Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told Republican lawmakers on Saturday that President-elect Trump supports a conservative policy overhaul via a single large bill, three sources told Fox News Digital.

Trump wants both the House and Senate to have such a bill on his desk by May, the sources said. The president-elect's buy-in will likely end the growing intraparty friction on how to pass Republican goals next year via a process known as "reconciliation," which lawmakers plan to use to pass conservative policy and budget changes.

House Republicans met behind closed doors in Washington's Fort McNair on Saturday to discuss the plan.

JOHNSON BLASTS DEM ACCUSATIONS HE VOWED TO END OBAMACARE AS 'DISHONEST'

Reconciliation allows the Senate to bypass its traditional 60-vote threshold in favor of a simple majority, provided the legislation is focused on budgetary and other fiscal matters.

Both parties have traditionally used reconciliation to pass broad policy changes in a single bill. But the legislation also goes through a strict assessment where the Senate parliamentarian is tasked with deciding what is and is not relevant to U.S. fiscal matters. 

Notably, Democrats previously tried to use reconciliation to pass mass amnesty measures, but they were blocked.

Republicans might face similar issues with their push to add border security provisions to the bill. They're also aiming to use it to extend Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017, as well as to pass measures on energy and defense.

The apparent decision by Johnson on Saturday comes after Congressional Republicans were at odds over whether to pass one or two reconciliation bills.

It is a process normally used once per year, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., floated a plan last month to split Republicans' priorities into two bills – one dealing with the border and defense and a second aimed at preserving Trump's tax policy. 

REPUBLICANS GIVE DETAILS FROM CLOSED-DOOR MEETINGS WITH DOGE'S MUSK, RAMASWAMY

The plan was also backed by top Trump adviser Stephen Miller.

But that push angered Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, who warned that two reconciliation bills could be too big a lift, and putting taxes second could imperil remaining GOP tax provisions that are set to expire at the end of this year.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., pointed out on Fox Business Network's' "Mornings With Maria" that Congress has not passed two reconciliation bills into law in one year since 1997.

"I am saying we need a reconciliation bill that has border, energy, permitting and tax. You put all four of those things together, we can deliver on that," Smith said.

Ways and Means Committee member Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., did not go into specifics about what was said at the meeting but called it "an informative and productive day where we exchanged ideas, priorities and procedure to accomplish our legislative goals of securing our borders, deporting cartels and criminals, saving trafficked children, restoring energy dominance, reducing bureaucracy and wasteful spending and building upon President Trump’s historic tax cuts."

"We are united and ready to deliver for Americans in what will be a momentous year for Congress and the country," Malliotakis told Fox News Digital.

The panel put out a memo last month warning that everyday Americans could see their taxes rise by 22% if Trump's tax policies expire.

But other lawmakers bristled at the idea that two bills were impossible.

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., told Fox News Digital last month, "I think we need to prove to the American people that we can actually defend our borders. The bottom line is, I think they need to be on almost parallel tracks. But I do believe that taxes are much more complicated."

Fox News Digital reached out to Thune and Smith's offices for comment. Thune's office responded and declined to comment, and Smith's office did not immediately respond.

• YouTube and Threads have taken down pro-Luigi Mangione posts they've said violate their policies.
• YouTube told Business Insider it forbids videos that glorify the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO.
• The different moderation approaches among platforms are leaving some users confused.

Diana "Ladidai" Umana, a content creator based in New York, has been closely following the news of Luigi Mangione — posting her thoughts on various social media accounts.

Umana's posts are pro-Luigi (and some have unorthodox angles, like saying he wasn't the shooter, which authorities have charged him with). But she was surprised when her entire YouTube account was permanently removed for what YouTube told her were "severe or repeated violations" of its rules.

YouTube's content moderation policies forbid "content praising or justifying violent acts carried out by violent extremist, criminal, or terrorist organizations."

"This means we remove content that glorifies or promotes the suspect in the murder of [UnitedHealthcare CEO] Brian Thompson, as well as content that trivializes his death," Jack Malon, a spokesperson for YouTube, told Business Insider. "This enforcement began in the immediate aftermath of the incident, as part of our standard practice to address content related to violent tragedies."

Other social platforms have also taken down content related to Mangione.

Several subreddits devoted to him have been banned — like r/luigimangione2 — although there are still other active subreddits about him. Reddit didn't respond to a request for comment on its moderation policies about the topic.

TikTok also has a policy against "promoting (including any praise, celebration, or sharing of manifestos) or providing material support" to violent extremists or individuals who cause serial or mass violence. People have complained that TikTok has removed comments saying "Free Luigi" and some videos about Mangione.

On Meta's Threads, people have said some of their posts about Mangione — like a post about his astrological sign or a video montage of him set to an Olivia Rodgigo song — were removed.

Meta has similar guidance, banning the "glorification" of dangerous organizations and individuals, which it defines as "legitimizing or defending the violent or hateful acts of a designated entity by claiming that those acts have a moral, political, logical or other justification that makes them acceptable or reasonable."

However, Meta recently updated what it calls its dangerous organizations and individuals policy to allow for "more social and political discourse in certain instances including — peace agreements, elections, human rights related issues, news reporting and academic, neutral and condemning discussion — and to ensure users are not unduly penalized for sharing it."

A spokesperson for Meta pointed to this policy but declined to comment further.

Pro-Lugi posts can be difficult to moderate

You might imagine how, when it comes to posts discussing Luigi Mangione, there are some gray areas between what's considered praise vs. discussion of social issues.

That's where the deluge of pro-Luigi posts from American users on social platforms gets a little weird.

Mangione's popularity among some people online is complicated, and I won't try to untangle it here (read this or this for some smart analysis). But you've probably already observed some of this online: There are a lot of people posting about Mangione and running afoul of content guidelines that they'd never usually run up against — rules designed for posts praising ISIS or Mexican drug cartels, for instance.

