two of the top-five voted questions submitted concerned in-office work.

Meta's three-day policy is in line with some other big tech companies, including Google. However, some companies want workers back full time. Dell sent a memo to employees on Friday calling them back into the office five days a week.

In Thursday's all-hands, Zuckerberg told employees to "buckle up" for an "intense" year ahead. He defended several recent changes around content moderation and fact-checking, and said the company had an opportunity to have a "productive partnership with the United States government."

Zuckerberg also discussed how DeepSeek could benefit Meta's open-source AI strategy, and why Meta was slow to respond to TikTok's rise.

Do you work at Meta? Contact BI reporters from a nonwork email and device at [email protected] or [email protected]. You can also reach them via Signal at hughlangley.01 and jyotimann.11

• Chinese startup DeepSeek shook the tech world and markets when it released R1, its new AI model.
• The West is now trying to reproduce R1 on its own terms and cut out Chinese servers.
• Recreating R1 from scratch can help researchers build better models and validate DeepSeek's claims.

Silicon Valley doesn't want to get caught out again. It's scrambling to replicate DeepSeek's AI model, the cheaper Chinese tech that shook Wall Street and is freely available for anyone to adopt.

Companies like Microsoft and Amazon have already made versions of DeepSeek's R1 models available on their cloud platforms. This allows people to use the models, which appear to match the capabilities of rivals like OpenAI, while keeping data from being sent to servers in China.

But there are also attempts to replicate DeepSeek's cost-efficient AI from the ground up — and see if all of the Chinese AI lab's market-moving claims hold up.

One major effort is being led by Hugging Face, a platform for researchers in AI's open-source community to collaborate and share their trade research notes and ideas for free.

Leandro von Werra, head of research at Hugging Face, told Business Insider that the company expected to complete its replication efforts within "weeks." He described the mood at Hugging Face as "kind of like Avengers assemble" as they dissect the inner workings of R1.

DeepSeek obtained open-source licensing for its model from MIT, which means a lot of the vital components of the recipe needed to build R1 have been laid out in the company's publicly available technical paper.

However, there are some elements of R1 that remain unclear.

In a December paper on V3, DeepSeek's earlier model, the Chinese company said training cost $5.6 million in total. The cost was calculated based on its use of H800 GPUs, a less powerful version of Nvidia's top chips, at a rental price of $2 per GPU hour.

Right now, no one can be quite sure what the actual development cost of R1 was, von Werra told BI.

DeepSeek's research paper also did not share what was required to bake reasoning capabilities into V3 to then produce R1.

That said, von Werra thinks it won't remain a mystery for long. "I don't know about the compute number, we can only guess at this time," he said. "I think one thing that's exciting about our reproduction is we're going to find out pretty quickly if the numbers hold up."

Learning from DeepSeek

Some quarters of Silicon Valley responded swiftly to the launch of DeepSeek. This week, Meta set up "war rooms" for its researchers to analyze DeepSeek, The Information reported. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, said Tuesday his company would accelerate the release of "better models."

DeepSeek's decision to publish its findings and make its R1 model open gives researchers worldwide an insight into its novel approach.

The main technique used to make R1 so capable was "pure reinforcement learning," DeepSeek's paper said. This, Hugging Face researchers said in a blog on Tuesday, can "teach a base language model how to reason without any human supervision."

The researchers also know more specific technical details about why R1 caused such a stir in Silicon Valley and wiped $1 trillion from US stocks on Monday. For instance, the reasoning model is what's known as a "mixture of experts" model — industry-speak for a model that can be "pre-trained with far less compute." It also involves subtle changes to its architecture by introducing techniques like "multi-token prediction," first introduced by Meta, that make models more efficient.

Hugging Face's von Werra notes that details like this from DeepSeek have helped the industry better understand how a reasoning model like OpenAI's closed-source o1 was built. "Everybody thought this is the secret that is going to take a while to crack," he said.

DeepSeek comes to platforms

Days after its launch, DeepSeek flew to the top of Apple's Top Free Apps chart. While everyone wanted to try the latest AI tool, DeepSeek's policy of storing user data in China has prompted security concerns.

This spurred US companies to make R1 available on their own platforms so customers could use the Chinese AI model while cutting out China's servers.

Lin Qiao, CEO of Fireworks AI and former head of the PyTorch team at Meta, told BI that one clear reason for doing so was to ensure AI developers and users continue to get access to top model innovations.

"The approach we have been taking is always to enable state-of-the-art models for developers the fastest," she said. "DeepSeek is one example."

Her company, founded in 2022, made R1 available on its platform after congratulating DeepSeek for "pushing the boundaries of what's possible in open models." It has been made available via its serverless service, as well as through on-demand and for enterprise customers.

Others have followed suit. On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that it was making R1 available in its model catalog on its AI development platform Azure AI Foundry to make it "accessible on a trusted, scalable, and enterprise-ready platform."

Asha Sharma, corporate vice president at the tech giant, wrote in a blog that R1 "offers a powerful, cost-efficient model," but one that it had done "rigorous red teaming and safety evaluations" on before introducing as a new model to its library.

Amazon Web Services is making a similar move. Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of AI and data at AWS, said this week that the company's "commitment to AI accessibility" meant R1 was being made available on its platforms like SageMaker and Bedrock.

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, whose AI startup made R1 available to users of its search platform this week, said in a Tuesday X post that downloading the model onto its servers could also help control the way it responds to user queries as well as ensure those queries don't go to servers in China.

DeepSeek's AI appears to censor sensitive information about China, such as refusing to answer questions about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Srinivas said that Perplexity's version of R1 had no censorship and shared its accurate response to what happened in Tiananmen Square.

David Sacks, the White House's AI czar, offered one reason why Perplexity's R1 integration was an important way to reproduce R1 in the West. "This is one of several ways that you can try DeepSeek R1 without downloading the app or sharing any data with a Chinese company," he said on X.

Many see DeepSeek as an example of China challenging American AI hegemony using a tried-and-tested playbook. OpenAI, which has a lot to lose from DeepSeek making its technology freely available, said on Wednesday it's investigating whether the Chinese firm "inappropriately" replicated its models for training.

For von Werra, it's a full-circle moment. The whole field started as open-source, so seeing efforts to make a leading reasoning model available for free is welcome, he said.

"I think in the end, everybody's going to get better models and do cooler things," he said. "I feel like it's a win-win situation."

• OpenAI and the White House have accused DeepSeek of using ChatGPT to cheaply train its new chatbot.
• Experts in tech law say OpenAI has little recourse under intellectual property and contract law.
• OpenAI's terms of use may apply, but are largely unenforcible, experts say.

This week, OpenAI and the White House accused DeepSeek of something akin to theft.

In a flurry of press statements, they said the China-based upstart had bombarded OpenAI's chatbots with queries, hoovering up the resulting data trove to quickly and cheaply train a model that's now almost as good.

The Trump administration's top AI "czar" said this training process, called "distilling," amounts to intellectual property theft. OpenAI, meanwhile, told Business Insider and other outlets that it is investigating whether "DeepSeek may have inappropriately distilled our models."

OpenAI is not saying if the company plans to pursue legal action, instead promising what a spokesperson termed "aggressive, proactive countermeasures to protect our technology."

But could they? Could they sue DeepSeek on "you stole our content" grounds, much like the grounds OpenAI was itself sued on in an ongoing 2023 copyright claim filed by The New York Times and other news outlets?

Business Insider posed this question to experts in technology law, who said challenging DeepSeek in the courts would be an uphill battle for OpenAI, now that the content-appropriation shoe is on the other foot.

OpenAI would have a hard time proving an intellectual property or copyright claim, these lawyers said.

"The question is whether ChatGPT outputs" — meaning the answers it generates in response to queries — "are copyrightable at all," said Mason Kortz of Harvard Law School.

That's because it's unclear that the answers ChatGPT spits out qualify as "creativity," he said.

"There's a doctrine that says creative expression is copyrightable, but facts and ideas are not," explained Kortz, who teaches at Harvard's Cyberlaw Clinic.

"There's a huge question in intellectual property law right now about whether the outputs of a generative AI can ever constitute creative expression or if they are necessarily unprotected facts."

Could OpenAI roll those dice anyway, and claim that its outputs actually are protected?

That would be unlikely, the lawyers said.

OpenAI is already on the record in the New York Times copyright case arguing that training AI is an allowable "fair use" exception to copyright protection.

If they do a 180 and tell DeepSeek that training is not a fair use, "that might come back to kind of bite them," said Kortz. "DeepSeek could say, 'Hey, weren't you just saying that training is fair use?'"

There's arguably a distinction between the Times and DeepSeek cases, Kortz adds.

