• Nike will partner with Kim Kardashian's Skims to launch NikeSkims womenswear brand.
• The collaboration aims to enhance Nike's appeal to female athletes and consumers.
• Like the Jordan brand, NikeSkims is intended to be a long-term partnership.

Nike is extending its brand lineup through a rare partnership with Kim Kardashian's Skims. It's a bet that her star power can have a similar impact as Michael Jordan has on the sportswear giant — for women.

The two companies announced NikeSkims on Tuesday, a line of training apparel, footwear and accessories for women. While Nike regularly partners with athletes and celebrities for limited-edition sportswear, this seems a step up from that typical collaboration.

It's the first time Nike has partnered with an existing external company to create a brand. It's a "win-win" for both companies, Rachel Wolff, retail analyst at Business Insider's sister company EMARKETER, said.

As Nike pushes ahead with its play for appealing to all genders by upping its bets in female athletes, a deal with a womenswear superpower like Skims will fuel its "gender offense," as CEO Elliott Hill called it during a recent earnings call. The long-term deal, which neither company revealed the financial details of, marks the beginning of a womenswear-specific brand intended to exist alongside Jordan, Nike, and Converse.

It does, however, call to mind Nike's biggest partnership yet — with Michael Jordan. In 1984, the popular basketball player inked a deal with Nike for $500,000 a year, plus royalties, Forbes reported. They introduced the world to Air Jordans the following year with the release of the Air Jordan 1 sneaker.

As the sneakers grew in popularity, it extended beyond basketball shoes to include streetwear. Today, Jordan himself has a $3.5 billion net worth, and Nike paid him some $260 million before tax over its past fiscal year, per Forbes.

Forty years later, the Jordan brand is still a revenue driver for the company. It brought in approximately $6.9 billion in wholesale equivalent revenue for fiscal 2024 — about 17% of Nike's total wholesale equivalent sales.

Like it used Jordan's massive popularity decades ago, Kardashian's global influence and more than 350 million Instagram followers will be a valuable boost in visibility for Nike. She cofounded Skims in 2019 as a shapewear brand before expanding into loungewear, and it has boomed in size, reaching a $4 billion valuation in 2023.

"Nike has the opportunity to capitalize on Skims' intense popularity among women consumers, who are an important target audience for the athletic brand, while Skims gets access to a much larger group of consumers as well as Nike's manufacturing capabilities," Wolff said.

Nike representatives directed BI to a press release in response to a request for comment. Skims did not immediately respond.

The two brands have been working on NikeSkims since 2023, the New York Times reported. Skims CEO Jens Grede drew parallels between Skims and Nike in October 2024, but experts seemed hesitant to agree at the time.

While Nike has become a brand that can sell "a lot of things to a lot of people," as BMO analyst Simeon Siegel put it, others have said Skims' proximity to Kardashian could be a problem.

"Skims is not likely to be a 'for everyone' brand because there are going to be people who don't want the association with Kim Kardashian," Matthew Quint, director of the Center on Global Brand Leadership at Columbia Business School, said in October.

However, it's hard not to think of Kardashian "as the Michael Jordan of influencers," Grede told NYT. Her net worth, as estimated by Forbes before the deal, is $1.7 billion.

NikeSkims is expected to launch this spring with a global expansion planned for 2026. Skims' power to attract consumers was demonstrated in its collaboration with outerwear brand The North Face, which sold out within hours of launching on December 10, Women's Wear Daily reported.

• Apple is rolling back Advanced Data Protection from iPhones in the UK starting Friday.
• Without ADP, Apple and the UK government could decrypt iCloud data.
• The UK had issued a "secret order" for Apple to create a data backdoor, US congressmen warned.

Apple's highest level of security for iCloud data is set to be removed from iPhones in the UK in a rare move for the tech giant known for prioritizing privacy for its users.

Beginning Friday, new users in the UK won't have access to Advanced Data Protection (ADP), a tool that enables end-to-end encryption on devices. By removing it, they'll no longer have the option to make data only viewable by the account holder.

The data stored on iCloud could become accessible to Apple and the UK government. The decision comes after the UK government issued a "secret order" for Apple to create a backdoor to its users' data across the globe, US congressmen said in a letter to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, the Washington Post was first to report.

In a statement to Business Insider, Apple said it was "gravely disappointed" that it had to remove the protections for UK users.

Apple and the UK government could eventually be able to decrypt users' data, including photos, iCloud Drive, notes, and more. The iPhone maker made it clear, however, that the move is not creating a backdoor.

"As we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services and we never will," Apple said.

In the letter from Ron Wyden, a Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Andy Biggs, a Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Gabbard was urged to stop the order from going through citing Americans' "right to privacy."

The British Home Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

ADP isn't enabled on iPhones by default, and Apple can't help the account holder recover their data once it's turned on. Although this added layer of protection for nine iCloud data categories won't be available in the UK, there are 14 data categories that are encrypted automatically. British users will still have encryption for iCloud Keychain, Health, and FaceTime.

Boosting security with end-to-end encryption is "more urgent than ever before," Apple said. In the statement, the company said it hopes to offer the "highest level of security" to UK users in the future.

• Apple launched the new iPhone 16e on Wednesday.
• It offers the company's new Apple Intelligence technology and costs $599.
• It's an "on-ramp" for consumers to enter the Apple ecosystem, one analyst says.

Apple just put its AI within reach of a lot more people. The move could be what it needs to reinvigorate sales of iPhones after several years of struggles.

The new iPhone 16e — the cheapest of the iPhone 16 lineup — makes Apple Intelligence available for a fraction of the cost of its older cousins.

Apple announced the new device on Wednesday after CEO Tim Cook teased a new "member of the family" in the week leading up to the launch. Starting at $599, the iPhone 16e is half the price of the $1199 iPhone 16 Pro Max.

With pressure on iPhone sales mounting, this launch represents its strategy to "compete more aggressively" with rival entry-level smartphones, Jacob Bourne, an analyst at Business Insider's sister company EMARKETER, said.

"It's about expanding its ecosystem reach at a crucial moment when it's rolling out Apple Intelligence and revamping Siri," Bourne added.

As Apple enters its AI era with Apple Intelligence previously only available on its priciest models, the new iPhone 16e gives more consumers a chance to test the new tech. Although the software has yet to move the needle for iPhone sales, lowering the price would encourage people to hop on the bandwagon, Forrester analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee said.

"Apple's brand of accessible luxury gets a little more accessible for people who don't want to settle for anything less than the real thing," he told BI.

Revenue missed analyst estimates in Apple's first quarter for fiscal year 2025. A more affordable iPhone will be especially crucial in key regions, like India, "where iPhones are out of reach for most people" and Android competition is fierce, Chatterjee said.

Some "leakage" from the sale of pricier models in the iPhone 16 lineup is to be expected, but Chatterjee said he doesn't expect it to "cannibalize the crown jewels" — the Pro and Pro Max models.

"This is about growing its market share, which becomes increasingly vital as Apple shifts toward a services-led growth strategy that depends on exposure," Bourne said.

Apple's services business, which includes paid subscriptions, is performing well. It grew revenue 14% year over year to reach a record $26.3 billion in Q1 FY25. Preorders for the iPhone 16e start Friday and it'll be available for purchase on February 28.

The iPhone 16e is the "on-ramp" for customers who want the status symbol of an iPhone without spending up to $1000, Chatterjee said.

The iPhone 16e has a 6.1-inch display — the same size as the $799 iPhone 16. For hardware, it has Apple's own in-house cellular modem and the A18 processor, and a USB-C charging port.

Last week, the iPhone 14 and SE models were the last phones with the Lightning port available on Apple's website, but it looks like the site has been updated to offer only USB-C compatible models. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that the models were discontinued — signaling the end of an era of new phones without Apple Intelligence or USB-C chargers.

• Jack Ma is the billionaire founder of Alibaba and Ant Group.
• Ma has experienced financial success as well as scrutiny due to his many business ventures.
• He grew up poor and faced multiple job rejections but amassed billions. Here's a look at Ma's life.

Jack Ma, Alibaba and Ant Group founder, has been making moves during the last year after a lengthy hiatus. 

Ma, who disappeared from public view in 2020 and resurfaced in Thailand in January 2023, most recently made news when he appeared at a summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping alongside other private business leaders on February 17.

Ma faced a crackdown from Chinese regulators in 2020 that resulted in an antitrust investigation, a suspended IPO, and Ma losing $12 billion of his fortune in just a few months. 