The result is some confusion and frustration among users.

Content moderation is an art, not a science, and there's a spectrum of differences between a statement like "Luigi was justified" and a meme about his looks or an ironic fan cam edit video.

Mangione has been charged with first-degree murder "in furtherance of terrorism," which may clarify things for platforms about whether to consider him as a single accused murderer or an alleged terrorist when it comes to content policy.

For now, it seems that a lot of social media users are surprised or confused by what is or isn't allowed when talking about Mangione on social media.

• Bill Skarsgard is returning to play Pennywise in the "IT: Welcome to Derry" series for HBO.
• The prequel is set before the 2017 and 2019 movies.
• Here's what to know about "IT: Welcome to Derry."

Bill Skarsgard will terrify audiences once more as Pennywise the Dancing Clown in a new TV series, "IT: Welcome to Derry."

In 2017, Warner Bros. delivered a terrifying new take on Stephen King's "IT" starring Skarsgard as Pennywise, the monstrous creature that haunts a group of children in the form of a creepy clown.

According to TheNumbers.com, the film and its 2019 sequel, "IT: Chapter Two," collectively took more than $1 billion at the box office. That haul means it's little surprise Warner Bros. wants to keep the franchise alive, but this time it's heading for the small screen.

"IT: Welcome to Derry" will tell Pennywise's story years before he meets Bill Denborough (Jaeden Martell) and his friends, although the specifics of the plot are yet to be revealed.

Here's what we know about the HBO series.

Bill Skarsgard says "IT: Welcome to Derry" will be "pretty hardcore"

Horror fans might be concerned that some of the franchise's signature shocking violence will be toned down for television.

Skarsgard was asked on the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast about how scary "Welcome to Derry" will be. He replied: "It's pretty hardcore man."

The actor explained that although he originally wanted to leave the character behind, he enjoyed exploring Pennywise further with Andy Muschietti, the director of "IT" and one of the prequel's developers.

Skarsgard said: "It was fun. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, actually, and there's parts of it where we got to explore sides of old Pennywise that we haven't seen. And that's fun. I remembered how much I enjoy working with Andy and we do have a lot of fun together. I think there's some cool stuff in there that we haven't seen that I'm excited for the people to watch and enjoy hopefully."

"IT: Welcome to Derry" will air on HBO in 2025

Skarsgard will be joined by "Overlord" and "Babylon" star Jovan Adepo, "Gotham" actor Chris Chalk, and "Zola" actor Taylour Paige. James Remar, who is known for "Dexter" and "Oppenheimer," is also in the cast.

HBO has not confirmed a release date for the series, but included the nine-episode season in its 2025 teaser.

In the brief footage, which can be seen below, a group of kids talk about seeing a clown, and a grotesque arm pulls one of them into a murky lake.

Another creepy shot sees someone standing in a store window with an unnerving grin on their face.

As many of us celebrated the year-end holidays, a small group of researchers worked overtime tracking a startling discovery: At least 33 browser extensions hosted in Google’s Chrome Web Store, some for as long as 18 months, were surreptitiously siphoning sensitive data from roughly 2.6 million devices.

The compromises came to light with the discovery by data loss prevention service Cyberhaven that a Chrome extension used by 400,000 of its customers had been updated with code that stole their sensitive data.

’Twas the night before Christmas

The malicious extension, available as version 24.10.4, was available for 31 hours, from December 25 at 1:32 AM UTC to Dec 26 at 2:50 AM UTC. Chrome browsers actively running Cyberhaven during that window would automatically download and install the malicious code. Cyberhaven responded by issuing version 24.10.5, and 24.10.6 a few days later.

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• Hanna Kim lost 22 pounds in a year when she changed her mindset toward weight loss.
• She tried fad diets for years but couldn't sustain them.
• Kim learned to be consistent, not perfect, and celebrate small wins.

After years of trying to lose weight through restrictive diets that didn't work and left her feeling deflated, Hanna Kim lost 22 pounds in 2021 and has kept it off. She shared the two biggest lessons she learned.

Kim, a 24-year-old YouTuber in Sydney, was stuck in a cycle of trying to lose weight through restrictive dieting, hating the process, giving up, and feeling like a failure. "It was just this endless negative loop," she told Business Insider.

It was only when she started to question why it wasn't working and educate herself on sustainable weight loss that she made progress. She learned that there is no quick fix for weight loss, but making small, healthy changes and focusing on health over appearance makes a difference, she said.

Previously, Kim led a fairly sedentary life, did no exercise, and ate a lot of fried food and takeout. She knew that jumping straight into a 45-minute HITT session would be overwhelming, but wanted to commit to some movement each day. She started by going on a 10-minute walk.

She also calculated how many calories she could eat while remaining in a calorie deficit, the state where you burn more calories than you consume. Experts agree this is necessary for weight loss.

She began to eat within her calorie budget, but she didn't cut out any foods. "I learned that I can be flexible with what I eat, so having a Kit Kat bar is fine as long as I'm within my calorie budget," she said.

Weight loss can be enjoyable

Kim used to have a negative association with weight loss because it made her feel terrible about herself.

But when she shifted her mindset to see it as an opportunity to invest in her long-term health and forming healthier habits, she saw it as a positive.

"It's a good thing. It's something that can be enjoyable and something that could be fun," she said.

Over time, she grew to love exercise and eating a more nutritious diet because she went in with a curious mindset. "It's something you should wake up looking forward to. What am I going to learn new today? What new recipe can I make today? What exercise is going to make me feel good today?" she said.

She saw the journey as a way to work on herself more generally and find what made her feel good mentally and physically.

It's not about perfection

Kim learned to take things slow and let go of perfectionism by accepting that she won't be able to stick to her regime 100%. By giving herself grace when she did eat more than her calorie budget for example, she was able to keep going on her health journey rather than give up like she had in the past.

