• I'm not a car person and could drive whatever, but my husband loves cars.
• After doing tons of research, he decided we needed a Tesla Model Y.
• Insuring it is very expensive, so we are selling it and looking for a hybrid.

Admittedly, I've never been a car person. If it was up to me, I'd still be driving the 1979 Monte Carlo I learned to drive in. That behemoth had a red-faded-to-pink interior, and I could easily cram all my friends and our cheerleading gear into the back.

But alas, I married a car guy. If he sees a car's headlights or taillights from a block away, he can name the make, model, and current value on the Kelley Blue Book.

He'd been dreaming of a Tesla for years since he took a road trip in a friend's Model S. "It's so fast and sleek. And there's so much storage because there's no engine," he crooned. As Teslas became more popular, it became like our family's version of the Slug Bug game. "There's a Tesla!" our sons would cry from the back of our Nissan Pathfinder.

We bought a Model Y

As more electric vehicles entered the market, we decided to join the club. So, my husband did what he does best — research. After considering Rivians and Polestars, he landed on the Tesla Model Y.

It had a decent range and a great charging infrastructure. Most of our driving was done inside the city, but we did take occasional road trips to visit family in Iowa or up north for a family vacation. It also had the needed storage capacity for our family of four, our dog, and luggage for a week away. When we took our first test drive, I also fell in love with the Model Y.

I learned to love it

Learning to drive the Tesla came with a learning curve. On our first longer road trip, my husband and I experienced a tense 30 miles because we didn't stop to charge when the car told us to. We did the math and figured we could make it to our destination. We did make it— after we turned off the air conditioning and radio and slowed to 40 miles per hour on the interstate to save battery. Luckily, our marriage survived. Needless to say, we always stopped to charge after that.

It also took some practice with one-pedal driving, but I soon loved it. I also enjoyed the acceleration in my Model Y, resulting in my first speeding ticket since 1999. I'm sure the bright red color made me an easy target.

While it was sometimes annoying to stop for a charge on a road trip, we got used to the slight inconvenience and used the time to go for a short walk, peruse strange convenience store wares, and play silly car games.

Soon we discovered a major drawback

When we saw the final insurance quote, we thought there had to be a mistake. But no — it really was going to cost almost as much as our monthly grocery bill.

We knew our insurance premiums would be high because we have two young adult son drivers, but we had no idea adding a Tesla would be sell-a-kidney expensive.

Electric cars generally cost more to insure than gas vehicles, and Teslas have some of the highest premiums. With our current policy, the Tesla costs over $333 a month, while our gas-powered Audi costs half that.

We've since learned that Teslas are outrageously expensive to insure because they're costly to repair, and the company corners the market on parts. Because the repair process can take a long time, insurance companies are stuck footing the bill for longer-term rentals. We also learned that because Teslas drive so incredibly fast, their insurance risk rating is just below that of a performance vehicle.

Of course, we've also had several conversations about the Musk controversy, but at the end of the day, our pocketbook and family needs dictate the decision to sell our Tesla this spring.

Now we're shopping for a plug-in hybrid

These are all factors we had no idea we should consider before we made our purchase, but they are definitely on my husband's new list as he researches our next vehicle. Now we're in the market for a plug-in hybrid, as they are a fraction of the price to insure and offer many of the same environmental and cost benefits we enjoyed with our Tesla — especially since most of our driving is within a few miles of our city home.

I'm still not a car person. So while my husband dives into research on plug-in hybrids, I'll be here, hoping our next car is just as easy to drive, cheap to insure, and — if I'm really lucky — comes in a color that doesn't result in a speeding ticket. I may never get my Monte Carlo back, but at least I'll be driving something that won't require us to take out a second mortgage just for insurance.

• After visiting over 60 countries, there are five I especially love that I feel are underrated.
• Uruguay has wonderful beaches, and Slovenia has epic rivers, mountains, beaches, and caves.
• Slovakia is fun to explore in winter, and the Christmas market in Bratislava is charming.

When I'm planning trips for my family, it's hard to decide between visiting a new destination or returning to an old favorite.

I've been to over 60 countries, and although the appeal to see somewhere new is strong, there are a handful of places I can't wait to explore again (and again).

Here are some of my favorites that I feel are underrated and often underappreciated by travelers.

Slovenia is filled with beauty.

Slovenia is hands down one of my favorite countries for a road trip. It's not too big and has many well-maintained roads with wonderfully scenic views.

Bordered by Italy, Croatia, Austria, and Hungary, the tiny country also has cultural and culinary influences from all sides.

Chef Ana Roš may have put Slovenia on the map with her Michelin-star restaurant Hiša Franko, but nature is the real star of this country.

Considered one of the greenest countries in Europe, Slovenia is home to Triglav National Park, where you can hike, bike, kayak, or raft down the emerald Soča River.

While visiting, we jumped at the chance to explore Indiana Jones-worthy caves, glamp on vineyards, and swoon over picture-perfect lakeside towns (such as Bled).

Although it's not visited nearly as much as its neighbors, the European country is a standout for me.

My family loved traveling around Albania.

Although Albania is slowly rising in popularity as a tourist destination, it's still often overshadowed by its southern neighbor, Greece.

However, its affordable prices and delicious homemade dishes we experienced throughout the country made it an ideal travel destination for my family.

Perhaps best explored by car, Albania has a rugged coastline with wild beaches and many natural wonders. Our first stop was the capital Tirana, where we dined farm-to-table at Blerina's Farmhouse and Agrotourism Concept.

When we headed outside medieval Gjirokastra, we stayed at The Barrels, a family-owned vineyard bed and breakfast, explored the Blue Eye (a clear water spring), and dined al fresco at the family-run Tamo's Farm.

As we went further south, we dove into archaeological history at the ancient Butrint National Park and spent a week lounging on secluded beaches in Himara.

We even cruised the coast with Himara Seas the Day, a sibling-owned boat charter that takes visitors to remote caves and coves.

I found delicious food and wine in Uruguay.

The beautiful South American country typically welcomes about 10 million fewer visitors than its northern neighbor Argentina each year.

That said, I think Uruguay is a very underrated travel destination — and I especially suggest visiting parts of its southern region.

Stop by José Ignacio, a beach town nicknamed "the Hamptons of South America," where the well-heeled vacation. While there, enjoy the beautiful views and dip your toes in the sand at beachfront restaurants like La Huella.

Head to Garzón and dine at Francis Mallman's restaurant, which serves incredible wood-fired and fresh regional cuisine. Also not to be missed is Bodega Garzón, a sustainable winery with a signature Tannat perfect for those who love a full-bodied red wine.

To visit, you can even take a day trip from Buenos Aires (an easy ferry ride to quaint Colonia), which my family has done.

Latvia's capital impressed me and my tastebuds.

Located on the Baltic Sea, Latvia is perhaps not as well known as many other European destinations.

On a solo trip to Latvia's capital Riga, I fell in love with the walkable, vibrant city. I especially enjoyed the fresh local cuisine.

While wandering the colorful, cobblestoned old town, I enjoyed incredible fresh pastries. At the farmers market in Kalnciema, the language barrier disappeared as locals insisted I taste everything on offer.

I even visited Stiene to see where the area's popular Gogelmogels ice cream is made. The property has farm tours and ice-cream tastings.

Plus, I got to spend an evening enjoying a show at the Latvian National Opera. My wonderful experience has convinced me to return again and explore everything Latvia has to offer.

I especially loved seeing Slovakia's capital in the wintertime.

Nestled in Central Europe, Slovakia is high on my list of must-visit countries.

When I visited Slovakia during the winter, I found myself captivated by its capital Bratislava's small-town charm. A light dusting of snow provided the perfect backdrop while I explored its massive castle overlooking the city.

The Christmas market, located in the heart of the old town, anchored the holiday festivities. Stall after stall overflowed with spiced wine, Bratislava rolls (filled with poppy or nuts), gingerbread cookies, crafts, and ornaments.

It felt like a great alternative to the often overcrowded Christmas markets in Germany and France.

My best meal was at Bratislava Flagship, a family-owned brewery in a former monastery. It's a gathering spot for locals and features traditional dishes like pierogis, dumplings, and sausage.

I would definitely like to go back.

• It's a bad day to try to take a flight to or from Germany.
• A mass strike has caused huge disruption at the country's airports on Monday.
• 94% of flights were canceled at Frankfurt Airport, the country's busiest, a German news agency said.

Hundreds of thousands of passengers are facing disruption due to a strike in Germany, which has led to almost all flights at the country's busiest airports being canceled Monday.

The 24-hour walkout began at midnight on Monday and immediately caused mass disruption.

At Frankfurt Airport, the country's busiest, 94% of the day's 1,116 scheduled takeoffs and landings have been canceled, the German news agency dpa reported.

"There will be massive disruptions at Frankfurt Airport all day today," its website says, adding that passengers should not travel to the airport.

Munich Airport expected operations to be "severely disrupted," while Berlin Brandenburg Airport said it will have no regular flights.

According to data from Cirium, 108 flights are scheduled between Germany and the US on Monday, accounting for over 31,000 seats.

On Friday, the service workers union ver.di called on public-sector employees and ground and security staff to go on strike.

It also targeted airports in Hamburg, Bremen, Hanover, Düsseldorf, Weeze, Dortmund, Cologne/Bonn, Leipzig/Halle, Stuttgart, and Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden.

Jens Ritter, the CEO of flag carrier Lufthansa, said in a Sunday LinkedIn post that he was "stunned and really worried."

"What Verdi calls a 'warning' strike is again bringing air traffic to a halt," he added, and called for "cooperation instead of confrontation."

A warning strike is a common tactic in German labor negotiations. Monday's action relates to two separate disputes — one for airport security workers and a wider one for public-sector employees.

