On Friday, the nationβs highest court heard arguments on whether to uphold or block a law that could effectively ban TikTokβ in the U.S. The bill, signed into law by President Biden in April 2024, gives TikTokβs parent company ByteDance until January 19 to divest its U.S. operations or face a ban in the country. [β¦]
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Three Russian citizens were charged with money laundering for their role in operating Blender.io and Sinbad.io crypto mixing services.
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Employers say AI and big data proficiency are now some of the most important skills for job seekers in the next few years, according to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report.
The sweeping survey found that employers believe various tech-related skills will grow in importance the fastest, while manual dexterity and reading will decline this year. This highlights the rapid workplace transformation happening across industries.
Over 1,000 employers representing more than 14 million employees worldwide were surveyed for the report, which previews the job landscape for 2025 to 2030.
AI and big data, networks and cybersecurity, and technological literacy ranked as the three skills growing the fastest in importance. The AI boom has not only transformed Silicon Valley but also reshaped once-mundane tasks across industries, from legal research to code writing.
A Google Cloud director previously told Business Insider that cybersecurity is one of the most broadly relevant skills, with industries from agriculture to financial services seeking professionals in the space. Yet demand isn't being met, he said, and the field is here to stay.
Survey respondents said they don't anticipate that tech skills alone will be in demand. Creative thinking and resilience ranked No. 4 and No. 5, respectively, on the list of skills growing the fastest in importance.
On the flip side, employers surveyed said they believe manual dexterity, endurance, and precision will decrease in importance. Reading, writing, and mathematics also saw a small dip among respondents. Overall, employees globally can expect that nearly 40% of their current skills will drastically change or become irrelevant by 2030, according to the survey.
Compared to the World Economic Forum's previous reports, tech skills saw the biggest jump in projected importance, with AI spiking in anticipated value across almost all agencies. Though the tech industry has hit a hiring slump in recent years, tech and non-tech companies alike are eager to hire AI roles, BI previously reported.
The fastest-growing jobs in the next five years will likely be big data specialists and fintech engineers, while clerical and secretarial workers will continue to decline, according to the report. With job growth slowing and unemployed Americans staying out of work longer, economists previously told BI that 2025 will prove challenging for job hunters overall, especially those in white-collar industries.
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The start of the year is usually one of the busiest times for hiring as many companies have finalized their new budgets.
If you're brushing up on your interview skills right about now, BI spoke with several current and former recruiters for the traits they say always make a good first impression.
Here are the green flags they like to see in job candidates:
"Self-reflection, accountability, and confidence in themselves and their work," are green flags to Lauren Monroe, who leads the creative practice group at Aquent, a staffing agency for creative, marketing, and design roles.
A personalized touch also helps. Monroe recalls one candidate who "studied the job description and prepared success stories and examples for every responsibility" to share in the interview. As the cherry on top, the candidate "created a fun animation using the company's logo and added it to their email signature" in their thank-you note.
Tessa White, a former head HR chief, is the CEO of The Job Doctor and author of "The Unspoken Truths for Career Success."
"When a candidate comes in and is clear on how they can help the company, and why they are a fit, it's refreshing," she says. "I often tell people, if you don't know what your value proposition is, I guarantee you the company won't know."
Kyle Samuels, who leads executive search agency Creative Talent Endeavors after 20 years in senior-level executive recruiting, looks for candidates with "a history of coaching and mentoring others" because this shows they "want the organization as a whole to operate at a high level."
Amri Celeste, a recruitment manager and interview coach, watches for applicants who show passion and enthusiasm for the job.
"When a candidate is particularly enthusiastic or excited about a role, the hiring manager will often be enthusiastic and excited about the candidate," she says. "It's one of the most common pieces of positive feedback I receive from managers about candidates."
Having prepared "clear examples of any achievements and duties mentioned on a rΓ©sumΓ©" ticks off another box on the candidate checklist, she adds.
Marissa Morrison, VP of people at ZipRecruiter, says well-thought-out questions reflect "interest, enthusiasm, and a deeper understanding of the position."
"For example, asking about how they'd be expected to use AI or a certain new technology in the role in a job interview can be a way to demonstrate that you're up to date with current trends and willing to embrace new technologies to creatively solve problems, drive value, and support your work," she says.