"It's going to be a long-term investment, and everything that I do is ultimately going to make a difference," she said.

She found that being consistent was more important than being perfect and she celebrated "small wins" along the way.

Regardless of how 2024 went for you, 2025 is another chance for all of us to make the new year better than the one that came before it. New Year’s resolutions are usually set with the best intentions, but it’s no secret many people fail after just a few weeks — old habits die hard. It’s important to have a support group, people who can cheer you on during those particularly hard days. But it’s also important to have the right tools to make achieving your goals easier. Whether you’re trying to get healthy, be more organized, read more or anything in between, there are tech tools that can make your journey smoother and more enjoyable.

Fitness tracker

If you’re attempting to turn over a new, healthier leaf, you’re not alone. Fitness trackers (and their companion apps) are highly sought after this time of year because they can help you stick to those new movement, hydration and sleep habits you’re trying to build. The Xiaomi Mi Band 8 is a good option, not only because it’s affordable at $50, but because it does pretty much everything a beginner needs. It tracks daily steps, calories, sleep and more, and it has a two-week battery life so you can keep it on all the time and rarely have to remember to charge it.

If you’re already a runner or a cyclist (or want to be one), we recommend upgrading to the Fitbit Charge 6 instead. You’ll get all of the basic fitness tracking features you'd expect like daily step, sleep and activity tracking, along with onboard GPS for mapping outdoor workouts and Fitbit Pay for contactless payments. That way you’ll be able to go for a run in the morning and stop to grab a coffee without bringing your phone or your wallet with you.

Smartwatch

If you’d rather invest in an all-purpose wearable that also has serious fitness chops, the Apple Watch SE is a good choice. While it doesn’t include all the bells and whistles that the pricier Series 10 does, it still offers the same core experience. It tracks all-day activity and heart rate, and watchOS finally offers basic sleep tracking, too. In addition to built-in GPS for outdoor workouts, it tracks dozens of exercises and supports fall detection, as well as high and low heart rate alerts. It’s also quite good at automatically recognizing when you’re working out and prompting you to start tracking your efforts. On top of all that, the Apple Watch excels when it comes to table-stakes smartwatch features: You’ll be able to send and receive text messages from the device, as well as control music playback, smart home devices and more.

Android users should consider the Fitbit Versa series of smartwatches. The latest model, the Versa 4, has many of the same features as Apple’s most affordable wearable including all-day activity tracking and heart rate monitoring, built-in GPS and even more advanced sleep tracking capabilities. It also has a lot of features you won’t find on an Apple Watch like Alexa voice control, Google Maps and Wallet integration and a days-long battery life (up to six days to be precise). There are smart alerts as well, so you’ll get notified when your phone receives calls and texts. At $200, the Versa 4 is decently priced on a regular day, but you can often find it on sale for close to $150 — that could make it a good options for anyone on a budget, not just those with Android phones.

Workout classes

Finding exercise classes that you actually enjoy can make working out feel like less of a chore. You may prefer going through your local gym — that push to get out of the house and into a dedicated exercise space can be really effective for some — but there are plenty of on-demand fitness classes as well that you can participate in from the comfort of your living room.

I’ve tried my fair share of these services and my favorite has been Peloton. No, you don’t need one of the company’s expensive bikes or other machinery to take advantage of their classes. Access to the app-only version costs $13 per month and it lets you take HIIT, strength, yoga and even outdoor running classes, many of which require little to no equipment. If Peloton isn’t your speed, Apple Fitness+ is a good alternative, especially now that anyone with an iPhone can subscribe and take classes, regardless of whether they own an Apple Watch. Alo Moves is another good option for those who prefer yoga and pilates workouts.

If you can’t afford another monthly subscription fee, the internet has tons of free exercise resources — you just have to work a little harder to find the ones you jibe with most. I highly recommend Fitness Blender, a free website where you can watch hundreds of workout videos and even set a schedule for yourself, assigning routines to specific days of the week. I like the quality and consistency of their videos, but you may connect more to YouTube workouts if they’re taught by instructors you like; Heather Robertson and Move with Nicole are two personal favorites.

Habit tracker

Accountability is key when you’re trying to build new habits, so keeping track of your progress is crucial. While you could go deep down the bullet-journal rabbit hole, a habit-tracking app is probably the easier option. Done and Strides are two iOS options that let you log when you’ve completed a new habit you’re trying to build or when you avoided a bad habit that you’re trying to break. You can get pretty granular, customizing how often you want to do a task, set reminders to log, review stats and more.

Both apps have paid tiers you’ll be asked to subscribe to after you create a few trackable habits. If you’d rather avoid yet another subscription, consider an app like Streaks, which can be all yours for a one-time fee of $6. As for Android, there’s Habitica, which turns habit tracking to an 8-bit RPG game where you level-up your custom avatar by checking things off your list.

To-do list apps

The new year provides an opportunity to get back on track, and one way to do that is by finding organizational tools that work for you — and making sure they’re as uncomplicated as possible. The worst thing that could happen is that your to-do list or note-taking system ends up being so cumbersome that you avoid using it. Keeping all of your necessary tasks in your head may work on easy days, but it can quickly get overwhelming when you have a million things to handle in both your personal and professional life. I’m a fan of Todoist and Things (the latter of which is for iOS and macOS only) because both are detailed enough for big work projects, but simple enough for personal tasks. Both also have a Today view, which will show everything across all of your projects that need attention immediately.

While Todoist has a free tier, you’ll pay $80 to get Things for iOS, iPadOS and macOS. Microsoft’s To Do is an alternative that, while less involved than Things, is free and works on almost every platform including Windows, iOS and Android, among others. You can keep it simple and just have a task list and a grocery list, or you can go deeper and add due dates, sub-tasks and even share lists with family members.

