• Decisions, decisions.
• Billionaires and CEOs have to choose between Donald Trump's inauguration or the first day of Davos.
• Attending Trump's inauguration could mean scoring face time with the new president.

It's a scheduling conflict most of us will never know.

Some of the world's wealthiest and most powerful people are staring down a decision as the first major events of the billionaire social calendar this year overlap.

President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20 coincides with the first day of Davos, an annual gathering of the world's business and politics elite in Davos, Switzerland, held by the World Economic Forum.

Those invited to both must now decide: Do they miss potential face time with the incoming president and members of his inner circle or skip a day of networking with political leaders and business titans from around the globe?

Trump's swearing-in begins at noon ET on Monday.

The first item on the agenda at Davos, "First Impressions: Inauguration Day," starts at 3 p.m. local time Monday. (Davos is six hours ahead of Washington, DC.) Later on Monday, an awards ceremony begins at 6 p.m. Davos time, followed by an open forum and an opening concert, both at 6:30 p.m. Given the time difference, you couldn't possibly attend both Trump's inauguration and Davos day one in person — even with a private jet.

A slew of major US companies or their execs made $1 million donations to Trump's inauguration fund, including Meta, Amazon, Google, OpenAI, and Uber.

Making a donation and attending the inauguration could be savvy business moves. Trump was a vocal critic of Big Tech in his first term, so those firms and their execs could benefit from maneuvering to be in his good graces when he retakes the Oval Office.

Big donations to presidential inauguration funds typically come with exclusive perks, like seats for the inaugural address or entry to black-tie balls or other events.

Donors who gave $1 million to the fund were supposed to receive six tickets each to six different events, including Trump's swearing-in and a January 19 "candlelight dinner" with Trump and his wife, Melania, The New York Times reported. Some big donors, however, may no longer receive VIP tickets as some events have already reached capacity, the Times reported.

While it will become clear on Monday who opted to go to Washington, some CEOs are virtually guaranteed to attend Trump's inauguration.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been frequently spotted by Trump's side since the election and has lambasted Davos in the past.

Screenshots of invitations for a black-tie reception Monday night cohosted by Mark Zuckerberg also circulated on social media this week. The invite says that Zuckerberg will cohost the event with Miriam Adelson, the billionaire widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson; Tilman Fertitta, Trump's pick for US ambassador to Italy; and Chicago Cubs owner Todd Ricketts and his wife, Sylvie Légère.

For those who choose to attend the inauguration, they'll still be able to catch much of Davos. The annual event concludes on January 24.

• "Ghost jobs" are roles that employers list as open even though they're not actually trying to fill them.
• Employers may post them for various reasons, but they can waste applicants' time and sour them on the company.
• Here are some tips on how to sniff out these job listings.

We've all heard of being ghosted in the hiring process: You apply for a job and go through a few rounds of interviews, only for a prospective employer to disappear in the end.

But what about jobs that weren't actually there to begin with? So-called "ghost jobs" are roles that employers say they're actively hiring for when they're really not.

And they're a pain point for many job seekers: Between 18% and 22% of jobs listed on Greenhouse in any given quarter are considered ghost jobs, the hiring platform said in its 2024 State of Job Hunting report.

Employers may post bogus job listings for several reasons: They may be trying to give the appearance they're growing or trick overworked employees into thinking they'll get some relief soon. Or, companies may be trying to build their talent pool for real job openings in the future.

Regardless of the reason, there are some signs candidates can look for that suggest a position is likely just a ghost job. One big indicator is if a job post has been up for several months.

"If the job has been posted for 30 days or more, that's something that you could put in the back of your mind and say, 'Well, this posting's been open for a while and they haven't hired anybody yet. Maybe they're not in a hurry to hire,'" says FlexJobs lead career expert Toni Frana. "The sooner you can apply to a job in relation to when it was posted, the better."

If you saw the role advertised on a job site like LinkedIn or Indeed, double-check it's still posted and active on the company's own careers page.

When reading the job post, you want to see as much specificity as possible.

"Sometimes if job descriptions are vague and don't provide a lot of detail to explain what the role actually is, then it's possible that someone from the company may have quickly typed something up and posted it to see if candidates will apply and to see the quality of those candidates," said human resources administrator and former recruiter Jackie Cuevas. "So pay close attention to the actual quality of the job description — the more information, the better."

If you make it to an interview, ask about the timeline for filling the position, says Charnay Horton, a career coach and CEO of resume writing firm Resume Addict. 

You can say, "Can you tell me more about the interview process, and when the hiring manager is looking to make a decision?" or "Can you provide additional insight regarding why this opportunity is available?"

You could also consider asking, "How does this position contribute to departmental success?" to gauge how important the role is and how urgently it might need to be filled.

If your point of contact is dragging their feet throughout the process, it might be a sign they're not actively trying to fill the position.

"When employers are actively hiring, they move quickly, especially if you are qualified for the role," Horton said. "They want to get you in front of the hiring manager quickly so that they do not lose you mid-process. If you get a sense that the company is lagging with responses, they may not be serious about filling the role."

Ultimately, you want to "be as proactive as you can in your search," said Frana.

"It's not just about reading the job postings and applying," she said. "You can find out a lot of information on a company's website, on social pages like LinkedIn and Twitter, or if you just do a Google search of the company hiring and see what results you get. That is all information-gathering that can be really helpful for you as a candidate, and it's one of those action steps that helps job seekers focus on the things they can control in the process when so much of it is outside of their control."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

—Dave Stangis (@DaveStangis) December 16, 2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zuckerberg recently leveled some new insults against Apple.

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

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

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

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

• One of the biggest tech trade shows in the world just ended.
• CES 2025 brought us cool, zany tech demos, and lots of robots.
• The robots shown off highlight how companies are thinking about positioning the tech, including AI, in the home.

Cool, a little bizarre, and in some cases smack dab in the uncanny valley, more robots are on the way.

Techies in Las Vegas just got their best look yet at the robots various companies are building, thanks to the annual Consumer Electronics Show, one of the world's largest tech trade shows that wrapped up last week.

The robots offer a glimpse into how companies and startups are looking to bring tech like AI and autonomy into people's homes. The variety of designs also highlights the question of what kind of aesthetic potential buyers might gravitate toward.

Do you design a "cute" robot? Something that's strictly functional? Or do you aim for realism and risk some shoppers finding the design too lifelike or creepy?

We looked through the robots shown off at CES this year and rounded up those that stood out, either for their potential usefulness or eye-catching design.

A $175,000 companion robot with 'relationship-based AI'

If you're looking for companies going the "Bladerunner" route and targeting realism, look no further than Realbotix's human-like robots.

Realbotix offers robots designed to look like humans in three options: A bust starting at $10,000; a modular robot for $150,000; and a full-body version for $175,000.

The company boasts it can "replicate any human face with 14+ moveable points to create multiple life-like expressions," and that its robots' bodies can be customized. Comedian Whitney Cummings has previously talked onstage about her own lookalike robot from Realbotix.

If you're thinking some people will use the robots as an AI girlfriend or boyfriend, the robots appear to be leaning into the idea by advertising "relationship-based AI." A Realbotix robot named Aria said in a demo at CES that the robots are "designed specifically for companionship and intimacy."

The bot can have conversations thanks to AI and its eyes have cameras to identify who it's talking to.

An AI bot with kids in mind

One of the cutest robots to come out of CES this year is TV-maker TCL's Ai me (sounds like "Amy.")

It's definitely designed with children in mind, with big doe eyes that can blink, a childlike voice, wings that can flap, and interchangeable outfits. It sits in a cradle of sorts that gets around on wheels, but it can also be removed.

However, Ai me also has features that can appeal to adults, including integrations with smart home devices and your car, and AI image recognition to identify things it's shown.

The company says it's the "world's first modular AI companion robot." Ai me is just a concept for now, with no guarantee it'll ever come to market.

A robot vacuum with an arm

On the utilitarian side of the spectrum, robot vacuums also showed off some upgrades.