"Maybe it's more transformative to turn news articles into a model" — as the Times accuses OpenAI of doing — "than it is to turn outputs of a model into another model" as DeepSeek may have done, Kortz said.

"But this still puts OpenAI in a pretty tricky situation with regard to the line it's been towing regarding fair use."

A breach of contract lawsuit is more likely

A breach-of-contract lawsuit is much likelier than an IP-based lawsuit, though it comes with its own set of problems, said Anupam Chander, who teaches technology law at Georgetown University.

The terms of service for Big Tech chatbots like those developed by OpenAI and Anthopic forbid using their content as training fodder for a competing AI model.

"So perhaps that's the lawsuit you might possibly bring — a contract-based claim, not an IP-based claim," Chander said.

"Not 'you copied something from me,' but that you benefited from my model to do something that you were not allowed to do under our contract."

There's a possible hitch, Chander and Kortz say. OpenAI's terms of service require that most claims be resolved through arbitration, not lawsuits. There's an exception for lawsuits "to stop unauthorized use or abuse of the Service or intellectual property infringement or misappropriation.

There's a larger hitch, though, experts say.

"You should know that the brilliant scholar Mark Lemley and a coauthor argue that AI terms of use are likely unenforceable," Chander said. He was referring to a January 10 paper, The Mirage of Artificial Intelligence Terms of Use Restrictions, by Stanford Law's Mark A. Lemley and Peter Henderson of Princeton University's Center for Information Technology.

To date, "no model creator has actually tried to enforce these terms with monetary penalties or injunctive relief," the paper says.

"This is likely for good reason: we think that the legal enforceability of these licenses is questionable," it says. That's in part because model outputs "are largely not copyrightable" and because laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act "offer limited recourse," it argues.

"I think they are likely unenforceable," Lemley told BI of OpenAI's terms of service, "because DeepSeek didn't take anything copyrighted by OpenAI, and because courts generally won't enforce agreements not to compete in the absence of an IP right that would prevent that competition."

Lawsuits between parties in different nations, each with its own legal and enforcement systems, are always tricky, Kortz said.

Even if OpenAI cleared all the above hurdles and won a judgment from a US court or arbitrator, "in order to get DeepSeek to turn over money or stop doing what it's doing, the enforcement would come down to the Chinese legal system," he said.

Here, OpenAI would be at the mercy of another extremely complicated area of law — the enforcement of foreign judgments and the balancing of individual and corporate rights and national sovereignty — that stretches back to before the founding of the United States.

"So this is, a long, complicated, fraught process," Kortz added.

Could OpenAI have protected itself better from a distilling incursion?

"They could have used technical measures to block repeated access to their site," Lemley said. "But doing so would also interfere with normal customers."

He added, "I don't think they could, or should, have a valid legal claim against the searching of uncopyrightable information from a public site."

Representatives for DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"We know that groups in the PRC are actively working to use methods, including what's known as distillation, to try to replicate advanced U.S. AI models," OpenAI spokesperson Rhianna Donaldson told BI in an emailed statement.

"We are aware of and reviewing indications that DeepSeek may have inappropriately distilled our models, and will share information as we know more," the statement said. "We take aggressive, proactive countermeasures to protect our technology and will continue working closely with the US government to protect the most capable models being built here."

• When we travel, my partner prefers heading outdoors but I like exploring big cities.
• We plan trips we both enjoy by finding experiences and stays that feature our shared interests.
• We stay open-minded when trying activities one of us is way more excited about than the other.

In many ways, my partner and I are proof that opposites attract.

For starters, he adores mountains and hikes, while I prefer a big city and spas. Although we both love to travel, our preferred itineraries, activities, and destinations can be pretty different.

Over time, though, we've figured out how to plan couples trips that we can both enjoy together.

We try to book experiences and stays that combine our interests

Whenever possible, we try to find activities and excursions that feature something we're both passionate about, like cycling.

I love a spin class, and he adores mountain biking. So, when we travel, we look for bike tours. One of our favorite trips featured a bike tour through the French countryside that included a picnic.

We also combined our interests on a day trip to Tolantongo, just a few hours north of Mexico City.

Since we both enjoy being in and around water, we relaxed in hillside hot-spring pools, ziplined, explored caves hidden behind waterfalls, and lounged by a thermal river to end the day.

The experience combined the relaxing vibes of a spa day (my favorite) with a stunning outdoor landscape (his favorite) that blew us both away.

Plus, we try to combine our priorities and preferences when booking accommodations.

Last summer, he wanted to go horseback riding and camping in Montana's Big Sky. So, I found an Airbnb close enough to the wilderness (for him) with a massive bathtub (for me) to relax in after a day in the great outdoors.

We're patient and open-minded when doing activities the other is really excited about

Sometimes, the best gift you can give your partner is letting them introduce you to an activity that makes them light up inside.

This helps us lean into our individual interests while still making memories together. For example, I love spending a day vintage shopping for the perfect pair of boots or a jacket that I definitely don't need.

My partner is wonderful and patient as I rummage through racks of secondhand goodies — and I'm the same way when he takes me on a three-hour hike.

Plus, while trying activities my partner is excited about, I've learned more about myself and what I enjoy.

I'll never forget the rush of endorphins I felt while whitewater rafting in Colorado or how special it was to see a moose and her baby while hiking in Wyoming.

When in doubt, we take turns planning

If we're struggling to find common ground, we'll take turns choosing destinations and activities.

Usually, if I pick one trip, he'll choose the next. If neither of us really has a preference, we'll draw a destination out of a hat.

Doing so is easy because we prioritize each other's happiness and know each other's limits — he knows I'm open to camping, but only if there's electricity nearby.

• Sam Mewis launched the women's soccer podcast "The Women's Game" about a year ago.
• The former US soccer star has grown the show into one of the most listened-to in women's sports.
• Mewis explains her conversational approach and expansion plans with the media company Men In Blazers.

Former US soccer star Sam Mewis is part of a new wave of media personalities reshaping women's sports coverage.

The 32-year-old former US Women's National Team player was considered one of the best in her position until a knee injury forced her to retire from soccer in 2023. Mewis could no longer play the game she had dedicated her life to, but that didn't mean she couldn't stay close to it.

Mewis joined the soccer-media company Men In Blazers to launch about a year ago its first women's sports vertical with a podcast, called "The Women's Game."

Until recently, women's sports were underserved by mainstream media. Because TV coverage was not widely available, women's sports have expanded in other areas like podcasting.

Mewis has built "The Women's Game" into one of the most listened-to podcasts in women's soccer. According to podcast database Podscan, the show had averaged 11,700 listeners per episode since its launch and was the 22nd-most listened-to soccer podcast in the US on Apple Podcasts as of January 30. The other podcasts on the list largely focused on the men's sport.

"In many ways, what we were able to accomplish last year exceeded my expectations for going into the first year of a brand new vertical," Mewis told Business Insider.

'The Women's Game' feels like talking to a good friend about soccer

"The Women's Game," which has over 30,000 subscribers on YouTube, has stood out for its conversational approach.

Guests make regular appearances, some of whom are friends of Mewis from her days playing professional soccer, while others play on international teams. To date, its 45 guests have included USWNT captain Lindsey Horan, US teammates Rose Lavelle and Kelley O'Hara, and international players like Daniëlle van de Donk.

In addition to the flagship podcast, Mewis has shows under "The Women's Game" banner, including "Friendlies, " where she interviews athletes one-on-one, and "Good Vibes FC," which she cohosts with her former teammates Becky Sauerbrunn and Lynn Williams.

The podcasts aim to create an environment that makes listeners feel like they're talking with friends about soccer rather than getting hard analysis. In a recent Christmas special with 39,000 YouTube views, Mewis brought on players including Lavelle, O'Hara, and former US teammates Ali Kreiger and Megan Rapinoe, who debated topics from egg nog versus mulled wine to their favorite holiday songs.

Mewis attributed the tone of the show to her strong relationships with her cohosts, including Williams, with whom she previously hosted the Just Women's Sports podcast "Snacks."

"I feel safe when I'm with them to be myself and to explore topics that maybe I don't know every single thing about," Mewis said.

She said the approach also helped her take ownership of her personality. As a professional athlete, she had to be careful about what she said to the press, but she could control the narrative with her own show.

"It is an opportunity for players, people in the media, and in the public eye to show a side of themselves that we don't always get to see," said Mewis.

Podcasts offer regular content to hungry women's soccer fans. When the USWNT isn't playing, or the National Women's Soccer League isn't in season, coverage of the sport has been hard to find. Research firm Nielsen found through fan surveys that the biggest barriers to seeing women's sports have been a lack of information and access.