If you don’t want to bother with another service, you can always opt for the reminders app that (most likely) came preinstalled on your phone. That would be Reminders for iOS users and Google Keep for Android users. Google Keep also doubles as a note-taking app, which will be a better solution if you’ve been jotting down ideas for new projects on Post-It notes you inevitably lose. Apple Notes is the default option for this on iOS devices, and it’s come a long way in recent years with new features like interlinked notes, inline and annotatable PDFs and native support for scanning documents using the iPhone’s camera.

Password manager

If you’re looking to up your digital security game in the new year, a password manager is a great place to start. I’m partial to 1Password (as are we as a whole at Engadget), but there are plenty of other options including Bitwarden, NordPass and Dashlane. After saving all of your passwords for various accounts, you only need to remember one (hence the name) to log in to your 1Password account and access all of the others. The service has browser extensions Chrome, Edge and others that will let you seamlessly log in with just a few clicks, and 1Password has apps for most platforms including iOS and Android, so you can use it on all of your devices.

The Password Generator feature helps you create a new, secure password whenever one of yours has expired. LastPass has this too, and Dashlane even has a free tool that anyone can use to make more secure passwords. Not only does this take the onus of coming up with a strong key off your shoulders, but it also makes it easy to override old credentials with new ones.

Cable and accessory organizer

One of the consequences of the past few of years is the dual-office life. Many of us now work both from home and from an office, and the last thing you want to do when you arrive in either place is rummage around your backpack only to realize that you’ve left your mouse, charging cable or dongle at your other desk.

An organizer bag can prevent this before it happens — we recommend BagSmart tech organizers thanks to their utilitarian, water-repellent designs and their multiple pockets and dividers. They also come in different sizes, so you can pick the best one for your commuter bag. If you want something a bit more elevated, Bellroy’s Desk Caddy is a good option. It’s pricier but for the money you get a more elegant silhouette, higher-quality materials and a design that sits upright when full and has a front panel that fully folds down to give you a good view of what’s inside.

Computer docking station

It’s all too easy for your work-from-home setup to get really messy really quickly. When you’re going through your busiest times at work, the last thing you’re thinking about is cable management, but dedicating a bit more effort to tidying up your workspace can make your day to day more efficient and more enjoyable.

We recommend some sort of docking station to keep your laptop, monitors, accessories and the like in check. There are plenty of options out there, regardless of if you use a macOS or Windows machine, or even a Chromebook. We like Satechi’s Dual Dock for MacBooks thanks to its unique design that allows it to sit under your laptop, and the fact that it plugs into two USB-C ports at once. This means you can connect to two external displays (provided you have an M2-powered MacBook or later), which will be handy if you have an elaborate workstation on your desk. Kensington’s Thunderbolt 4 dock is a good all-purpose option for other non-macOS laptops.

There are also USB-C hubs and adapters out there that can give you similar organization while on the go, albeit in a less elegant package. UGreen's Revodok Pro is an affordable solution that includes an HDMI port, microSD and SD card readers, an Ethernet slot, two USB-C connections and three USB-A sockets. It also supports 100W power pass-through, so you can charge your laptop through the hub while using it.

Multicookers and air fryers

Eating healthier, or even just avoiding takeout multiple times a week, can be challenging in part because it usually means cooking more at home. This can be hard to even start if you’re not used to cooking for yourself and don’t have the basic tools to do so. On top of that, cooking takes time — much more time than ordering a meal from an app on your phone. But tools like an Instant Pot can cut your active cooking time down drastically. You can find a plethora of recipes where you simply throw a bunch of ingredients into the pot, set it and forget it until it’s time to eat.

We recommend the Instant Pot Duo for beginners because it’s relatively affordable and combines seven different cooking methods into one appliance, including rice cooking, steaming, pressure cooking, slow cooking and more. If you’re primarily cooking for yourself and a partner, the three-quart model will serve you just fine, but we recommend the six-quart model if you’re routinely cooking for four or more.

Whereas the Instant Pot and multicookers as a whole had their moment a few years ago, air fryers are the big thing now thanks in part to the fact that they let you cook so many different foods quickly and with less oil or other fat. The best air fryers come in all shapes and sizes (and from many companies), but our top pick also comes from Instant Brands. The Instant Vortex Plus air fryer doesn't take up too much space on a countertop, includes six cooking modes and it comes with an odor-removing filter that prevents too much of that cooking smell from wafting out of the machine as it runs. We also appreciate that, unlike most other air fryers, this one has a window that lets you see into the machine during cooking so you can keep an eye on the doneness of your food.

Recipe organization

One of the best things about cooking at home is finding recipes that you love so much that you want to make over and over again. You’ll want to keep those recipes safe and readily available so you can refer to them when you need a quick weeknight meal or a dish to bring to your next family reunion. Recipe cards are a great way to do this, and you’ll build up your rolodex of delicious meals over time. If you’d rather have a cookbook of sorts that you fill in yourself over time, opt for a recipe book instead.

If you’d rather keep your arsenal of recipes accessible at any time, anywhere from your phone, Paprika’s recipe management app is the best solution I’ve tried. The $5 app basically acts as your digital recipe box, allowing you to enter your own as well as save them from the internet. You know those hundreds of words that precede online recipes, in which the author divulges their entire life story before telling you their secret to making deliciously moist cornbread? Paprika strips all of those unnecessary bits out and only saves the ingredient list and the instructions. You can also make grocery lists and keep track of pantry staples in the app, so don’t be surprised if it quickly becomes one of your most-used kitchen tools.

Reading apps

Don’t take your habit of doom-scrolling into the new year. You could instead use the internet to find other things to read and the free Libby app is a good place to start. Powered by Overdrive, it connects you with your local library’s digital collection, allowing you to borrow and download all kinds of e-books, audiobooks, magazines, graphic novels and more. Libby also has a tag system that you can use to “save” titles for later without actually putting a hold on them (although you can do that in the app, too). If you find a bunch of audiobooks you eventually want to get to, you can give them all a “TBR” tag so you can quickly find them and borrow one when you need new reading/listening material.