"Having a positive attitude, showing enthusiasm for the role, and being engaged during your interview can help set you apart from the competition," Amy Garefis, chief people officer at ZipRecruiter. "In my experience, it is often the tiebreaker for me between candidates with similar skills or professional experience."
Using LEDs has the potential to bring down the cost of biomanufacturing, allowing such processes to make materials that previously would have been too expensive.Β
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Smart ring maker Ultrahuman took the wraps off a trio of extra shiny high-tech trinkets at CES 2025 on Tuesday, adding a premium jewelry collection to its range of wellness wearables. Itβs given the Ring line the brand name Rare, a neat verbal echo of the companyβs mainstream smart ring, the Ring Air. The Indian [β¦]
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Amazon announced a partnership with Kidde at CES 2025 on Monday that brings its Ring technology to the home safety stalwartβs smoke alarms. There will be multiple versions of the hybrid smoke and CO2 detectors, ranging in price from $55 to $75. As a longtime owner of a Nest Protect, I can confidently say that [β¦]
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For as common an interview question as it is, it can still trip up a lot of job candidates.
"Tell me about yourself."
One of recruiters' favorite questions, the simple prompt can be daunting because many candidates may try to squeeze too much of their professional experience and qualifications into their answers.
Thomas Caleel, former director of MBA admissions and financial aid at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, told Business Insider there is an effective approach to framing your answer to the question in both an academic or job interview context.
"Being able to clarify a question and re-frame it in a way that is respectful to the interviewer and shows that you can think and act under pressure, is, to me at least, a valuable skill in both the academic and corporate worlds," Caleel told BI.
Caleel talked more about the open-ended question on a recent episode of his "Admittedly" podcast.
"Most people when you ask them tell me about yourself, they will start to talk, and they will ramble and ramble and ramble," he said. "What happens is you lose your interviewer, like 30 seconds into that interview response, the interviewer's eyes glaze over, they kind of look at you and they're like, 'Oh my gosh.'"
So how exactly should you tackle the question?
Caleel recommends breaking your answer down into parts and posing a question back to the interviewer.
"What I say to do and what I think you should do instead is say 'Love to tell you about myself. There are three main areas that I'm involved in: academics, extracurricular activities, and sports (or volunteering.) Which one would you like to start with first?'" he told the podcast.
Compared to the common mistake candidates make of talking at their interviewer, this approach gets the interviewer's attention by making them "an active participant" in the conversation, Caleel said.
"By involving the interviewer in the conversation, you draw them in, you invest them in your answers instead of boring them with just a torrent of words," he added.
As a former admissions director, Caleel's advice is geared toward students applying to colleges β job candidates probably won't be talking much about academics or extracurriculars. However, for those applying to jobs, you might use as categories leadership, teamwork, and directly relevant experience, he told BI.
Regardless of the type of interview, his key point is "to try to engage the interviewer and set a more dynamic tone," he added.
Career experts also suggest highlighting some career accomplishments and focusing on the parallels and transferrable skills between your past experience and the position at stake when answering "Tell me about yourself." They say to try not to spend too long on this one question and aim to cap your response at around a minute.
"In my experience, candidates who can think on their feet, who are not cowed by the process and can remain genuine and engaged with the interviewer, usually fare well," Caleel told BI.
Best known for its Qooba cat pillow, Yukai Engineering has made a name for itself with some of the strangest little robots around. Who could forget, for example, Amagami Ham Ham, whose sole purpose is to gnaw on fingers, offering a βsomewhat pleasing sensation.β At CES 2025, Yukai unveiled its latest, Mirumi, and it follows [β¦]
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has strong words for the former board members who abruptly fired him late last November. β[A]ll those people that I feel, like, really fβed me and fβed the company were gone, and now I had to clean up their mess,β he told Bloomberg in a wide-ranging interview. Just over a year [β¦]
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There is rarely time to write about every cool science paper that comes our way; many worthy candidates sadly fall through the cracks over the course of the year. But as 2024 comes to a close, we've gathered ten of our favorite such papers at the intersection of science and culture as a special treat, covering a broad range of topics: from reenacting Bronze Age spear combat and applying network theory to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, to Spider-Man inspired web-slinging tech and a mathematical connection between a turbulent phase transition and your morning cup of coffee. Enjoy!
An experiment with experienced fighters who spar freely using different styles.