With "The Women's Game," Mewis aims to cover all sides of the sport, said Roger Bennett, one of the cofounders of Men In Blazers, who followed Mewis during her playing days and approached her for the podcast.

"She said, 'I want to cover this women's game, not just American, I want to cover it all globally, have the biggest names in world football come and talk about themselves to the audience and to build a regular narrative around the biggest games in women's football,'" Bennett said. "That's exactly what we've set out to do."

The popularity of women's soccer has risen worldwide. In a 2023 Nielsen survey, 41% of the global respondents said they were excited about the Women's World Cup, rising from 34% before the 2019 tournament.

Fresh funding could help expand 'The Women's Game'

Looking ahead, Mewis is preparing for two major soccer events: the 2027 Women's World Cup and the 2028 Olympics. She also wants to bring international tournaments like the Euros or the Women's Africa Cup of Nations to North American audiences.

She wants to expand the vertical with more weekly programming, as well. It currently publishes two to three times a week across its three podcasts.

"The Women's Game" is set to receive fresh funding from a $15 million Series A round that Men In Blazers announced earlier this month.

"As women's soccer explodes and just continues to grow, there's more and more space for people like me and companies to invest in content production around women's soccer," Mewis said.

• I grew up as a latchkey kid and loved roaming the city by myself.
• But I struggled to give my tween the same independence I loved so much.
• At 13, I caved and let her walk alone to a café.

For months, my 12-year-old daughter begged me to let her walk alone to the strip of stores and cafés a half-mile away from our house in Los Angeles. Craving independence, she wanted to get ice cream, pick out a friend's birthday gift, and do her homework at the coffee shop (anything) so long as she could do it by herself.

Each earnest request was met with a resounding "No." Resentment radiated from my daughter's big eyes. I was the evil witch to her Rapunzel. Instead of a tower, she was trapped in a California bungalow.

Attempting to compromise, I offered to let her go solo on one condition. I'd trail out of sight behind her.

"You won't even see me," I argued.
"Not the same, and you know it!" she shot back.

I was terrified of giving her the freedom I grew up with.

I was a latchkey kid

I understood her desire to explore on her own. I was a latchkey kid growing up in Seoul, where my father was stationed. Once school was over, I'd scarf down some Spam with kimchi while watching my favorite soap opera and head out the door of our apartment. There was nothing I loved more than roaming the bustling city.

I'd walk to the corner store and buy a grape-flavored Popsicle in the shape of a shark that was raspberry red in the middle when I bit into it. I'd ride my bike along the Han River, ferry boats and gleaming skyscrapers streaking by in my periphery. Sometimes, I'd peruse my favorite stationary store, running my fingers along the crisp paper of Keroppi the Frog notebooks. Embedded in these memories was the gratification of doing it all without adult supervision.

I was terrified of giving her the same freedom

But as a 42-year-old mother, I was terrified of allowing my daughter the same freedom. Watching cars blazing through our neighborhood, barely coming to a rolling pause before blasting past a stop sign, my chest seized at the idea of her navigating the streets without me to protect her.

My fears didn't stop at speeding vehicles. Push notifications from apps like My Citizen and Nextdoor were frequent reminders of nefarious activities taking place. In one harrowing post, a girl was accosted and groped by a man as she walked to her middle school in a nearby suburb. Reading the scary details, I thrust my phone into the air. "See!" I declared. My daughter sighed.

Thirty years earlier, when I was 12, I escaped an attempted abduction shortly after my family moved from Korea to the US. In Washington State, a man followed me and tried to get me into his car as I made my way home alone.

The terrifying incident imprinted me with a deep paranoia. It was leaching into my child's adolescence, causing strife. I wanted to keep her safe, but tethering her tightly to my side only created distance between us. She was frustrated and angry. More than once, she called me "Smother."

I needed her to know I trusted her

How could I expect her to be confident and self-sufficient if I didn't show I trusted her? I knew I needed to let go, to let her experience and navigate the world without me holding her hand. To help quell my paranoia, I deleted My Citizen and Nextdoor. Those apps were gasoline to my fiery anxieties.

One Saturday morning, I swallowed the bile gathering in the back of my throat, gripped the kitchen island for support, and told my daughter she could walk by herself to the coffee shop. Her face shone as she promised to abide by my safety precautions. Watching her skip down the front walkway without me next to her, my knees buckled.

Pacing the kitchen, phone clutched in my sweaty hands, I started at her shared location. For a half-mile, the blue dot moved from block to block. Then it stopped. My phone chimed. "I'm here, Mama!"

An hour later, my daughter returned, beaming and exuberant, sipping an iced matcha latte. Meanwhile, I looked like I'd just crawled out from the trenches.

Now 13, my daughter has ventured out by herself on many occasions. Though my nerves still rattle, they've improved with time. When she walks back through our front door, pride and confidence fill her eyes — and mine, too.

• SoftBank is in talks to invest up to $25 billion in OpenAI, which could value it around $300 billion.
• The deal could make OpenAI the joint-second most valuable tech company after SpaceX.
• The funding round could see OpenAI pump $15 billion into the Stargate AI infrastructure project.

SoftBank is preparing to lead fresh investment into OpenAI at a $300 billion valuation, Business Insider understands — a move that would value the ChatGPT maker the same as TikTok owner ByteDance.

The Japanese investment giant is in talks to invest up to $25 billion in OpenAI, the Financial Times first reported.

While SpaceX is the most valuable private company in the world, the funding round could push OpenAI up to second spot alongside Chinese tech giant ByteDance. OpenAI currently ranks as the third-most valuable private tech firm.

Talks between OpenAI and SoftBank are ongoing, which means details around the the round size and valuation are subject to change. If the AI juggernaut hits its target valuation of $300 billion, it would nearly double its current valuation of $157 billion.

SpaceX's valuation is around $350 billion after the Elon Musk-owned company agreed to buy back $1.25 billion worth of stock at $185 a share in December. ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, similarly catapulted its valuation to $300 billion following a buyback offer, offering investors a price of about $180 per share, the Wall Street Journal reported in November.

OpenAI could become one of three companies globally with a centibillion valuation; Stripe and Shein follow suit with valuations of $70 billion and $66 billion, respectively.

Prior to SoftBank's latest investment talks, OpenAI raised nearly $20 billion from investment heavyweights, including Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, and Nvidia.

If SoftBank invests $15 to $20 billion into OpenAI, it would overtake Microsoft — which has poured around $13 billion into the company so far — as OpenAI's lead investor.

Such a deal would mark the most significant bet yet on the generative AI boom from SoftBank and form a key part of the wider ambitions of its billionaire founder, Masayoshi Son, to usher in an era of "artificial super intelligence."

Son, who made his original fortune from a timely bet on Alibaba in the dot-com era, has previously spoken about his nonstop use of OpenAI's ChatGPT, and predicted AI that is 10,000 times smarter than humans will arrive by the midpoint of the next decade.

A fresh investment from SoftBank would also further deepen its relationship with OpenAI after the companies announced plans last week to form Stargate, a joint venture that aims to spend up to $500 billion on AI infrastructure projects in the US over the next four years.

SoftBank's Son will serve as chairman of the project, which was unveiled at the White House by President Donald Trump. Initial equity funders include Oracle and the UAE's MGX alongside SoftBank and OpenAI. The project will begin deploying $100 billion immediately, according to OpenAI.

It is not yet clear where the companies will source the capital from, with OpenAI currently lossmaking. It has been suggested that SoftBank's proposed equity investment could allow OpenAI to invest around $15 billion in Stargate.

SoftBank declined to comment. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a Business Insider request for comment.

• There have been 66 album of the year winners since the first Grammys ceremony in 1959.
• Taylor Swift made history in 2024 as the first person to win album of the year four times.
• Beyoncé, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, and Billie Eilish are among those nominated this year.

The 67th Annual Grammy Awards will be held on Sunday in Los Angeles. 

Every nominee hopes to clinch the top prize of the night: album of the year. The coveted prize has previously gone to Hollywood icons like Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, and The Beatles, and is always the last award of the night to be announced.

In 2024, Taylor Swift took the prize and made history as the first person to win album of the year four times. She previously tied with Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra, and Paul Simon, who all hold three album of the year wins. 

Swift could break her own record again this year for most album of the year wins if "The Tortured Poets Department" takes home the award.

However, she's got strong competition in the category. Grammy darlings Billie Eilish and Beyoncé, as well as pop superstars Sabrina Carpenter and Charli XCX, whose hit songs "Espresso" and "360" dominated pop culture this summer, are all nominated. Another nominee, Chappell Roan, has had a standout year, with six Grammy nominations to show for it. Rounding out the category are the multi-talented André 3000 and Jacob Collier, whom BI's Callie Ahlgrim called "dark horses in a pop-heavy album of the year contest."