The Saros Z70 from Roborock uses AI to analyze its environment and has a foldable arm that can extend to move objects out of the way so it can clean your home and pick up light items like socks or small towels.

It's expected to hit the market in the first half of this year.

A robovac with legs

Robovacs aren't just getting arms. The X50 Ultra robot vacuum from Dreame has "legs."

The robot vacuum climbed a small ledge in a demo at CES, after a few hiccups at first. (It's still a long way from, say, climbing stairs in your home.)

It's available for preorder now, and launches February 14 at $1,699.99.

Samsung's Ballie is back

This isn't Ballie's first CES rodeo, but Samsung says it'll finally become available to consumers some time this year.

The ball-shaped robot, which Samsung brands as an AI companion robot for the home, gets around on wheels and first debuted at CES in 2020.

Samsung says Ballie's AI-powered abilities include answering phone calls, projecting movies onto your wall, and sending videos of what your pets are up to while you're away from home.

A fluffy bird-like robot

Think of Yukai Engineering's Mirumi as a robot version of a pom pom purse charm.

The fluffy robot accessory resembles a bird and can latch onto your arm or a handbag and interact with its surroundings.

When someone enters its field of vision, it shyly hides its face, for example.

Yukai Engineering says crowdfunding will start this fall for Mirumi.

Tesla and others are readying their own robots

Beyond those showcased at CES, other robots are in development at major tech companies.

Apple is rumored to be working on home robots. Amazon has its $1,600 Astro robot, which is still invite-only. And Tesla's Elon Musk wants to eventually launch humanoid robot Optimus to consumers in the coming years.

Whether or not shoppers are willing to splurge hundreds, and in many cases, thousands on an in-home robot is another question.

And while Nvidia didn't show off a robot of its own at CES, during his keynote at the trade show, CEO Jensen Huang announced the company's new AI superchip, the GB10, which is designed to power humanoid robots and other AI uses.

• Exhibiting red flags in a job interview can be an easy way to lose out on advancing to the next stage.
• But on the flip side, there are green flags that can help set you apart and boost your chances.
• We asked 6 recruiting professionals for the green flags they look for in candidates during job interviews.

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:

Demonstrating accountability

"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.

A clear pitch

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."

Mentoring others

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."

Enthusiasm for the job

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 résumé" ticks off another box on the candidate checklist, she adds.

Asking thoughtful questions

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.

An upbeat attitude

"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."

• Job cuts are continuing into 2025 following waves of reductions last year.
• Companies such as Meta, Microsoft, and BlackRock are conducting layoffs.
• See the list of companies letting workers go in 2025.

Layoffs and other workforce reductions are continuing in 2025, following two years of significant job cuts across tech, media, finance, manufacturing, and retail.

While companies' reasons for slimming their staff vary, the cost-cutting measures are coming amid a backdrop of technological change. In a recent World Economic Forum survey, some 41% of companies worldwide said they were expecting to reduce their workforces over the next five years because of the rise of artificial intelligence.

Companies such as Dropbox, Google, and IBM have previously announced job cuts related to AI. Tech jobs in big data, fintech, and AI are meanwhile expected to double by 2030, according to the WEF.

Here are the companies with job cuts planned or already underway in 2025 so far.

Meta

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently told staff he "decided to raise the bar on performance management" and will act quickly to "move out low-performers," according to an internal memo seen by BI.

In a post on the company's internal communications platform, he said Meta will make "more extensive performance-based cuts" in this year's performance review cycle. Impacted US employees will be notified on February 10, he wrote.

The company has laid off more than 21,000 workers since 2022.

BlackRock is cutting 1% of its workforce.

BlackRock told employees it was planning to cut about 200 people of its 21,000-strong workforce, according to Bloomberg.

The reductions are more than offset by some 3,750 workers who were added last year and another 2,000 expected to be added in 2025.

BlackRock's president, Rob Kapito, and its chief operating officer, Rob Goldstein, said the cuts would help realign the firm's resources with its strategy, Bloomberg reported.

Bridgewater has cut about 90 staff.

Bridgewater Associates cut 7% of its staff in January in an effort to stay lean, a person familiar with the matter told Business Insider.

The layoffs at the world's largest hedge fund bring its head count back to where it was in 2023, the person said.

The company's founder, Ray Dalio, said in a 2019 interview that about 30% of new employees were leaving the firm within 18 months.

The Washington Post is cutting 4% of its non-newsroom workforce.

The Washington Post is eliminating less than 100 employees in an effort to cut costs, Reuters reported in January.

A spokesperson told the wire service that the changes would occur across multiple areas of the business and indicated that the cuts wouldn't affect the newsroom.

"The Washington Post is continuing its transformation to meet the needs of the industry, build a more sustainable future and reach audiences where they are," the spokesperson said, according to Reuters.

Microsoft is planning an unspecified number of cuts.

Microsoft is planning job cuts soon, and the company is taking a harder look at underperforming employees as part of the reductions, according to two people familiar with the plans.

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed cuts but declined to share details on the number of employees being let go.

"At Microsoft we focus on high performance talent," the spokesperson said. "We are always working on helping people learn and grow. When people are not performing, we take the appropriate action."

Ally is cutting less than 5% of workers.

The digital-financial-services company Ally is laying off roughly 500 of its 11,000 employees, a spokesperson confirmed to BI.

"As we continue to right-size our company, we made the difficult decision to selectively reduce our workforce in some areas, while continuing to hire in our other areas of our business," the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson also said the company was offering severance, out-placement support, and the opportunity to apply for openings at Ally.

Ally made a similar level of cuts in October 2023, the Charlotte Observer reported.

Is your company conducting layoffs? Got a tip?

If you're an employee with a tip about coming job cuts, please contact Dominick via email or text/call/Signal at 646.768.4750. Responses will be kept confidential, and Business Insider strongly recommends using a personal email and a non-work device when reaching out.

• Meta announced Tuesday it's doing away with third-party fact-checking in favor of community notes.
• Several lawmakers told BI the move is an indication Mark Zuckerberg is catering to Trump.
• Some business leaders praised Meta for the change while others expressed concern.

Meta is carrying out the biggest overhaul to its content moderation system in years.

The company announced on Tuesday that it's replacing third-party fact-checking program with user-generated community notes, like those on Elon Musk's X, formerly Twitter.

In another page from Musk's playbook, Meta said it's moving some teams — specifically its trust and safety teams, responsible for writing the company's content policies and reviewing content — out of California into Texas and other locations in the US.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the decision was about getting "back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms."

Democrats: Zuckerberg's sucking up to Trump

Democratic lawmakers told BI at the US Capitol on Tuesday that they saw the move as a sign that Zuckerberg is trying to appease President-elect Donald Trump ahead of his return to the Oval Office.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said Zuckerberg was "kissing Trump's ass" in making the change.

"I think that Mark Zuckerberg is trying to follow in Elon's footsteps, which means that actually, they're going to use this guise of free speech to actually suppress critics of Trump and critics of themselves," Ocasio-Cortez said. "That's why they're moving to this system. It's a model for their own self-aggrandizement."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts told BI that Big Tech CEOs "want a government that works for them, and they're making clear that sucking up to Donald Trump is one of the ways they think they'll get that."

Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida said the change appeared to be symptomatic of authoritarianism.

"It's not just about the legislation they pass, or what they push, but it creates this environment of fear and self-censorship, and a place where companies will begin to do the things he wants them to do without him forcing them to do it," he said, referring to Trump.

"They're surrendering essentially to implied threats by the government, which is very dangerous," Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York said.

Trump himself told reporters Tuesday that he believed Zuckerberg's changes at Meta were "probably" in response to previous threats Trump has made to the Meta chief executive, including to jail him.

Republicans: A good sign, but we'll see

Republicans offered more mixed reactions to Zuckerberg's decision, with some expressing skepticism while others saw it as a win. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told reporters at the Capitol that what the Meta CEO said "sounds good" but that the "proof will be in the pudding."