Credit:
Valerio Gentile/CC BY
The European Bronze Age saw the rise of institutionalized warfare, evidenced by the many spearheads and similar weaponry archaeologists have unearthed. But how might these artifacts be used in actual combat? Dutch researchers decided to find out by constructing replicas of Bronze Age shields and spears and using them in realistic combat scenarios. They described their findings in an October paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
There have been a couple of prior experimental studies on bronze spears, but per Valerio Gentile (now at the University of Gottingen) and coauthors, practical research to date has been quite narrow in scope, focusing on throwing weapons against static shields. Coauthors C.J. van Dijk of the National Military Museum in the Netherlands and independent researcher O. Ter Mors each had more than a decade of experience teaching traditional martial arts, specializing in medieval polearms and one-handed weapons. So they were ideal candidates for testing the replica spears and shields.
Β© APS/Carin Cain
Getty Images
Anxiety and OCD had been manipulating my life like puppet masters for almost two years when my occupational therapist recommended trying decluttering to help ease my symptoms. At that point, though I'd noticed some improvements from a year in therapy, I'd also been struggling with a few health conditions, including long COVID, and felt like I was trudging along.
Over time, I'd become afraid of leaving my own home as I was petrified of getting sick again. My life often felt meaningless and unrecognizable. I couldn't see how getting rid of some belongings could help. Despite my skepticism, I was desperate to feel like myself again. I yearned for my home to no longer resemble an obstacle course.
My apartment was already cluttered and stressing me out, and then my mom moved; everything I had stored in her garage was suddenly in my living room. My son and I had to create pathways among the boxes to move from one room to another.
"You're repeatedly having to step over your past β you're being reminded of it every day," my occupational therapist said. He had summarized in one sentence exactly why I'd been unable to move forwards. I started decluttering immediately after that appointment.
I looked for a system to help me along the way. The KonMari method caught my eye first, but my sentimental nature decided that everything sparked joy β even a bag of rocks. I'd spent decades giving objects the same sentimental value as the memories they represented, and now, it was hard to get rid of them.
The four-box method β sorting items into boxes labeled keep, donate/sell, storage, and trash β also didn't work for me. When indecisiveness caused by my anxiety took over, almost everything ended up in the storage box, which I basically saw as a "maybe" box. All I ended up doing was pushing it around the apartment. I worried I might regret getting rid of something, so I decided it was safest to get rid of nothing.
However, through working with my occupational therapist, I realized guilt played a part in my holding onto some things β as though getting rid of an item would also mean getting rid of that memory. So, I took a deep breath and prepared to be ruthless.
The next method involved deciding what to keep instead of what to get rid of. This mindset shift made the decluttering process more enjoyable; it was easier to focus on items I treasured than those I would get rid of, even if the end goal was the same. Inspired by decluttering blogs, I also considered whether I would buy the item now if I didn't already own it to help me decide how much I wanted anything I wasn't sure about.
Whenever I struggled with indecisiveness (which was often), I remembered that my home should β and could β be a place where I relax, rather than a cluster of clutter and unmade decisions.
With each carload donated to charity, the stress began to leave my body. The catharsis of releasing my grip on each box as I handed it over gave me the calmness and clarity I craved. I was giving myself permission to move on β permission to stop letting my past rule my present and future.
I hadn't been prepared for when OCD tried to control the situation, though. After a few weeks, I began to feel on edge if I didn't declutter a certain amount of items each day. When I realized what was happening, I forced myself not to declutter for a few days, so I could calm the OCD and return with the right mindset.
A few months into the process, as I continued to declutter my apartment, my sleep improved, and my energy levels increased. I experienced fewer anxious thoughts, and when they did occur, I had the energy to rationalize most of them.
I was untangling myself from the burdens of my past as I removed their physical manifestations from my apartment, freeing up the space in my home so I could finally relax, and giving myself something to focus on other than my spiraling thoughts.
Although I don't believe decluttering opened up a magic portal to my recovery, I have no doubt it helped tremendously. I managed to declutter most of my belongings in what felt like an act of liberation. I've only kept things that I either need or treasure.
My home isn't picture-perfect, and neither is my mental health. But I'm happy. It took me 21 months to finish decluttering my home β I had to pace myself as I couldn't do it every day, or for hours at a time. I finished completely about nine months ago. And in the time since I first started, I've gone from having severe anxiety and being incapable of leaving my home without prior planning, to living a life I can honestly say I adore.