Here's every winner of album of the year throughout history.

1959: Henry Mancini — "The Music from Peter Gunn"

Mancini, pictured left, was the inaugural winner of the award.

1960: Frank Sinatra — "Come Fly With Me!"

Sinatra won his first of three album of the year awards in 1960.

1961: Bob Newhart — "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart"

Newhart starred in "The Big Bang Theory" as Professor Proton.

1962: Judy Garland — "Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall"

Garland was recently played by Renee Zellweger in "Judy," for which she won an Oscar — one award that eluded Garland.

1963: Vaughn Meader — "The First Family"

The album was a musical spoof based on the Kennedys.

1964: Barbra Streisand — "The Barbra Streisand Album"

Released on February 25, 1963, it was the debut album by Barbra Streisand. She is a rare EGOT winner: She's won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony.

1965: Stan Getz & João Gilberto — "Getz/Gilberto"

This year marked the first time two people won the award.

1966: Frank Sinatra — "September of My Years"

Sinatra won consecutive album of the year awards in 1966 and 1967. He is one of only two artists to do so, the other being Stevie Wonder.

1967: Frank Sinatra — "A Man and His Music"

Until 2024 — when Taylor Swift won for the fourth time — Sinatra held the joint record for the most wins for this award.

1968: The Beatles — "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"

The Beatles became the first band to win album of the year.

1969: Glen Campbell — "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"

Campbell beat The Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel to the award this year.

1970: Blood, Sweat & Tears — "Blood, Sweat & Tears"

Johnny Cash and The Beatles lost the award to Blood, Sweat & Tears.

1971: Simon & Garfunkel — "Bridge Over Troubled Water"

Paul Simon also won twice as a solo artist. Therefore, he has technically won this award three times.

1972: Carole King — "Tapestry"

Carole King has won a total of five competitive categories, plus three honorary awards.

1973: George Harrison & Friends (Ravi Shankar, Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Eric Clapton, and Klaus Voormann) — "The Concert for Bangladesh"

Harrison also won the award as a member of The Beatles in 1968.

1974: Stevie Wonder — "Innervisions"

Stevie Wonder won his first of three album of the year awards in 1974.

1975: Stevie Wonder — "Fulfillingness' First Finale"

Wonder won consecutive awards in 1975 and 1976, the first person to do so since Frank Sinatra in 1966 and 1967.

1976: Paul Simon — "Still Crazy After All These Years"

This was the first of Simon's wins as a solo artist.

1977: Stevie Wonder — "Songs in the Key of Life"

Wonder won his third album of the year this year, making it three wins in four years.

1978: Fleetwood Mac — "Rumours"

Fleetwood Mac beat John Williams and his "Star Wars" score to the award this year.

1979: Various Artists — "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack

This year marked the first time the winner was listed as "various artists," as well as the first time a film's soundtrack or score won the award.

1980: Billy Joel — "52nd Street"

Billy Joel beat Donna Summer and Kenny Rogers to become the first winner of the 1980s.

1981: Christopher Cross — "Christopher Cross"

Christopher Cross beat three-time winner Frank Sinatra to claim this award.

1982: John Lennon and Yoko Ono — "Double Fantasy"

John Lennon won his second award with his wife, Yoko, following his first win with The Beatles in 1968.

1983: Toto — "Toto IV"

Paul McCartney lost his first nomination for this award as a solo artist to the band.

1984: Michael Jackson — "Thriller"

Michael Jackson won eight awards this year.

1985: Lionel Richie — "Can't Slow Down"

Lionel Richie beat legend Tina Turner to the award this year.

1986: Phil Collins — "No Jacket Required"

This album contained two US No. 1 hits: "One More Night" and "Sussudio."

1987: Paul Simon — "Graceland"

Simon won his second award as a solo artist this year.

1988: U2 — "The Joshua Tree"

This was the first of U2's two album of the year wins.

1989: George Michael — "Faith"

"Faith" contained hits such as "Faith" and "One More Try."

1990: Bonnie Raitt — "Nick of Time"

Bonnie Raitt beat Tom Petty's "Full Moon Fever" to this award in 1990.

1991: Quincy Jones & Various Artists — "Back on the Block"

Surprisingly, this was Quincy Jones's first win in this category, despite serving as a producer on several album of the year-winning albums.

1992: Natalie Cole — "Unforgettable... with Love"

Natalie Cole won the award this year, preventing nominee Paul Simon from winning his third award for album of the year.

1993: Eric Clapton — "Unplugged"

As well as winning this prestigious award, Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

1994: Whitney Houston — "The Bodyguard"

This was Houston's only win in this category and only the second time a movie's soundtrack won this award.

1995: Tony Bennett — "MTV Unplugged"

This album was created as a result of Bennett's appearance on the MTV show "MTV Unplugged."

1996: Alanis Morissette — "Jagged Little Pill"

Alanis Morissette beat Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey to win this award.

1997: Celine Dion — "Falling Into You"

Two years after her win here, Dion also won four Grammys for her "Titanic" song, "My Heart Will Go On."

1998: Bob Dylan — "Time Out of Mind"

In 2001, Dylan added to his awards collection with a best original song Oscar for "Things Have Changed" from the film "Wonder Boys."

1999: Lauryn Hill — "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill"

Lauryn Hill beat Shania Twain and Madonna to win this award.

2000: Santana — "Supernatural"

Santana won this award with their 18th studio album.

2001: Steely Dan — "Two Against Nature"

Steely Dan beat Radiohead, Paul Simon, Eminem, and Beck to win this award.

2002: Various Artists — "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack

It was the third film to win.

2003: Norah Jones — "Come Away with Me"

Norah Jones won this award with her debut studio album.

2004: OutKast — "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below"

OutKast is an American hip-hop duo consisting of Andre 3000 and Big Boi.

2005: Ray Charles & Various Artists — "Genius Loves Company"

This same year, Jamie Foxx won the best actor Oscar for playing Ray Charles in the biopic "Ray."

2006: U2 — "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb"

This was U2's second win in this category.

2007: The Chicks — "Taking the Long Way"

The Chicks have won a total of 12 Grammys, including five in 2007 when they won this award.

2008: Herbie Hancock — "River: The Joni Letters"

This album is only the second jazz album to win this award and is a tribute album of cover songs written by Joni Mitchell.

2009: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss — "Raising Sand"

Robert Plant was previously the lead singer of Led Zeppelin, who were never nominated for album of the year.

2010: Taylor Swift — "Fearless"

Taylor Swift became the youngest artist to ever win album of the year. This record has since been broken by Billie Eilish.

2011: Arcade Fire — "The Suburbs"

Arcade Fire beat Eminem, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and Lady A to win this award.

2012: Adele — "21"

This was Adele's first Grammy win for album of the year.

2013: Mumford & Sons — "Babel"

Mumford & Sons beat Frank Ocean's "Channel Orange" to win this award.

2014: Daft Punk — "Random Access Memories"

Daft Punk won five Grammy awards this year.

2015: Beck — "Morning Phase"

Beck beat Beyonce, Sam Smith, Pharrell Williams, and Ed Sheeran.

2016: Taylor Swift — "1989"

Taylor Swift won her second album of the year award this year. She was the youngest person ever to win two.

2017: Adele — "25"

Adele matched Taylor Swift's two wins (at this point) in this category with her own second win, following her first in 2012.

2018: Bruno Mars — "24K Magic"

Bruno Mars has won 15 Grammys, six of which came in 2018.

2019: Kacey Musgraves — "Golden Hour"

This was the first year that the Grammys expanded this category to eight nominees. Musgraves beat Post Malone, Brandi Carlile, Janelle Monáe, H.E.R, Cardi B, Drake, and the "Black Panther" soundtrack.

2020: Billie Eilish — "When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?"

Billie Eilish became the youngest-ever winner of this award at age 18, beating Swift's previous record of 20 years old.

2021: Taylor Swift — "Folklore"

At the time, she became the only woman to hold three album of the year wins, and only the fourth person to ever hold the distinction. Other artists who have won album of the year three times are Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra, and Paul Simon.

Swift broke that record in 2024 when she won album of the year for her 10th studio album "Midnights."

2022: Jon Batiste — "We Are"

In 2022, Jon Batiste became the first Black artist since 2008 to win album of the year. Only 10 other Black artists have won album of the year since the award show's inception.

Batiste beat artists like Justin Bieber, Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, and Doja Cat. He was the most-nominated artist of the night with 11 nods. 