He also said he saw Zuckerberg's move as the product of both political positioning and a sincere evolution in his thinking.

"I've had multiple conversations with Mark on this topic," Cruz said, "and I will say, he had previously expressed an interest in protecting free speech."

Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, meanwhile, called the decision a "ploy to avoid being regulated." For several years, she's been pushing a bill to increase social media protections for kids.

"Can any of us assume Zuckerberg won't return to his old tricks?" wrote Sen. Mike Lee of Utah on X.

Republican Rep. Randy Weber of Texas, meanwhile, wrote on X that it was "a great day for freedom of speech."

"It seems like Meta is finally taking a page from Elon Musk's playbook & letting Americans make decisions for themselves. It's about time Meta owned up to censoring Americans," he added.

Tech and business leaders react

In the tech and business world, some of Zuck's peers congratulated him and Meta on the move.

Musk said in separate tweets that the decision was "cool" and "awesome."

X CEO Linda Yaccarino called it "a smart move by Zuck."

"Fact-checking and moderation doesn't belong in the hands of a few select gatekeepers who can easily inject their bias into decisions. It's a democratic process that belongs in the hands of many," she wrote.

David Marcus, the former Meta exec in charge of the company's Libra cryptocurrency project, said the change marked a "massive step in the right direction towards free expression for Meta."

Other tech and business figures were more skeptical of the decision.

Yoel Roth, the former head of Twitter's trust and safety department, said, "Genuinely baffled by the unempirical assertion that Community Notes 'works.' Does it? How do Meta know? The best available research is pretty mixed on this point. And as they go all-in on an unproven concept, will Meta commit to publicly releasing data so people can actually study this?"

And in response to a message from Zuckerberg saying Meta will work with Trump to "push back against foreign governments going after American companies to censor more," Mark Cuban wrote on Bluesky: "Translation: Americans are going to see Tariffs on products from countries you believe censor Meta services as a means of pressuring them into removing any restrictions that impact your profitability in those countries. Also: You'll have carte blanche to take posts that no longer have restrictions, making them a more explicit representation, and train your AI Models."

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• CES, a massive tech trade show in the US, is in full swing this week.
• Product announcements and demos offer a look at how some companies are trying to use AI.
• Here's some of the AI news from CES that caught our eye.

CES 2025 technically hasn't even started, but the AI product announcements and demos are already piling up.

The biggest tech trade show in the US, formally known as the Consumer Electronics Show, kicks off Tuesday but has already led to news of AI integration in TVs, grills, and even bird feeders.

Not everything that companies talk about at CES eventually makes it to market, but these announcements show the array of AI applications companies are exploring after the technology's explosive growth in popularity in 2024.

Here are some of the biggest, coolest, and kookiest ones we've seen so far.

TVs

Samsung and LG are bringing Microsoft's Copilot AI assistant to some of their smart TVs.

Samsung's AI offerings include Click to Search, which can help identify an actor onscreen, and Live Translate, which provides subtitle translations in real time.

LG says its newest OLED TVs have AI-enabled features that tailor audio and visual settings to a user's preferences. AI also welcomes users by name, and an AI Voice ID feature can identify users' voices to switch between profiles and recommend what to watch.

LG says Copilot "further streamlines the process, allowing users to efficiently find and organize complex information using contextual cues."

Grills

This isn't your granddad's grill. The Zelos 450 electric wood pellet smoker from a startup called Brisk It uses generative AI (and WiFi connectivity) in the grilling process. Grillers can remotely adjust settings, get updates as their food cooks, and receive reminders about steps.

Bird feeders

Birding is getting high-tech with the Birdfy Feeder 2 Duo, which can capture avian visitors in slow-mo and high-res video. The accompanying app provides real-time notifications when a bird stops by and uses AI to help identify and catalog various species.

Vacuums

Roborock's Saros Z70 robot vacuum has an extendable arm that can help with housekeeping by picking up items and putting them back in their rightful place.

It can't pick up anything heavy and can help with only a few items, such as socks, but the company expects to add more items to the robot's visual inventory in the future.

Refrigerators

LG wants its newest smart fridges to not just tell you what food is inside but help you order more of what's not in them anymore.

Its new French Door refrigerator with ThinQ technology has a built-in AI camera designed to recognize food inside, suggest recipes based on what you have handy, and track expiration dates.

Samsung has a similar offering in its Bespoke refrigerators, partnering with Instacart on same-day grocery delivery for items it notices you're running low on.

Home security cameras

Kami says that its Fall Detect camera can identify falls with 99.5% accuracy by identifying patterns that could cause someone to trip and that it can detect falls even if a person's body is partially obscured from view.

It can send notifications to family members and caregivers or help with making an emergency call after a fall.

Monitors

Dell's new 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED monitor uses a camera under its display to track your head and adjust the placement of sounds coming out of its five speakers so they go straight to your ears.

• One of the most common job interview questions can also seem like one of the hardest to answer.
• The simply phrased "Tell me about yourself," can lead to sprawling answers.
• An ex-MBA admissions director shared a common mistake people make — and how they should answer instead.

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 — 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.

• Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, has a net worth of $160 billion.
• The billionaire and philanthropist plans to give away most of his wealth to his charity foundation.
• For now, he spends his wealth on luxuries, from his car collection to a vast real estate portfolio.

Bill Gates may be one of the 10 richest people on earth, but he doesn't plan to stay that way forever.

The billionaire philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft has pledged to give away most of his wealth to charity, which he says will bump him off the world's richest people list.

Gates' net worth is $160 billion, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index. He is one of only a handful of moguls to reach centibillionaire status.

He's also made some lavish purchases over the years: Gates owns a mansion in Medina, Washington; a private airplane; and a luxury car collection. These indulgences comprise only a fraction of his massive fortune.

Gates has also given money to charitable causes through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and vowed to give away most of his fortune through the Giving Pledge, which he and his ex-wife Melinda French Gates launched in 2010 along with Warren Buffett.

Here's a look at how Gates spends his billions.

Gates has an estimated net worth of $160 billion.

Gates long held the title as the world's richest person, up until 2018 when Jeff Bezos surpassed him.

Now, Gates is only the world's seventh-richest person and part of an exclusive club of centibillionaires — people worth over $100 billion.

Gates has invested in various stocks and assets and launched a $1 billion investment fund, Breakthrough Energy, alongside 20 other investors.

Despite his massive fortune, Gates previously told Ellen DeGeneres that when he became a billionaire at age 31 (which was history's youngest billionaire at the time), he didn't immediately start splurging. Gates' initial spending spree was limited to just two "crazy" purchases: a Porsche and a private jet.

Gates has splurged on some things, like his luxury car collection.

After founding Microsoft, Gates bought a Porsche 911 — his first big splurge, which he purchased in 1979, even before Microsoft's hit products like Windows and Word ever reached the market. Gates later sold the Porsche, and it was auctioned for $80,000.

Gates' car collection later included a Porsche 959.

Gates also owns a small fleet of private jets.

Gates invested heavily in his Washington estate called Xanadu 2.0.

Gates owns at least 12 parcels of land spanning about 10.5 acres in Medina. He purchased the land for a combined $34 million between 1988 and 2009. In 2023, the Gates' property taxes in Medina came to $1.3 million.

Gates' estate includes a 60-foot pool — in its own separate, 3,900-square-foot building — with an underwater sound system. He reportedly paid to import sand from St. Lucia in the Caribbean to the shore surrounding his house.

There's also a 2,100-square-foot library, home to a 16th-century Leonardo da Vinci manuscript that Gates bought at auction for $30 million in 1994. The home also features several famous paintings, including a Winslow Homer painting Gates purchased for $36 million in 1988.

The mansion has six kitchens, 24 bathrooms, a home theater, and various garages for his 23 cars.

Gates also has properties in Florida and Montana.