However, Ma quietly made moves throughout 2023, including a teaching gig at Tokyo College, investing in an agrotech startup, and incorporating a pre-packaged food company.

According to Bloomberg, his net worth is now estimated at $39.7 billion. In July 2023, China hit Ant Group with a nearly $1 billion fine, marking the end of its crackdown, The Wall Street Journal reported.

While Ma has had a challenging few years, adversity is nothing new to him. He grew up poor in communist China, failed his university entrance exam twice, and was rejected from dozens of jobs, including one at KFC, before finding success with his third internet company, Alibaba.

Here's how Ma got his start and made his fortune.

Jillian D'Onfro, Charles Clark, and Taylor Nicole Rogers contributed to an earlier version of this post.

The Chinese businessman is 59 years old.

Jack Ma — born Ma Yun — was born on September 10, 1964, in Hangzhou, southeastern China. He has an older brother and a younger sister, USA Today reported.

 

He doesn't come from money.

He and his siblings grew up at a time when communist China was increasingly isolated from the West, and his family didn't have much money when they were young, per 60 Minutes.

Ma was scrawny and often got into fights with classmates. "I was never afraid of opponents who were bigger than I," he recalls in "Alibaba," a book by Liu Shiying and Martha Avery.

As a kid, Ma liked collecting crickets and making them fight, and was able to distinguish the size and type of cricket just by the sound it made, according to USA Today.

When he became a teen, he offered travelers tours of his city in exchange for English lessons. That's how ended up with the nickname Jack, 60 Minutes reported.

 

It took Ma three tries to get into college.

After high school, he applied to go to college — but failed the entrance exam twice. He finally passed on the third try, going on to attend Hangzhou Teachers Institute. At the World Economic Forum in 2016, Ma revealed he has been rejected from Harvard— 10 times.

He graduated in 1988 and started applying to as many jobs as he could.

He received more than a dozen rejections — including from KFC — before being hired as an English teacher at a university. Ma was a natural with his students and loved his job — though he only made $12 a month at a local university.

 

 

 

Ma keeps his family life private, but he's been married for decades.

Ma married Zhang Ying, a teacher he met at school after they graduated in the late 1980s. They have two children — a daughter and a son, according to Bloomberg.

 

Ma got the idea to start an internet company during a trip to America.

Ma had no experience with computers or coding, but he was captivated by the internet when he used it for the first time during a trip to the US in 1995. He had recently started a translation business and made the trip to help a Chinese firm recover a payment.

Ma's first online search was "beer," but he was surprised to find that no Chinese beers turned up in the results. It was then that he decided to found an internet company for China.

 

He founded Alibaba in 1999, and its success was nearly instant.

Though his first two ventures failed, four years later, he gathered 17 of his friends in his apartment and convinced them to invest in his vision for an online marketplace he called "Alibaba." The site allowed exporters to post product listings that customers could buy directly.

Soon, the service started to attract members from all over the world. By October 1999, the company had raised $5 million from Goldman Sachs and $20 million from SoftBank, a Japanese telecom company that also invests in technology companies.

The team remained close-knit and scrappy. "We will make it because we are young and we never, never give up," Ma said to a gathering of employees.

Ma was given the nickname "Crazy Jack" by reporters during his company's mid-2000s rivalry with eBay.

He was known for maintaining a sense of fun at Alibaba. In the early 2000s, when the company decided to start Taobao, its eBay competitor, he had his team do handstands during breaks to keep their energy levels up.

When the company first became profitable, Ma gave each employee a can of Silly String to go wild with.

 

Yahoo invested in Alibaba in 2005.

In 2005, Yahoo invested $1 billion in Alibaba in exchange for about a 40% stake in the company. This was huge for Alibaba — at the time it was trying to beat eBay in China — and it would eventually be an enormous win for Yahoo too, netting it $10 billion in Alibaba's IPO alone, TechCrunch reported.

 

Ma stepped down from his post as CEO in 2013.

Alibaba went public on the New York Stock Exchange on September 19, 2014.

The company's $150 billion IPO was the largest offering for a US-listed company in the history of the NYSE. It also made Ma the richest person in China, with an estimated worth of $25 billion at the time, Bloomberg reported.

"Today what we got is not money. What we got is the trust from the people," Ma told CNBC at the time.

Ma stayed on as chairman at Alibaba until 2019. That year it was reported he 

 

Ma owns stakes in Alibaba and a payment-processing service.

Alibaba reported in 2022 that Ma owned 3.7% of the company both directly and through holding companies, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Ma owns a 10% stake in payment-processing service Alipay, which rebranded to Ant Group in 2014, according the company's prospectus filing in 2020.

 

One of his greatest passions is the environment.

According to Fortune, Ma developed an interest in environmentalism when a member of his wife's family became sick with an illness that Ma suspected was caused by pollution.

He sat on the global board of The Nature Conservancy and spoke during a session of the Clinton Global Initiative in 2015. He was also, according to Fortune, instrumental in funding a 27,000-acre nature reserve in China.

 

The biggest day in the calendar for Alibaba is China's "Singles' Day" — a retaliation to Valentine's Day — which supposedly celebrates the country's singletons.

It's also known as the Global Shopping Festival in Alibaba reports, and it takes place on November 11. In 2021, the e-commerce giant reported nearly $85 million on Singles' Day. Taylor Swift performed at the company's Singles' Day event in 2019.

 

 

Ma appears humble despite his financial success.

Alibaba's success may have made Ma an extremely wealthy man, but he still has some pretty modest hobbies.

"I don't think he has changed much, he is still that old style," Xiao-Ping Chen, a friend of Ma, told USA Today. He likes reading and writing kung fu fiction, playing poker, meditating, and practicing tai chi.

Ma once told employees at a press conference in 2014 that he hoped they use their newfound wealth to become "a batch of genuinely noble people, a batch of people who are able to help others, and who are kind and happy."

Even though Ma has kept his humble hobbies, he has also splurged on a French chateau and a plane for Alibaba.

Ma bought a vineyard and a chateau in Bordeaux, France, in 2016, according to CNBC. And in March 2013, Alibaba spent a reported $49.7 million on a Gulfstream G550, mostly for Ma's use, according to China Daily.

 

 

In 2017, Ma made headlines after meeting President Donald Trump.

Despite Trump's protectionist attitude towards trade, Ma said China and the United States were not about to be drawn into a trade war.

"Give Trump some time. He's open-minded," Ma told a panel at the World Economic Forum in January 2017.

 

Ma is something of a celebrity in China.

Crowds of people show up to listen to him speak. The company also hosts annual talent shows, and Ma is a natural entertainer. At a company anniversary event, he dressed up as a punk rocker for a performance in front of 20,000 Alibaba employees, according to 60 Minutes.

In 2014, Ma told Bloomberg he knew Alibaba had made it big when another customer offered to pay his restaurant bill.

The customer, Ma said in the interview, had left Ma a note that read: "I'm your customer of Alibaba group, I made a lot of money and I know you don't make any money. I'll pay the bill for you.".

 

Ma stepped down as Alibaba's chairman on his 55th birthday and chose a former Alibaba CEO to replace him.

He left the position on September 10, 2019. The company threw him a farewell party in an 80,000-seat stadium in Hangzhou, and Ma performed with other Alibaba executives.

Ma picked Daniel Zhang, who was named the CEO of Alibaba in 2015, to replace him as chairman. According to CNN Business, Ma decided to pivot to full-time philanthropy.

 

When COVID-19 rocked the world, Ma sprung into action.

When the coronavirus pandemic brought the world to a halt in March 2020, Ma sourced and shipped N95 face masks and COVID-19 testing kits to over 100 countries dealing with shortages, including the US.

 

In May 2020, SoftBank announced that Ma would resign from the troubled investment fund's board of directors.

"Stepping down from SoftBank Group's Board, I believe, and he said to me actually, was something that he decided on his own," SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said during the firm's earnings announcement.

"That's sad, but we still keep in contact directly, and right before the COVID-19, we met face-to-face every month to have dinner, to talk about businesses, to talk about lives. And we will remain friends for the rest of our life, I believe."

 

In October 2020, Ma made headlines again in relation to Ant Group's highly anticipated IPO.

Ant Group was expected to raise $37 billion with a valuation reportedly surpassing $300 billion. But then, Ma publicly snubbed China's financial regulatory system, calling it "an old people's club."

Soon after, regulators introduced new online lending rules that directly impacted Ant's business.