2023: Harry Styles — "Harry's House"

In 2023, Harry Styles won the award for his critically acclaimed album "Harry's House," beating out artists like Beyoncé, Adele, Bad Bunny, Kendrick Lamar, and Coldplay for album of the year.

"There's no such thing as best in music," Styles said while accepting the award. "I don't think any of us sit in studios thinking about what is going to get us one of these. This is so, so kind."

2024: Taylor Swift — "Midnights"

Taylor Swift made history when she took home the top award for album of the year at the Grammys in 2024 for her 10th studio album, "Midnights."

Swift, who was previously tied with Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra, and Paul Simon for most album of the year wins, is now the first and only person to have won the award four times.

• This post originally appeared in the Business Insider Today newsletter.
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Hello! This is Lisa Ryan, an executive editor at BI. I'm normally behind the scenes of this newsletter, but today I'm filling in for Dan DeFrancesco. (Don't worry — he'll be back next week.)

This just in: Dell is "retiring" hybrid work and calling workers back to the office. Read the memo that CEO Michael Dell sent staff this morning, exclusively obtained by BI.

In today's big story, we're looking at the tragic American Airlines crash over DC and why aviation experts have been ringing the alarm for years.

What's on deck

Markets: These agencies are policing the wild west of crypto during the Trump era.

Tech: Mark Zuckerberg told Meta employees to get ready for an intense 2025.

Business: Microsoft has begun its performance-based job cuts.

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here.

The big story

Near-miss warnings

Wednesday's fatal aircraft collision over Washington, DC, is a nightmare scenario that aviation experts have been warning about.

As BI's senior aviation reporter Taylor Rains writes, pilots and aviation workers have been warning for years about the growing risk of a fatal midair collision.

"Our whole air traffic control system has been blinking red, screaming at us that we've got it overloaded," said Brian Alexander, a military helicopter pilot and partner at an aviation accident firm.

Taylor's report comes in the wake of the tragic collision between an American Airlines flight and a military helicopter on the jet's final approach into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Sixty-seven people are presumed dead in what became the first complete-loss US airline crash in 15 years.

Alexander cited the "intense inadequacy" of staffing and overwork facing air-traffic controllers as major problems at airports across the US. Another aviation expert, Anthony Brickhouse, said increased flight congestion has also become a significant safety risk.

The US has been battling dangerously close near-misses for years, Taylor writes. Back in 2023, the Federal Aviation Agency created a safety review committee to address the issue. They recommended increased staffing, added oversight funding, and investing in airport technology.

But Brickhouse told Taylor that not enough changes have been made to prevent these close calls. And Wednesday night's crash has renewed anxiety about air-traffic control staffing and procedures at US airports.

The investigation into the tragic crash is ongoing. Here's what to know:

There were no survivors from the collision. Three Army crewmembers aboard the Black Hawk were from the 12th Aviation Battalion in Virginia. A spokesperson for US Figure Skating told BI that "several members" of the organization were aboard.

The crash occurred in congested airspace. The DC area's Reagan Airport has the country's busiest runway, with over 800 takeoffs and landings daily. Military helicopters often fly low over the nearby Potomac River.

Investigators recovered the black boxes from the passenger jet. "The recorders are at the NTSB labs for evaluation," an NTSB spokesperson told BI.

Without citing evidence, President Trump criticized FAA DEI efforts. In a press conference, Trump said he didn't know what caused the crash before laying out a series of diversity initiatives that he suggested could have contributed to the incident.

News brief

Top headlines

• Trump confirms his new tariffs are coming this weekend. Here's where all of his trade plans stand — and how they'll impact Americans.
• Google offers voluntary exit for staff in Pixel and Android group.
• Churned customers, incriminating texts, and a CEO's involvement: The latest claims from Yipit in its legal fight with rival M Science.
• What Silicon Valley really thinks of DeepSeek, TikTok, and Trump.
• Solar is likely to be the fastest-growing energy source this year, even as Trump promises a fossil fuel bonanza.
• Plane crashes can cause upticks in flight anxiety. Here's how to manage it.

3 things in markets

1. With Gensler out, who's policing crypto? The SEC bid goodbye to Biden appointee Gary Gensler, who many crypto insiders felt was too harsh on their industry. Digital-asset enthusiasts are hoping for clearer guidelines in the crypto-friendly Trump era, and these eight government agencies are likely to be the main crypto cops.

2. An unloved stock sector is waiting in the wings. Healthcare stocks took a hit late last year as investors fretted over the impact of RFK Jr.'s nomination to be health secretary. But those fears were likely overblown, strategists at Janus Henderson, Citi, and State Street said, and the sector's recent sell-off may have created a buying opportunity, with big gains on the horizon.

3. Blackstone COO addresses DeepSeek concerns. During a Q4 earning call, Jon Gray said the firm is keeping a close watch on the threat DeepSeek could pose to Blackstone's multibillion-dollar bet on AI infrastructure. The firm is a leading investor in data centers, having touted more than $100 billion. Gray added that Blackstone is particularly interested about what it will mean for demand.

3 things in tech

1. "Buckle up" for an "intense" year, Mark Zuckerberg tells employees. At a company all-hands meeting, the Meta CEO made it clear he's embracing tech's old motto of moving fast. In a recording of the meeting obtained by BI, Zuckerberg said AI would be top of mind this year and that DeepSeek's recent shake up would benefit Meta's goals. He also reflected on one of the company's big missteps in social media: a slow start against TikTok.

2. Missed China and iPhone targets take a bite out of Apple's record Q1 revenue. The tech giant scored $124.3 billion in revenue, narrowly beating the $124.1 billion estimate. However, China and iPhone sales missed their targets. During the earnings call, CEO Tim Cook addressed DeepSeek and mentioned Apple is pursuing a hybrid AI model that he says will serve the company well.

3. When ChatGPT gets replaced by AI. OpenAI said this week that Chinese competitor DeepSeek may have used its models "inappropriately." Yet OpenAI has also been accused of inappropriately using other people's content to train its models. DeepSeek might just be OpenAI's karmic repayment, writes BI's Ali Barr.

3 things in business

1. Meet the millionaire boomers next door. Four older Americans told BI how they retired comfortably, balancing their seven-figure net worths with some frugal habits. Some wish they'd worked less and enjoyed life a little more.

2. The next big thing in social media? Private networks. Alex Hofmann, CEO of the social-media conglomerate 9count, is betting on a new wave of private social networks that prioritize friends over media. Social platforms have become awash with influencers, brands and ads competing for attention, he said, but users want to connect with their friends and meet IRL.

3. Microsoft's performance-based job cuts have begun. Termination letters viewed by BI show workers impacted by Microsoft's performance cuts will lose their health benefits immediately. Ex-employees also say they won't receive severance. Read an excerpt from the termination letter Microsoft sent to affected employees.

In other news

• I asked DeepSeek and ChatGPT for financial advice on investing and retirement. Here's how the two rival chatbots stack up.
• A 'Trump tariff fee': Small businesses worry about raising prices in a new era for US trade.
• Social-shopping startups are raking in funding amid TikTok ban.
• UPS plunged after saying it'll deliver fewer Amazon packages. Its CEO says it's about 'taking control of our destiny.'
• World Cup Champion-turned-investor Alex Morgan sees a VC wave coming to women's sports. Here's how she thinks Silicon Valley will shape the future of athletics.
• New CEO of Douglas Elliman has a plan to right shaken real estate brokerage.

• Included Health filed to go public for a 2022 IPO that never happened. Now, it's private, profitable, and bigger than before.

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What's happening today

• Samsung, ExxonMobil, and Chevron report earnings.

• Spirit AeroSystems stockholders vote on potential acquisition by Boeing.

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The Insider Today team: Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Ella Hopkins, associate editor, in London. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Elizabeth Casolo, fellow, in Chicago.

• My wife and I have been spending our retirement traveling and have visited over 43 countries so far.
• As Americans, I wish we'd known how much Schengen rules could impact our travels in Europe.
• Now that we get the rules, we use a strategy to avoid overstaying our welcome in select places.

My wife and I have been living as full-time nomads since 2019 and have already visited more than 43 different countries.

Our lifestyle seems dreamy, but we've experienced numerous issues along the way — and many of the biggest have been related to visas.

As Americans, we're fortunate to have one of the strongest passports in the world, and many countries have not required us to present a visa upon entry.

However, I wish I'd known before we began our journey that there are some especially strict travel limitations in Europe that could complicate our plans.

Schengen rules make it difficult for foreigners to spend months traveling through Europe

As Americans, we knew we could not spend more than 90 days in a row visiting countries like Italy or Germany. However, we soon learned that simply hopping from one European country to another in 90-day stints wasn't an option or workaround to that rule, either.