Ver.di said negotiations for the more than 2.5 million federal and local government employees across Germany will continue on Friday.

It is calling for an 8% pay increase with a minimum increase of 350 euros ($380) a month, plus higher bonuses for stressful shift work and three more days off.

For aviation security workers, the union wants better occupational health and safety, 30 days of holiday, an annual bonus increase, and other bonuses.

Ver.di also wants restrictions on fixed-term contracts, saying that most aviation security specialists are hired on 24-month contracts, many of whom are then replaced by newly trained employees.

"Public employers should know that we are assertive. This will be made clear again in the coming days," said ver.di chairman Frank Werneke on Monday.

• Trump's latest Ukraine moves put the future of F-16 fighter jets in Ukraine at risk.
• Europe has some jets that would suit Ukraine just as well, or even better.
• But there are far fewer of those planes and changing jet type now for Ukraine would be hard.

US-made F-16s were the first Western fighter jets to arrive in Ukraine, and since then they've helped to defend the country against Russian air strikes.

But President Donald Trump ordered a pause in US military aid to Ukraine last week, meaning Europe may need to find ways to fill the gaps, including in the air.

Europe, home to Ukraine's staunchest allies, has fighter jets that are similarly suited to Ukraine, but there are far fewer of them, and switching to those jets would cause a host of problems that Ukraine can little afford.

Celebrated in Ukraine

Ukraine began asking for F-16s almost immediately after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, and celebrated their first arrival in August 2024.

The jets, built by Lockheed Martin but supplied to Ukraine by the country's European allies, have had some notable successes in Ukraine.

Peter Layton, a fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute and a former Royal Australian Air Force officer, said Ukraine's F-16s have shot down "numerous drones and cruise missiles," as well as hitting ground targets near the battlefield.

And while air warfare experts say Ukraine has not been given enough of them to take on Russia near the front lines — or to change the wider direction of the war — they've been effective air defenses.

Many of Ukraine's allies have more F-16s they could give, and Trump's actions could motivate them to send more. But because F-16s are American-made, Trump could block them from being sent to Ukraine.

European countries had to wait a long time for US approval to send their F-16s in the first place.

Layton said the US could also stop supplying spare parts, so that Ukraine's F-16 fleet "gradually goes unserviceable."

And while European countries have plenty of spare parts, if the US withholds approval to transfer those, European nations "will not be able to supply Ukraine," he added.

Europe's alternatives

Ukraine already has some European jets: Mirage 2000s. But only a total of six have reportedly been committed so far.

Those jets are seen as helpful for Ukraine, but not necessarily the best fit for the type of fight there.

Sweden's Gripen aircraft, made by Saab, is widely seen as the best fit, even better than the F-16. It was designed with a fight against Russia in mind. As a result, it can take off from civilian roads and is easier to maintain.

Justin Bronk, a leading airpower expert at RUSI, said that "on a platform level, the Swedish Griffin would be a better fit for Ukraine's requirements on almost every level, just platform to platform."

But none of those jets have so far been committed to Ukraine.

Europe also has other jets, like the Eurofighter Typhoon, but those haven't been committed either.

Set up for F-16s

A major problem facing Ukraine is that its program is heavily geared toward F-16s, and switching to another jet type would cause plenty of issues.

When asked last month if Sweden was considering giving it Gripens, Pål Jonson, Sweden's defense minister, told Business Insider he was "having a dialogue" with Ukraine and other countries in the Air Force Coalition, a group of allies committed to helping Ukraine.

But he said it's "more challenging for the Ukrainians to absorb another fighter," so Sweden was being advised to focus on sending airborne sensors that can provide command and control for the F-16s.

Bronk said the Gripen could serve Ukraine just as well, or better, but "there's so much that goes and has gone into so far getting the F-16s up and running in terms of training — not just pilots, but maintainers — and getting all the logistics set up."

He added that "you couldn't just swap them out quickly."

Issues with training have created a bottleneck in getting the jets into the air over Ukraine and changing to a new type would create a whole new host of requirements.

Mark Cancian, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that with new jets, "the major constraint is pilots, and you can't just rustle those up in a couple of weeks."

He added that the important thing isn't so much the differences between F-16s and European jets, but the "timeline and numbers and costs."

There's also another problem related to European aircraft: there are far fewer of each compared to the F-16.

That's one of the main reasons the F-16 was seen as the best fit for Ukraine: there are lots of them, as well as plenty of spare parts and people qualified to work on them.

George Barros, a Russia expert at the Institute for the Study of War, called the F-16 "sort of the ideal model because of how versatile and universal the system is."

He also said that Europe could not train as many pilots on aircraft like the Gripen because "relatively fewer countries" operate them.

Europe has vowed to keep supporting Ukraine, but losing US help requires a big increase in spending, and some weapons will be much harder to replace.

Another jet type may be an option for Ukraine, if the F-16 is no longer available, but it's an option that comes with problems Ukraine can ill afford.

• Joe DePasquale sells sports cards online under the brand "Joe Hollywood."
• Last year, his company made more than $5 million in sales.
• He wants to use his wealth to give his kids the resources they need to succeed.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Joe DePasquale, founder of the Joe Hollywood brand. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Growing up, I didn't have much. My dad was involved in drugs, and my mom struggled with a mental illness that sometimes made it difficult for her to even go outside. It was a really difficult atmosphere. I remember coming home one day to strangers at our house; it was the local church dropping off donations for us.

My prized possessions were my sports cards. My grandfather bought me my first pack when I was 8, and I absolutely treasured the cards even as I got older. I went to college in Manhattan and missed many classes because I was buying cards for 5 or 10 cents on the street corner.

Eventually, I dropped out of college to take a job in finance, making $200 a week. That job felt like a bridge between where I was and where I could be. I moved up the corporate ladder, eventually reaching leadership in my finance company. But I never felt fully financially secure, especially seeing firsthand how tumultuous the market can be.

I started selling millions worth of sports cards

All the while, I was still buying trading cards until I had more than half a million of them. I rented a storage unit to keep them all. In 2022, I relocated from New York City to Atlanta for my finance job. I had my dream house and decided to bring my cards home. They filled almost my basement, so my wife, Dori, suggested it was time to sell some.

My oldest son, Joe Jr., was 10 at the time. He was excited by the idea, so we started selling cards online and eventually on WhatNot, a livestreaming marketplace. At first, we were filming in the basement boiler room; the show would end when my phone battery died. As we sold more, we moved to my younger son's train table and eventually to the Ping-Pong table.

Soon, we outgrew that, and I could justify converting a bedroom into a home office for selling cards. Last year, my company did more than $5 million in sales on WhatNot.

I take each of my kids on individual trips

I don't like to talk about my personal wealth or net worth. But it's clear my three children, who are now 13, 10, and 6, are growing up very differently than I did.

We like to travel as a family, including a recent Thanksgiving trip to the Bahamas. Dori and I also do smaller trips with just one of our children at a time. We're preparing to take Joe Jr. to Disney — he's never been, and neither have I. This past fall, we took our daughter to New York City and did everything she wanted, including seeing the Rockettes. Our youngest wanted to eat grilled cheese on the beach, so we took him to Turks and Caicos.

Because of my success, I can spend quality time with each of my kids. That makes up for the fact that my quantity of time is sometimes limited since I stream for 24 hours each Friday through Saturday. I still reserve Sundays for faith and family, though.

I want my kids to have resources

I want my children to have access to every resource they need to succeed. Joe Jr. loves basketball, so I pay for every basketball team or clinic he asks for. Whether it's dance lessons or tutoring, I'm willing to spend on it. I want my kids to work for their success, but I'll be right at their side as they do.

I know the differences resources can make. My mom didn't have money but wanted me to attend a private high school. She asked my grandmother to pay for my schooling; in exchange, my mom didn't get anything in the will when my grandmother died since the tuition was her inheritance. I'm lucky not to have to make difficult choices like that, but I'm motivated to give everything I can to my kids.

More than anything, I want my children to grow up in a positive, encouraging environment. They'll need to work hard and be leaders, but I want them to know life isn't just about making money; it's about being a good person.

• Nick Allardice, 38, lives in a brownstone in Brooklyn in an "intentional community."
• He and his partner bought the brownstone with three friends to reduce costs and create community.
• They have family dinners on Sunday nights and regularly spend time together.

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

I grew up in an unconventional home.

My parents co-owned their large house in rural Australia with two other couples and their kids, forming an "intentional community."

That meant we had a shared kitchen and ate dinner together six nights a week. Next door lived close family friends with four kids, and next to them, another couple we knew well.

I was embarrassed about it, so I hid it at school. Kids often ridicule anything different, and I just wanted to fit in. I was self-conscious that they'd call my parents "hippies." I didn't know anyone whose home setup resembled mine.

Often, all seven kids from across the households would be in one part of the property watching a movie or playing games, while the adults gathered elsewhere, sharing wine, laughter, and conversation.

I realized the benefits later in life

I think that part of why it worked is because four of the adults were social workers. They worked with an interpersonal relationships expert who ran a couple of workshops at the start of living together about building values together, which helped them to divide the labor of chores, maintenance, cleaning, and cooking.

We'd have community days when we'd work on a group project like clearing land or digging a dam on the property — the parents within the intentional community made it fun for us.

It wasn't until my late 20s that I started reflecting on it as an extraordinary gift and a better way to live. I'd been so preoccupied with the fact that kids might make fun of living this way that I'd somewhat overlooked the many benefits. It offered a unique balance of friendship, support, and community while still providing the space and privacy that introverts need.

We decided to give it a shot

I discussed it with my partner, and she was sold; we were curious about whether we'd be able to replicate the atmosphere in a smaller, inner-city dwelling.