Officials then said there were "major issues" with Ant's listing, and by November 2020, the IPO was suspended.

It was expected to serve as a "stamp of approval" for disruptors in the traditional banking sector before the new rules changed the IPO's trajectory.

Chinese regulators opened an antitrust investigation into Alibaba in December 2020, yet another crackdown on Ma's empire.

Regulators said they were launching an anti-monopoly investigation into Alibaba and held talks about stricter financial regulations with Ant Group.

As part of the investigation, China's State Administration for Market Regulation looked into the contracts Alibaba asked sellers to sign.

 

Amid the investigation, speculation began on whether Ma was missing in 2021.

In January 2021, Yahoo Finance reported that Ma hadn't been seen publicly in more than two months and had been replaced as a judge on the TV talent show he founded, which raised the question of whether Ma had gone missing.

Ma isn't the first Chinese businessman to disappear from the public eye under such circumstances.

Ma's absence mirrored similar situations where Chinese businessmen had disappeared after battling with regulators.

But multiple sources said that Ma was not missing — he was simply "laying low" amid the government scrutiny and new regulations.

Ma appeared to resurface in Thailand in January 2023.

A post shared by JAY FAI (เจ๊ไฝ)⭐️ (@jayfaibangkok)

Jay Fai restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand, posted a photo of Jack Ma on Instagram. The caption read: "Incredibly humble, we are honored to welcome you and your family to Jay Fai's."

His reappearance came as Ant Group said it was streamlining voting rights to prevent any one shareholder from having a controlling vote.

 

His net worth is now estimated at around $30 billion, making him China's seventh-richest person in 2023.

Once China's richest man, Ma's net worth has fallen by more than $20 billion since he disappeared from public view, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

In November, Forbes reported that Ma was the seventh richest man in China in 2023 behind businessman Robin Zeng.

 

In May of 2023, Ma accepted a teaching role at Tokyo College.

It's unclear if Ma is still teaching, but he was expected to conduct research on sustainable agriculture and food production. Tokyo College said that Ma would "share his rich experience and pioneering knowledge on entrepreneurship, corporate management and innovation" with students, according to the May announcement.

 

Ma began advising Alibaba in May, and held a meeting of company execs the same month.

In the meeting, Ma suggested cutting out managers at Taobao and Tmall to combat the "very severe" competition the e-commerce platforms face. Other tech giants, particularly those in Silicon Valley, have also gotten rid of middle managers.

China appeared to be nearing an end to its nearly three-year investigation into Ant Group in July.

China's crackdown on technology firms appeared to be coming to an end after regulators issued a $1 billion fine to Ant Group in July, according to WSJ.

 

 

One of Ma's latest business ventures is a China-based agrotech startup.

It appears that while Ma was out of the public eye, he was studying agrotech. As of July 2023, Hangzhou Dajingtou No. 22 Arts and Culture Co., one of Ma's investment-holdings companies, has a 10% stake in 1.8 Meters Marine Technology (Zhejiang) Co, an agrotech startup.

 

Ma incorporated a company called "Hangzhou Ma's Kitchen Food" in November.

Ma's latest company reportedly deals with the sales of pre-packaged food and processing and selling agricultural products. But, Ma hasn't shared much about his desire to move into agriculture.

"I found that a place that does well in agriculture is not necessarily a place with good resources, but a place with unique thinking and people with imagination," he said during a speech to teachers last August.

He added, "The rural areas do need technology, while I think unique thinking and creativity are important as well."

He began buying shares in Alibaba during the fourth quarter of 2023.

Alibaba's stock began to rally in January 2024 after Ma reversed his plans to sell his shares and invested more in the company instead.

Ma spent $50 million on Alibaba's Hong Kong-listed shares over the last few months of 2023, The Wall Street Journal reported. The tech giant's stock started slipping in November, prompting Ma to rethink his plan of investing in his other business ventures over Alibaba.

Ma's wife acquired three adjoining properties in Singapore for up to $37 million, Business Times reported.

In February 2024, The Business Times reported that Zhang Ying, a Singaporean citizen, bought three properties known as shophouses in the Tanjong Pagar area of Singapore.

The three-story shophouses are reportedly situated on commercial-zoned sites, and this type of real estate is popular in Singapore, according to Bloomberg. The shophouses are said to be nearly done with refurbishments, and at least one story will be a restaurant.

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Ma and other prominent business leaders to discuss the country's future.

Ma joined a number of Chinese founders and CEOs in a summit with Xi on February 17. The meeting centered around China's private sector as Xi encouraged leaders from companies like Huawei, DeepSeek, and more to remain ambitious and believe in their country, Reuters reported.

The Alibaba CEO made a rare public appearance to attend the meeting where Xi said the government would work to protect private businesses to help promote China's economy.

Ma previously spoke out against China's crackdown on the tech sector in 2020. This meeting signaled that Xi may be reconsidering the tough restrictions on private companies amid global tariffs from the US.

• Nike is trying to reclaim its sports apparel edge by focusing on performance wear.
• The company previously overcame challenges by boosting product launches.
• Nike will have to "Just Do It Again," analysts said.

Nike should use its own playbook to stage a proper comeback in sports apparel, analysts said.

The company's sales have been slumping, with revenue down 8% in Q2 FY25 from the year prior. It's turned to a new strategy and a new CEO to help recover and drive product innovation. One of its biggest challenges has been competition from brands like Hoka and On.

For help, it should look to its last period of challenges in 2015 to 2018, BMO analyst Simeon Siegel wrote in a February note titled "Just Do It Again." That's when Adidas' Ultra Boost sneakers, which first launched in 2015, threatened Nike's growth in North America.

Spiegel said the company used four strategies to overtake Adidas in incremental revenue dollars: upping product launches, re-elevating the Jordan brand, accelerating demand creation spending, and cleaning up inventory.

Some of those "key shifts" could boost its firepower in reclaiming its position in running now, Spiegel said.

Nike has already said that it will focus on it performance wear for athletes, particularly running. During its Q1FY25 earnings call, CFO Matthew Friend said running has been "one of our toughest fights over the past few years." It trailed behind ASICS, Adidas, Brooks, and Hoka in running-shoe launches in 2024, according to data from BMO.

Back in 2017, Nike responded to the Adidas Ultra Boost with the Epic React, BMO analysts said. But it'll have to be a "fast copier" again to compete with Hoka, Spiegel said in the note.

Hoka is currently driving the trend of ultra-cushioned shoes in the sport, and "although it doesn't sound glamorous, we believe a line-up of Hoka resembling shoes may be exactly what is needed," Spiegel wrote.

"They kind of lost their way in terms of product innovation, and I think Hoka, Brooks, and other players started taking market share," Brian Yarbrough, an analyst at Edward Jones, said.

It looks like Spiegel's advice to increase product launches is already in Nike's sights, with running-shoe Vomero 18 expected on February 27. The company said the Vomero Plus, the Vomero Premium, and the new Structure model will come "later in 2025."

If it can launch good innovative products, consumers may be "willing to trade away out of Hoka, On," and more that have been gaining market share, Yarbrough said.

As for demand creation, Nike reported $1.1 billion in demand creation expenses to investors for Q2 FY25. It paid for a 60-second spot for Super Bowl LIX — its first ad during the event in nearly 30 years. It starred a number of female athletes, including Caitlin Clark and Sha'Carri Richardson.

The investment paid off as it topped other Super Bowl advertisers in engagement actions, a key metric in the business.

However, Nike is going to need products that are "on point with what the consumer wants" to capitalize, Yarbrough said.

• Nike aired its first Super Bowl commercial in 27 years to advertise performance apparel.
• The ad featured female athletes and aligns with CEO Elliott Hill's growth strategy.
• Nike's focus on women's sports aims to curb declining sales and drive innovation, analysts say.

Nike aired its first Super Bowl ad in 27 years on Sunday as the sports giant attempts to attract more athletes to its performance apparel. The stars of the slot: women.

The 60-second "So Win" commercial aired during Super Bowl LIX and featured eight female athletes, delivering a strong message about the perception of women's sports. If you've been keeping up with new CEO Elliott Hill's plans to put Nike back on top, it's not a surprising move.

Hill told investors during the Q2 FY25 earnings call that the brand is "running a gender offense" to drive growth in different sports.

Nike announced last year that it inked a 12-year deal with the NBA, WNBA, and NBA G League to be the exclusive uniform and apparel provider for each league.

As the WNBA grows in popularity, Nike is in a position to capitalize, analysts have said. It deepened its relationship with the league in 2024 with the merchandising agreement.