By working with my therapist, reading self-help books, decluttering, going for daily walks, meditating, journaling, and rediscovering the things that bring me joy, the symptoms caused by my anxiety have lessened. I also received support from loved ones, improved my food choices, and developed a morning routine that gives me a feeling of purpose again.
Although anxiety and OCD are still unpaying tenants in my mind, they don't have the level of control they did before. By getting rid of the things that brought me anxiety, I've created space for the things that bring me joy.
My home and mind are no longer caverns of chaos.
Anna P. Jay
The holiday season is in full swing, which means engagement season is, too.
And as the first proposals of the year roll in, we'll get a peek at the engagement rings that will be big in the coming months.
Business Insider spoke to private jeweler and jewelry store owner Anna P. Jay about the engagement ring trends that will be everywhere in 2025.
Anna P. Jay
Jay told BI that elongated-shaped stones, including emerald, oval, pear, and marquise-shaped, are becoming more popular.
"Elongated shapes are great because they visually trick the eye into appearing larger," Jay told BI of their appeal.
"I've started to do a lot of pear engagement rings all of a sudden. They're kind of the next step from oval," she said. "And then I think marquise is going to follow."
Recent celebrity engagement rings match Jay's predictions. For instance, in December 2024, Benny BlancoΒ proposed to Selena GomezΒ with a marquise diamond.
Anna P. Jay
Diamonds will always be popular for engagement rings, but other stones are also becoming go-to's, Jay told BI.
"People are not shying away from diamonds, but I think that we're starting to see more color," Jay said.
Sapphires, rubies, and emeralds are often popular for colorful engagement rings because they're durable. Jay said people are getting more creative with their tinted stones, too, particularly with toi-et-moi rings.
"Over the summer, I did a toi-et-moi where I said, 'Bring me a color that you like,' and we matched the stone, which ended up being a tourmaline, to the color of eelgrass for a client."
"We're allowing ourselves a little bit more creativity, a little bit more flexibility to get the look that we want using colored stones," she added.
Anna P. Jay
"The 80s are back in a very big way," Jay said, which she said means many people are opting for "bigger and chunkier" bands.
Thicker bands are as stylish as they are practical. They are typically more stable than the thin bands popular in 2023 and 2024.
"The conversation I have with my clients is like, 'You're going to wear this for the rest of your life. While we love a dainty band now, it's going to be a headache long term,'" Jay said, adding that making a band even slightly thicker can be beneficial.
"If we can add tenths of millimeters, you're visually not going to be able to tell a difference, but structurally, it's going to be much more sound," she told BI.
Anna P. Jay
Yellow gold has become common for many people's engagement bands, but Jay anticipates white gold and silver will be on the rise in the coming year.
"I think it's going to take two or three more years, but I think we are edging toward more white and silver," Jay said. "Gold is becomingβ¦expensive."
She added that the increase in the cost of gold had led people to wear sterling silver for day-to-day jewelry, making it more likely to select a white gold, platinum, or silver band for their engagement rings to match.
Anna P. Jay
Jay told BI that she's still seeing people embrace small details in their engagement rings, like hidden halos or personalized engravings.
"One of my favorite things to do is birthstones in a band," Jay said, often "discreetly" tucking a couple's birthstones into the setting.
She also told BI that these details are becoming more popular because couples design parts of their custom rings together, and the details allow the proposer to still give their partner an element of surprise in the ring.
"We're involving our partners more in this process," she said. "Maybe we talk about the shape of the stone, but they're not aware of how it's going to be set, when it's happening, or the budget."
Anna P. Jay
Jay also told BI that people will invest their money into a center stone rather than selecting rings with multiple stones, which she said gives them the flexibility to reset the setting over time.
"If you ever did want to reset it, you could add side stones or put it in a chunkier setting or something like that," she said.
Jay told BI that it's also easier for people to stack other rings with theirΒ engagement and weddingΒ rings down the road when they're simpler.
"Consider making your wedding band just a gold or platinum solid band so that you do have that flexibility in the future to stack and play with and make it a little more fun and playful," she advised.
Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images
2024 was a bad year for luxury.