Since 2013, we've attempted it three times. We tried in Melbourne, Australia, and despite initial interest, we couldn't get our friends to commit. We tried in Oakland, California, and partially succeeded by renting with friends, but part of the idea was to co-own, both to save costs and intentionally build a community. Finally, we fully succeeded in 2021, when we became co-owners of a brownstone in New York with three friends, where we still live.

The three-story Brooklyn brownstone we live in has eight bedrooms, six bathrooms, and three living spaces. Five people live here permanently (and generally, at least one or two friends are staying at any given time), three work from home, and the other two work a hybrid schedule.

We have weekly 'family' dinners on Sunday night in the shared kitchen, hang out on the stoop together multiple times a week (usually spontaneously), and have helped each other through the highs and lows of health, career, love, and day-to-day life. I'll often play board games for four hours at short notice.

The paramount consideration in doing this was quality of life, but the financial benefits are also huge. The brownstone was easier for us all to afford because we pulled together and saved on all the costs associated with buying a property.

I've set my intentional community up slightly differently from the one my parents had. Space is a premium in New York, unlike in rural Australia, so we have three distinct units with less shared space. We hired a lawyer to draw up a contract for every potential scenario, from romantic separations to death, job loss, and house damage. If someone sells, the other co-owners get first refusal to buy from them; right now, we collectively pay a single mortgage.

They also helped us set boundaries for inviting people over and solving issues with each other. We're all very social creatures by nature, so we love having company, and there have been no major issues so far.

There's been a ripple effect, too. In 2022, three other friends replicated our exact model a few blocks away in their own three-unit brownstone. They've joined our weekly Sunday family dinners.

Proximity matters hugely for lowering barriers to friend hangouts — especially spontaneous ones. I'll compromise on pretty views, shorter commutes, and even the perfect apartment to be closer to my friends. It means, at the end of each day, my people are there without needing to think about it. That has enhanced my life more than any of those other things possibly could.

• The US has a new robotaxi capital.
• Waymo and Tesla are going head-to-head in Austin, lured by Texas' hands-off approach to regulation.
• The number of robots on the road is growing, and local residents, law enforcement, and Uber drivers are concerned.

Move over San Francisco; Austin is the new American robotaxi capital.

Waymo made its debut in the city last week. The Google-backed startup is partnering with Uber to offer robotaxis on the app for the first time.

Soon, it could be sharing the road with Tesla. CEO Elon Musk has said the automaker will launch its first paid robotaxi service in Austin in June, as he bets Tesla's future on self-driving vehicles.

The two companies join a crowded playing field of autonomous vehicle firms battling it out in the city, including Amazon-backed Zoox and ventures funded by automakers VW and Hyundai.

Texas' lax approach to autonomous vehicle regulation has made it an attractive place for companies to test and deploy robotaxis — despite residents, law enforcement, and road safety groups all raising concerns.

'This is the individual responsibility state'

In Texas, autonomous vehicles are required to have insurance and be able to obey traffic laws but face few other barriers to entry.

By contrast, California, where many driverless vehicle startups are headquartered, has tougher rules.

"California has a multi-step permitting process; you need a permit for testing with a driver, one for testing without a driver, and one for carrying passengers," Phil Koopman, Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and an autonomous vehicle safety expert, told Business Insider.

"Texas, you show up, you do the paperwork, you're good to go," he added.

Musk said last October that Tesla will have fully autonomous vehicles on the road in Texas and California by 2025.

The Austin launch remains set for June 2025, but the company's plans for a similar service in California remain unclear.

Tesla has not yet secured a permit to offer driverless rides in California, and didn't report any autonomous miles driven last year to its DMV, compared to the nearly 3 million miles reported by Waymo.

"In California, my understanding is there is an expectation, although not a requirement, that you'll report a few million testing miles before they give you the next permit," said Koopman.

Despite Texas' low barriers to entry, the state's rules are tougher in one area. Unlike in California, police can ticket autonomous vehicles.

With more robotaxi companies setting up shop in the state, lawmakers are now looking to fill gaps in Texas' regulations with new legislation.

State Senator Robert Nichols, who chairs the senate's Transportation Committee, told BI new rules would target companies transporting passengers and goods in autonomous vehicles without a safety driver.

Under the new legislation, robotaxi firms would be required to register their fleets with the state's DMV to operate without a driver.

When "very serious" incidents occur, Nichols said, operators will have the option of shutting down their fleets or putting safety drivers back in vehicles until they can prove to the Texas Department of Public Safety they are safe to operate without them.

Nichols said the new legislation, which is still being finalized, would address concerns around the technology while also preserving the state's appeal to robotaxi companies.

The new rules would apply to commercial operations like Waymo and Uber but not to privately owned robotaxis such as Tesla vehicles equipped with Full Self-Driving.

"You have insurance, and you take the risk. This is an individual responsibility state," Nichols added.

On the road

Waymo began testing its Jaguar I-Pace vehicles in Austin in 2023, and has been offering select members of the public the opportunity to ride its robotaxis for free in recent months.

Ethan McKanna, an Austin resident who has taken over 80 trips since getting access in October, told BI his experience had been largely positive.

McKanna said Waymos' cars are comfortable and drive safely, but will often take longer routes to avoid construction and, on rare occasions, become confused by obstructions and require assistance from remote support workers.

"Combined with the fact that the car never goes over the speed limit and won't take freeways, it means you have to budget in more time if you're taking a Waymo," McKanna said.

McKanna added that Waymo's small service area — just 37 square miles of Austin — is frustrating, and said he was disappointed by the decision to only offer robotaxis on the Uber app as it means users will not be able to guarantee getting a Waymo.

The strangest, and often most unwelcome, thing with Waymo is the attention it attracts, McKanna said.

"A lot of people are excited and take pictures but also some are aggressive toward the car and will cut it off or walk out in front of the car," he said.

Not everyone is thrilled when Waymo rolls into town.

Uber drivers in the company's other stomping grounds previously told BI the driverless taxis are hurting their earnings — and in Austin, they now face the prospect of competing with robotaxis on the same platform.

One Austin Uber driver, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his business, told BI that he isn't yet worried about Waymo's impact.

He said Waymo's small operating area and inability to travel on freeways means the robotaxis will mostly take unprofitable downtown rides, leaving more lucrative, longer journeys, like to the airport, to human counterparts.

Waymo and its rivals are unlikely to be satisfied with small parcels of the city for long.

Waymo is already offering thousands of journeys a week to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and is in discussions about expanding to airports in LA and San Francisco. It has also begun testing its technology on freeways in LA and Phoenix.

The Uber driver, who said he drives for the app part-time in addition to a full-time job, told BI he thinks Austin's robotaxi boom will make it more difficult to earn a living off the apps in coming years.

"For the people that do Uber or Lyft full time, I do fear for their income in the future."

Robot on robot

While firms like Waymo have released data they say shows their vehicles are safer than human drivers, some high-profile accidents have plagued the robotaxi revolution.

Cruise, which began testing in Austin in 2022, recalled its entire driverless fleet last year after one of its vehicles dragged a pedestrian 20 feet along the road after hitting her. The startup never recovered from the accident and has since been shuttered by investor GM.

The proliferation of robotaxis in Austin has seen an influx of complaints from residents and emergency responders.

Documents obtained by BI via public records requests show that 80 complaints concerning autonomous vehicles have been filed to Austin's Department of Transportation and Public Works since July 2023.

The 26 incidents reported over the past year include multiple cases in which Waymo robotaxis failed to heed directions from police and fire officers, drove through roadblocks and security checkpoints, and blocked traffic.

One resident reported that they had to swerve to avoid a head-on collision with a Waymo in February after it turned too wide and encroached into their lane.

Others complained about Waymo vehicles parking outside their houses with lights flashing and motors running "day and night."

Some of the complaints featured robotaxi-on-robotaxi action, with two residents saying they had witnessed Zoox vehicles cutting off Waymos.

"These self-driving cars should not be allowed in Austin until they work out these kinks," read one complaint from December, which reported that a Waymo blocking traffic on a busy street.

"Somebody's going to get killed. I can't believe that y'all are allowing potentially deadly technology to be tested on the citizens of this city," it said.

Zoox did not respond to a request for comment in response to these complaints. A Waymo spokesperson said the company would keep working with first responders and community partners in Austin to refine its technology, and added that Waymo engages proactively with local law enforcement and community groups in all the areas it operates.

"Waymo's safety data is available to the public. Over tens of millions of fully autonomous miles traveled, the record shows that the Waymo Driver is making roads safer where we operate," they said.

Adam Greenfield, director of advocacy at road safety group Safe Streets Austin, told BI that while self-driving cars show promise in cutting deaths from drunken driving and reckless driving, the lack of regulation in Texas was concerning.

"We need to be very careful in thinking through the possible ramifications of this technology," Greenfield said.

"As a society have a pretty consistent track record of letting technology wash over us, and then trying to deal with the consequences later when we're very much on the back foot," he added.

• Bryce Adelstein Lelbach, a principal architect at Nvidia, discussed the company's culture in a recent podcast interview.
• He described it as "organized chaos" and said it best fits self-starters with lots of initiative.
• Lelbach said that the kind of flexibility Nvidia's culture has afforded him is "really valuable."

If you're highly driven and independently motivated, you might be a culture fit for Nvidia.

"I sometimes describe it as, it's a little bit of, you know, organized chaos, which I really like," Nvidia's principal architect Bryce Adelstein Lelbach said in a recent podcast interview with TechBytes.

Nvidia has rapidly gained a reputation as one of the companies at the forefront of the AI revolution, and positions at the company are highly coveted — both for the associated prestige and potential financial upside.

Those who do make the cut should brace themselves — as Lelbach says Nvidia assigns new hires real responsibility from day one. He added that it could feel, to some, like being thrown into the deep end.

"I think that for some people it could be quite scary if, you know, you start day one at Nvidia and usually it's like, 'Okay, here's a laptop and like here's a pile of bugs that you're responsible for. Good luck,'" Lelbach said.