"Since our league's inception, Nike has committed to a shared vision for girls and women's basketball," WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in October.

Nike "lost focus" on product innovation under former CEO John Donahoe, and the Super Bowl commercial was Hill's way of announcing to the world that this is the beginning of their comeback, Edward Jones analyst Brian Yarbrough told Business Insider.

"They've got the balance sheet and they've got the ability to spend," Yarbrough told BI.

Nike probably spent big. A 30-second spot during the Super Bowl costs advertisers around $7 million; by that math, Nike spent an estimated $14 million to take advantage of the opportunity arising in women's sports, Yarbrough said.

It appears that the bet paid off. The commercial generated 188,000 engagement actions, an important metric for advertisers made up of social media likes or comments. It was the most of any advertiser during the Super Bowl, according to social and consumer intelligence company Meltwater.

A spokesperson for Nike directed BI to a press release in response to a request for comment.

"Women's sport isn't the future, it's right now. We're seeing it in packed arenas, in TV ratings, in the way people are showing up for the game like never before," said WNBA star and Nike athlete Sabrina Ionescu in the press release.

Nike has been struggling to reboot its sales, which dropped 8% year over year to $12.4 billion during the second quarter, the company told investors in December.

With the "So Win" campaign, Nike said it's capturing the "outstanding rise of women athletes" — notably at a time when companies in other industries are rolling back their diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies.

Nike has not publicly commented on its stance on DEI, but appealing to the masses is the way of the business if it wants to sell "a lot of things to a lot of people," BMO analyst Simeon Siegel said.

"It's very important that they can speak to a lot of people and tell powerful storytelling."

• Hermès CEO Axel Dumas discussed the viral Walmart Birkin bag lookalikes.
• Dumas said he was "annoyed" when asked about Birkin dupes.
• Hermès' Birkin bags are luxury status symbols, starting at $10,000.

Hermès CEO Axel Dumas responded to the viral Walmart "Birkin" bags that were a hit with TikTok's dupe enthusiasts last year — and he was kind of mad.

The French luxury brand reported its annual results from 2024 on Friday. During the call, Dumas said he'd give a "corporate answer" to questions about the lookalikes that were sold on Walmart's website through third parties with about $80 price tags.

At first, he said the company had no comment, but then he expanded on his feelings about fakes.

"It's difficult to know what, exactly, to think about it apart from the fact that it irritated me — annoyed me," he said.

The "Wirkins" aren't technically a counterfeit since the sellers aren't marketing them as the real thing, but Dumas said that Hermès takes counterfeiting "very seriously."

It's unclear when vendors began selling the cheaper bags on Walmart's e-commerce site, but a string of viral videos in December pushed them into the spotlight — causing many to flock to purchase one. TikTokers dubbed them "Wirkins" or "Walmès bags."

"Making a copy like this is quite detestable —it's stealing the creative ideas of others," Dumas said.

However, Dumas said he ended up seeing Wirkins as a compliment in a way. Hermès Birkin bags are highly coveted status symbols among the wealthy, with five-figure price tags and long waitlists. The handmade leather bags start at around $10,000.

He said he understood that no one is buying the $80 Wirkin and expecting it to be the real thing, and it was "quite touching" to see people who dreamed of owning a Birkin.

The bags started disappearing from Walmart's marketplace in January following the frenzy they started online. The company previously declined to comment on why they were being taken off of shelves.

• Tulsi Gabbard was urged to challenge the UK's order for Apple data access.
• UK's request could compromise American data security, risking espionage threats, the letter said.
• Apple reportedly faces penalties for disclosing UK's "secret order," raising privacy concerns.

Tulsi Gabbard was sworn in as the Director of National Intelligence on Wednesday, and she's already received a warning from congressmen about the safety of Americans' data.

A letter from Ron Wyden, a Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Andy Biggs, a Republican on the House Judiciary committee, urged Gabbard to demand the UK government retract an order that would grant them access to the cloud content of any Apple user in the world.

The Washington Post was the first to report on the order, which it said was issued in January, and which would allow the British government to view encrypted material. Wyden and Biggs asked Gabbard to push back on the "secret order."

If Apple were to build a backdoor for the UK, the congressmen said, it would undermine Americans' right to privacy, "expose them to espionage by China, Russia, and other adversaries," and threaten government agencies that use Apple products. The tech giant is reportedly not allowed to acknowledge the order.

"The company faces criminal penalties that prevent it from even confirming to the US Congress the accuracy of these press reports," the letter said.

Wyden and Biggs told Gabbard to give the UK an ultimatum: "Back down from this dangerous attack on US cybersecurity, or face serious consequences."

They also asked her office to answer three questions about the Trump administration's awareness of the order and its understanding of the 2018 CLOUD Act, which allows the US to enter bilateral agreements with foreign allies to request data information from companies without going through diplomatic channels.

Business Insider reached out to the British Home Office and the White House for comment. The White House did not immediately respond.

The Home Office provided a statement to BI on Thursday: "We do not comment on operational matters, including for example confirming or denying the existence of any such notices."

Apple CEO Tim Cook has been a big proponent of data encryption on iOS devices. The tech giant pushed back against the US government's request for a backdoor into iPhone users' personal information.

After a 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Apple was asked by the FBI to provide access to the shooter's data. Cook said that Apple complied with the request, but he stood firmly against building a backdoor to the iPhone.

Cook said it would be "too dangerous to create" such a thing, considering it could fall into the hands of hackers.

"Compromising the security of our personal information can ultimately put our personal safety at risk. That is why encryption has become so important to all of us," Cook wrote in 2016.

Read the full letter sent to Gabbard:

Dear Director Gabbard:

We write to urge you to act decisively to protect the security of Americans' communications from dangerous, shortsighted efforts by the United Kingdom (UK) that will undermine Americans' privacy rights and expose them to espionage by China, Russia and other adversaries.

According to recent press reports, the UK's Home Secretary served Apple with a secret order last month, directing the company to weaken the security of its iCloud backup service to facilitate government spying. This directive reportedly requires the company to weaken the encryption of its iCloud backup service, giving the UK government the "blanket capability" to access customers' encrypted files. This order was reportedly issued under the UK's Investigatory Powers Act 2016, commonly known as the "Snoopers' Charter," which does not require a judge's approval. Apple is reportedly gagged from acknowledging that it received such an order, and the company faces criminal penalties that prevent it from even confirming to the US Congress the accuracy of these press reports.

These reported actions seriously threaten the privacy and security of both the American people and the US government. Apple does not make different versions of its encryption software for each market; Apple customers in the UK use the same software as Americans. If Apple is forced to build a backdoor in its products, that backdoor will end up in Americans' phones, tablets, and computers, undermining the security of Americans' data, as well as of the countless federal, state and local government agencies that entrust sensitive data to Apple products.

The Salt Typhoon hack of US telephone carriers' wiretapping systems last year — in which President Trump and Vice President Vance's calls were tapped by China — provides a perfect example of the dangers of surveillance backdoors. They will inevitably be compromised by sophisticated foreign adversaries and exploited in ways harmful to US national security. As the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the FBI confirmed last November, People's Republic of China (PRC)-affiliated actors were involved in "copying of certain information that was subject to US law enforcement requests pursuant to court orders."

The risk does not just come from wiretapping systems — when sensitive data is stored by third parties, without end-to-end encryption, it is vulnerable to theft when those service providers are hacked. That is exactly what has happened in 2023, when PRC-affiliated hackers broke into Microsoft's systems storing federal agencies' emails. As the Department of Homeland Security's Cyber Safety Review Board documented, the foreign spies "struck the espionage equivalent of gold," enabling them to access "the official email accounts of many of the most senior US government officials managing our country's relationship with the People's Republic of China" and "downloaded approximately 60,000 emails from State Department alone."

After years of senior US government officials — from both Republican and Democratic Administrations — pushing for weaker encryption and surveillance backdoors, it seems that the US government has finally come around to a position we have long argued: strong end-to-end encryption protects national security. Indeed, in the wake of the Salt Typhoon hack, CISA released public guidance which recommended that high-value targets, including Members of Congress, solely use end-to-end encrypted communications tools, like Signal.