As someone who uses Libby on a regular basis, I love how easy it is to borrow from my local library without leaving my home. However, there have been numerous times in which my library doesn’t have a title I’m looking for. If that happens to you often, you may want to consider a subscription service like Kindle Unlimited or Everand (formerly Scribd), both of which give you unlimited access to a wide library of e-books for $10 per month. And for audiobook lovers, your options are Amazon’s Audible or Libro.fm, the latter of which lets you choose the local bookstore you want to support with your purchases.

Ereader

Ereaders are still around because so many people recognize how much better it can be to read e-books on a dedicated device — especially one with an high-contrast, e-paper display. Sure, you could read on your smartphone or a tablet, but staring at those screens all day long can be tiring for your eyes. An ereader like the Kobo Clara Colour or the Amazon Kindle is a better choice not only for its more comfortable display, but also because it focuses your attention on reading. (If you’ve ever picked up your smartphone intending to finish a chapter only to be distracted by email or Facebook, you know how crucial this is.)

The Clara Colour is our current top pick in our best ereader guide, thanks to its 6-inch color E Ink display, adjustable brightness and temperature, weeks-long battery life and handy Overdrive integration for checking out digital library books. But if you already get most of your e-books through Amazon, the latest Kindle is the best option. You can listen to Audible audiobooks, too, if you connect a pair of wireless earbuds to the ereader. Kobo’s device primarily gets books via the Kobo Store, but it also supports various file types like EPUB, PDF and MOBI.

• Reddit went public in 2024 and is a more popular, profitable site than ever in its 20-year history.
• BI spoke to 11 Reddit execs about how they've handled new challenges while maintaining a beloved culture.
• They shared everything from their favorite subreddit to what the IPO means to them.

2024 was a great year for Reddit.

The company went public in March with a $6.4 billion valuation and reported its first quarterly profit in October. Shares have soared 230% since its IPO.

And as BI's Emily Stewart recently wrote, Reddit has become more mainstream than ever. Its daily active users jumped 47% in the most recent quarter compared to a year earlier, thanks in part to an unprecedented number of people tacking "Reddit" onto their search terms — a demand the company will try to meet with "Reddit Answers," its new AI-powered search tool.

To find out what this year has looked like on the inside, BI asked 11 Reddit executives — or "Snoos," as Reddit calls its 2,000 employees — to share their favorite highlights behind the scenes of the "front page of the internet."

They described some career-defining moments and talked about managing through rapid change and a new level of pressure. Here's what they said.

What it meant to take Reddit public

"You can pretend that this all makes sense, and it's all business as usual for a little bit. But there are moments where I kind of zone out and realize the scale and how cool a moment I'm in. I guess the word to describe it is 'awe.'" — Serkan Piantino, 41, VP of product, New York City. Joined Reddit in 2022.

"There are always going to be individuals that say, 'Reddit is not what it used to be.' Of course, it's not going to be what it used to be. It's going to be what we make it in the future." — David Trencher, 43, senior managing director, large customer sales, EMEA & Australia, London. Joined the company in 2019.

"2024 has been maybe the highlight of my career at Reddit. We are so focused on starting with community. I think in '24 we've embraced that value more than ever," — Laura Nestler, VP of community, Seattle. Joined Reddit in 2021.

IPO day was 'so Reddit,' execs said

"Getting Snoo (the company's mascot) to ring the bell (rather than our CEO) was just so Reddit-y. It was a culmination of so many years of hard work to get here, and to see it all come to fruition in a very Reddit way was awesome." — Paulita David, Senior Managing Director, large customer sales in North America. Joined Reddit in 2021.

"We broadcast live globally, and I got to emcee the entire thing on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. We all got to see and feel what was happening." — Michelle Lozzi, 40, senior director of experience, San Francisco. Joined Reddit in 2017.

"It was so nice having our new Snoo mascot up there ringing the bell, symbolizing our employees and the community. There is a human in there. We cannot reveal who it is, but the only clue I can share is you have to be 5'10" to wear the suit." — Monica Benson, 38, head of brand operations and creative production, Los Angeles. Joined Reddit in 2020.

How execs managed through change and volatility

"The biggest change for us has been just the sheer volume of advertisers wanting to advertise on Reddit. It impacts my job pretty dramatically. With this increased demand, we're really embracing more automation." — David

"We run a lot of experiments, so failure is a day-to-day thing. Many of our experiments just don't pan out, and a lot of my job is to refine the idea and keep going or decide to work on something else. We're not a huge company. We still have limited resources, so we have to prioritize." — Piantino

"There's a balance of excitement and pressure that keeps me grounded. The fact that we have a real share price that we can use to measure our size adds somewhat to the pressure, but ultimately the excitement and enthusiasm outweigh it. Something we try to instill in our culture is to not get too high with the highs, and too low with the lows." — Jesse Rose, 38, head of investor relations, Massachusetts, Joined Reddit in 2021.

"I know what volatility looks like, and I know how much that can be a distraction for the team. I liked being a calming force and reminding people that, some days, they're going to say great things about you. Some days they're going to say bad things about you, but you are never as good or as bad as they say you are." — Piantino

"That (two-year pre-IPO period) helped us prepare our teams, which helped alleviate some stress. We were going into it knowing what we needed to do." — Trencher

"Some of our communities are growing really fast, and that can be a challenge. There are a bunch of tools that moderators can now use to handle moments of accelerated growth." — Nicole Heard, 36, UK country lead, London. Joined Reddit in 2022.