Still, he added, things are likely to work out well for those who are used to being self-sufficient.

"There's not necessarily like a lot of structured onboarding. It sort of depends, team by team," Lelbach said. "But if you're a self-starter, if you've got a lot of initiative, it's a great environment for you."

Lelbach says Nvidia has a relatively "flat management structure" — meaning that the company has fewer layers of management separating executives from employees. CEO Jensen Huang has previously said he manages about 50 to 60 direct reports himself.

"I really love the Nvidia culture because Nvidia does not have a lot of strict hierarchy or rules. It's very free-form, very flexible," Lelbach said.

The Nvidia technical leader said employees aren't likely to be told "no" based solely on whether or not they're staying in their proverbial lanes.

"They're not going to be like, 'Oh you can't do that because like that's not your job title,'" Lelbach said. "You're not going to hear that."

Reviews on the company's Glassdoor page appear to largely reflect Lelbach's lived experience, with 96% of posters saying they'd recommend working at the company to a friend. One user listed a "pro" of working at Nvidia as its "unique and empowering culture," while another said a "con" was the environment could prove "a bit fast-paced and too competitive."

Nvidia employees have described CEO Huang's leadership style to Business Insider as a "relentless pursuit of perfection."

When presented with employee accounts calling him "demanding," a "perfectionist," and "not easy to work for" during a "60 Minutes" interview, Huang said those descriptions fit him "perfectly."

"It should be like that," the Nvidia CEO said. "If you want to do extraordinary things, it shouldn't be easy."

For Lelbach, the kind of autonomy that Nvidia affords its employees is a key draw.

"That sort of — that freedom and that flexibility is really valuable to me," he said. "It really works well for my personality type."

• Mark Zuckerberg sported a new timepiece at Saturday's UFC match in Las Vegas.
• Watch experts identified the watch as a Rolex Daytona "Le Mans" in solid gold.
• The Meta CEO has been seen with numerous expensive watches in recent months.

Mark Zuckerberg showed up with a Rolex timepiece at the UFC match on Saturday in Las Vegas, adding to the slate of major wrist candy he's been spotted with.

In his Sunday Instagram post and videos on X, the Meta CEO was seen wearing a shiny gold watch with a black dial and three white subdials.

He kept the rest of his outfit simple, with a black T-shirt, khaki cargo pants, black shades, and his new staple accessory — a thick gold chain.

Four watch experts told Business Insider the watch is likely a yellow gold Rolex Daytona "Le Mans."

Ng Yong Shen, a vice president at Re-Loved Luxury, a Dubai-based secondhand luxury retailer, said the watch has a resale value of up to $300,000.

Three other watch trading and authentication experts based in Italy, Switzerland, and the UK, confirmed the watch's model to BI.

In January, while announcing the end of his Meta's fact-checking partnerships in the US, Zuckerberg wore a Greubel Forsey Hand Made 1, which costs more than $900,000.

Greubel Forsey's website said it produces only two or three pieces of the watch annually.

In September, Zuckerberg was spotted wearing a rose gold De Bethune DB 25 Starry Varius during an interview with the business podcast "Acquired."

According to listings on watch retailers like The 1916 Company and The Hour Glass, the De Bethune watch costs between $90,000 and $95,700.

Shortly before the "Acquired" interview, he wore a Patek Philippe watch in an Instagram post, with his hand around his wife Priscilla Chan's shoulders. The model Zuckerberg wore — the Patek Philippe Grand Complications In-Line Perpetual Calendar 5236P-001 — retails for $141,400, per the watchmaker's website.

It's unclear when Zuckerberg first started collecting watches. But the Meta chief was interested in timepieces in March 2024, if his conversation with Anant Ambani at the latter's pre-wedding party is anything to go by.

In a video from the pre-wedding event circulated on social media, Zuckerberg and Chan were heard praising Ambani's Richard Mille watch.

"You know, I never really wanted to get a watch. But after seeing that, I was like, watches are cool," Zuckerberg said of Ambani's timepiece.

Zuckerberg's style evolution is not limited to watches. The tech leader has long ditched his work uniform, which used to consist of drab gray T-shirts and hoodies. Now, he's been known to wear shearling brown jackets, gold chains, and other statement pieces.

Joseph Rosenfeld, an image consultant based in New York, told BI in September that Zuckerberg's style shift, "shown by a love for premium watches and subtle luxury, suggests a shift."

"He's stepping into a role where his appearance reflects his position as a tech innovator," Rosenfeld added.

Representatives for Zuckerberg did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, sent outside regular business hours.

• Nolan Church shares tips for handling references when leaving a job on bad terms.
• Mending relationships before leaving can improve future reference outcomes and job prospects.
• Self-awareness and honesty in addressing bad references can demonstrate growth to recruiters.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Nolan Church, a 36-year-old former recruiter for Google and Doordash and now CEO of Continuum; from Salt Lake City. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Before opening Continuum, a talent marketplace for executives, I was a recruiter for Google and later the head of talent at DoorDash. Now, I advise and conduct executive searches for pre-IPO tech companies.

When it comes to hiring, I always called references and heavily weighed what they told me during the interview process.

There are usually two types of references: "front door references," which candidates tell the recruiter about, and "back door references," which the candidate didn't provide but are called anyway.

When looking for a job, you'll want to make sure you have some good references, but if you're leaving your old job on bad terms, four things can still help your chances of getting hired.

Before leaving, try to mend things

When leaving an organization, if you're in a disagreement with your manager, it can be beneficial to try to mend things if possible.

People love to hear, "I was wrong, and I'm sorry. Thank you again for all the time you spent with me."

While "sorry" doesn't mean they've forgotten or forgiven, it can help. In a world where a future employer calls that person with or without your knowledge, they're less likely to say negative things.

People remember moments like that. Oftentimes, wrapping things up professionally will be remembered more than your actual performance or the issues you had.

Don't proactively flag a bad reference, but be prepared

If you were terminated because of performance or maybe you didn't get along with your past manager, it happens. That said, don't flag the issue or lead with it — only bring it up if you're directly asked.

As a recruiter, I'd ask, "Is there somebody I shouldn't reach out to?" This typically opens the conversation for someone to say, "Oh, not my last manager."

This would be my way of seeing how self-aware the candidate is. The higher you go in your career, and the more you climb, not everybody will like you — that's just life. But do you have the self-awareness to know that, and can you professionally articulate why?

You might say something like, "In my last role, my manager and I had differing points of view on the best path to do XYZ, so that person is likely not going to be the best person to talk to, but here are the three people who are."

If you get a bad reference, be honest and self-aware

When calling references, there were times when red flags would come up, and the employer wouldn't give a positive review. So, I'd ask several follow-up questions to get the employer's side of the story.

After hearing them out, I would go back to the candidate to hear their side, too. I believe good recruiters should do that.

I'd then tell the candidate, "Hey, we were doing these references. Can you help me understand your point of view on what happened?" Most recruiters understand that disagreements happen, but how the candidate handles it is what matters.

A good response might be, "My past manager and I, our relationship ended badly. Here's what happened, here's how I could have done better, and here's what I learned."

When candidates were honest, self-aware, and professional, I often viewed them as somebody who was learning and growing and somebody I wanted to work with.

Front door references should be people who deeply know your work

If you can't list your latest manager, there are others you can list instead. Past colleagues and managers from previous roles are great, or those from your past leadership teams are too.

Another one people don't usually think of are customers. For example, if you work in sales and have a customer who raves about their experience with you— that's such a positive thing.

References should be people who deeply know your work.

No matter who your references are, make sure they know you're using them

I'd consider a direct report or a higher-up in the organization highly. For example, if the candidate worked at Doordash and listed the CEO as a reference, I'd think, oh, they mean business.

Still, no matter who you list as your reference, always check with that person first to make sure it's OK to use them. That's huge because if you don't ask and the recruiter does call them, they'll most likely answer and say, "Why are you calling me? I haven't talked to him in years."

As a recruiter, this shows me that you lack maturity, and it won't help you.

Finally, if you know someone is going to be a bad reference, don't put them down as a reference—that's just, in red words, stupid.

If you're a recruiter with job interview tips you'd like to share, please contact this editor, Manseen Logan, at [email protected].

States have long kept centralized databases to monitor prescriptions for potentially addictive drugs. Now, abortion pills are being monitored in the same way in some parts of the US.

Last May, Louisiana passed a law to monitor misoprostol and mifepristone, the two pills commonly used to induce abortions. The law reclassified the drugs as "controlled substances," a designation typically given to medications that carry the risk of abuse.

Bamboo Health, the company running Louisiana's prescription monitoring database, is ready to track the drugs.

As of March, Louisiana clinicians are required to log every mifepristone and misoprostol prescription they write in Bamboo's database, according to the New Orleans Health Department.

One former Bamboo employee told Business Insider that Bamboo announced its intention to monitor the drugs in an internal Slack channel last year, saying it was the company's legal obligation as Louisiana's prescription-monitoring vendor. The employee asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters.

Texas, Indiana, and Idaho are considering similar measures for tracking these drugs. All three states work with Bamboo.

Bamboo Health CEO Jeff Smith told BI that the company's prescription monitoring platform must comply with state regulations. "They determine how that data is managed and accessed. That's how it gets treated in Louisiana and anywhere else it would occur," he said.

Misoprostol isn't just for abortions. It's also used to treat stomach ulcers, manage miscarriages, and stop excessive bleeding after childbirth, a leading cause of death for women on delivery day. With a controlled-substance designation, misoprostol's routine use faces restrictions and state scrutiny, with potentially negative consequences for patient care, according to multiple physicians and public health officials who spoke with BI.