While the UK has been a trusted ally, the US government must not permit what is effectively a foreign cyberattack waged through political means. If the UK does not immediately reverse this dangerous effort, we urge you to reevaluate US-UK cybersecurity arrangements and programs as well as US intelligence sharing with the UK. As the UK Parliament's intelligence oversight committee described in a December, 2023 public report, the UK benefits greatly from a "mutual presumption towards unrestricted sharing of [Signals Intelligence]" between the US and UK and that "[t]he weight of advantage in the partnership with the [National Security Agency] is overwhelmingly in [the UK's] favour." The bilateral US-UK relationship must be built on trust. If the UK is secretly undermining one of the foundations of US cybersecurity, that trust has been profoundly breached.

You stated at your confirmation hearing that "backdoors lead down a dangerous path that can undermine Americans' Fourth Amendment rights and civil liberties." And you wrote in response to a written question that "[m]andating mechanisms to bypass encryption or privacy technologies undermines user security, privacy, and trust and poses significant risks of exploitation by malicious actors." We urge you to put those words into action by giving the UK an ultimatum: back down from this dangerous attack on US cybersecurity, or face serious consequences. To inform ongoing Congressional oversight, please also provide us with unclassified answers to the following questions by

March 3, 2025:

1. Was the Trump Administration made aware of this reported order, either by the UK or Apple, prior to the press reports and, if so, when and by whom?

2. What is the Trump Administration's understanding of UK law and the bilateral CLOUD Act agreement with regard to an exception to gag orders for notice to the US government?

3. What is the Trump Administration's understanding of its obligation to inform Congress and the American public about foreign government demands for US companies to weaken the security of their products, pursuant to the CLOUD Act?

Sincerely,

Ron Wydon

Andy Biggs

• Tim Cook announced an Apple product launch set for next Wednesday.
• His post included a teaser video showing a glowing ring around a metallic Apple logo.
• A report suggests it could be a new iPhone SE. Apple shares rose by 2% after the announcement.

Tim Cook on Thursday announced that a new addition to the Apple family tree would arrive next week.

The Apple CEO posted a seven-second clip on X teasing a launch next Wednesday. He didn't provide many details, though the clip showed a metallic Apple logo with a glowing ring around it.

"Get ready to meet the newest member of the family," Cook said.

It's unclear which part of the Apple family this member will belong to; the tech giant offers smartwatches, AirPods, MacBooks, and more.

One possibility is a new generation of the iPhone SE, the lower-cost phone Apple launched in 2016. The current model, which starts at $429, was last updated in 2022. A recent Bloomberg report suggests a new SE is expected this month, offering Apple Intelligence at a more affordable price than the other iPhones that are compatible with it.

Apple's shares were up by as much as 2% after Cook's Thursday teaser.

• AppleTV+ is now available for Android users to download.
• It's a rare step by Apple to make its own apps available to non-iOS systems.
• Apple has been pushing to increase recurring revenue at its services businesses, including AppleTV+.

Apple's streaming platform is officially available on Android devices.

The Google Play store now has the AppleTV+ app available for Android users to download, marking a rare move by Apple to make its own offerings available to mobile devices that aren't iOS-powered.

It's a timely decision as Apple TV originals like "Silo" gain massive popularity. The tech giant spent $20 million per episode to make season two of "Severance," which premiered in January, Bloomberg reported.

"The success of shows like 'Severance' and 'Silo' has created an opportunity to capture additional subscription revenue by reaching Android users," Jacob Bourne, tech analyst at BI sister company EMARKETER, said.

Bourne said it reflects Apple's "evolving strategy" to increase revenue for its services business as Apple faces hardware headwinds including tech rivals in China challenging its iPhone sales. Apple's services, which include segments such as its subscriptions, iCloud, advertising, and Apple Care, grew 14% year over year to reach a record $26.3 billion in Q1 FY2025.

Although the move will likely give Apple's services revenue a boost this quarter, Morningstar analyst William Kerwin said it's no indication that Apple is opening its ecosystem. There are still a number of features that are available exclusively to iOS devices.

It is a strategy to give it some more firepower in the competitive streaming industry, where its installed base amounts to a tenth of that of Netflix, Forrester analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee said. Netflix reported over 300 million paid memberships globally in Q4 2024; Apple doesn't specifically break out numbers. An AppleTV+ subscription costs $9.99 per month in the US. Netflix's standard plan with ads is $7.99.

Last month, Apple offered users a weekend to try out AppleTV+ for free — another move that analysts said was intended to attract new subscribers. Before its launch to android phones, the AppleTV app was available on iOS products, Windows devices, and many smart TVs.

• Scarlett Johansson said she's a "victim of AI" after a video featuring a fake her went viral.
• The video, made by AI creators, features celebrities responding to Kanye West's remarks on X.
• The creators of the video defended their work, calling it an "artistic and cultural statement."

Scarlett Johansson pointed to her concerns about artificial intelligence usage again after an AI video featuring her and other celebrities went viral.

Johansson, who has been vocal about AI regulation in the past, addressed a video responding to Kanye West's antisemitic remarks over the weekend on X.

On Tuesday, Ori Bejerano, a self-described generative AI expert, uploaded a video of various public figures wearing a white T-shirt featuring a middle finger marked with the Star of David and "Kanye" underneath it. The clip ended with the phrase, "Enough is enough."

As the video circulated online, Johansson said, "We must call out the misuse of AI," and urged the US government to pass legislation to regulate the technology.

"I have unfortunately been a very public victim of AI, but the truth is that the threat of AI affects each and every one of us," Johansson said in a statement to Business Insider.

The faces of several public figures, many of whom identify as Jewish, appeared in the clip — including Drake, Mike Bloomberg, and Natalie Portman.

The Israeli AI entrepreneur Guy Bar and Bejerano told BI that they're the creators of the video. The celebrities featured were chosen because of their Jewish heritage and their proximity to Ye's "social and cultural environment," Bar said.

"We wanted to use their voices, so to speak, to tell Kanye West: 'Your antisemitism and incitement to violence have crossed every possible line. Enough is enough,'" Bar told BI.

Bar, speaking on behalf of himself and Bejerano, said they "deeply respect" Johansson's concerns about AI but defended their work.

"The video in question was not created for commercial purposes but rather as an artistic and cultural statement aimed at confronting rising antisemitism," Bar said.

BI reached out to representatives for each public figure whose likeness was included in the clip; most did not reply. A spokesperson for David Schwimmer said the actor had no comment at this time.

West, whose legal name is Ye, appeared in an ad during the Super Bowl on Sunday promoting his website Yeezy.com. After the commercial aired, the online store had a T-shirt featuring a swastika as the only product for sale.

The move followed a string of antisemitic X posts Ye put up on Friday and Saturday. The rapper praised Adolf Hitler and described himself as a Nazi. Shopify, which powered the web store, confirmed Tuesday that it shut down the site.

Johansson's previous AI legal battles

Last year, Johansson called out ChatGPT's maker, OpenAI, saying its "Sky" voice assistant sounded "eerily similar" to her own. She said she declined OpenAI's request to voice its virtual assistant before the company announced the technology.

OpenAI denied that the actor who voiced the assistant was hired to imitate Johansson but eventually "paused" Sky to address the issue. As comparisons mounted, Johansson called for legislation to protect "individual rights" regarding AI and deepfakes.

Gen AI has been a point of contention between Silicon Valley and the general public. Companies are ramping up their AI investments, while the US government is taking a more relaxed approach to regulation compared with some other countries.

"We believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry," Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday at the Paris AI summit.

Read Johansson's full statement on Bar and Bejerano's video:

It has been brought to my attention by family members and friends that an AI-generated video featuring my likeness, in response to an antisemitic view, has been circulating online and gaining traction. I am a Jewish woman who has no tolerance for antisemitism or hate speech of any kind. But I also firmly believe that the potential for hate speech multiplied by AI is a far greater threat than any one person who takes accountability for it. We must call out the misuse of AI, no matter its messaging, or we risk losing a hold on reality.

I have unfortunately been a very public victim of AI, but the truth is that the threat of AI affects each and every one of us.

There is a 1000-foot wave coming regarding AI that several progressive countries, not including the United States, have responded to in a responsible manner. It is terrifying that the US government is paralyzed when it comes to passing legislation that protects all of its citizens against the imminent dangers of AI.

I urge the US government to make the passing of legislation limiting AI use a top priority; it is a bipartisan issue that enormously affects the immediate future of humanity at large.

• Kanye West's Super Bowl ad pointed people to YEEZY.com, which was later updated to feature only a swastika T-shirt.
• After the listing received backlash, Shopify removed the website on Tuesday.
• Shopify has faced criticism before for hosting controversial stores, leading to policy changes.