Execs say Reddit's culture hasn't changed

"When I came back from maternity leave, I wanted to know how the company culture had changed. It felt warm to come back to that authentic, community-building company, but the stakes are higher." — Benson

"People in our UK office genuinely like spending time with each other. Our office had some of the highest real-life visits this year — probably three days a week. The people and culture is what makes it an amazing place to work." — Sam Hughes, 33, senior client partner, London, Joined Reddit in 2021.

"When I joined in 2021, we had this really small kind of Harry Potter cupboard at a WeWork that sat three to five people. Then we got a bigger space with a whole floor, and now, earlier this year, we got an amazing new building." — Hughes

"We just hosted Mod World in our San Francisco office, which was where we brought in 60 of our moderators and made them feel like they're also a part of this. Because it's not just us building the product, it's them maintaining, operating and, breathing life into it." — Lozzi

"My team has grown from three to eight this year. What I'm looking for is people who understand the human interactions that happen on Reddit, and understand exactly what Reddit stands for in the social media landscape." — Alia Chikhdene, 30, head of community, international, Paris. At Reddit since 2021.

Favorite projects included offline community-building

"I was able to travel to countries all over and meet moderators in local markets. I recently got back from a trip to Manila to see the people in our community called Coffee Philippines. Seeing local communities start to thrive and build local ecosystems is really magical." — Nestler

"Our mods are now able to access community funds, where they can apply for funding to do something great with their community and create an impact. The mods of r/Eurovision got funding to go to this year's competition in Sweden to meet the artists and take AMA questions. This became one of the top five fastest-growing communities in the UK, Germany, and Spain. It was a really impactful initiative that helped connect that community to the artists they love." — Heard

Reddit employees shared their top Subreddits

r/skincareaddiction. "I'm always trying to figure out how I can address these wrinkles and get glowing skin." — Young

r/PhotoshopRequest: "You can send in photos, and the community will do an incredible job for you." — Lozzi

r/vosfinances: "This is a community that is really helping with financial literacy. You're one question away from building your future wealth plan." — Chikhdene

r/askmeuf: "This translates to 'ask women.' I'm incredibly grateful to the mods who have built this space and made it safe, vibrant, and inclusive, and making it culturally available to French women." — Chikhdene

r/moderatelygranolamoms - "I'm often looking for the most non-toxic, sustainable products and ways to raise my baby, and this is the perfect group for talking about that." — Benson

r/TrueOffMyChest - "It's a very vulnerable place where people can be anonymous and just share personal stories they wouldn't anywhere else." — Benson

• I'm a health psychologist and I'm setting a SMART resolution for 2025.
• SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound for success.
• I think consistency and self-compassion are key to turning resolutions into lasting habits.

The year 2025 is nearly here and that means it's time for me to set my New Year's resolution. I'm not alone, a recent survey found that up to 75% of Americans are making resolutions for 2025. But, despite our best intentions, many of us will fail to stick to them. Psychologists refer to this as the intention-action gap.

As a health psychologist specializing in behavior change, I'm going to try to practice what I preach this year. My own resolution? To go to the gym for 30 minutes, five times per week for six months. Here's how I plan to succeed.

A SMART resolution will set me up for success

Going to the gym for 30 minutes, five times per week for six months is a pretty specific goal. Well, that's my first tip in setting SMART resolutions.

S is for a specific goal. Setting one specific resolution rather than many is more achievable for many people. So as much as I would like to eat more fruit and veggies, cut down on my excessive coffee intake, meditate more, spend more time with the kids etc (you get the picture), trying to take on too many resolutions will likely set me up for failure. I'll stick to one and then maybe add another once this becomes a habit.

M is for measurable. For me, I plan to keep a record of my workouts, and track my progress on the treadmill or the weights by using a smartphone app, where I can schedule and register my workouts. I also plan to use my smartphone for 'digital nudges' reminders or prompts that keep will keep me motivated and on track. For example, I'll be scheduling recurring calendar appointments for my gym sessions, with alarms to remind me when it's time to close the laptop and get ready.

A is for achievable. As much as I would like to think I could spend an hour plus in the gym every weekday like I did when I was (much) younger, these days, with two young kids and a busy work life, I know it's not realistic. Start small, you can always extend your resolution later in the year.

R is for relevant. This might seem obvious, but many of us feel pressured into setting resolutions, some of which may not really be what we deep down want to change. Many New Year's resolutions are about improving fitness, but you might want to do something completely different, like taking up pottery or seeing your relatives more regularly. Find what matters to you.

That said, positive peer pressure can be a good thing. Research shows that we are more likely to adopt new behaviors when those that matter to us (close friends and family) approve of what we are doing. So, I'm going to find my enablers. Not the bad kind that encourages me to go bar-hopping on a weeknight, but like-minded people who share my resolution, and who are ideally already working out regularly. For me, having a gym buddy will help keep me accountable. For you, it might be finding an online mindfulness community or an evening running group.

T is for time-bound. Research also shows that having a specific time frame, like 6 months, makes you more likely to stick to your goals. It also makes it easier to measure progress.

I plan to give myself grace

Changing a behavior is one thing, but sticking to it is the hard part. But if you stick with it long enough, behaviors can become habits. Research estimates that it can take on average 66 days. Of course, this can vary depending on how complex the behavior is or how many potential barriers are in the way. But consistency leads to automaticity, a fancy word for habit-formation. So I plan to schedule my workouts, as much as possible, at the same times, days, and places each week.

I'm also going to remind myself that if I don't stick to my resolution, it's not all my fault. Don't be fooled by some of the life coaches or social media influencers who say that all you need to do to get fitter or healthier is to have more motivation or willpower. Motivation is just one component of behavior change. The environment shapes our behavior, and access to, to necessary opportunities or resources we do or don't have, affect our motivation and ultimately our ability to stick to goals. But by setting a SMART resolution, finding my enablers, and being self-compassionate and consistent will hopefully help me turn my resolution for 2025 into a habit by 2026.