Louisiana has required some manual reporting of these drugs since October, according to a lawyer with knowledge of the state's guidance. With Bamboo's electronic system rolled out, doctors are concerned about who will be able to access the data and what they'll use it for, said Dr. Jennifer Avegno, the director of the New Orleans Health Department.

Prescription monitoring programs, or PMPs, are routinely used to investigate doctors for wrongdoing. Crackdowns during the opioid crisis reduced prescriptions, but sometimes at the expense of much-needed care as doctors worried about being prosecuted for doing their jobs. Some experts worry reproductive medicine could share the same fate.

Rep. Jolanda Jones of the Texas House of Representatives, who sits on the House's public health committee, said she's concerned clinicians will hold back in prescribing mifepristone and misoprostol where medically necessary — or leave their jobs in the state entirely — if they're afraid of being jailed for providing adequate care.

"If I were a doctor, I'd be thinking, now I've got Big Brother looking into how I'm practicing medicine? Why?" she said. "It's going to have a chilling effect on medical care. We're already seeing it."

The federal government started funding states to set up PMPs in the early 2000s in response to the prescription opioid crisis. Most states now require doctors to check them before writing certain kinds of prescriptions. If a search shows that a patient is getting opioids from a laundry list of emergency rooms, that could be a sign that he's "doctor-shopping," or misleading physicians for pills.

The safeguard came with tradeoffs: If you've had a prescription for a controlled substance in your life, there are a lot of people who can view it in your state database.

Private health information is usually protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. But when controlled substance prescriptions are reported to the state, they lose HIPAA protections. Without those safeguards, third parties can access the data without patient consent.

PMP access can extend to a wide range of groups, including state licensing boards and health departments, parole and probation agencies, and medical examiners and coroners. Under various conditions, law enforcement can also access the prescription data.

The list of drugs that PMPs monitor, as well as the details they collect, has steadily grown.

The earliest PMPs collected limited patient information, and only about prescriptions with the highest risks of misuse, such as oxycodone and fentanyl.

As of 2024, however, 45 states monitor all controlled substances, and 37 track "drugs of concern," prescriptions that are not heavily regulated that the state deems risky for some individuals, according to research by health and law policy expert Jennifer Oliva.

The data collected for each prescription is extensive: the drug's name, strength, quantity, and dispense date; the doctor's and pharmacist's DEA registration numbers; along with the patient's name, address, ZIP code, gender, date of birth, and driver's license.

Managing this growing mountain of sensitive prescription data became a big business for Bamboo Health.

Bamboo was founded as Appriss in 1994 in Louisville, Kentucky. Its first product was a data-aggregation and notification tool that informed victims when their offenders were released from prison.

The tool became a $30 million business serving 48 states. The company's subsequent products helped law enforcement track sex offenders and monitor people who bought high quantities of Sudafed at pharmacies, which cops used to bust meth labs.

When the opioid crisis came to a head, Appriss was well-suited for the job. With its data prowess and close relationships with state governments — plus an early partnership with the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, which advises state PMP decision-makers — the company gobbled up PMP contracts and cemented a dominant position in the market.

Bamboo Health is now an independent company separated from other business lines built long ago under the Appriss name. Smith, the CEO, said Bamboo works with 44 US states and territories to facilitate more than 7 billion prescription queries every year.

Today, PMPs earn money directly from states and, in some cases, hospitals themselves. Bamboo's PMP business makes up roughly half the company's revenue, according to a former employee with direct knowledge of the matter. Altogether, Bamboo Health is bringing in more than $100 million annually, per a February LinkedIn post by its recently departed senior vice president of commercial revenue. Smith declined to comment on the company's financials.

The business has attracted large investors. Private equity firms Insight Partners and Clearlake Capital have backed Bamboo and sit on its board of directors, according to federal filings.

In 2021, Appriss rebranded to Bamboo Health after buying PatientPing, a startup that collects data about patient admissions, discharges, and transfers, for about $500 million. The deal valued the combined company at more than $1.5 billion.

The vision, as Bamboo described it, was to combine the two companies' vast data feeds to equip providers with all the information they need during crucial moments of patient care.

Over the last several years, PMPs have assisted regulators in busting pill-mill networks and curbing severe prescribing patterns. Bamboo even helped the feds hold pharmaceutical distributors accountable for their role in the opioid crisis.

Still, it's not clear that PMPs have reduced patient harm overall. One study showed that tools such as PMPs might increase heroin-related deaths as prescription opioid abusers switch to illicit drugs.

Wired reported in 2021 that a key Bamboo product, which displayed "overdose risk scores" based on a patient's prescription history, was sometimes used to deny patients needed healthcare. Pharmacies, hospitals, and doctor's offices turned patients with high scores away, even when they had good reasons for taking opioids, such as endometriosis, a painful, chronic condition.

Two former employees told BI that after the criticism, Bamboo prioritized updating the design of the scores to add more context and explanation.

"Our point isn't to be the arbiter on who this person is and what they should get," one of the ex-staffers said. "It's just to equip somebody with some information to make a better decision."

Bamboo's newest directive to monitor abortion medications may test this hands-off approach. Some employees worry that tracking these drugs will harm doctors and patients, rather than advancing the company's goal of improving care.

"Providing monitoring of mifepristone and misoprostol, in support of limiting the use of and access to those drugs, is acting in direct contradiction of that mission," said one former employee who was working at Bamboo when the company internally announced plans to monitor the drugs. The person asked not to be identified because they were not authorized by Bamboo to speak to the media.

"It's a dangerous thing when a healthcare company is not making decisions based on the best interest of the patient, but on, perhaps, opportunities for near-term revenue," the former employee said.

When asked how Bamboo has responded to employee pushback about the company monitoring abortion pill prescriptions in Louisiana, Smith said as Bamboo has expanded its focus to patients with high-need conditions in areas like behavioral health, it's sought out new employees with expertise in those areas.

"It's really important that we have the right people on the team to help us execute on that vision and mission," he said. "Not everybody's going to be on the same page, as we look to expand our charter and where we're going."

Some states have aggressively enforced abortion bans, putting new pressure on some doctors. Texas and Louisiana have sued and indicted at least one doctor for prescribing abortion pills to state residents via telehealth services. Idaho and Texas let private citizens sue virtually anyone who performs or assists with an abortion. These so-called bounty-hunter laws award $10,000 or more to successful plaintiffs.

Under the Trump administration, states will be even more emboldened to use all the tools at their disposal to restrict access, Randi Seigel, a lawyer specializing in healthcare at the firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, told BI.

Pregnant individuals in Louisiana are not subject to criminal prosecution for obtaining and using these drugs for self-managed abortions. But the doctors and pharmacists involved are another story. In these cases, somebody who's suspicious about why a patient was given mifepristone could report it to law enforcement and trigger an investigation. Officials could then seek access to PMP data for that investigation, per Seigel.

Abortion regulations are already getting in the way of necessary medical care: Several women have died from preventable complications after they couldn't access timely treatment in states with abortion bans, ProPublica has reported. Although certain legal exceptions are supposed to protect the life of the mother, some doctors may wait too long to intervene out of fear that, if the patient isn't clearly dying, their use of the drugs could be questioned, Seigel explained.

She's concerned that tracking misoprostol and mifepristone prescriptions could have a similar effect on doctors' decisions. If doctors are concerned they may be accused of triggering an abortion while providing legal and medically necessary services, they might delay giving that care, she said.

"One could imagine somebody coming in who's having a miscarriage — and this is appropriate for miscarriage management — and somebody saying, 'Well, wait, we have to wait a little longer to make sure you are really having a miscarriage,'" she said.

In Louisiana, which has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country, the new regulations are already causing problems.

Previously, obstetrician-gynecologists often carried misoprostol in their pockets for emergencies. Now, the medicine must be stored in locked cabinets.

Avegno told BI that clinicians across Louisiana have been running "time trials" to test how quickly they can retrieve misoprostol from those locked cabinets, bring it back to the patient, and administer it. In the case of severe postpartum hemorrhaging, mere minutes could be the difference between life and death.

Some outpatient pharmacies have decided to stop stocking the pills altogether, Avegno added. Others are going beyond what's required by the law, including calling doctors to confirm what they've written on the prescriptions, slowing down access for patients.

These pharmacists are often confused about the law and afraid of liability, Avegno said: "If I fill this prescription and somebody uses it to secretly have an abortion, am I going to be held liable?"

The introduction of mifepristone and misoprostol monitoring via Bamboo's database could add to that fear.

"Let's say I'm an OB. I have a busy clinic. I'm putting in IUDs all the time, I'm managing miscarriages, and I'm doing hysteroscopies, all of which might require me to write misoprostol prescriptions. And that's now going to be tracked in the PMP," Avegno said. "So is somebody going to be able to look at my list and say, 'Oh my gosh, Jen Avegno wrote 20 prescriptions last month? That's too many. Let's investigate her.'"

Do you have a tip about Bamboo Health that you want to share? Contact Rebecca Torrence (+1 423-987-0320) using the encrypted app Signal. Here are other tips on how to safely communicate with Business Insider reporters.

• The Trump administration recently cut the flow of military support to Ukraine.
• Ukrainian soldiers told BI that they were upset with the decision but would keep fighting.
• "We are on our own land, and we want to defend it," said a soldier in an air defense unit.

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian soldiers are grappling with the weight of President Donald Trump's decisions to cut support as they continue to defend their homeland against the Russians.

Soldiers serving in a mobile air defense unit just outside Kyiv shared their thoughts on the situation with Business Insider on Friday. Asking to be identified only by their first names for security reasons, they said they were disappointed but would find a way to keep up the fight.

Oleksiy, one of the Ukrainian soldiers, said that he doesn't see developments as the decision of the American people but rather that of one man. "It is a pity, but we will fight."

Trump directed a pause in military aid to Ukraine on March 3 as Washington sought to pressure Kyiv to engage in an expedited peace process with Russia on unfavorable terms.