Four days of Kanye West controversy came to a head on Tuesday when the artist's website was taken offline after facing backlash.

The website was removed by the vendor powering it, Shopify, less than 48 hours after West's Super Bowl ad directed viewers to a storefront selling a single item: a swastika T-shirt labeled "HH-01."

A Shopify spokesperson confirmed to BI on Tuesday morning the company had removed the store.

"All merchants are responsible for following the rules of our platform. This merchant did not engage in authentic commerce practices and violated our terms so we removed them from Shopify," the spokesperson said.

On Friday, West, whose legal name is Ye, posted a slew of social media posts on X praising Adolf Hitler, describing himself as a Nazi, and defending music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, who was arrested in September and charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Ye also purchased a 30-second ad that aired during Super Bowl LIX. Unlike the national Super Bowl ads that reached a cost of north of $8 million for 30 seconds of airtime this year, the Yeezy team instead purchased ad slots on local stations — which would have come at a lower price.

The ads ran on local Fox stations in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Atlanta, and some other affiliate stations, according to USIM, the media agency that brokered the buy.

Doug Livingston, president and chief operating officer of USIM, said the agency immediately ceased working with Yeezy LLC after seeing the "disparaging and vile comments" Ye had posted on X on Friday.

Livingston said Fox had said the media buy was "non-cancelable."

"We informed Fox that they should cease airing any remnant spots immediately upon learning that Yeezy, LLC was promoting vile content," he said.

A Fox insider told BI they received no communication from the agency about requesting to drop the ad until Monday morning after the Super Bowl spot had aired.

The Yeezy Super Bowl spot, which purported to be shot on an iPhone and featured the rapper sitting in a dentist's chair showing off his new teeth, was unlikely to have caused alarm when it was submitted and subsequently approved for broadcast because it didn't contain any obscenities.

"So whassup guys, I spent like all the money for the commercial on these new teeth. So, once again I had to shoot it on the iPhone. Um, um, um, go to Yeezy.com," Ye said in the sparse ad. (Yeezy.com also ran a local spot during last year's Super Bowl, starring Ye.)

At the time of the ad's approval and airing, the Yeezy store displayed a number of items for sale. It was only after the ad was shown that the website was updated to display the swastika T-shirt for sale, according to screenshots of the site captured by the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

USIM's Livingston said the agency was unaware that Ye had intended to change the nature of the store's offerings.

"The commercial was to promote general athletic apparel listed on the website," Livingston said.

Along with his website, Ye's X account appears to also be deactivated on the platform as of Tuesday morning.

"Ye is an intergenerational artist and icon who continues to redefine the limits of creativity and free expression. He has deactivated his X account for the time being," spokesperson Milo Yiannopoulos said in a statement to NBC News. Representatives for Ye did not immediately respond to a request for further comment from Business Insider.

Ye was previously banned from X, then known as Twitter, in 2022 after he tweeted an image containing a swastika and the Star of David. His account was later reinstated.

In the hours following the Super Bowl ad airing, many called for the Yeezy site to be taken down.

This week, the Anti-Defamation League, which called the T-shirt listing "further proof of Kanye's antisemitism," encouraged people to sign an open letter calling on Fox Sports to condemn Ye's ad. At the time of writing, the letter had more than 9,000 signatories.

"The swastika is the symbol adopted by Hitler as the primary emblem of the Nazis," the ADL said in a statement posted to X on Monday. "It galvanized his followers in the 20th century and continues to threaten and instill fear in those targeted by antisemitism and white supremacy."

"If that wasn't enough, the t-shirt is labeled on Kanye's website as 'HH-01,' which is code for 'Heil Hitler,'" the statement said.

On Tuesday, talent agent Daniel McCartney of 33 & West announced on Instagram that he would no longer represent Ye "due to his recent harmful and hateful remarks."

Shopify under pressure

Several former Shopify executives, including former chief product officer Craig Miller and former senior director of investor relations Katie Keita, spoke out against the company's hosting of the Yeezy store before it was taken down.

"Even if @Shopify views it as 'morally ambiguous' to empower the exponential buildup of hate toward a religion/ethnicity, it is, at the very least, a grave public disservice," Keita said in a post on X.

It wasn't the first time Shopify has faced criticism for its hosting of an online store. Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke frequently defends free speech and has said he doesn't view it as Shopify's role to police points of view.

In 2020, a legal defense fund was set up for Kyle Rittenhouse via Shopify. After several weeks of criticism, Shopify shut the store down. It also removed sites affiliated with President Donald Trump after a group of pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

In 2022, critics called for Shopify to remove the store for Libs of TikTok, saying it violated Shopify's acceptable use policy. At the time, that policy said Shopify's platform could not be used to "promote or condone hate or violence against people based on race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, medical condition, veteran status or other forms of discriminatory intolerance."

Shopify did not remove the Libs of TikTok store as it did not find it to be in violation of the policy, a spokesperson told Business Insider in 2022. That decision frustrated some employees, including some in customer support who fielded complaints from angry customers.

Shopify adjusted its acceptable use policy last year, removing some of the more specific language.

"There are activities we don't allow on the platform because they breach the social contract of commerce," it now reads, in part. "This means you can't call for, or threaten, violence against specific people or groups. And you can't sell products that facilitate intentional self-harm."

• Bill Gates was dedicated to making Microsoft successful when he was a Harvard student.
• The billionaire said he had "no girlfriend" and "no hobbies" in 1976 outside his company.
• His intensity embodies "founder mode" — a term coined and popularized by tech leaders in 2024.

The tech industry couldn't stop talking about "founder mode" in 2024 — but Bill Gates embodied it decades ago.

Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham coined the term to summarize advice from Airbnb cofounder Brian Chesky. Graham wrote in an essay that Chesky mentioned Steve Jobs at Apple as an example of a founder who took a hands-on approach to running their company.

Gates, who built Microsoft in the 1970s, was similarly intense when it came to making his budding company successful as a university student. In his new memoir, "Source Code: My Beginnings," the 69-year-old billionaire recalled the early days at the company, which he said required 80-hour workweeks and a limited social life.

"I had always been the taskmaster, the one who incessantly worried about losing our lead, and fearing that if we weren't careful, we'd be sunk," Gates said.

He said he was "driven by the sense of responsibility" he felt for Microsoft's success.

As Graham wrote in his blog post, manager mode describes a boss who delegates duties to his employees. Founder mode, however, is for leaders who are detail-oriented and don't use multiple layers of management to keep their companies afloat.

"If I could summarize founder mode in a couple sentences, it's about being in the details," Chesky said on The Verge's "Decoder" podcast.

"It's that great leadership is presence, not absence," he added.

Gates' social circle in 1976 was almost exclusively the men he was working on Microsoft with — "no girlfriend, no hobbies." By shutting out the rest of the world, he wrote, he could focus on making the most of the opportunity ahead of him.

Meanwhile, he questioned the dedication of his Microsoft cofounder, Paul Allen. He said that Allen didn't share his level of ambition to be the fastest and the best.

Gates said he needed a "twenty-four-hours-a-day business partner," and Allen wasn't prepared to be that partner. Eventually, he'd find that ideal partner in fellow Harvard student Steve Ballmer.

In January 1977, Gates dropped out of college to pursue Microsoft full time. His work would lead to it becoming one of the biggest companies in the world.

"Yes, it was exhausting, but it was also exhilarating," he wrote.

• Gen Z's spending preferences are changing as they face high prices and increasing credit card debt.
• BNPL services offer financing options, but Gen Z is looking to make better money decisions.
• Klarna said that 18- to 25-year-olds make up one of its smallest demographics.

When it was time for Zachary Timms, 27, to propose to his girlfriend, he used Affirm for the first time to pay for her dream ring.

Timms told Business Insider that he didn't usually use buy-now, pay-later services but that the convenience it offered for paying off a $7,000 engagement ring led him to try it. As an elder Gen Zer, his spending choices fit in with a trend BNPL companies and retail experts have observed in young adults.

"I try to buy everything out of pocket if I can," Timms said.

His reason? To avoid piling up debt and set himself up for milestones like buying a home.

While Timms' girlfriend said yes, he said he would say no to using a BNPL service again — unless he was "in a pinch."

BNPL seemed to be growing in popularity with Gen Z in 2022, with its low fees and fast credit approval. But it has been criticized, with consumers previously telling BI that it could encourage impulsive purchases and lead people to rack up debt.