This is, in part, due to Schengen rules: Non-European Union citizens can only stay in the Schengen zone for up to 90 days within a 180-day period

The Schengen zone consists of mostly European Union countries that share similar criteria for visitors. Citizens within those countries can freely travel across others in the zone without being subject to border checks.

The Schengen zone includes 29 European countries, including France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

For many travelers staying in Europe for less than 90 days, these rules are pretty irrelevant. However, for us, this meant a lot of European countries were off-limits for long trips.

We knew that if we wanted to stay in Europe long-term, we'd need a residency permit.

After getting a visa proved difficult, we began planning our trips around the Schengen rules

Many countries offer multiple variations of residency permits, like digital-nomad visas or retirement visas. However, visa applications can be complicated and take months (or even years) to get approved.

At one point, we attempted to get retirement visas in Spain. After months of preparing and filing paperwork and spending a fair amount of money, our application has still not been approved.

Eventually, we decided to stop waiting for a visa. Instead, we would do the "Schengen shuffle," a common strategy among expats that involves strategically entering and leaving the Schengen zone without overstaying your welcome.

For example, if we've been exploring Spain and Italy for almost 90 days, we'd then spend months traveling to places outside the Schengen zone, like Malaysia or Bosnia, before returning to any country in it.

Fortunately, as nomads, we're very flexible — and we've gotten good at doing the "shuffle."

However, it's worth noting that the "shuffle" comes with risks, and violating Schengen rules can have severe legal consequences ranging from jail time and deportation to bans and fines.

Until we get a residency permit in Europe, we'll continue to stay on top of visa rules in every country we visit, as all travelers should.

After all, the rules can (and do) change often.

• Boeing's 777X to enter service with Lufthansa in 2026, CEO Kelly Ortberg confirmed.
• The jet has faced certification delays, with flight tests paused for months.
• The latest setback cost Boeing $2.6 billion.

Lufthansa is set to be the first airline to fly the 777X, Boeing's much-delayed newest jet.

CEO Kelly Ortberg said on an earnings call this week that the German carrier would get the first plane next year. Boeing continued to have "seat challenges, but we do know what those challenges are for Lufthansa deliveries," he added.

The Boeing 777X is an upgraded, modernized version of the world's best-selling widebody jet.

It includes a wider and more spacious cabin while taking advantage of technology used for the 787 Dreamliner.

A key feature is its folding wingtips. This allows for longer wings, which enhance aerodynamics.

The wings can also fold up while on the ground allowing it to fit at more airport gates. The double-decker Airbus A380 can only be operated at certain airports because it's so large.

More than a dozen airlines, including British Airways, Emirates, and Singapore Airlines, have placed about 500 orders for the twin-engine jet.

Boeing launched the 777X program in late 2013, targeting an entry to service in 2020. Delays have piled up and it's struggled to achieve certification for the jet.

Test flights were paused last August after a problem with a key component connecting the engine to the plane, before resuming earlier this month.

Ortberg said in October that the first delivery was expected in 2026 rather than this year.

In a third-quarter earnings report, Boeing said that the latest 777X setback would cost $2.6 billion.

There's much at stake, such as proving Boeing had the right strategy in modifying a previous design instead of building a new plane from scratch.

The planemaker has suffered from a loss of trust with some airlines after a damaging 2024 plagued by delivery delays. Boeing slowed down production after the Alaska Airlines blowout and then faced a seven-week strike later in the year.

Emirates president Tim Clark told BI in October: "I fail to see how Boeing can make any meaningful forecasts of delivery dates."

"Emirates has had to make significant and highly expensive amendments to our fleet programs as a result of Boeing's multiple contractual shortfalls and we will be having a serious conversation with them over the next couple of months," he added.

Others have been more patient, such as Qatar Airways CEO Badr Mohammed Al-Meer. At last July's Farnborough Airshow, he said he didn't expect to receive the first 777X until 2026.

"And as English people say, let us not cry over spilled milk," he added. "Let us focus on the new delivery."

• Alexander Weber's parent realized his family had money when they moved into a bigger house.
• However, his parents still gave him a small allowance and taught him financial responsibility.
• That pushed him to work, which impacted his career as an entrepreneur.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Alexander Weber. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Until I was in elementary school, my parents and I lived in a modest apartment. My mom ran her own business, and my dad worked for a major retailer in Germany, where we lived. He was in management, working as a buyer for the whole of Germany. It was an important role, with a solid salary to match. My dad would spend weekdays in another city, visiting us on the weekends. I didn't think much about how much money we had.

Then, we moved to a very large house. Our financial status hadn't changed — my mom and dad had always made substantial money. But suddenly, that was clearer to others, and to me, as a child. Our new house had three stories, a finished basement, and a garage. My parents drove fancy cars like BMWs and Mercedes. That's when I noticed that, compared with my peers, my family was wealthy.

Unfortunately, my dad died when I was 13. However, my mom's business generated a solid income, so she was able to keep our family financially secure, while instilling lessons I still use today.

My parents tied allowance to responsibility

Although we had more material items than many of the people around us, my parents only gave me a very modest allowance. At the time, it was about 25 euros a month, enough to go to the cinema once — twice if I was lucky.

Sometimes I would argue with my mom, pointing out she could afford to give me a larger allowance. But she wouldn't budge. Then, after a few years, my mom offered me a more substantial allowance. If I took it, however, I would be responsible for paying for my needs, in addition to my wants. I would have to budget for clothes and food. At the end of the day, I didn't want that responsibility. I also realized that I might end up with even less discretionary spending money than if I took a more modest allowance.

My small allowance pushed me to work

Since I'd chosen to stick with my modest allowance, I got creative about earning money. I started building websites when I was a teenager and even automated video games to sell in-game currency. Building that entrepreneurial spirit early impacted my career path. As a young adult, I grew my own online companies, focused on helping businesses use social media to increase their sales and online presence. I'm still running those today.

My mom emphasized never having debt

As a teenager, I was exposed to material items, like those flashy cars my parents had, and yearly trips to California. At first, I wanted more of that, but eventually, the novelty wore off. These days, I'm not drawn to luxury or fancy items.

My mom always told me that if you have debt, you give the banks (or credit card companies) control over you. She emphasized that I should always make money before I spend it. I internalized another message: don't buy unnecessary things.

I'm 29 now, but I still live by that rule. I still travel, but it's more likely to be a car or train ride to somewhere else in Europe than a lengthy trip to the US. I really don't buy things for myself. I'll spend it on my business or my girlfriend, but rarely on something I want. When I do, I try to purchase a quality item that will last a long time.

I realized people talked about my wealth

As I got older, I realized people were talking about my family's wealth. California is a big thing to Europeans, and people were impressed that my mom and I spent about a month there every year.

At first I wanted to lean into the status wealth gave me — I even tried my hand at becoming an influencer. But I quickly realized that being flashy made me feel like an imposter. I was being celebrated for something I'd been gifted, not something I earned.

These days, I try to avoid attention. I still live in that big house my parents moved into when I was a child. But it's old now and needs lots of work. I'm looking forward to downsizing, so I can focus on my work and my partner — the things that really give my life purpose.

• LA's wildfires put added pressure on the city's 2028 Olympic hosting gig.
• Historically, most host cities have faced costly overruns.
• LA could be in a stronger position than other cities because of its existing sports venues.

Los Angeles' wildfire rebuilding efforts could be at odds with another multibillion-dollar expense: hosting the Olympics.

The city's recovery efforts face a hard deadline ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics. Historically, most host cities have faced costly overruns, and LA is already likely to face serious economic challenges in the wake of the fires.

However, Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist at Smith College, told Business Insider that LA could be in a stronger position than other cities to handle Olympic costs because of the city's existing sports venues.

"I think the 2028 games will provide an opportunity for Los Angeles to show how it's rebuilt itself," Zimbalist said.

While many sports facilities were sparred from the fires, the city's economic losses could reach $275 billion, per the data platform AccuWeather. The estimate accounts for direct costs like emergency response and construction, along with indirect costs like lost employee wages, housing displacement, and hits to the local business scene and job market. Additionally, some experts estimate it could take the city years, or up to a decade, to rebuild.

Zimbalist said he thinks LA is in a good position to "break-even" economically as the Olympics host, in large part because it doesn't have to build any new sporting venues. This will significantly reduce the construction and infrastructure costs that often balloon host cities' spending.

The LA Olympics Games have an operating budget of $6.9 billion, according to the latest estimate provided by LA2028, the private committee responsible for putting on the Olympics and raising funding for the games.