In the following days, the US cut intelligence sharing with Ukraine and restricted access to critical satellite imagery; the extent is unclear. These three moves left Kyiv vulnerable to an emboldened Russia on and off the battlefield.

Some Ukrainian officials have said that Russia is advancing right now, Kyiv is unable to use some of its best weapons, and there are concerns about ammunition, according to recent reports.

Officials told BI that the full effect of the pause in military aid remains to be seen, but the impact could very much be felt throughout Kyiv's armed forces.

Air defense soldiers with Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces said the pause could end up affecting the truck-mounted .50 caliber M2 Browning machine gun that they use to shoot down explosive-packed Russian drones.

"If we run out of ammunition for the American machine gun, we will use other guns," Oleksiy said, adding that "even if they are of a smaller caliber, we will still do our job."

The deputy air defense unit commander, whose name is also Oleksiy, said Ukrainian lives depend on US military support. "We hope this issue will be resolved in the near future," he said. "We are on our own land, and we want to defend it."

Trump said during a very heated Oval Office meeting in late February — which set the reduced US support in motion — that he did not believe that Ukraine was winning the war against Russia.

There is uncertainty about what could happen without more US assistance. Some Ukrainian officials and lawmakers are hopeful that Ukraine can get by relying on its booming defense industry and support from European countries, but some of the American support — specifically on air defense — is critical.

Serhiy Rakhmanin, a member of Ukraine's parliamentary committee on national security, defense, and intelligence, told BI earlier in the week that Ukraine could manage without American support for tactical operations at and near the front lines, but US involvement is crucial for more strategic efforts.

"It's hard to say; we'll see what happens," said Svitlana, the only woman in the air defense unit.

Other Ukrainians have put more weight on the US decision and warned that it could have serious consequences. Oleksandr Markushyn, a TDF commander and the mayor of Irpin, a city on the outskirts of Kyiv, told BI that he had been surprised by Trump's decisions so far.

Markushyn, speaking through a translator in a separate interview on Saturday, warned that if the US does not help Ukraine, then after it, Russia might move to take over other European countries. He led Ukraine's defense of Irpin during the early weeks of Russia's invasion as Moscow's forces tried to take Kyiv.

"The United States is a powerful country," Markushyn said. "And if not the United States, no one will stop Russia."

The White House did not respond to a request for comment from BI on how they see recent decisions and the effects on Ukrainian soldiers.

It is unclear how long the pause in military aid could last. Trump has routinely suggested that he is not satisfied with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's approach to the US efforts to end Russia's grinding full-scale invasion, which just recently passed the three-year mark.

Conflict analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a DC-based think tank, said Russia will likely take advantage of the pause in US support for Ukraine and intensify its missile and drone attacks against the country.

Ukrainian officials said Russian strikes over the weekend killed more than two dozen people, wounding scores more.

• Emmett Shear was Twitch's CEO from 2011 to 2023.
• He was also OpenAI's interim CEO for three days in November 2023 when Sam Altman was fired.
• Shear shared the career advice he used to give to his interns at Twitch in a thread on X.

Emmett Shear, the former CEO of streaming platform Twitch, said he had a piece of career advice that he gave every batch of interns at the company.

In a thread on X on Saturday, Shear said that he'd give each intern batch a presentation on Twitch's origins, followed by a Q&A session.

He said one question he was always asked during Q&A was: "Where should I work and what job should I get, or should I start a company?"

The answer varies from person to person, Shear said.

He outlined his advice and the thought process behind it in his X thread.

People pursue careers for different reasons, such as money, prestige, power, and advancement opportunities, Shear wrote. But there were downsides to each of these reasons, he added.

Money is a top reason, Shear wrote, but has "diminishing returns."

Prestige, meanwhile, is "mostly a trap, for the same reason designer clothing brands are bad deals," Shear said. While a prestigious job "might make some less discerning people think better of you," it will not "actually make you better or better off," he said.

Shear added that jobs promising power only offer you "borrowed power," especially if one has just begun their career.

"So if they're pitching you on power it's usually a trick of some kind. They're trying to convince you to accept less compensation in other ways by offering a mirage," Shear added.

Shear said some people may be attracted to "tracked jobs" that offer advancement opportunities, like becoming partners at a law firm. Such jobs may work for people who enjoy competing with their peers.

On the other hand, people could pick careers based on the work itself, Shear said. Work can be "intrinsically rewarding" when one learns and grows at their job — and that growth makes workers "more valuable in the future," Shear said.

Ultimately, choosing one's career path comes down to knowing yourself, Shear said.

"But in general it seems clear ppl should satisfice for cash, optimize for learning/growth, and ignore everything else," Shear wrote.

"If you love economy-sized pain and feel like you have no other option, consider starting something. But don't say I didn't warn you about the suck," he added.

Shear did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Shear served as Twitch's CEO from 2011 to 2023 and is a prolific user of X. In addition to dispensing advice on careers and running start-ups, Shear has commented on topics ranging from his experience interning at Microsoft to whether a CEO's job can be automated.

When OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman was fired in November 2023, Shear was named interim CEO of the ChatGPT maker.

His tenure lasted less than 72 hours. Altman was reinstated as CEO after several days of chaos at OpenAI.

"I am deeply pleased by this result, after ~72 very intense hours of work. Coming into OpenAI, I wasn't sure what the right path would be. This was the pathway that maximized safety alongside doing right by all stakeholders involved," Shear wrote in an X post in November 2023. "I'm glad to have been a part of the solution."

• Starting this fall, schools in Beijing must provide at least eight hours of AI instruction.
• AI education will be mandatory for students from elementary school through high school.
• The move comes as China powers ahead in the AI race.

China's capital, Beijing, is making AI education compulsory for students — including elementary schoolers.

Starting this fall, schools in the city must provide at least eight hours of AI instruction per academic year, the Beijing Municipal Education Commission said in a statement on Friday. Schools can teach AI as a stand-alone course or integrate it into existing courses like science and information technology.

Under the new plan, elementary schoolers, typically ages six to twelve, would take hands-on courses to kick-start their understanding of AI. Those in middle school would learn how to apply AI in schoolwork and daily life, while high schoolers would focus on strengthening AI applications and innovation, the agency said.

In China, compulsory education consists of six years of elementary school, three years of middle school, and three years of high school.

The commission said the initiative is meant to create a "teacher-student-machine" learning model and integrate AI ethics.

Beijing isn't alone in pushing for AI education in schools. Last year, California passed a law requiring its education board to consider AI literacy in school curricula. Reuters reported in September that Italy would begin testing AI-powered tools in 15 classrooms as part of a broader effort to enhance students' digital skills.

China pushes on in the AI race

Beijing's decision to make AI education mandatory comes as China powers ahead in the AI race, with its homegrown startups gaining global attention.

Earlier this year, AI startup DeepSeek made headlines after unveiling a low-cost reasoning model that shook up the AI industry and the US stock market. The company said its model rivals top competitors, like ChatGPT's o1, at a fraction of the cost.

Last week, Alibaba's stock surged 8% over two days after the company launched its latest open-sourced AI model, which it said used less data than its rival DeepSeek.

Other Chinese AI stocks, including Tencent, have also seen gains amid excitement for newly announced technology, while top US-based AI stocks, like Nvidia, have faced losses.

For America's managers, 2025 is shaping up to be the Year of the Low Performer.

When Mark Zuckerberg laid off some 4,000 employees last month, he said the goal was to "move out low-performers" and "make sure we have the best people on our teams." Around the same time, Microsoft axed scores of employees with low performance ratings. And Elon Musk has been firing thousands of federal workers he claims have failed to meet performance standards. Never mind that many of the targeted employees turned out to have high ratings. Bosses all across the country are sending the same message: Raise your performance, or you're next.

"They're trying to create more accountability," says Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist and professor of management at the Wharton School. "They're worried that people are a little too comfortable and complacent. They're hoping that some people will even opt out, because they realize they can't live up to the performance standard."

There's only one problem with cracking down on low performers: It doesn't work.

As decades of rigorous research have demonstrated, aggressive efforts to "raise the bar" on performance, as Zuckerberg put it, tend to backfire with remarkable consistency. CEOs may think they're creating a meritocracy, but in reality they're marching their companies straight into a trap of sunken morale, high turnover, depressed profits, and reduced innovation.

"In the short run, you might be creating some heightened performance standards and some accountability," says Grant, who serves as the chief work-life expert at Glassdoor. "In the long run, you may be shooting your organization in the foot." The evidence on making employees fear for their jobs, he adds, is clear: "They're very shortsighted decisions."

What motivates workers to do their best? It's a question managers have been wrestling with for as long as managers have been around. Back when America was first industrializing, the prevailing belief was that the best tool for driving employees was fear. The influential management theorist Frederick Taylor argued that workers were inherently lazy and in need of constant supervision. Swooping into factories, he set brutally high productivity standards — and summarily fired anyone who fell short. Everyone else had no choice but to buckle down and grind, no matter how unsafe the new standards might be, or how much misery they provoked.

As Taylorism swept the country, it made things worse rather than better, contributing to a wave of strikes that left factories idle for long stretches. By the 1950s, many companies were trying out a kinder, gentler philosophy of management. Instead of using fear to drive workers, they drew on a host of other motivating forces identified by organizational psychologists: a sense of connection and community, interesting and varied tasks, the desire to be useful. But in the early 1980s, as globalization began to erode American competitiveness, management by fear came roaring back. At General Electric, Jack Welch famously ordered his managers to rank 20% of their employees as A players, 70% as B players — and the remaining 10%, many of whom were fired for low performance, as C players. The practice, which came to be known as "rank and yank," spread throughout corporate America.