These services offer people the option to pay for items like apparel, tech, and plane tickets in installments instead of paying the full price all at once. Unlike credit card payments, firms like Afterpay and Klarna calculate and split the full price of an order into a short-term financing schedule at the checkout.

A recent survey by the University of Southern California's Center for Public Relations and the creative-communications agency Day One Agency indicated Gen Z wasn't as enamored with services like BNPL as many might expect, even as companies expand their offerings on sites of retailers like Target and Sephora.

USC and D1A asked 1,022 18- to 25-year-olds across the US whether they'd rather pay for something outright or in installments; only 14% said they'd opt to pay in installments.

The majority, 59%, said they'd choose to pay for goods up front, and 27% of respondents fell somewhere in the middle.

If Gen Zers like Timms are trying to avoid paying in installments, there are several factors that could contribute to that choice, Courtney Alev, a consumer financial advocate at Credit Karma, said.

They want to make better financial decisions

Gen Z is racking up credit card debt with the rising cost of living.

In a Credit Karma survey last year, 86% of Gen Zers said they "left 2024 with financial regrets, their most prolific regret being overspending," Alev said.

One 25-year-old TikToker said that services like Klarna and Afterpay had become "so normalized," particularly for people in their early 20s. She said BNPL should reserved for "essential" items.

"If I don't have $80 to pay up in full, then maybe I just don't need it," the creator, who goes by the username Sparklyclever, said.

Some, like Timms, worry about their finances being affected by owing a BNPL service. But there's no guarantee that owing money to a company like Affirm or Klarna would influence a credit score.

A recent study by FICO in partnership with Affirm found that including BNPL services on consumers' credit reports led to higher scores or no change for the majority of over 500,000 borrowers — despite Gen Z's growing concerns about their financial standing.

They prefer to use credit cards

Gen Z may be acquiring debt at a faster rate than millennials, but Alev said credit cards were "more advantageous" than BNPL for borrowing, with rewards points that can be redeemed for travel, for example.

In the Credit Karma survey, 15% of Gen Z consumers said they planned to use BNPL for holiday costs, while 28% said they'd use their credit cards.

"Gen Z is pretty savvy when it comes to credit cards and have figured out the power of rewards," Alev said.

Gen Z isn't always BNPL's typical consumer

At Klarna, adults between the ages of 18 and 25 make up 13.7% of its shoppers, making it the second-smallest group of users (the smallest group is adults 56 and up, which Klarna says is part of its fastest-growing segment). The average age of its users is 36.

Affirm's chief operating officer, Michael Linford, said that its users "skew a little bit older" than Klarna's and Afterpay's. Linford attributed the difference to Affirm's focus on higher-value shopping carts and underwriting expensive items for creditworthy customers.

A college student, Linford said, likely wouldn't have the income to cover the cost of a $500 barbecue grill, compared with someone who has an established career.

They still want to have fun

Key financial milestones, like buying a home or retirement, are also "less top of mind in general for this generation," Alev said.

Gen Z consumers typically place less importance on saving money than older generations, prioritizing near-term fun, she added.

The "simplicity that comes with paying in full" can let Gen Zers off the hook for multiple payments on varying due dates. Their view of paying with cash is also a factor.

Shadé Smith, 25, told BI that she'd rather pay her full balance to "get it out of the way." Smith said she used BNPL once or twice in 2024 on a TV or a concert ticket.

"It's easier to get the buyer's remorse over with up front instead of being reminded of my impulse purchase every two weeks," she said.

About one in five surveyed Gen Z consumers told Credit Karma that "paying with cash feels like free money." That's money they can spend on travel, entertainment, and self-care products, as data from Sezzle and Shopify suggests they tend to purchase.

Blame it, at least in part, on their "YOLO mindset," Alev told BI.

• Bill Gates said he applied to Ivy League schools using different personas and interests.
• He experimented with different career paths in his applications, including politics, he said.
• He was accepted to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, ultimately choosing Harvard before dropping out.

Bill Gates is a well-known Harvard dropout, but his applications to Ivy League universities as a teen are just as interesting as his decision not to finish his degree.

In his memoir, "Source Code: My Beginnings," Gates wrote about his college application process as a teenager uncertain of his career path. His varying interests led him to take an unconventional approach with each university he applied to.

Gates said that when it came to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, he experimented with his "persona" while applying to each school. After joining a drama club as a hobby outside programming, acting made him feel free and more confident, he said.

"As I learned in drama class, each was a performance — one actor, three characters," he wrote.

Gates took on a new character for each application. He expressed interest in different areas of study at each of the three schools, but he included his real experiences to back up his choices, he said.

He told Princeton he wanted to be a software engineer, emphasizing his coding experience and math grades. On his Yale application, he said he wanted to work for the government or become a lawyer.

Gates spent time working as a page for the House of Representatives during his high school years. He said a career in politics was a possible "backup plan" if computers didn't take off.

To Harvard, Gates emphasized his background in computers — within 600 words, he said — and wrote about his time as a programming teacher being a particularly hard job. The end of his essay, however, was a departure from the extracurriculars he'd listed.

He wrote: "Work with the computer has proved to be a great opportunity to have a lot of fun, earn some money, and learn a lot. However, I do not plan to continue concentrating in this field. Right now I am most interested in business or law."

As for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Gates said he blew off his summer interview at the exclusive science, technology, and engineering university. He said he didn't want to be "a math nerd surrounded by other math nerds," so he played pinball instead of showing up.

Eventually, he was accepted into Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Gates chose Harvard and later dropped out to focus on his budding company, Microsoft.

• Bill Gates opened up about his past drug use in his memoir, "Source Code: My Beginnings."
• Gates said he tried LSD as a young man despite what Steve Jobs may have thought years ago.
• During his "trips," he said he thought about code more than creation or design.

Bill Gates has a more colorful past than the straight-laced image he has in the tech industry implies.

These days, Gates' name is associated with philanthropy and cofounding Microsoft, but the billionaire reminded us that he was once a teenager experimenting with drugs.

Gates, 69, spoke briefly about taking LSD on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" and included an anecdote about Apple cofounder Steve Jobs. He recalled a comment by his late rival suggesting he should "take acid" to help with his design taste.

He said he thought to himself at the time, "I took the acid. It was just that I got the batch that's about code, not about design.'"

Jobs was open about his experiences with LSD and other psychedelics as a young man. He told his biographer, Walter Isaacson, that dropping acid was "a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life."

In his memoir, "Source Code: My Beginnings," Gates said that Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen first asked him to try acid when they were high schoolers, but he declined. When he was asked again as a senior, Gates said he was "feeling a bit uninhibited" from smoking marijuana beforehand.

"I decided to see what it was all about," he wrote.

Gates described his first trip as exhilarating at first, but he had dental surgery the next morning while he was still feeling the effects. He said he wasn't sure what was really happening during the procedure.

"I vowed that if I ever dropped acid again, I wouldn't do it solo and I wouldn't do it when I had plans for the next day," Gates said.

He did end up dropping acid again. While he was a student at Harvard, Gates wrote, he took LSD again on a friend's birthday. This time, he had a seemingly "cosmic" experience that ended with him worrying that his brain could erase his memories like a computer could delete files.

"That would be one of the last times I would do LSD," Gates said.

In the past, he's been much less candid about his drug use. He was asked directly by Playboy Magazine in 1994 if he'd ever done LSD, and his response could be interpreted as an admission.

"My errant youth ended a long time ago," he told the interviewer.

• Apple launched a new party-planning app on Tuesday called Apple Invites.
• Partiful, a startup with a similar function, had a swift response that suggested Apple had copied its product.
• Apple Invites is available now, with full capabilities accessible to iCloud+ subscribers.

Apple isn't always first to a party — and when it does show up, the existing competition isn't always happy to see it.

That appears to be the case with Apple Invites, a new app released on Tuesday from the iPhone giant. The party-planning app is meant to be an easy way for iPhone owners to create virtual party invitations and send them to their contacts.

Partiful, a startup founded in 2020 with a similar app, was quick to respond to Apple's entrance into the space with a cheeky response.

"just reviewing the apple developer guidelines," Partiful captioned a image posted to X showing Apple's guidelines on "copycats" in app development.

"Don't simply copy the latest popular app on the App Store, or make some minor changes to another app's name or UI and pass it off as your own," Apple said in its developer guidelines.

Partiful now finds itself in a similar position to other apps and products faced with competing directly against the deep-pocketed company.