Aside from his Washington home, Gates has a 20-acre estate in Wellington, Florida. The estate includes at least two mansions, one 6,668 square feet, and the other 5,716 square feet. He bought the properties over three years for about $35 million.

Gates' daughter, Jennifer Gates Nassar, is an accomplished equestrian, and he bought the property to support her passion. It serves as the home base of her horseback riding facilities, and the area is a hot spot for many other wealthy equestrians as well.

He also purchased property at the Yellowstone Club in Montana. The main house is 6,993 square feet and has eight full baths, eight bedrooms, a sauna, and a home theater, according to property records.

Additionally, Gates is the biggest owner of private farmland in the country, with a whopping 275,000 acres. Gates has faced questions in the past about what he is doing with the land, and has downplayed concerns about the farmland, saying it's managed by his investment team and makes up only a small fraction of total US farmlands.

Gates has several properties in California, too.

In California, Gates owns the 228-acre Rancho Paseana, which he purchased for $18 million. When he bought it, the property had a racetrack, olive orchard, and five barns.

In 2020, he dropped $43 million on an oceanfront home in Del Mar with a 10-person Jacuzzi and 120 feet of Pacific coastline.

Gates also owns a 6-bedroom home on the grounds of Indian Wells' famous Vintage Club.

There's also another home on the grounds of a country club, Santaluz Club, in San Diego.

Some of the properties have likely been divvied up between Gates and French Gates following their divorce.

Gates has made numerous investments through his personal investment firm.

Using his personal investment firm, Cascade, Gates has made several investments, including partial ownership of the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In 2013, Gates and several unnamed buyers paid $161 million for the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco.

Gates takes luxurious vacations.

Gates never took weekends or vacations during the early days of Microsoft, and has said startup founders shouldn't, either. However, Gates made time for some splashy trips later in his career.

In 2014, he treated his family to a Mediterranean vacation on board the 439-foot superyacht Serene, which he chartered for $5 million a week. It included a helicopter.

He's also traveled to Australia, Croatia, Belize, and the Amazon in Brazil.

He previously said that he likes to play tennis and go skiing. He's also been spotted at tennis matches.

But Gates' downtime isn't always so adventurous. Gates loves books, and is an "avid bridge player," as he told Reddit in a 2013 AMA.

Gates is a well-known philanthropist.

Gates has sometimes said he has no use for money, and often speaks of his philanthropic giving and healthcare investments.

A grant from Gates and his then-wife Melinda led to the creation in 2003 of Amyris, a synthetic biology company that originally produced precursors to malaria drugs and hydrocarbon-based biofuel but also uses the technology for things like fragrances, skincare, and sweeteners. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023.

In November 2017, Gates invested $50 million into Alzheimer's research. In 2018, he invested another $30 million with a group of investors in the Diagnostics Accelerator, a "venture philanthropy" fund to diagnose Alzheimer's earlier.

Gates and his former wife also pledged about $2 billion to defeat malaria, donated over $50 million to fight Ebola, and pledged $38 million to a Japanese pharmaceutical company working to create a low-cost polio vaccine.

During the pandemic, their foundation announced a 5-year, $1.6 billion commitment to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to deliver vaccines in the world's poorest countries.

The Gates Foundation also funds education through its $1.6 billion initiative known as the Gates Millennium Scholars Program.

The foundation said it made $77.6 billion in grant payments from its inception through Q4 2023. Gates' total giving to the foundation during that time period totaled $59.5 billion.

Its 2024 budget is $8.6 billion, and the foundation is targeting a $9 billion yearly budget by 2026.

In the future, Gates has pledged to give most of his wealth away.

Gates is frequently named among the most generous philanthropists in the United States.

He has vowed to give away most of his fortune through the Giving Pledge, which he helped launch in 2010.

In July 2022, he reiterated that he plans to give virtually all his wealth to his and French Gates' foundation, saying that he'll eventually fall off the list of the world's richest figures.

• Meta and Mark Zuckerberg have a lot to celebrate as 2024 comes to a close.
• Meta's stock and Zuckerberg's fortune are both up significantly, and the company made headway on AI, hardware, and more.
• Here's a look back at the year for Meta and its chief executive.

Mark Zuckerberg was busy this year.

He allocated billions to keep Meta competitive in the AI race.

He worked to thaw out a frosty relationship with President-elect Donald Trump and likely caused Apple to sweat over Meta's flashy smart glasses demo.

And he debuted a new look that many on social media applauded as more relatable.

In short, as 2024 comes to a close, Zuckerberg and Meta have plenty of cause for celebration.

Meta's stock is up 66% year-to-date, and Zuckerberg is more than $84 billion richer today than he was at the start of this year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The company reported an earnings beat in every quarter (though some were followed by brief stock drops) and declared its first-ever dividend in February.

"From a bird's-eye view, all in all, it was a successful year for Meta," said Minda Smiley, a senior analyst at EMarketer, a sister company to Business Insider. "Despite the massive amounts of spending they've been doing, they were still able to have growth each quarter in their earnings."

Meta made headway on a number of products this year.

The company said in September that its Meta AI chatbot is on track to be the most-used AI assistant in the world by year's end. The company also announced new versions of its AI model Llama in April and has continued releasing improved models, including Llama 3.3, which came out earlier this month.

"Meta's sheer size paired with its AI capabilities have really been a boon for them this year," said Smiley. "Advertisers are already spending so much, they were even before the AI really took off, and this has only really supercharged that."

It was also a big year for the company's hardware business.

At the company's annual Meta Connect developer conference, it unveiled its Quest 3S mixed-reality headset. Meanwhile, Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses got AI features like the ability to help wearers remember things and translate speech in real time, and the company debuted a prototype of its first augmented-reality glasses, called Orion, at Connect, though they're not yet for sale.

The flashy Orion announcements signaled to developers and antsy investors where Meta's vast R&D spending on smart glasses was going. Wall Street was impressed; Meta's stock hit a record high coming off of Connect, though the record has since been broken again. Citi analysts called the newest Ray-Bans a "must buy." Jefferies analysts wrote that Connect left them "more bullish on Meta's consumer & enterprise AI opportunities."

"I still think there's a long way to go from the consumer adoption perspective and even just what they're actually doing with their technology, but they're certainly making strides and trying to really illustrate the real world use cases," said Smiley. But "regardless of what Meta does on their end, a lot of it is going to depend on if and when regular people are ready to use some of this."

Meta has faced some setbacks this year, though, largely in court and tied to past scandals.

After the Supreme Court denied Meta's appeal in November, the company will have to face a multibillion-dollar class-action lawsuit from investors alleging Meta misled shareholders regarding the Cambridge Analytica data-harvesting scandal. The company earlier this month agreed to a settlement of $50 million Australian dollars, or roughly $31 million US dollars, for Facebook users in Australia impacted by the scandal.

In the US, Meta will pay Texas $1.4 billion to settle claims the company unlawfully captured the biometric data of millions of the state's residents without their knowledge or consent through a tagging suggestions feature that rolled out in 2011.

An unapologetic Zuckerberg with swagger

Apart from Meta's success, it's also been a good year for Zuckerberg as the face of the company.

He helped sell out part of a stadium for a taping of a live podcast episode in which he spoke in front of around 6,000 people. During the appearance, he said his "20-year mistake" was taking responsibility for issues he felt Meta wasn't to blame.

Now, he said he's done apologizing.

His image transformation continued this year as he introduced graphic tees with Latin, gold chain necklaces, and flashy watches into his wardrobe.

Though some of his shirts are custom-made and his outfits can cost thousands of dollars, compared to the suit-and-tie era of Zuck 1.0, his tees and chains make him appear "more accessible," which makes him look "relatable to his customer base," says Joseph Rosenfeld, an image consultant whose clientele includes business executives and Silicon Valley elites.

Zuckerberg also seemed to win over some people when he commissioned a 7-foot statue of his wife, surfed with a beer and American flag in hand to celebrate the Fourth of July, and released a cover of "Get Low" with T-Pain.