As a management philosophy, it proved to be a disaster. Take what happened at Microsoft, where the rank-and-yank system was known by another name: stack ranking. By the early 2010s, the once dominant company had watched its market cap plunge by more than 50%. One of the primary culprits? Its Welchian management system, which treated performance as a zero-sum game. If you wanted to succeed, someone else had to fail.

"Staffers were rewarded not just for doing well but for making sure that their colleagues failed," the journalist Kurt Eichenwald found. "As a result, the company was consumed by an endless series of internal knife fights. Potential market-busting businesses — such as e-book and smartphone technology — were killed, derailed, or delayed amid bickering and power plays." By 2013, when Microsoft finally abandoned stack ranking, much of corporate America had as well — including GE, where it all started.

The long history of management by fear has given scholars a lot of data to scrutinize. So what has all the research found? For starters, using terror to motivate your staff works in the short run: When their jobs are hanging in the balance, employees work harder and faster. But the initial surge in productivity, studies have shown, comes at the expense of quality. As workers rush to keep up, their output is inevitably shoddier, and riddled with mistakes.

What's more, work in the performance pressure cooker becomes less innovative. Take a study that took place in the 1990s, at a Fortune 500 tech company with more than 30,000 employees. After a series of layoffs, the remaining high performers became less creative and generated fewer new ideas for inventions. Organizational psychologists call this a "threat-rigidity response" — our tendency to respond to fear by clinging to the familiar. The anxiety generated by job insecurity becomes so overwhelming, studies suggest, that it actually impairs people's cognitive functioning. That might not matter so much when you're completing routine tasks, but it's debilitating when it comes to problem-solving.

"People focus very narrowly on protecting their jobs," says Grant. "They stop taking risks and thinking creatively and innovating, which is exactly what you need them to do in a turbulent environment."

Making employees fear for their job security also causes them to flee: One study estimated that laying off just 1% of a workforce would, on average, lead to a 31% spike in voluntary turnover. That might not sound so terrible for a company that's trimming its head count, but the departures aren't random. High performers, who have the most options, leave in far larger numbers than mediocre employees. Creating a culture of fear also makes it harder to recruit high performers. In one study, businesses that conducted layoffs slid in Fortune's rankings of the most admired companies. The more you slash your low performers, the fewer high performers you'll wind up with.

Pretty much every study that has ever crunched the numbers has found the same thing: Contrary to what leaders like Zuckerberg and Musk believe, instilling fear in employees actually hurts a company's profitability in the long run. That effect is particularly large in R&D-intensive, high-growth industries like tech. The feelings of uncertainty that job cuts engender end up paralyzing businesses instead of turbocharging them.

"It's a destructive practice," says Sandra Sucher, a professor at Harvard Business School who studies layoffs. "If Mark Zuckerberg thinks that this is inspiring to people to do a better job, he needs a primer on how it is that people are motivated. Most people aren't sufficiently motivated by fear to actually do better."

That's not to say that CEOs should run their companies like Montessori preschools. There were a lot of things that Taylor got right a century ago: setting high standards, monitoring employee output, rewarding people who do well. Those remain the cornerstones of good management today. During the pandemic, some companies may have swung a little too far to the gentle side, suspending performance reviews altogether. It was an expression of empathy that recognized the extraordinary stresses of the crisis — but it left some managers with no idea what their employees were doing, let alone how well they were doing it. High performers weren't getting recognized and rewarded, and low performers weren't getting the help they needed. Many bosses blamed the chaos on remote work, and ordered everyone back to the office. But the real problem was the lack of a properly functioning system of performance management.

"There's a big difference between being demanding and being demeaning," says Grant. "Demanding is about saying: 'Look, we have extremely high expectations. We hired you because we believe you're capable of meeting them. Here are your goals. Let's talk through what I can do to help you achieve them.' Then, if somebody is not pulling their weight, you give them feedback — you let them know what they need to change. If they're not willing or able to change it, yes, of course, at some point you let them go."

The demeaning way? It's basically the approach being taken by Zuckerberg and Musk. Setting arbitrary quotas of the number of employees who should get cut. Forcing managers to fire people who were consistently told they were meeting and exceeding expectations. Publicly labeling them as "low performers," which hurts their chances of landing a new job. And above all, failing to recognize that an employee who isn't working out isn't just a failure of the individual. It's also a failure of management.

"Unfortunately," Grant says, "what seems to be in vogue right now is a more demeaning approach to leadership."

Given the overwhelming evidence against management by fear, it's puzzling why Silicon Valley is trying to revive it. The tech industry, after all, was founded on the belief that everything should be dictated by data. Grant blames ignorance. "When I talk with CEOs, many of them are just unaware of the evidence," he says. "They haven't thought through the unintended consequences of their decisions."

Surely, though, it shouldn't be difficult for a company like Microsoft to remember just how poorly things went the last time it went after low performers — and how much better it did once it replaced stack ranking with Satya Nadella's softer approach of "model, coach, care." Microsoft post-2013 is one of the great success stories of the past decade — an ailing giant that actually managed to become relevant again. The tech industry boomed, in no small part, because starry-eyed startups motivated their coders and product managers and salespeople with the promise that they were changing the world. Eager millennials were happy to devote their nights and weekends to make that mission a reality, and they turned their underdog employers into some of the largest businesses in history.

"It's hugely frustrating, because we become smart for a while and then we become stupid," says Sucher, the Harvard Business School professor. "But if you've been in business for a long time, which I have now, you get used to the fact that it goes in cycles like this."

Perhaps using performance-based cuts to instill fear in their employees is just the CEO version of a threat-rigidity response. In the 1980s, the threat was global competition. Today, it's the winner-takes-all war over AI. Under siege, history teaches us, bosses behave the same way employees do: They keep reverting to the same tired methods that just don't work, no matter how many times they try it.

Even the famously cutthroat Jack Welch, toward the end of his life, repudiated the rank-and-yank phrase that had become synonymous with his name. Low performers, he said, should never be surprised when the conversation turns to dismissal. And they should never be "summarily shown the door." Instead, he said, their managers should "help them find their next job with compassion and respect." Today's low performers, it turns out, may not be the employees who are being laid off, but the CEOs who are firing them based on an outdated — and counterproductive — system of management.

Aki Ito is a chief correspondent at Business Insider.

• Shelley Janek, 70, is looking for a job because Social Security isn't enough to cover her essentials.
• Janek moved from California to Wyoming to save money on housing and other expenses.
• BI has heard from roughly 4,000 older Americans, and many are living on Social Security without savings.

Shelley Janek, 70, hoped to retire with a strong nest egg at her age. Instead, she's paying bills with Social Security and looking for a job.

Janek is one of millions of retirees navigating the rising cost of living in the US. Business Insider has heard from roughly 4,000 older Americans who are struggling to make ends meet on Social Security and dwindling savings. Some, such as Janek, have told BI they're unable to retire or trying to reenter the job market to boost their income, while others are scrambling to cut their expenses.

With just over $2,000 a month in Social Security income, Janek is unable to afford most essentials, such as groceries and rent, she said. She recently moved from Sonoma County, California — where she lived for 34 years — to Casper, Wyoming. She's living with a friend to save money and applying for jobs, with no luck yet.

"Everything is just climbing so dramatically that I think seniors are going to be in some real trouble in the future," she told BI.

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Looking for work at 70 because Social Security isn't enough

Janek spent her career in various roles in finance, computer programming, and environmental conservation. She said she felt financially comfortable for most of her life but never made enough money to buy her own home in Sonoma County, where median home prices are nearly twice the national average — according to the real estate platform Redfin.

Janek said that in 2021, she had to retire earlier than she expected and claim Social Security because of a health condition. She spent most of the money she saved for retirement on bills and caring for her mother.

She said it had been challenging to land a new job at her age. At some companies, she never hears back after submitting her application. At others, she doesn't pass the interview stage. She said she hadn't been able to land a full-time job and is unable to work in retail or the service industry because she can't stand for long periods of time.

This past summer, Janek moved to Wyoming in an effort to cut her living costs. She said utilities and gas are cheaper in Casper, and she saves on rent because she's staying with a friend, but there are fewer healthcare options than she had on the West Coast. Janek said she would qualify for some low-income housing, but she's been on waiting lists in California, Wyoming, and neighboring states for years without a placement.

"It's depressing to realize that there's very few places I can afford to live," she said. "And the few places I could afford to live are not places I really want to live. It's looking like I may have to leave the country."

Moving again could make Janek's life more affordable, but she said it would come at the expense of her community. Relocating has already been lonely, she said, and it's been difficult to reestablish care with new doctors and meet new friends.

Janek isn't sure what she'll do next, but she said it helps to know that she isn't alone: Many older Americans are struggling with finances in retirement.

"I think there are a lot of people in my situation," she said.

• Elon Musk said he doesn't plan to shut down Starlink's terminals in Ukraine.
• "We would never do such a thing or use it as a bargaining chip," Musk said.
• SpaceX sent thousands of Starlink terminals to Ukraine during the early days of the war.

Elon Musk said on Sunday that he will never turn off Starlink's terminals in Ukraine.

"To be extremely clear, no matter how much I disagree with the Ukraine policy, Starlink will never turn off its terminals," Musk wrote in an X post on Sunday.

"We would never do such a thing or use it as a bargaining chip," Musk added.

Musk's remarks came after Poland's foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, wrote in an X post on Sunday that his country "will be forced to look for other suppliers" of satellite internet services if SpaceX "proves to be an unreliable provider."

Poland was spending about $50 million a year on Starlink's services for Ukraine, Sikorski wrote.

"Be quiet, small man. You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink," Musk replied to Sikorski on Sunday.

Sikorski's post also drew a response from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said on Sunday that Sikorski was "just making things up."

"No one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink. And say thank you because without Starlink Ukraine would have lost this war long ago and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now," Rubio wrote in an X post.