The money is expected to come from International Olympic Committee funding and revenue generated from the Games — which are tied to things like international sponsorship income, ticket sales, and licensing merchandise. These funds will go toward hosting the sporting events and the opening and closing ceremonies, including investments in the city's airport and a downtown convention center.

LA2028 did not respond to BI's request for comment.

LA may be in a strong position to host 2028

If the costs of hosting the Olympics exceed the generated funds, LA has pledged to contribute $270 million to close the gap. If this isn't sufficient, the state of California has committed an additional $270 million, and if that doesn't cover it, LA would be on the hook for the rest. As of July, LA2028 was $1 billion short of its sponsorship goal.

Zimbalist said this insurance policy to cover some of its exposure in the case of a budget overrun is standard for every host city. As things stand, he doesn't expect the Games to go over budget, though he said it's "far from a sure thing."

"I don't see there being a public deficit here overall because there's so little building to be done," Zimbalist said.

While LA might be able to avoid drawing upon public funds, the Olympics are likely to cost US taxpayers. Zimbalist said LA is counting on the federal government to help provide as much as $5 billion in funds for transportation and security costs ahead of the Games. In comparison, the federal government's contribution to the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics was about $2 billion when adjusted for inflation.

In 1984, the last time LA hosted the Olympics, Zimbalist said LA generally avoided negative economic impacts, which he said was driven by the availability of existing venues, significant IOC funding, and solid financial management from the city's Olympic committee. He said that LA could benefit from the same factors this time.

Host cities often lose money on the Olympics

Many Olympic host cities spend beyond their budget due to unforeseen expenses, construction costs, or an inability to produce enough tourism revenue, per the 2024 Oxford Olympics Study. And, with a higher number of events and athletes, the study reported that the Summer Games are especially expensive.

The Oxford Olympics Study — which analyzed the cost of past Olympics in 2022 US dollars — found that the Summer Games held between 1960 and 2024 went over budget by an average of 195%. In the past two decades, the most expensive Games was Rio 2016, costing $23.6 billion with a cost overrun of 352%, some of which was shouldered by taxpayers.

"When you add it all up, most cities end up with a deficit that could be on the order of $10 or $20 billion, sometimes more than that," Zimbalist said.

In December, Paris announced that it closed the 2024 events under budget, but this only included the operating costs of the Olympics during the 17 days they were held. When operating costs, capital costs related to the Games (like building sporting venues), and indirect capital costs (like investments in Paris's rail system) are all accounted for, Zimbalist estimated that the total spending approached $20 billion.

To be sure, Zimbalist said there are benefits to hosting the Olympics that economic indicators can't measure. While LA will likely still be recovering from the wildfires, he said the Olympics could provide the city with the opportunity to show its progress.

Have you experienced financial challenges due to a natural disaster? Are you open to sharing your experience with a reporter? If so, reach out to [email protected].

• An explosion at a Rheinmetall munitions factory in Spain injured six workers, local emergency services said.
• The German arms manufacturer told BI that the company saw no indication of an attack.
• Russia is suspected of being behind a plot to assassinate the CEO of Rheinmetall.

An explosion at a Rheinmetall munitions factory in Spain injured six workers on Thursday, local emergency services have said.

One person was left with serious injuries following the incident, which occurred in the southeastern Spanish city of Murcia.

Oliver Hoffmann, a spokesperson for the German arms manufacturer, told Business Insider that the cause of the explosion was still under investigation but that the company saw no indication of an attack.

Hoffmann said the site's production facilities were not damaged in the incident.

According to Spain's state register of emissions and pollutant sources, the depot's main activity is the manufacturing of explosives.

Rheinmetall has been a key military aid provider to Ukraine, supplying Kyiv with artillery ammunition, combat vehicles, tanks, and more.

Rheinmetall vehicles delivered to Ukraine include the Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 main battle tanks, the Marder and Lynx infantry fighting vehicles, and the Gepard antiaircraft tank.

The company has also helped train Ukrainian specialists in maintenance and repair tasks.

In February, Rheinmetall said it aimed to produce up to 700,000 rounds of artillery ammunition a year by 2025 at its plants in Germany, Spain, South Africa, Australia, and Hungary.

Armin Papperger, Rheinmetall's CEO, said in a March interview with the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung that the company planned to increase production capacity to 1.1 million rounds a year by 2027.

In 2024, US intelligence reportedly helped thwart a Russian plot to kill Papperger.

James Appathurai, NATO's Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Innovation, Hybrid, and Cyber, confirmed the plot at a European Parliament committee meeting earlier this week.

"What we have seen over a period of the last couple of years in particular, is incidents of sabotage taking place across NATO countries, by which I mean derailment of trains, acts of arson, attacks on politicians' property, threats to…plots to assassinate industry leaders, like publicly the head of Rheinmetall," he said.

The German newspaper Der Spiegel previously reported the Russian scheme had been spurred on by Rheinmetall's plan to establish a tank factory in Ukraine as part of a push to bolster the country's arms industry.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov rejected the reports at the time.

Russia is believed to have been behind dozens of hybrid attacks on NATO members in recent years, including a number of incidents targeting the air freight industry.

• Scott Goodfriend was laid off from his $215,000-a-year Meta job in February 2023.
• He took his food tour side hustle full time and now makes $145,000 a year in revenue.
• Goodfriend says he misses the cushy salary, but Big Tech can't match building your own business.

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Scott Goodfriend, 39, who runs Ultimate Food Tours. Business Insider verified his previous employment and financial claims with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I didn't expect my career path to take me from working on virtual reality at Meta to leading tour groups around New York, but I'm enjoying taking the risk and betting on myself.

In 2011, I moved from Los Angeles to New York, where I worked at We Are Plus making corporate videos. In 2016, I started at Edelman, a major PR and marketing firm, and climbed the ranks to executive producer, pioneering their augmented- and virtual-reality initiatives.

Working at Meta was my dream job

I wanted to pivot my skills into tech, so I started applying for jobs in 2022. I landed a job at Meta in July 2022. Working as an augmented-reality producer with a $215,000 salary felt like the crowning achievement in my career.

I was handed the reins on Meta's "real-time avatar" feature, where I ran the project's operations. I integrated workflow, managed the 3D design, and helped the team meet deadlines. Despite being a remote employee bridging both coasts, I thrived in a fast-paced, elite environment.

The sense of purpose I felt working at Meta was remarkable. We were pushing the boundaries of what was possible in the digital realm, and every day brought new challenges.

But Silicon Valley's volatility showed its face in November 2022 with mass layoffs. I thought I was safe working in a cutting-edge space like AR, but my role was eliminated, and I was placed on an internal redeployment plan. In February 2023, I was laid off, just eight months into what I thought would be a long-term journey.

My culinary side hustle was a saving grace

Fortunately, I was still making an income via my side hustle, Ultimate Food Tours. Since I moved to New York, I'd created and researched various food tours and would take groups of friends to the hidden gems I'd found. In November 2019, on a whim, I posted my first food tour on Airbnb.

Between November 2019 and the beginning of COVID-19 in March 2020, I received around four bookings. At the time, I charged $60 per person per tour, which included food and non-alcoholic drinks but excluded tips.

These tours, limited to 10 people, are a journey through time and culture. I wanted it to feel like exploring a city with a knowledgeable friend.

All of my prior supervisors, both at Meta and Edelman, encouraged my side hustle. I made $30,000 in 2022 doing food tours while employed at Meta.

After getting laid off, I received another offer at a tech job. The idea of having a stable income was enticing. I struggled with my decision, but after speaking to my parents and mentors, I knew it was time for a change.

I always kept my money from my food tours separate from my corporate salary. When I was laid off, I had roughly $20,000 from my food tour business to fall back on. I didn't have to touch my severance money at the time.

Being single, with savings in the bank, I turned my layoff crisis into an opportunity. Years of running tours as a side gig meant I had the experience and financial runway to take this leap. I already had deep relationships with my vendors and knew how to build relationships with other food personnel to promote my business.

Giving up a cushy tech salary was difficult

Trading the security of Big Tech for the unpredictability of entrepreneurship wasn't an easy choice. I miss the cushy corporate perks and a steady paycheck, but the thrill of building something meaningful feeds my soul in ways technology never could.

Losing my tech salary was a personal test. Spontaneous vacations and casual dinners out were replaced with budgeting and home-cooked meals. However, working in Big Tech taught me financial forecasting and operational management, which I now apply to my business.

I haven't matched my Meta salary yet, but the business made $145,000 in revenue this past year, and running costs are minimal. The tour guides I hire are all freelancers who get paid between $30 and $60 per hour per tour, excluding tips.