It's that time again, when families and friends gather and implore the more technically inclined among them to troubleshoot problems they're having behind the device screens all around them. One of the most vexing and most common problems is logging into accounts in a way that's both secure and reliable.

Using the same password everywhere is easy, but in an age of mass data breaches and precision-orchestrated phishing attacks, it's also highly unadvisable. Then again, creating hundreds of unique passwords, storing them securely, and keeping them out of the hands of phishers and database hackers is hard enough for experts, let alone Uncle Charlie, who got his first smartphone only a few years ago. No wonder this problem never goes away.

Passkeys—the much-talked-about password alternative to passwords that have been widely available for almost two years—was supposed to fix all that. When I wrote about passkeys two years ago, I was a big believer. I remain convinced that passkeys mount the steepest hurdle yet for phishers, SIM swappers, database plunderers, and other adversaries trying to hijack accounts. How and why is that?

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• Reddit Answers is the social media site's new AI-powered search tool.
• Reddit Answers uses AI to summarize information from posts.
• We tried an early-access version. Here's what we found.

It's been a good year for Reddit.

The company went public to much fanfare. It has continued to grow in value as it makes its useful data available to AI companies like OpenAI and Google. It's also leveraging AI to refine its own search, muscling in on traditional search engines.

At an event in October, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said users are already Googling "with the intention of ending up on Reddit."

"I think what's happening is people know that Reddit has answers, advice, perspectives on just about whatever you're looking for," Huffman said.

With this in mind, Reddit unveiled Reddit Answers earlier this month. The search tool uses AI to scour information from community posts and repackage it as a concise answer to a question. In its announcement, Reddit said the feature will provide information, recommendations, discussions, and "hot takes" based on questions submitted by users.

Reddit Answers is still in beta and is only available to "a limited number of users in the US," the company says. Reddit granted Business Insider limited access to try it out. Here's what we found.

How Reddit Answers works

Reddit Answers shows a large search box at the bottom of the screen where users can input their questions. After asking a question, Reddit's AI generates a summary followed by subsections with bullet points, each with hyperlinks to their source on Reddit.

The format of Reddit Answers is similar to the format of Google's AI overview, which is now found at the top of a Google search.

Business Insider asked each search engine the same questions about the best method for smoking brisket. Each search engine provided a summary followed by recommended techniques. Each technique in both summaries was followed by information with a hyperlinked source.

The notable difference between Google's AI overview and Reddit Answers is that all the sources linked in the Google overview went to sources outside of Google, including some to Reddit.

Reddit Answers struggled with recent news

Reddit Answers seems to work well for generalized advice like cooking tips, but it showed some difficulty with newsier items and sometimes makes mistakes in its summaries.

When asked, "Who won the New Orleans Saints game?" on Sunday, December 15, Reddit Answers said it could not find any information on the topic. When rephrased to "Who won the New Orleans Saints game today?" the site generated a summary from the New Orleans Saints vs Philadelphia Eagles game from September 22, three months prior.

Each summary that Reddit Answers generates ends with three recommended "subreddits" related to the topic.

Subreddits are individual pages dedicated to discussing a particular topic. For questions about the Saints game, Reddit recommended r/eagles, r/saints, and r/nfl.

BI also asked Reddit about the recent controversy surrounding actor Blake Lively. On December 20, Lively filed a complaint against her "It Ends With Us" costar, Justin Baldoni, accusing him of sexual harassment and conspiring to damage her reputation.

BI asked Reddit Answers on December 26, "Why is Blake Lively trending, and what are the key takeaways?" Reddit Answers responded with a one-sentence summary that said Lively had recently attended the "It Ends With Us" premiere on August 8 and listed some takeaways from the event.

The section that Reddit dedicated to the film's costars, Lively and Baldoni, did not mention any of their legal disputes. That section had one hyperlink to a Reddit post where one user commented on Lively's dress at the premiere five months earlier.

"Gorgeous. But I want someone to spill the Justin Baldoni sized tea. SPILL IT," the comment says.

Reddit Answers performed better on complex subjects that have multiple viewpoints

Reddit Answers was better at pulling together differing viewpoints from posts across Reddit about complex topics. BI asked Reddit Answers, for instance, "What are the pros and cons of a universal basic income?"

Reddit Answers responded with a summary that said universal basic income is "a hotly debated topic with strong opinions on both sides."

It listed three pros and three cons of a universal basic income. The pros were economic stimulation and poverty reduction, empowerment and freedom, and simplification of welfare systems. The cons were high costs and funding issues, inflation and market distortion, and work disincentives.

Each pro and con was followed by a link to one or two Reddit posts on the topic. Most posts linked to the pros (three out of five) came from the subreddit r/casualconversations. The other two posts linked to the pros came from r/neutralpolitics and r/basicincome.

Two of the linked posts for the cons came from r/askaliberal, and two others came from r/neutralpolitics. The remaining two reference links for cons came from r/askreddit and r/nostupidquestions.

Most of the linked reference posts for the pros and cons only included a link to the Reddit post from which Reddit Answers pulled its information. Some of those Reddit posts cited other publications. One referenced a Stanford University article, while another included a broken link to an Encyclopdia Britannica webpage.

All the Reddit posts that Reddit Answers linked to as sources for the universal basic income question were at least six months old. The oldest post was six years old and was linked as a source three times on the page.

All told, Reddit Answers has the potential to quickly summarize Redditors' views on diverse and complex topics, but it appears to have some learning to do itself before it can truly compete with Google.

Encode, the nonprofit organization that co-sponsored California’s ill-fated SB 1047 AI safety legislation, has requested permission to file an amicus brief in support of Elon Musk’s injunction to halt OpenAI’s transition to a for-profit company. In a proposed brief submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Friday afternoon, counsel for […]

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OpenAI has finally shared details about its plans to shake up its core business by shifting to a for-profit corporate structure.