As The Information asked in May, "Wait, when did Mark Zuckerberg get cool?"

Taken together, the past year was one of change as the company leaned away from frequently talking about the metaverse and into AI.

In public and behind the scenes, Zuckerberg also carefully positioned himself for the next presidential administration.

"Meta as a company may not exactly be in turmoil, and neither is he personally, but there's a lot rolling and shifting and changing with the nature of the business right now — how it is growing, where is it going," said Rosenfeld. "And he is a reflection of exactly that kind of growth that is happening within the company; things are not exactly settled right now."

Zuckerberg notably declined to endorse a candidate for US president and dined with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month. The Meta CTO is "very keen" to play a role in his tech policymaking (whether or not he'll have Trump's ear like Elon Musk has yet to be seen).

Meta also seemingly kicked off the trend of major companies and CEOs donating $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund.

And in a move that signals Meta's lobbying ability in a new political era, the company also recently scored a big win in Congress when the Kids Online Safety Act failed to pass. Meta poured almost $19 million into federal lobbying efforts in the first nine months of the year.

Zuckerberg enters 2025 in a strong position

So what does 2025 have in store for Zuckerberg and Meta?

The company might focus more on potential opportunities with WhatsApp, which it's mostly just "kept in its back pocket over the years," Smiley says.

Meta in June ran an ad for the messaging platform that featured the cast of "Modern Family." The following month, Meta announced it had notched 100 million monthly active users in the US on WhatsApp.

Meta may also try to draw more digital creators to Instagram, especially as TikTok's future in the US remains uncertain amid the DOJ's ongoing case that threatens to shutter the app's domestic business.

It'll also likely continue trying to convince more people to defect from Elon Musk's X over to Threads, which recently hit 275 million monthly active users.

Zuckerberg said in December that "next year is a big year for Meta glasses" and predicted that "glasses will be the next major computing platform."

And no one will be surprised to see AI remain top-of-mind for Meta in 2025.

While the company plans to continue to extend the spirit of its "year of efficiency" that Zuckerberg announced in 2023, don't expect it to pinch any pennies when it comes to AI spending in the new year.

Meta estimated its capital expenditures for 2024 would be $38 to $40 billion, up significantly from its total of $28.10 billion last year, driven largely by spending on AI — and it expects the heavy spending to continue as it further integrates AI into its suite of products and invests in related infrastructure.

"It's something that investors are always sort of on their toes about, but Mark has been good about kind of tempering those worries," said Smiley. "As long as their advertising business remains strong and can almost provide a buffer to some of this, that will make investors feel more at ease, and clearly they're still having a lot of strength there."

For Zuckerberg, the past year of flexing the strength of Meta's business and doubling down on the AI race means he's heading into 2025 with something he hasn't always had: momentum.

• In 2024, the rich largely got richer as tech stocks flew and markets experienced a postelection bump.
• However, some luxury titans shed billions amid an industry downturn.
• Here are the biggest billionaire winners and losers of the year, according to their net worth.

2024 was a good year to be a billionaire.

The S&P 500 gained 25% this year, while the Nasdaq grew 33%. The uberwealthy, many of whom are invested in companies on each index, benefited greatly.

The five billionaires who gained the most wealth in 2024 saw their net worths climb a collective $542 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as of December 27.

These billionaires all come from the tech sector, where AI fever and a postelection rally pushed many stocks to all-time highs.

There were, though, those whose fortunes took a hit. Some billionaires whose money comes from luxury retail, which struggled this year, lost double-digit billions.

Here are the billionaires who gained and lost the most this year — and just how much their fortunes changed as of December 27.

The biggest winners of the year are…

Elon Musk: $239 billion richer

Elon Musk, who is worth $468 billion, nearly doubled his net worth in 2024, owing in no small part to the stock market's rally after Donald Trump's election victory. Since Election Day, he's become more than $200 billion richer.

His fortune is predominantly made up of Tesla stock and equity in SpaceX. Even though sales of electric vehicles have slowed down, Tesla's stock price has jumped more than 70% this year. SpaceX, meanwhile, has doubled in value in the past year and is now worth a reported $350 billion.

Musk, who gave more than $200 million to Trump's reelection efforts, has become an advisor to the president-elect, who tapped him and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead his newly created Department of Government Efficiency. Investors are bullish that his relationship with the commander in chief will benefit his companies.

Mark Zuckerberg: $85 billion richer

Mark Zuckerberg is riding on the success of Meta's strong year. The CEO, who is worth $213 billion, owns about 13% of the company's stock, making him its largest individual shareholder.

Meta's share price is up over 70% this year thanks to its strong ad business and push further into AI. The company announced its first-ever dividend in February, and its stock hit record highs multiple times this year.

Jensen Huang: $78 billion richer

The AI boom minted a new centibillionaire this year in Jensen Huang, who is worth $122 billion.

The Nvidia CEO and cofounder owns about 3.5% of the company, whose share price is up more than 175% year-to-date thanks to its dominance in the AI chip industry.

Larry Ellison: $70 billion richer

Larry Ellison, who is worth $193 billion, is the founder and chief technology officer of Oracle.

The database software company's stock, which makes up the largest share of his net worth, is up more than 60% year-to-date thanks to its cloud applications and infrastructure, which can be used to train AI.

Ellison also owns more than 1% of Tesla stock, which is worth $20 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Jeff Bezos: $69 billion richer

Jeff Bezos, the Amazon cofounder, remains the company's largest individual shareholder, owning nearly 9% of the $2.4 trillion company. His stake in the retail and tech behemoth makes up more than 80% of his $246 billion fortune.

Amazon's stock, which is up more than 45% year-to-date, surged after Trump's election. The company has also benefited from its leadership in e-commerce and cloud computing.

Meanwhile, some billionaires did experience hits to their fortunes.

Bernard Arnault: $31 billion poorer

This year was one of the worst years for luxury in recent memory, and Bernard Arnault has an 11-figure loss to show for it.

The CEO of LVMH, who is worth $176 billion, has a 48% stake in the company, which owns brands like Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior. Luxury labels have struggled this year, particularly in China, which has experienced a real estate crisis and high youth unemployment.

Françoise Bettencourt Meyers: $25 billion poorer

Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers, the heir to the L'Oréal fortune, is the second-richest woman in the world with a fortune of $75 billion.

The cosmetics company has struggled this year as sales in China took a hit. Its share price is down more than 26% year-to-date.

Carlos Slim: $23 billion poorer

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, who is worth $82 billion, saw his fortune slip with telecommunications giant América Móvil's stock this year.

Colin Huang: $17 billion poorer

Nearly all of Colin Huang's $35 billion fortune lies in his stake in Pinduoduo, the parent company of fast-fashion retailer Temu, whose stock has fallen more than 30% this year.

In August, Temu announced it expected profits to fall in the future due to growing competition and changing consumer sentiment. The company took another hit following Trump's victory, given the uncertainty of how future tariffs may affect sales.

Francois Pinault: $14 billion poorer

Francois Pinault's fortune is another casualty of the luxury downturn this year.

He founded the luxury group Kering, which includes brands like Balenciaga, Gucci, and Saint Laurent, and the majority of his $22 billion net worth is tied up in the company, whose stock is down more than 40% year-to-date.

• "Quiet vacationing," "coffee badging," and "ghost jobs" were part of the corporate lexicon in 2024.
• These are just some of the trends that came to dominate our conversations around work.
• Here's a look back at work in 2024.

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

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.

Quiet vacationing

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.

RTO

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.)

Hushed hybrid

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.

Coffee badging

Another method of evading RTO is coffee badging — 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.

PIPs

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.

Quiet firing, silent layoffs, and stealth sackings

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.

Other key trends

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.

Winans says other trends included an emphasis on upskilling and reskilling to keep up with technological advancements and changing job requirements, as well as increased labor organizing efforts.

What can we expect in 2025?

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."

• Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has no shortage of stories about the late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs.
• Benioff interned at Apple in college and got to know Jobs as he moved on to Oracle and Salesforce.
• On a recent podcast episode, he recalled advice Jobs gave him when he had "entrepreneur's block."

Ask a major tech CEO for a Steve Jobs story, and you'll probably get one.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff certainly has his fair share of stories about the late Apple cofounder.

Benioff interned at Apple while in college, and the two got to know each other as Benioff moved on to Oracle and ultimately cofounded Salesforce.

On a recent episode of "Lenny's Podcast," Benioff recalled some advice Jobs dispensed when Benioff was going through "entrepreneur's block."

He recalled Jobs telling him that there were "three things you need to do right now."

First: "Your company, it better get 10 times larger than it is now in 24 months or it's over."

Second: "You better sign a huge customer for this Salesforce automation product, like Avon." (Benioff added, "The CEO of Avon was on his board at the time, so that was on his mind.")

And finally: "You better go build an application economy."

Benioff recalled being confused. He said he asked Jobs what he meant by that, to which Jobs responded, "I don't know, but you're going to go figure it out."

Benioff described the conversation as "like meeting with your guru and getting a Zen koan or something where now you have a puzzle I have to solve."

"I literally went away, and I had all the notes from the meeting," he said. "I went through it over and over again. And then finally I'm like, I think he wants me to build an app store."

Salesforce launched AppExchange, its apps and services store, in 2006. Apple launched its app store in 2008. Benioff later gave Apple the App Store trademark and the appstore.com domain as a gift.

Benioff said he was "very grateful to have that relationship" with Jobs, adding that it "dramatically influenced me in my career and my whole life."

• You've heard of generative AI, but agentic AI might sound a little less familiar.
• Major industry players are working on AI agents for what some say marks the third wave of AI.
• But what exactly is agentic AI? Here's a quick rundown of the tech everyone's talking about.

Generative AI has been the talk of tech for a while now, but tune into your favorite business podcast and you'll probably hear a different phrase tossed around: "agentic" AI.

In his January keynote at CES, one of the world's largest tech trade shows, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang even proclaimed, "The age of agentic AI is here."

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman thinks 2025 may be the year the first AI agents start entering the workforce.

So what does agentic AI mean?

Generative AI and agentic AI are closely related. You couldn't have one without the other. Definitions vary, but in general, agentic AI refers to AI technology that's capable of performing agent-like behavior that can autonomously accomplish complex tasks on your behalf.

Companies working on AI agents say they are intended to one day be digital coworkers or assistants to human workers in fields spanning from healthcare and supply chain management to cybersecurity and customer service.

Here's how some Big Tech companies explain the concept:

• Nvidia's definition says agentic AI "uses sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning to autonomously solve complex, multi-step problems."
• IBM says agentic AI is a system or program with "agency" that can "make decisions, take actions, solve complex problems and interact with external environments beyond the data upon which the system's machine learning (ML) models were trained."
• Microsoft says AI agents "range from simple chatbots, to copilots, to advanced AI assistants in the form of digital or robotic systems that can run complex workflows autonomously."

Some leaders in the field say agents are ushering in a new frontier in AI.

"In just a few years, we've already witnessed three generations of A.I.," Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told The New York Times earlier this month. "First came predictive models that analyze data. Next came generative A.I., driven by deep-learning models like ChatGPT. Now, we are experiencing a third wave — one defined by intelligent agents that can autonomously handle complex tasks."

Salesforce, which launched its Agentforce suite last year, has said it plans to have more than 1 billion AI agents in use for companies by the end of 2025.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently said the company has been "investing in developing more agentic models" over the past year. (He defined agentic AI as being able to "understand more about the world around you, think multiple steps ahead, and take action on your behalf, with your supervision.") The company made agentic AI a major focus of its Gemini 2.0 launch in December.

OpenAI plans to launch an AI agent code-named "Operator" in January that would be able to use a computer on a person's behalf to do things like write code or book flights, Bloomberg reported in November, citing two people familiar with the matter.

• The Walmart heirs' combined estimated net worth is nearly $380 billion.
• All three of Sam Walton's surviving children have now made it into the $100 billion club.
• In public, the Waltons live relatively modest lifestyles despite their wealth.

All three of Walmart founder Sam Walton's surviving children have made it into the $100 billion club as the retail giant's share price continues to soar.

The combined wealth of the Walmart heirs — which include founder Sam Walton's children, Rob, Jim, and Alice, as well as his grandson Lukas — is nearly $380 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Together, they're significantly ahead of the top individual names on the list, such as Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault, or Mark Zuckerberg, though Elon Musk has recently seen his fortune outstrip their collective net worth.

While some have worked in the family business — whether that's serving on the company board or working to manage the family's wealth — others chose to pursue areas of personal passion.

Sam Walton, the original man behind the company that now encompasses both Walmart and Sam's Club, set his family up for financial success when he divided the ownership before he died.

Most recently, the Walton children have expanded voting control to their own, giving eight of Sam's grandchildren a say in the family holdings.

Sam wasn't a man of flashy luxury, but you can see how his children are living a slightly more lavish life now. Here's a look at how the Walton family empire spends its money: 

Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1962.

As he grew his retail empire, Walton, an experienced pilot, would often fly in unannounced to check in on a particular store location.

He married Helen Robson on Valentine's Day in 1942.

Together, they had four children: Rob, John, Jim, and Alice.

By the time Sam died in 1992, he had set up the company ownership in a way that minimized the estate taxes anyone on the receiving end would have to pay.

Source: Fortune

He set up his ownership of Walmart's stock in a family partnership — each of his children held 20% of Walton Enterprises, while he and Helen each held 10%. Helen inherited Sam's 10% tax-free when he died.

Source: Fortune

Samuel Robson "Rob" Walton is the oldest Walton child. He is 80 years old.

He served as chairman of Walmart from 1992 until 2015 and remained on the board until this year.

He retired from Walmart's board at the end of his term in 2024.

Rob made a splash in 2022 by leading an ownership group to buy the Denver Broncos.

The group purchased the NFL team for a $4.65 billion in summer 2022 in a record-breaking sale at the time.

Rob has purchased a house in Paradise Valley, Arizona, near the base of Camelback Mountain.

In the past, protesters have rallied outside of his Arizona home to advocate for better wages and benefits for Walmart workers.

Besides real estate, Rob has a large collection of vintage cars.

In 2013, he ran his Daytona Coupe, which was worth $15 million at the time, off the tracks and wrecked it. The car was one of only five ever made.

Sam Walton's second-oldest child, John Walton, died in a plane crash in 2005.

He was 58 years old.

He was married to Christy Walton and had one son, Lukas.

John left about 17% of his wealth to his wife, and he gave the rest to charity and to his son.

Source: Business Insider

John served in Vietnam as a Green Beret. When he returned from the war he held a series of jobs — like the Walmart company pilot, a crop duster, and the owner a few yachting companies — before becoming a Walmart board member.

Source: Fortune

In 2013, Christy decided to sell their Jackson Hole mansion. She also sold the family's ranch for an undisclosed price in 2016 after listing it for $100 million in 2011.

Source: Curbed and Ranch Marketing Associates

The 8,606-square-foot home was put on the market for $12.5 million.

Source: Curbed

James "Jim" Walton is the youngest son of Walmart founder Sam Walton. He is 76 years old.

He is chairman of the board of the family's Arvest Bank Group. One of the state's largest banks today, Arvest Bank has assets totaling more than $26 billion.

Source: Bloomberg

He also served on the Walmart board, starting in 2005 to fill the vacancy after his brother John died. Jim Walton's son, Steuart, took over his father's seat on the board in 2016.

Now, he presides over Walton Enterprises — the private company that deals with the investments and finances of the Walton family only — from modest offices in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Source: Fortune

The youngest of founder Sam Walton's children, Alice Walton is worth $112 billion, according to Bloomberg. She has been divorced twice and has no children. She is 75 years old.

Alice has never taken an active role in running the family business.

Instead, she became a patron of the arts, which she fell in love with at a young age.