Many of the world's largest luxury companies saw their share prices decline this year as the market for high-end goods experienced a brutal slowdown.
"50 million luxury consumers have either opted out of the luxury goods market or been forced out of it in the last two years," Claudia D'Arpizio, who leads Bain's global luxury goods and fashion practice, wrote in a report last month.
"The negative environment predicted by many in the fashion industry this time a year ago has now materialized," a McKinsey report said earlier this year.
One chart β featuring some of the luxury's most notable companies β shows just how rough 2024 was through mid-December.
Only two companies β HermΓ¨s and Richemont, the parent company of Cartier and Van Cleef β managed to beat the STOXX Europe 600, an index that represents a mix of European stocks, this year.
Meanwhile, share prices for LVMH β the largest of the luxury conglomerates and owner of brands like Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior β and Burberry have fallen this year. (Prada and Moncler also slipped, though aren't pictured here.)
Kering, the company behind Balenciaga and Saint Laurent, fared the worst. Its stock price dropped more than 40% this year as its headline brand, Gucci, floundered.
While certain high-end lines suffered from specific pitfalls βΒ Burberry priced their goods too high, Gucci spread itself too thin β the economy at large was to blame for a number of luxury's troubles.
"Many are navigating a momentary crisis, driven by macroeconomic pressures and a polarized customer base," Claudia D'Arpizio, who leads Bain's global luxury goods and fashion practice, wrote in a report.
An economic crisis in China, where real estate sales slumped and unemployment rose, meant a consistent group of luxury shoppers reined in their spending. In America, inflation squeezed the aspirational shoppers who had rushed to buy expensive goods during the post-pandemic spending boom. And in Europe, political uncertainty led consumers to hold off on big purchases.
2025 may be brighter for high-end companies, however.
HSBC analysts wrote in a December note that they believe the third quarter will be the "trough for the sector." Meantime, EMARKETER, a sister company to Business Insider, predicts that personal luxury retail sales will grow 4.1% next year βΒ up from a low of 3.2% this year.
imaginima/Getty Images
The end of the year is a great time to do some decluttering. However, it can be difficult to decide what should stay and what should go.
To make things easier, Business Insider asked professional organizers about the best things to get rid of before the new year. Here's what they said.
Boogich/Getty Images
The end of the year is a great time to toss expired items, from food and beverages to old beauty products.
Ashley Coleman, founder of home organization company Done Neatly, told BI that starting with bathroom products is a great way to jump-start your decluttering journey.
She also said to go through your kitchen cupboards and pantry for expired canned goods and toss what can't be kept.
GMVozd/Getty Images
Styles and preferences naturally change throughout the year, so December can be a good time to get rid of old holiday decor, broken ornaments, and other items that have remained in your holiday-decoration bins and boxes.
Nikki Bell, founder of Just Us Organizing, suggests taking note of what items you didn't decorate with this holiday season and getting rid of them.
Tahir YILDIZ/Getty Images
Bell said December is a good time to go through kids' toys and clothes since they are likely to receive an influx of new items at the end of the year.
She said it's a good idea to get rid of these items while kids are enamored by their new gifts and will likely have an easier time parting with some of their old things.
Jason Finn/Shutterstock
As the year draws to a close, the experts suggest going through your closets and looking for outdated, worn clothing.
Bell said it can be freeing to get rid of the sizes that no longer fit or feel good to wear.
Jamie Hord, cofounder of Horderly, said getting rid of one item for every new item you bring into the home is a good way to maintain order when accumulating new clothes throughout the holiday season.
Trudie Davidson/Getty Images
Coleman told BI it's important to look in your kitchen drawers and get rid of items that you don't use or have multiples of.
She said it's easy to develop a small stockpile of niche kitchen gadgets, but you shouldn't hold onto items "just in case" you may need them later.
Bell also said to purge old kitchen tools that have been replaced by newer ones.
tomeqs/Shutterstock
Having a stash of empty boxes in the house is an easy way to collect dust.
Bell said unless someone is actively using the box to store their item or moving within the next few months, unused boxes from small appliances take up too much space in a room.
Mint Images/Getty Images
Nostalgic items are hard to part with, but all three organizers emphasized the importance of scaling down your collection to only the most beloved items.
After all, a collection of old concert t-shirts or sports trophies can take up a lot of space in the closet, basement, or garage.