I don't draw a traditional salary and use the business funds to cover my essentials and the business's expansion. The freedom of building something makes up for the financial juggling act.

Being an entrepreneur is demanding but worth it

My days are split between understanding accounting software, coordinating with global affiliates for our expansion into Japan, and crafting tours that show a deep knowledge of local communities.

I have a team of four freelance tour guides that I work with in New York, two in Vegas, and one in Tokyo. I ensure that each tour is tailored to the group. On average, I work 60 hours a week. I do tours on top of running the marketing and business operations and ensuring my finances are in order.

The corporate world, with its predictable rhythms and clear career ladders, still appeals to me. But unless an extraordinary opportunity presents itself, I'm committed to Ultimate Food Tours.

I've learned I'll feel afraid whether I'm launching a business or taking on increased responsibility in a corporate role. The key is recognizing that every career path has its uncertainties, and the bigger risks will have greater payoffs.

• Dell is calling its global workforce back to the office full time, per a memo obtained by BI.
• In September, the company told its sales teams to be in the office five days a week.
• "Nothing is faster than the speed of human interaction," CEO Michael Dell told staff in the email.

Dell is calling an end to hybrid and remote work.

In an email sent on Friday morning, CEO Michael Dell said that from March the company would expect all employees living within an hour of offices to be at their desks five days a week.

"Starting March 3, all hybrid and remote team members who live near a Dell office will work in the office five days a week. We are retiring the hybrid policy effective that day," the CEO, who has a net worth of $117 billion, told staff.

According to the email, which BI exclusively obtained, employees who live far from a Dell office will be allowed to continue working remotely.

"What we're finding is that for all the technology in the world, nothing is faster than the speed of human interaction," Michael Dell told staff. "A thirty-second conversation can replace an email back-and-forth that goes on for hours or even days."

The CEO acknowledged that staff would have questions.

"Please hold those for now," he said. "We're still working through details, and additional information will be available soon."

BI understands that leaders at Dell will be able to ask for exemptions for their team members.

Most offices have capacity for all workers to return in March, but in the few cases where space was limited, Dell will provide guidance in the coming month, BI understands.

"We continually evolve our business so we're set up to deliver the best innovation, value and service to our customers and partners. That includes more in-person connections to drive market leadership," a Dell spokesperson told BI.

Dell has already implemented a five-day return-to-work policy for some parts of its business.

In September, the company sent a memo to its entire global sales team informing them they would be required to work in the office full time.

Manufacturing teams, engineers in the labs, onsite team members, and leaders had also already been asked to be in the office five days a week.

Parents at Dell told BI that the September five-day mandate had left them scrambling to find childcare arrangements, while other sales staff said there was a shortage of parking spots and desks — a common logistical challenge for companies implementing RTO.

Vivek Mohindra, Dell's senior vice president of corporate strategy, told BI in December that the company had seen "huge benefits" from bringing the sales team back to the office and that the energy on the sales floor had been "very different" since the policy was introduced.

The company, which sells PCs and enterprise technology such as servers, asked its more than 100,000-strong workforce to classify as either remote or hybrid in February 2024.

Last year, BI obtained internal data showing that close to 50% of Dell's full-time workers in the US initially chose to stay remote, while a third of international staff remained remote. Their reasoning included living far from the office, working in teams spread over different states and countries, and working remotely before the pandemic.

When Dell introduced its initial return to office policy in 2024, it said that workers opting to stay remote would not be considered for promotion, or be able to change roles.

Dell joins a growing list of companies, including Amazon, AT&T, and JPMorgan, that have reversed their stance on remote work and now expect employees to be in the office full-time.

Federal workers have also been called to return to their offices full time after President Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating an RTO on his first day in office last week.

Read the full memo below:

Team,

We are building a new Dell Technologies for a new future. The pace of innovation has never been faster, and for us to lead, the speed of our business must continue to accelerate. What we're finding is that for all the technology in the world, nothing is faster than the speed of human interaction. A thirty second conversation can replace an email back-and-forth that goes on for hours or even days.

We've already asked our sales teams, manufacturing teams, engineers in the labs, onsite team members and leaders to be in the office five days a week, and we have seen these areas come alive with new speed, energy, and passion. Now, we want to see that same sense of urgency and drive everywhere.

Starting March 3, all hybrid and remote team members who live near a Dell office will work in the office five days a week. We are retiring the hybrid policy effective that day. We remain committed to flexibility within your workday, and you should continue to work with your manager to meet your needs. But for the most part, you should plan to work in the office five days a week.

If you opted-in for remote work and live near a Dell office, we expect you to join us in the office. If you are remote and live a long distance from a Dell office, you'll stay remote. If you are field, you will continue to spend five days a week with customers and partners or in a Dell Technologies office.

We know you may have questions about what this means for your specific situation. Please hold those for now. We're still working through details, and additional information will be available soon. But I personally wanted to share this news sooner rather than later, so you have time to process and plan.

We continually evolve our business to deliver the best value and service to our customers and partners. I'm excited for us to have more in-person connections to drive speed, market leadership, and an even stronger culture.

I look forward to seeing many more of you in the office. Welcome back!

Michael 

Are you a Dell employee with insight to share? Contact these reporters via email at [email protected] and [email protected], or via Signal at Polly_Thompson.89 and jyotimann.11. Reach out via a nonwork device.

• What was meant to be an epic vacation in Bali with 18 family members turned into a bickering mess.
• We should have known it wouldn't work when it took six months to agree on accommodations.
• I'll keep the international vacations to my family of five from now on.

The idea of an epic overseas family holiday was nice in theory but a nightmare in reality, and if I had my time again, I probably wouldn't sign up for it.

The nightmare began in 2022 when my extended family decided to vacation in Bali for Christmas.

We usually get together every other year on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, where I grew up, but this time, we wanted to try somewhere else.

My family of origin and I had been to Bali before and knew what to expect, but we had no idea how different the experience would be with 18 people from five families.

The trouble started before we even got on a plane

Booking accommodations was a complete fiasco and should have been a red flag.

Some people wanted resort-style accommodation with all the bells and whistles — kids' clubs, swim-up bars, and other Western comforts. Others in the group liked the idea of more authentic, budget-friendly accommodation with a Balinese feel.

It took six months and a lot of bickering on our family WhatsApp group to settle on a compromise: We'd stay in three different hotels during our 12 nights in Bali. Moving from place to place wasn't ideal, but it meant everyone felt that their needs were being met.

Bickering over where to eat made me want to hide in my room and order room service

Everyone was excited when the big day arrived, and we all touched down at Denpasar International Airport. The youngest family member, our daughter, was 4 months old. The oldest member, my dad, was 78.

The excitement quickly dissipated at the first resort, though. Some family members wanted an affordable vacation, while others were ready to splurge on food, drinks, and entertainment without concerns about cost.

Meal time was particularly tiresome. Family members with more cash to splash preferred eating at our resort or restaurants in pricier areas such as Seminyak, known for its luxury hotels and high-end shopping and dining.

Whereas those on a tight budget would suggest dining at a local warung, a small traditional Balinese restaurant, usually decked out with simple plastic chairs and tables, offering cheap, tasty food.

The nightly debates about where to eat created unnecessary tension, and I wanted to hide in my room and order room service.

I didn't anticipate the hassle of all the Christmas gifts

Holidaying during the festive season also created a logistical nightmare.

With five different families all celebrating Christmas, we exchanged many gifts.

Lugging the presents there and bringing them home proved to be a challenge, and we sent stuff back to Australia with my folks (who live in another state) because we couldn't fit everything into our two suitcases.

The gifts are still collecting dust at my folks' house.

The worst of it was yet to come

All those hassles paled in comparison to the digestive issues, aka Bali belly, that affected nearly the whole group.

It started with my dad, who went down on day three with vomiting and diarrhea, then took out 15 of the 18 of us. Each night, we'd place bets on who would go down next.

For Christmas Eve, we'd pre-paid for a lavish seafood buffet dinner at hotel number two, the Holiday Inn in Nusa Dua. That night, my husband started experiencing gastro symptoms, and needless to say, Christmas Eve was not what we'd hoped for.

By Christmas Day, our 4-month-old daughter had started projectile vomiting by the pool; then, I woke up feeling horrendous on Boxing Day.

I remember brushing my teeth when I thought I was over the worst of it, letting out a little gas, and then looking at my husband with horror because more than just gas had come out. That was a real low point.

When it was time to go home, I was ready for a real vacation with some actual peace and tranquility.

I think next time, we'll keep the big family get-togethers at my parents' house in Queensland and leave the international holidays to our family of five.