When she was 10, she bought her first work of art: a reproduction of Picasso's "Blue Nude" for about $2, she told The New Yorker.

Source: The New Yorker

She has an immense private art collection, with original works from Andy Warhol and Georgia O'Keeffe. Alice opened a museum in Bentonville called Crystal Bridges in 2011 to house her $500 million private art collection.

The collection includes a Georgia O'Keeffe painting that Alice spent $44.4 million on in 2014 — the biggest sale for a woman's piece of art in history.

Source: The Observer

Alice also breeds horses.

Her Millsap, Texas, property, Rocking W Ranch, sold to the Three Amigos Investment Group of Kermit, Texas, in September 2017 for an undisclosed amount.

Source: Star-Telegram

It had an initial asking price of $19.75 million, which was reduced to $16.5 million. The working ranch had over 250 acres of pasture and outbuildings for cattle and horses.

Source: WilliamsTrew

Her other, 4,416-acre Texas ranch was previously listed at a reduced price of $22 million.

The modest, three-bedroom, two-bathroom home overlooks the Brazos River.

Alice also bought a two-floor condo on New York's Park Ave. for $25 million in 2014.

Source: Business Insider

It has more than 52 large windows overlooking Central Park plus a media room, a winding staircase, and more than 6,000 total square feet of space.

Source: Business Insider

In January 2016, Alice donated 3.7 million of her Walmart shares — worth about $225 million at the time — to the family's nonprofit, the Walton Family Foundation.

Sam and Helen started the foundation as a way to teach their children how to give back and how to work together.

The charity awards millions of dollars in grants to causes that align with the foundation's values.

The foundation has three main areas of focus:

The foundation's focus on education was led by John. His brother Jim said John was really interested in being able to give parents choices when it came to their child's schooling.

Source: Walton Family Foundation

Rob spearheaded the foundation's venture into environmental protection. One of the first grants they gave helped develop a sustainable fisheries label.

Source: Walton Family Foundation

A commitment to the family's home of Arkansas is another large part of the foundation. The website says this area of focus is about "advancing our home region of Northwest Arkansas and the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta."

Source: Walton Family Foundation

Walmart Inc., which owns Walmart and Sam's Club, is the largest retailer in the US in terms of revenue.

Even though the Walton family is raking in billions as a result of the company's success, they remain relatively under-the-radar in terms of flashing their wealth — much like their patriarch, Sam, did in the early years.

In December, Walmart disclosed that Sam's children had granted voting rights to eight of their own children, bringing the total number of voices in the family fortune from three to eight, and keeping with Sam's vision for his legacy.

Source: SEC filings

• Apple is facing backlash over one of its new Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18.2.
• The feature meant to summarize iPhone notifications inaccurately summarized some news alerts.
• Nonprofit Reporters Without Borders has called for Apple to remove the generative AI feature.

Apple is facing backlash over one of its newest generative AI features.

The feature, available in the latest iOS 18.2 update, summarizes groups of notifications from an app on a user's iPhone to give them a quick rundown of what they missed at a glance.

Users, however, have pointed out at least two instances of it providing inaccurate information when attempting to summarize notifications from news organizations.

In one case, the summary falsely claimed the BBC reported that Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had killed himself. Mangione is alive and was extradited to New York on Thursday.

In another instance, the feature wrongly summarized a New York Times article to say that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested. The NYT article actually reported that the International Criminal Court had issued a warrant for Netanyahu's arrest, not that he had been arrested.

The nonprofit Reporters Without Borders has called on Apple to remove the feature.

"AIs are probability machines, and facts can't be decided by a roll of the dice," said Vincent Berthier, the head of the group's technology and journalism desk, in a public statement this week. "The automated production of false information attributed to a media outlet is a blow to the outlet's credibility and a danger to the public's right to reliable information on current affairs."

Apple, the BBC, the NYT, and Reporters Without Borders did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

A spokesperson from the BBC previously said the organization has filed a complaint with Apple "to raise this concern and fix the problem."

"It is essential to us that our audiences can trust any information or journalism published in our name and that includes notifications," the spokesperson previously said.

• Staff at major companies have asked their leaders if there are plans to follow Amazon's full return to office.
• Firms like Meta, Google, and Microsoft have a hybrid setup — however, execs say they're eyeing productivity.
• Research findings on the subject are varied, and the debate will likely continue in 2025.

Executives at major companies are referencing a specific term to hedge when asked by employees if they plan to follow in Amazon's footsteps and implement a return to 5 days a week in the office.

That word? Productivity.

While Amazon has been the most high-profile example this year of a full return to office policy, set to go into effect in January, telecom giant AT&T has also elected to double down on in-person work with a similar 5-day policy, Business Insider first reported.

In the wake of Amazon's announcement, executives at both Google and Microsoft, which require employees to be in the office at least 3 days a week, have fielded questions from staff wondering if the days of hybrid work are numbered.

Microsoft's executive vice president of cloud and AI, Scott Guthrie, said the company wouldn't change the hybrid work policy unless it noticed a drop in productivity, BI reported in September.

In October, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company had no plans to order employees back to the office, so long as employees remain productive during their at-home work days, BI previously reported.

Over at Meta, Mark Zuckerberg said last year that "early analysis of performance data," indicated productivity increases for early-career engineers in the office at least 3 days a week. A few months later, the company announced it was requiring employees to return to the office 3 days a week.

Executives at Dell called the company's sales team back to the office 5 days a week starting at the end of September, writing in a memo, "Our data shows that sales teams are more productive when onsite."

Though Amazon did not explicitly name productivity as a reason for its full return to the office, CEO Andy Jassy emphasized a similar term: effectiveness.

Being back in person 5 days a week makes it "easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and, teams tend to be better connected to one another," he wrote at the time.

For those committing to a full return to office, preparing campuses for the influx of employees in the new year is its own challenge. Amazon has since delayed the announced January 2 effective date of the new mandate for some employees because it doesn't have enough office space in some locations, BI reported earlier this month.

As CEOs and company leaders keep an eye on how employees in remote or hybrid setups perform, various studies since the onset of the pandemic have attempted to measure and compare the productivity of employees who work at home and in-office. Research studies have produced conflicting results, further complicated by the matter of how best to define or measure productivity.

Goldman Sachs, which has a 5-day-in-office policy, reviewed several analyses that used different ways of evaluating changes in work-from-home productivity, from call-center workers who were randomly chosen to work from home to comparing the productivity of randomly assigned remote workers with their in-office peers.

In short, it's hard to say for sure, and executives are deciding what their long-term setup will be after a year in which some of the world's biggest companies put a renewed focus on being "lean" and "efficient."

Meanwhile, some employees have returned to commuting in (sometimes "coffee-badging" in and returning home), others have relocated to comply with a policy change, and some have resigned to pursue a hybrid or fully remote opportunity. As companies tighten their belts and conduct layoffs, other workers have taken to workplace forums to wonder if some of the RTO mandates have been a possible "quiet layoffs" tactic.

As more major global companies revisit their policies and make changes, CEOs are likely to face more questions on the topic going into the new year.

For some, the answer is simple: Stay productive and we'll stay flexible.

• One of the biggest parts of preparing for a job interview is running through practice questions.
• We asked recruiting pros for their top interview questions and how a candidate should answer them.
• Here's what they told us.

When you're preparing for a job interview, one of the first things you can do is research what previous candidates have shared about their own interviews with that employer. Some of the most helpful information to glean, if you can find it, is what interview questions you might expect to be asked.

To help job seekers who might not be able to find common questions asked by a specific company, we asked five recruiting professionals for their favorite questions to ask in job interviews.

They also broke down how candidates should answer and what the answers can reveal about them. Of course, the slate of questions asked in an interview can vary based on the recruiter's personal preferences, the role, and other factors — but these go-to questions from recruiters are a good place to start.

Here's a look at questions recruiters love to ask that they say can be particularly telling about a candidate.