In addition to these mementos, Bell said to look through your trinkets and gifts from friends and relatives. After taking a closer look, you might just find some of the items aren't as sentimental as you thought they would be when you first received them.
"I try to keep one thing a year. And that makes that thing even more special and important to me," she told BI.
EschCollection/Getty Images
Ghost jobs. Coffee badging. Quiet firing. Quiet vacationing.
The buzziest workplace trends this year didn't just become well-known tropes but also highlighted an ongoing power struggle between workers and bosses after the pandemic shook up the way people do their jobs.
The year's biggest movements reflect "shifts in work models, technological integration, and employee expectations," says Lauren Winans, CEO and HR consultant at Next Level Benefits.
While some of these are by no means new fads, they all featured prominently in the discourse around work this year. Here are the trends that dominated the cultural conversation in 2024:
Ghost jobs are nothing new but got a lot of attention this year.
These are roles which employers claim to be looking to fill even though they may not actually be hiring for such positions.
Employers may list ghost jobs for a few reasons. They might want to suggest they're doing well and growing; they could be trying to ready a talent pool for actual positions opening in the future; or they may want to imply to overworked employees that they'll get some additional help soon.
This one pretty much explains itself, but just in case: When employees go on vacation without using any time off or telling their bosses, they're said to be quiet vacationing.
Vasil Dimitrov/Getty Images
Return-to-office mandates continued rolling out at big firms this year. Amazon, one of the country's biggest employers, became one of the highest-profile companies to announce a full 5-day-a-week return to the office. (Its implementation has been delayed for some employees though, due to a lack of space.)
As employers tightened the reins on remote work, some employees started carving out a new working arrangement under the table.
Enter the hushed hybrid schedule, in which employees skirt RTO mandates by getting their manager's approval to continue working from home on days they're technically required to be in the office.
Managers, for their part, might agree to do this to keep their employees happy (or to keep them, period). They also probably have a more personal connection with the workers affected by a mandate than the executives enforcing it. And of course, managers who are themselves opposed to RTO plans might also cut employees some slack out of sympathy.
Another method of evading RTO is coffee badging β though it still technically requires that an employee return to the office.
The practice involves going to work to swipe your badge so your attendance is logged. But instead of spending the rest of the workday there, you kill some time by grabbing a coffee, or showing face with a quick lap around the office, before returning home to do most of your actual work there.
kotijelly / Getty Images
Performance improvement plans, or PIPs, usually consist of a series of goals set for an employee to improve in areas where a boss says they're underperforming. If they're not completed in the allotted time, usually a few months or less, the employee will face termination.
PIPs are certainly not unique this year but statistically have been more frequently issued in recent years. They got renewed attention in 2024 as part of the discussion around ways employers trim headcount unannounced.
Yes, these are all somehow different things.
Between RTO mandates and PIPs, "quiet firing," which gained a lot of buzz in recent years, stayed in the spotlight in 2024. It refers to a boss or employer's unspoken attempt to encourage employees to quit by making the role more uncomfortable, as opposed to facing the monetary and reputational costs associated with explicitly laying them off.
Related phrases include "silent layoffs," which refers to giving employees severance packages but asking them to be discreet about their exiting the firm.
There's also "stealth sackings," coined by the Financial Times to describe firing employees over minor offenses. The newspaper cited Meta's dismissal of two dozen staff for using $25 GrubHub meal credits to buy non-food items as an example, and EY's firing of dozens of staffers for watching multiple online training courses simultaneously.
There were also other trends that, though they lack flashy names, also shaped how we worked in 2024.
The main one, of course, was the growing adoption of AI in the workplace, the "standout trend" of the year, according to Amy Schabacker Dufrane, CEO of the Human Resource Certification Institute and the Human Resource Standards Institute.
Chen
Winans says other trends included an emphasis on upskilling and reskilling to keep up with technological advancements and changing job requirements, as well asΒ increased labor organizing efforts.
Next year, the integration of AI at work will no doubt continue.
"Employees expect training and transparency about AI's role, while employers navigate concerns about job security and ethics," says Dufrane.
Other themes to watch include an emphasis on skills-based hiring and employee wellness programs, as well as ongoing changes to companies' ESG and DEI strategies.