Apple, which has talked about entering new categories with the philosophy of being "not first, but best," has launched multiple apps and features over the years that compete directly against third-party offerings available in its App Store — a move that some have dubbed as getting "Sherlocked."

Neither Apple nor Partiful immediately responded to a request for comment from Business Insider.

In Partiful's app, you can create virtual invitations using pictures, videos, and GIFs and send them out to people from your contacts or those who attended the same events in the past. Google named Partiful its "best app" of 2024.

There's also a multimedia element to Apple Invites thanks to the integration of Apple Music and Shared Albums for attendees to collaborate on.

Apple's latest app could also help drive its recurring revenue, as a subscription to iCloud+ is required to unlock the full feature set. While subscribers can create events on the platform, those who don't pay for iCloud+ can only RSVP — not host their own parties. Non-iPhone owners can still RSVP to Apple Invites.

Apple's iCloud+ plans start at $0.99 a month and go up to $59. Apple's Services category, which includes subscriptions, has been a big talking point in earnings calls for the tech giant and has grown considerably under Tim Cook's tenure as CEO.

Apple's Services revenue most recently grew 14% year over year to reach a record $26.3 billion in the holiday quarter.

• Bill Gates picked up a passion for politics while working as a congressional page.
• While computers were still a "big unknown" in 1972, politics was a potential backup plan for Gates.
• In his memoir, "Source Code: My Beginnings," Gates wrote about his life before starting Microsoft.

In 1972, 17-year-old Bill Gates wasn't sure computers would take off like he hoped, so he turned to a backup plan: politics.

Gates, who would go on to cofound Microsoft, worked as a congressional page for the House of Representatives in Olympia, Washington, and Washington, DC, as a high schooler.

In his memoir, "Source Code: My Beginnings," Gates wrote that he developed an interest in software at a young age and spent time programming in the basement of the University of Washington. Although he'd found a passion for the budding industry, computers were still "a big unknown" at the time, Gates said.

He spent a month working on Capitol Hill every day. At the time, Gates said he saw a career in computers as a "possible path," but he was taken by the drama of working in politics.

His stint in Washington, DC, coincided with the Democratic presidential candidate Thomas Eagleton dropping out of the 1972 race — Gates said he later sold Eagleton's campaign pins as collectors' items. Working as a page during that time "was the closest thing to a political thriller I'd ever witnessed," Gates said.

After a month on the Hill, Gates said he began to seriously consider a career in politics and government, starting with studying law. When he was applying for college, Gates said he saw a "tantalizing menu of different possibilities" in university catalogs.

In fact, he wrote in his application essay to Harvard that he didn't plan to continue concentrating on computers — telling the university that he was "most interested in business or law." He told Yale that he wanted to go into government work.

A computing breakthrough came in December 1974 with the advent of the first successful minicomputer kit by MITS, a US-based electronics company. From there, Gates and his Microsoft cofounder, Paul Allen, worked on crafting a new programming language for the Altair 8800.

Though he didn't become a politician or complete his studies at Harvard, Gates is politically active as a donor and philanthropist. He said he privately donated $50 million to pro-Kamala Harris super-PAC Future Forward, The New York Times reported in October.

"It's nearly impossible to spend time in Congress, even on that lowest level, and not get swept up by it," he wrote.

• Donald Trump's most recent tariffs on China put Apple's profitability at risk, analysts say.
• Apple previously avoided similar tariffs in 2019 after discussions between Cook and Trump.
• Mexico, Canada, and China are planning retaliatory measures that could additionally hurt sales.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is finding himself staring down China tariffs again, six years after narrowly avoiding them during Donald Trump's first term.

President Trump is imposing tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China that he says are meant to push them to do more to stop fentanyl, an addictive synthetic opioid, from entering the US. So far, it's prompted each country to announce potential countermeasures, with Mexico and Canada promising retaliatory moves.

Tech analysts' eyes are now on Cook to see whether he can successfully extricate Apple from the levies — like he managed to with Trump's China tariffs in 2019.

"We're dealing with a new political and market landscape, and similar exemptions aren't guaranteed," Jacob Bourne, tech analyst at EMARKETER, a Business Insider sister company, said.

Apple makes about 95% of its most popular products in China, Forbes previously reported. Trump's added 10% tariff on the country's imports to the US would mean the cost could fall on consumers or the company itself, analysts told BI.

It's unclear if Cook is already pursuing a workaround for Apple, but Morningstar analyst William Kerwin said Apple's exploration of US manufacturing "could be a part of a deal for an exemption."

The last time China was hit with Trump tariffs, Apple managed to protect iPhones and MacBooks. Reuters reported that Cook cited competition with South Korea's Samsung in previous discussions with Trump. Kerwin says, "We'll see" if Cook can make another good case to Trump in 2025.

Apple's global visibility and the "challenging geopolitical climate" leaves it open to potential retaliatory tariffs from countries where it does business, said Gil Luria, an analyst at D.A. Davidson & Co.

China, specifically, poses a threat when it comes to manufacturing and revenue, as the region is a key market for Apple's sales. The iPhone maker has lost ground there to local smartphone companies in recent years.

"A prolonged tariff-driven conflict could impact Apple sales outside the US," Luria said.

Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

Over the past five years, Apple has mostly avoided increasing iPhone prices in the US (apart from a $100 bump on Pro Max models in 2023).

"We don't expect the pricing lever to get pulled in the short-term," Kerwin said.

As for Cook, he told analysts that Apple is "monitoring the situation" during its first-quart fiscal year 2025 earnings call Thursday.

• Tech giants appeared to defend their heavy AI investments during their latest earnings calls.
• Both Meta and Microsoft plan to spend over $60 billion on building out AI infrastructure this year.
• DeepSeek's seemingly cheaper AI model has raised questions.

DeepSeek may have spooked investors at the start of the week, but tech giants are doubling down on their plans to invest heavily in AI.

Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and more reported earnings on Wednesday and Thursday. One of the major topics people were interested in was whether execs would comment on whether Chinese company DeepSeek's seemingly cheaper AI model would change US corporations' lofty spending goals.

The answer appeared to be a resounding no.

"Huge week for Big Tech earnings as Zuckerberg, Nadella, Cook, and Musk doubled down on their AI visions and what this means for each of these tech stalwarts looking ahead," Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities, said in an X post, referring to Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Apple's Tim Cook, and Tesla and xAI's Elon Musk.

"This is an AI arms race and the Temu of AI DeepSeek not changing that…AI Revolution just starting," Ives continued.

Investors had been concerned whether a less-expensive open-source AI model like DeepSeek's R1 would highlight that Big Tech companies had been splashing out too much on building out infrastructure — like data centers filled with costly chips — or that less-expensive models would stop them being able to charge customers as much to access them.

However, Big Tech stuck with its spending plans. Meta, for example, said it's still planning for $60 billion to $65 billion in capex for its AI strategy in 2025. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said "investing aggressively" in these initiatives will be the determining factor in Meta's financial trajectory in the coming years.

Meanwhile, Microsoft told investors that demand for AI is so high that it's struggling to provide enough data centers.

"Already, our AI business has surpassed an annual revenue run rate of $13 billion, up 175% year-over-year," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on the FY 2025 Q2 earnings call.

The company plans to spend $80 billion on AI data centers this fiscal year.

Many companies said that cheaper AI models would broaden access to the technology, therefore increasing demand and justifying their spending on chips and data centers.

Zuckerberg told investors that Meta is working to set an "American standard" for open-source models globally as they become more accessible.

"If anything, some of the recent news has only strengthened our conviction that this is the right thing for us to be focused on," Zuck said on the Wednesday call.

DeepSeek disrupted the market in January with a new AI model that its researchers said was trained at a fraction of the cost — less than $6 million — that US tech companies are investing. Shares of many competitors, including Microsoft and Alphabet, fell on concerns that a cheaper model showed they might have been overspending.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has been criticized for launching Apple Intelligence later than competitors and taking a more cautious approach. However, that meant the company was insulated from the hit other stocks took from the DeepSeek news ahead of Thursday's call.

While he didn't discuss how much the iPhone maker plans to spend on AI this year, Cook said, "From a CapEx point of view, we've always taken a very prudent, deliberative approach to our expenditure."

Over at Tesla, CEO Elon Musk was all about real-world AI during the Q4 earnings call on Wednesday. Musk told analysts he's "making rapid progress" on technology when asked about accelerating innovation.

He didn't mention DeepSeek but said "the cost of training is dropping dramatically with time," as Tesla ramps up its efforts in developing its humanoid robot, Optimus.