'Tell me a time when you found a way to improve a process, made something more efficient, or otherwise introduced an improvement when you weren't asked to do so.'

Kyle Samuels, who spent 20 years in senior-level executive recruiting and is now CEO of executive search agency Creative Talent Endeavors, said he likes this question because it helps identify "proactive leaders who are willing to answer difficult questions and drive business results."

He recommends candidates use the STAR method — focusing on the situation, task, action, and result — to answer this question and really highlight their "initiative and drive."

"I'm also looking for candidates who can stand up to additional questioning well and describe specifics within each example or story they share when responding," he said.

He shared with us one example of how a STAR-formatted answer to this question might look:

• Situation: "Our SaaS solution isn't cutting it."
• Task: "I was assigned to fix the problem."
• Action: "I spoke to other CTOs to get recommendations, found a final list of five, and then evaluated them against the incumbent so we could make the right hiring decision."
• Result: Explain the end result and what happened after taking the actions described.

'Tell me about a time when something went terribly wrong with a project.'

This question shows a candidate's "ability to take responsibility for mistakes, solve problems, communicate effectively, and collaborate with others," said Lauren Monroe, who leads the creative practice group at Aquent, a staffing agency for creative, marketing, and design roles.

An ideal answer would "name the specific challenge faced, acknowledge the mistakes made, and identify the actions taken, lessons learned, and solutions implemented to solve the problem," she added.

'What key elements need to be in your next role, and what would be a dealbreaker for you?'

Amri Celeste, a recruitment manager and interview coach, likes this question because it gets at "what a candidate is really looking for in a role and whether the role we're discussing matches what they expect in their next role."

"It's also an opportunity to open up a more honest dialogue about their values, work style, and career goals, which helps me learn about not only how well they suit the role, but also how well they might suit the team and management style of the manager," she said.

'Tell me about yourself.'

It's a tried-and-true interview question, and Andrew Fennell, a former corporate recruiter and the founder of the résumé-builder website StandOut CV, leans on it to set the tone in interviews.

"After introducing myself and explaining how I've arrived to the point of this interview, I ask the candidate to do the same," he said.

"It relaxes the atmosphere a bit, makes it a bit more conversational, and allows the candidate to give a well-rounded summary of their experience and skills," he added.

'Tell me about the greatest impact you made at a company and what helped you achieve that impact.'

Tessa White, a former head of HR, is the CEO of The Job Doctor and the author of "The Unspoken Truths for Career Success."

Besides asking about a candidate's achievements, White also tries to gauge their ability to problem-solve by asking questions about challenges they've encountered in the past.

She'll ask, for example, "Tell me about a time you were at odds with someone or a department and you were able to successfully move through it."

Other times, she might say, "Tell me about a time when an initiative or project you were leading wasn't going the way you hoped. How did you handle it and what is your philosophy for addressing obstacles?"

For all of these questions, she said the ideal answer should be "authentic and real." If it's not, a recruiter can "sniff it a mile away," she said.

"I'm not looking for the answer you think I want to hear," she said. "I'm looking to see an imperfect person that has insight into their strengths as well as someone who understands how to learn from previous mistakes."

• TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is the public face of the company, rallying its fans and testifying before Congress.
• He's 41 years old, went to Harvard Business School, and interned at Facebook when it was a startup.
• He met with president-elect Donald Trump recently as he continues his fight to avoid a TikTok ban in the US.

TikTok is under a lot of pressure right now.

As US lawmakers worry the video-sharing platform, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, poses a danger to national security, TikTok is scrambling to fight a law requiring it be sold to a US owner by January 19 or else risk being banned in the country.

So who's leading the company through this turbulent period?

That would be Shou Zi Chew, TikTok's 41-year-old CEO from Singapore, who got his start as an intern at Facebook.

Here's a rundown on TikTok's head honcho:

Chew worked for Facebook when it was still a startup.

He earned his bachelor's degree in economics at the University College London before heading to Harvard Business School for his MBA in 2010. 

While a student there, Chew worked for a startup that "was called Facebook," he said in a post on Harvard's Alumni website. Facebook went public in mid-2012.

 

Chew met his now-wife, Vivian Kao, via email when they were both students at Harvard.

They are "a couple who often finish each other's sentences," according to the school's alumni page, and have three kids.

Chew was CFO of Xiaomi before joining Bytedance.

He became chief financial officer of the Chinese smartphone giant, which competes with Apple, in 2015. Chew helped secure crucial financing and led the company through its 2018 public listing, which would become one of the nation's largest tech IPOs in history. 

He became Xiaomi's international business president in 2019, too.

Before joining Xiaomi, Chew also worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs for two years, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He also worked at investment firm DST, founded by billionaire tech investor Yuri Milner, for five years. It was during his time there in 2013 that he led a team that became early investors in ByteDance, as the Business Chief and The Independent reported.

For a while, Chew was both the CEO of TikTok and the CFO of its parent company, ByteDance.

Chew joined ByteDance's C-suite in March 2021, the first person to fill the role of chief financial officer at the media giant.

He was named CEO of TikTok that May at the same time as Vanessa Pappas was named COO. Bytedance founder and former CEO Zhang Yiming said at the time that Chew "brings deep knowledge of the company and industry, having led a team that was among our earliest investors, and having worked in the technology sector for a decade."

That November, it was announced that Chew would leave his role as ByteDance's CFO to focus on running TikTok.

TikTok's former CEO, Kevin Mayer, had left Walt Disney for the position in May 2020 and quit after three months as the company faced pressure from lawmakers over security concerns.

Some government officials in the US and other countries remain concerned that TikTok's user data could be shared with the Chinese government.

Donald Trump's administration issued executive orders designed to force ByteDance into divesting its TikTok US operations, though nothing ever happened.

President Biden signed an executive order in June 2021 that threw out Trump's proposed bans on the app.

Last year, the Biden administration demanded that TikTok divest its American business from its Chinese parent company or risk being banned in the US. In response, Chew said such a divestment wouldn't solve officials' security concerns about TikTok.

In a TikTok last March, Chew announced the company has amassed 150 million monthly active users in the US and broached the subject of the ban threats.

"Some politicians have started talking about banning TikTok," he said. "Now this could take TikTok away from all 150 million of you."

Chew testified before Congress that month about the company's privacy and data security practices.

Wall Street said his testimony didn't do much to help his case to keep TikTok alive in the US, though Chew seemed to win over many TikTok users, with some applauding his efforts and even making flattering fancam edits of him.

Now, Chew and TikTok are in the spotlight again as the company tries to stave off a looming potential ban.

The House of Representatives passed a bill on March 13 that would require any company owned by a "foreign adversary" to divest or sell to a US-based company within 180 days to avoid being banned in the US.

Chew put out a video response shortly after, asking users to "make your voices heard" and "protect your constitutional rights" by voicing opposition to lawmakers.

He called the vote "disappointing" and said the company has invested in improving data security and keeping the platform "free from outside manipulation."

"This bill gives more power to a handful of other social media companies," he added. "It will also take billions of dollars out of the pockets of creators and small businesses. It will put more than 300,000 American jobs at risk."

The Senate also passed the bill, and President Biden signed it into law in April.

In September, a hearing on the potential TikTok ban began in federal appeals court and in December, a three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the law is constitutional.

On the heels of the bad news, Chew met with the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago several days later.

Trump said in a press conference on the day they met that he has a "warm spot" for TikTok, which he has criticized in the past, because he says it helped him win over young voters in the 2024 election.

Also on the day of their meeting, TikTok asked the Supreme Court to block the law that requires it be sold to avoid a shutdown, arguing that it violates Americans' First Amendment rights.

When he's not fighting efforts to ban TikTok, Chew makes appearances at some pretty high-profile events.

He's been seen at the Met Gala, and also posted about attending the 2023 Super Bowl and even Taylor Swift's Eras Tour.

His hobbies include playing video games like Clash of Clans and Diablo IV, golfing, and reading about theoretical physics.