Employee engagement in the US hitting an 11-year low in 2024, coupled with the possibility it may be easier to change jobs in 2025 mean that revenge quitting may also be the next big thing in workplace trends come next year, according to a Glassdoor report.
The phrase refers to dissatisfied employees being vocal with their discontent and resigning, often with little or no notice, knowing it could negatively impact their employer.
Heading into 2025, "monitoring employee satisfaction will be more important than ever," says Dufrane.
"We may see an increase in trends like bare-minimum attendance or revenge quitting as return-to-work mandates require employees to be on-site more than the post-COVID norm," she adds. "Prioritizing open communication, as well as autonomy, fairness, and a high-trust environment, will be critical for organizations to succeed."
iStock; Rebecca Zisser/BI
One of the most intriguing hedge-fund personnel moves in 2024 came late in the year. It wasn't a superstar portfolio manager or another big bank executive migrating to the buy side.
It was someone with barely any media profile at all: Matthew Giannini, a senior leader in Citadel's business-development unit whom Walleye Capital hired in October as chief operating officer of its long-short equities business.
The move from the industry's $66 billion killer whale to a much smaller fish surprised several industry insiders Business Insider spoke with at the time, underscoring the continued demand for the niche role of vetting and wooing investment professionals.
BI wrote in May about the evolution of the "business development" role, which has grown into a coveted specialty amid the boom in multimanager hedge funds. These firms, prized by investors for robust returns uncorrelated with the stock market, have added $200 billion in assets since 2019. Hiring has followed suit β head count since then soared by 90% at multimanagers compared with just 6% at other hedge funds β provoking a talent war that has been one of the industry's defining themes and challenges over the past few years.
Though total assets managed by these firms declined in 2024 for the first time in seven years (some investors pulled money amid growing costs paired with lackluster returns in 2023), "the war for talent appears to be continuing unabated," Goldman Sachs' prime-services team said in a September report on multimanager hedge funds. These roughly 50 firms added 2,400 employees over the previous year, Goldman found, a 15% increase.
Goldman Sachs Prime Services
Business development was no exception, with dozens of hires by top hedge funds in 2024, according to industry sources, LinkedIn bios, and publicly reported moves.
Millennium, the largest multimanager, with $72.1 billion in assets under management and more than 6,000 employees, hired at least 10 people in business development in 2024, BI found. Balyasny, which spent hundreds of millions of dollars hiring PMs this year, added at least six new BD executives to facilitate hiring, including three managing directors β most recently the commodities specialist David O'Connor, who joined in November from the external search firm Maven.
Citadel has been hiring as well, adding a handful of people to one of the most revered BD units in the industry. The hedge fund last year became the most profitable of all time, something its founder and CEO, Ken Griffin, attributed in part to an "unparalleled" ability to "recruit experienced professionals to Citadel" and "tremendous success attracting gifted graduates from the premier colleges and universities." Unsurprisingly, Griffin's talent whisperers are highly sought after.
Perhaps none has more gravitas than Giannini. Several industry professionals who know him say he's tall, charismatic, intelligent, and deft at winning over PMs β someone who provides an actual edge in an industry desperate for it. Giannini's leaving Balyasny in 2018 to rejoin Citadel contributed to a turf war between the funds.
"Matt is, if not the best, one of the best closers I've ever met," a BD professional told BI this year.
Leaving Citadel for Walleye may raise some eyebrows, but joining Walleye offers a potentially lucrative upside for Giannini compared with a typical BD role. Business group heads at these funds usually take home a cut of their unit's profits, and while Walleye struggled in 2023, it has been executing an overhaul that's bearing fruit. The fund was up by 15.4% through November, putting it near the top of its peer group for 2024.
He also joins some familiar faces at Walleye, including Thomas DeAngelis, an ex-Citadel BD leader who's now Walleye's president, and Anil Gondi, a longtime PM who joined from Balyasny this summer and will oversee the long-short equities division with Giannini. The two overlapped at Balyasny in the 2010s.
The hiring of Giannini and dozens of others at top funds in 2024 signals that the burning demand for investment talent, and those gifted in recruiting it, isn't likely to dim anytime soon.
"One clear theme from our conversations with multimanagers was that the 'war for talent' synonymous with this segment has not seen any material de-escalation in the last year," Goldman Sachs said in its report.