Musk's position on Ukraine

Musk was initially supportive of Ukraine when it fought back against Russia in the early days of the war.

In June 2022, Musk said SpaceX had delivered 15,000 Starlink terminals to Ukraine after Russia's invasion began in February that year.

In 2022, Musk also challenged Russian leader Vladimir Putin to single combat over Ukraine and suggested the president could "bring his bear" to their man-on-man fight.

But Musk's pro-Ukraine stance has shifted.

In October 2022, he posted a peace plan to end the Ukraine war on X. The plan, which called for Ukraine to recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea, was praised by the Kremlin.

During a 2024 X Spaces event with GOP senators, Musk said he thought there was "no way in hell" Putin would lose the war in Ukraine.

"This spending does not help Ukraine. Prolonging the war does not help Ukraine," Musk said in February 2024 while calling for the US to stop funding Ukraine.

On Sunday, Musk said he was "sickened" by "years of slaughter in a stalemate that Ukraine will inevitably lose."

"Anyone who really cares, really thinks and really understands wants the meat grinder to stop," Musk wrote on X.

Last week, the Trump administration paused all military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

"The President has been clear that he is focused on peace. We need our partners to be committed to that goal as well. We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution," a White House official said in a written statement to Business Insider.

Musk and the State Department did not respond to requests for comment from BI.

• Palmer Luckey's startup Anduril scored a $642 million deal for anti-drone tech in Marine Corps bases.
• The 10-year contract is meant to help fight smaller drones like the exploding ones in Ukraine.
• The Defense Department said Anduril was chosen out of 10 total bids.

Defense startup Anduril clinched a $642 million contract on Friday to help the US Marine Corps fight smaller drones at its bases.

Anduril's new deal is for the Marine Corps Installation-Counter small Unmanned Aircraft Systems program, which is essentially a network of anti-drone defenses for bases and facilities.

The announcement comes after Anduril scored a separate five-year $200 million agreement in November to bring counter-drone tech to the Marine Air Defense Integrated System. This mobile air defense system can be mounted on vehicles like Humvees.

Like with the MADIS, Anduril's offering for this new contract is to fight smaller drones, which the US military classifies as Group 1 and Group 2.

Such drones are typically no heavier than 55 pounds and fly at a maximum altitude of about 3,500 feet, like the exploding commercial drones used in the war in Ukraine.

When the Corps first opened its contract in April 2024, it warned of a "security capability gap" for dealing with these smaller drones at its bases.

"The sUAS threat poses unique challenges to military installations when compared to those of operational forces," the Corps wrote.

The Defense Department said on Friday that 10 companies had submitted proposals for the contract, but did not name them.

With Anduril scoring the deal, the department said that 80% of the work until 2035 would be done in Costa Mesa, California, home to Anduril's headquarters. The rest is expected to be performed in Washington, D.C., and other Marine Corps facilities.

The announcement did not specify what type of product or how many systems Anduril will deliver.

Press teams for Anduril and the Marine Corps did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider outside regular business hours.

One of Anduril's main offerings for fighting smaller drones, Anvil, features a quadcopter that flies out from a portable storage box to track and crash into enemy systems. It can also be fitted with explosives to attack bigger targets.

Additionally, the company sells electronic warfare jammers called Pulsar, which it's already providing to the Pentagon as part of a $250 million deal from October.

Anduril, founded in 2017 by Oculus creator Palmer Luckey, has become a rising star in the defense industry as it emphasizes ready-made designs that can be produced at scale. In that sense, it hopes to reuse the same design to bid for multiple contracts instead of creating each one specifically for a single deal.

The firm is also working with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and runs its products on an AI software called Lattice to survey the battlefield and identify threats.

One of its biggest scores so far is a $22 billion contract with the US Army to provide soldiers with mixed-reality goggles. The contract was originally awarded to Microsoft but later ceded to Anduril.

The firm hopes to expand quickly. In August, Anduril raised $1.5 billion to build a 5 million-square-foot factory in Ohio that it said would "hyperscale" production.

• Canada's ruling Liberal Party elected Mark Carney to replace Justin Trudeau on Sunday.
• The Harvard graduate and former Goldman Sachs banker previously headed two central banks.
• Carney is used to attacks, having led the Bank of England during the height of Brexit negotiations.

Mark Carney, a former Goldman Sachs banker and the former governor of Canada's and England's central banks, is set to become Canada's prime minister, just as the country faces a fresh wave of uncertainty over tariffs.

He was elected leader of Canada's ruling Liberal Party on Sunday. He replaces Justin Trudeau, who said he would step down as party leader in January.

In the war of words over tariffs, US President Donald Trump called Trudeau "Governor Trudeau." Shortly before he took office in January, Trump said he'd used "economic force" to annex Canada.

While Carney has never held political office before, he is no stranger to political attacks and trash talk. He was governor of the Bank of England while the UK negotiated Brexit, amid a tense national atmosphere.

In 2018, Carney was criticized by pro-Brexit politicians after he warned that leaving the EU without a deal with the bloc could decimate the British economy. One member of parliament called Carney a "second-tier Canadian politician who failed to get on in Canadian politics and then got a job in the UK."

Carney, 59, is expected to be sworn in as prime minister in the coming days. He will then have to lead his party into a federal election, which must happen by October.

In the meantime, the country will have to navigate Trump's 25% tariffs, which he imposed on March 4 but delayed until April 2.

The tariff turnaround, combined with Trump's comments, has ignited a defensive fervor in Canada.

Carney referred to Canada's relationship with the US during his victory speech on Sunday.

"I know that these are dark days. Dark days brought on by a country we can no longer trust," he said.

Carney's financial sector background

Carney has a deep history in the financial sector.

He was born in Fort Smith, in the Northwest Territories, and graduated from Harvard, where he played ice hockey. He spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs, working at the investment bank's offices in London, Tokyo, New York, and Toronto.

Carney led two central banks at pivotal moments.

After leaving Goldman Sachs in 2003, Carney served as deputy governor of the Bank of Canada. He was made governor in 2008, at the start of the global financial crisis.

He was then the first non-British governor of the Bank of England from 2013 through 2020, where he guided the bank's response to Brexit.

Since leaving the Bank of England, Carney has held a mix of commercial and international roles. He was appointed vice chair of Brookfield Asset Management in 2020 and was made chair after the division was spun out as a new company in 2022.

In 2021, Carney became a board member of Stripe, a digital payments company. He was named as the chair of Bloomberg's board in 2023.

That's in addition to his work with international organizations. In 2019, before he left the Bank of England, Carney was appointed UN special envoy on climate action and finance. In 2021, Carney launched the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, a global climate-finance coalition.

In January, Carney said while announcing his leadership bid for the Liberal Party that he had resigned from all his commercial and international roles.

Carney's response to Trump's tariffs

In his victory speech Sunday, Carney didn't hold back on Trump's tariff threats.

At times, he spoke as though he was facing off against the US president in the next election rather than his expected opponent, Pierre Poilievre, the leader of Canada's Conservative Party.

Carney threatened to impose dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs that would have "maximum impact in the United States."

"My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect, and until they can join us in making credible and reliable commitments to free and fair trade," Carney said.

He also didn't hold back on Trump during his speech.

"Trump, as we know, has put, as the prime minister just said, unjustified tariffs on what we build, on what we sell, on how we make a living," Carney said. "He's attacking Canadian families, workers, and businesses, and we cannot let him succeed, and we won't."

• Kate Hudson, 45, says she isn't afraid to apologize to her kids whenever she's in the wrong.
• Instead of being combative with them, the "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" actor tries to acknowledge her shortcomings.
• There are several steps to making an effective apology, psychologists previously told BI.

Kate Hudson, 45, isn't afraid to admit to her kids when she's in the wrong.

During an appearance on Thursday's episode of the "Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce" podcast, Hudson spoke about being "conscious of" her own behavior while parenting her kids and learning how to apologize to them when she goes "too far."

The "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" actor recounted a recent incident when she butted heads with her son, Bingham, 13, after he refused to do something she had asked him to.

"And in that moment, I got triggered," Hudson told host Kylie Kelce. "It wasn't about him, it was about my own inability to resolve or walk away from the moment that was happening."

Instead, Hudson said she "became combative" with her teenage son.

"But it happens all the time as a parent. When you walk away from it, you can recognize where you might've created more of a problem than you did a lesson," Hudson said.

She said that admitting to her kids that she could've handled the situation better would have been more helpful in resolving the conflict.

Not only that, it would also be a better parenting model for her kids to emulate.

"Sometimes in conflict, you go too far, and you need to say you're sorry, instead of teaching them that you doubled down," Hudson said. "And what you find in going to your kids and saying, 'I could have handled this better' or 'I made a mistake' or 'I'm sorry I didn't trust you' — whatever the scenario — is that connection becomes stronger."

Knowing when to acknowledge her shortcomings has been a key part of her parenting journey.

"I think that's the biggest lesson for me, and now that I feel like a veteran mother. Been like doing it for 21 years," the "Running Point" star said.

Hudson welcomed her eldest son, Ryder, in 2004 with her ex-husband, Chris Robinson. In 2011, she gave birth to her second son, Bingham, whom she shares with ex-fiancé, Muse front man Matt Bellamy. She welcomed her daughter, Rani, in 2018, with her current fiancé, Danny Fujikawa.

Psychologists previously told Business Insider that there are several steps to making an effective apology. These include being accountable, putting a plan in place to rectify the mistake, and being sincere.

It is also important to avoid phrases like "I'm sorry if…" or "I'm sorry, but…" since they reduce the apologizing party's accountability, Leah Rockwell, a licensed counselor, previously told BI.

"By adding 'and' into an apology, you create an easy way to open and broaden the conversation rather than to close it," she said. "As soon as the word 'but' is present, you are operating from a place of defensiveness."

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