On Thursday, OpenAI posted on its blog, confirming that in 2025, the existing for-profit arm will be transformed into a Delaware-based public benefit corporation (PBC). As a PBC, OpenAI would be required to balance its shareholders' and stakeholders' interests with the public benefit. To achieve that, OpenAI would offer "ordinary shares of stock" while using some profits to further its mission—"ensuring artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity"—to serve a social good.

To compensate for losing control over the for-profit, the nonprofit would have some shares in the PBC, but it's currently unclear how many will be allotted. Independent financial advisors will help OpenAI reach a "fair valuation," the blog said, while promising the new structure would "multiply" the donations that previously supported the nonprofit.

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OpenAI says its corporate structure must evolve to advance its mission of ensuring artificial general intelligence (AGI) — AI that can complete most tasks humans can — benefits all humanity. The company currently has a for-profit org controlled by a nonprofit, with a “capped profit” share for investors and employees. But in a blog post […]

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It's been a wild year in tech thanks to the intersection between humans and artificial intelligence. 2024 brought a parade of AI oddities, mishaps, and wacky moments that inspired odd behavior from both machines and man. From AI-generated rat genitals to search engines telling people to eat rocks, this year proved that AI has been having a weird impact on the world.

Why the weirdness? If we had to guess, it may be due to the novelty of it all. Generative AI and applications built upon Transformer-based AI models are still so new that people are throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. People have been struggling to grasp both the implications and potential applications of the new technology. Riding along with the hype, different types of AI that may end up being ill-advised, such as automated military targeting systems, have also been introduced.

It's worth mentioning that aside from crazy news, we saw fewer weird AI advances in 2024 as well. For example, Claude 3.5 Sonnet launched in June held off the competition as a top model for most of the year, while OpenAI's o1 used runtime compute to expand GPT-4o's capabilities with simulated reasoning. Advanced Voice Mode and NotebookLM also emerged as novel applications of AI tech, and the year saw the rise of more capable music synthesis models and also better AI video generators, including several from China.

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• Space junk has filled up so much of Earth's orbit that it's endangering satellites and astronauts.
• The company Kayhan Space issues roughly 1,000 space-collision warnings per day.
• Earth-orbit experts fear debris will cause an "unstoppable chain reaction" that cuts off launches.

So much junk is filling Earth's orbit that collision avoidance has become a busy business.

"We're talking about the dead satellites, the rocket bodies, the fairings, the wrenches, the gloves, and things like that that have been left up in orbit," physicist Thomas Berger said in a press briefing at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington DC on December 11.

Along with those recognizable objects, there are millions of bits of debris in orbit traveling faster than a bullet.

All that stuff is building up and increasing the risk of explosive space collisions, which is dangerous for astronauts and satellites.

Earth's orbit is so crowded with junk now that roughly 1,000 warnings about possible impending collisions go out to satellite operators each day, Berger said.

For example, Araz Feyzi, a co-founder of the orbital data company Kayhan Space, told BI in an email that some of its customer satellites get up to 800 alerts per day from the US Space Force.

Siamak Hesar, the company's other co-founder, later wrote in a SpaceNews editorial that the company tracks "more than 60,000 alerts per week for a constellation of around 100 satellites."

Most of those warnings come from one neighborhood of Earth's orbit, around 550 kilometers (340 miles) in altitude, where SpaceX's Starlink satellites live.

"It's getting difficult for satellite operators to determine which of these warnings is important and which they have to pay attention to," said Berger, who is the executive director of the Space Weather Technology, Research and Education Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Because trackers can't perfectly predict objects' positions in space, these collision warnings are triggered when objects are expected to pass each other at a close distance. Only a small fraction of warnings actually end in a collision.

When space objects do collide, they eject high-speed debris in multiple directions, creating a new zone of hazardous junk in orbit.

"It could generate a chain reaction, an unstoppable chain reaction of further collisions, ultimately resulting in a completely filled-up space environment," Berger said.

In the worst-case scenario, orbit could become so crowded that there's no safe space for new rocket launches.

That's a situation experts call Kessler syndrome, and "that we hope to prevent," Berger said.

Close calls and near-misses

While rare, major collisions and explosions have happened a few times.

In 2009, an American satellite and Russian satellite crashed together, ending in nearly 2,000 bits of debris large enough to detect — at least 4 inches wide — with thousands more smaller bits.

In 2021, a Chinese satellite and a Russian rocket chunk collided, creating at least 37 pieces of debris large enough for ground systems to track.

And anti-satellite missile tests by Russia, China, and India have blown up dead spacecraft in orbit, sending thousands of chunks flying.

Each of these events created its own field of hazardous debris which still rockets around the planet today with potentially dire consequences.

For example, several times a year, astronauts on the International Space Station get debris alerts and prepare to evacuate if the station is struck. When this happens, spaceships docked to the station will burn their engines to push it out of the way.

Satellite operators often respond to warnings by moving their satellites out of the way. SpaceX told the FCC in July that its satellites had conducted nearly 50,000 collision-avoidance maneuvers in just the first half of the year, Space.com reported.

Unfortunately, not all satellites are maneuverable.

In March, NASA had to sit on its hands and watch as a long-dead Russian spacecraft careened toward the agency's TIMED satellite, which was designed in the 1990s and doesn't have the ability to move on command.

Luckily, the two spacecraft missed each other by 17 meters (56 feet) — not very far by space standards.

"That would've been a hypervelocity impact creating thousands of pieces of debris," Berger said.

Daniel Baker, who directs the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at UC Boulder, urged the US Congress to pass the ORBITS Act. The legislation would require federal agencies like NASA and the FCC to support technologies that can remove junk from orbit.

"I believe that we are watching the tragedy of the commons play out in low-Earth orbit right before our eyes," Baker said in the briefing.

"We have to get serious about this and recognize that unless we do something, we are in imminent danger of making a whole part of our Earth environment unusable," he added.