BI tracked business-development professionals who joined top funds in 2024, using industry sources, LinkedIn bios, and publicly reported moves. This list isn't exhaustive, and we may update it as we learn more.
| Firm | Name of hire | Previous firm |
| Balyasny | Nicole Amen | DRW |
| Balyasny | Daniel Anzalone | BlueCrest |
| Balyasny | Harry Case | Verition |
| Balyasny | David Matz | Smith Hanley |
| Balyasny | David O'Connor | Maven Search |
| Balyasny | Kelly Suter | IMC |
| BlueCrest | Josh Beals | Chi-Rho Financial |
| Capstone Investment Advisors | Grace Guo | Goldman Sachs |
| Capstone Investment Advisors | Brian Hopkins | Hudson Bay |
| Citadel | Trystan Davies-Tommason | The Omerta Group |
| Citadel | Donata Leonova | Millennium |
| Citadel | Olivia Rees | Goldsmith & Co |
| Citadel | Hannah Rosenthal | |
| Citadel | Michelle Tsang | Two Sigma |
| Eisler | Ruvhen Chinaire | The Omerta Group |
| Eisler | Chris Harnett | Citadel |
| Freestone Grove | Christopher Aldaco | D.E. Shaw |
| Freestone Grove | Brittany Lynch | Schonfeld |
| Graham Capital | Danielle Greenberg | Maven Investment Partners |
| Hudson Bay | Chris Padfield | Citadel |
| LMR Partners | Melissa Bosem | Millennium |
| Millennium | Maureen Chang | Point72 |
| Millennium | Derek Chiang | Selby Jennings |
| Millennium | Sarka Dillingerova | Execuzen |
| Millennium | Katie Gordon | Cybernetic Search |
| Millennium | Brian Kimmel | Citadel |
| Millennium | Lauren Kraus | Garda Capital |
| Millennium | Terence Lee | Blackstone |
| Millennium | Steven Rosen | Morgan Stanley Investment Management |
| Millennium | Natalia Skrzeczkowska | Dartmouth Partners |
| Millennium | Stella Xuan | Tenere Capital |
| Paloma | Kristin Cohen | Walleye |
| Point72 | Joe Beach | Aksia |
| Point72 | Lauren Croucher | Dartmouth Partners |
| Point72 | Nicole Deng | UBS |
| Qube Research & Technologies | Caroline Kadhim | Brevan Howard |
| Taula Capital | Robert Featherstone | Citadel |
| Verition | Adam Donaldson | Marble Bar Asset Management |
| Verition | Stephanie Melendez | Schonfeld |
| Walleye Capital | Carling DiGiacomo | Citadel |
| Walleye Capital | Matthew Giannini | Citadel |
| Walleye Capital | Jen Pascal | Neuberger Berman |
| Walleye Capital | Maureen Reed | Goldman Sachs |
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Apple is reportedly working on bringing its facial recognition technology to home security.
The tech giant is developing a smart lock and doorbell that would allow residents to automatically open their home doors by scanning their faces, Bloomberg reported on Sunday.
The report said that Apple's doorbell system could work with existing third-party locks or the company could partner with one lock provider to sell a complete product. The technology is still in the early stages and could be released at the end of 2025 at the earliest, the report said.
Apple did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.
The smart lock adds to Apple's growing interest in the home devices market. Last month, Bloomberg reported that Apple is working on an artificial intelligence-powered, wall-mounted tablet. The iPad-like device could be voice-operated, serve as an intercom, and control home appliances. Earlier this year, Bloomberg also reported that the company is working on building home robots.
Not all these developments may come to life. This year, Apple scrapped its car project and stopped efforts to develop a subscription model for the iPhone.
The door device could give the company an opportunity for more cross-selling with its other home products and its existing lineup of devices, like the iPhone and Apple Watch.
It could also allow the iPhone maker to compete withΒ Google's NestΒ andΒ Amazon's Ring. These devices have doorbells with a motion sensor that activates the camera and records a video of the surrounding area.
Such a product could draw the company into new debates about balancing users' privacy rights and working with law enforcement. Through emergency requests, police departments have received videos from Ring without receiving consent from the owner.
Apple and its CEO, Tim Cook, are known for prioritizing user privacy. In 2016, Cook refused to cooperate with the US government to unlock an iPhone used by a shooter in a mass shooting and attempted bombing in San Bernardino, California.
