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A specter is haunting the world of white-collar work: the specter of white-collar job loss. But one of Wall Street’s “Masters of the Universe,” asset management billionaire Larry Fink sees another ghost in the machine.

Writing in his annual letter to BlackRock shareholders, the CEO identified a much greater threat from technological progress to the Fortune 500. Fittingly, for the man who played a major role in the index-fund revolution, his mind was on assets and who owns them—or doesn’t. Inequality and overall wealth is the real threat. 

With asset values soaring in recent decades as salaries largely stagnate, wealth inequality will only get worse, warned Fink, who has been beating this drum often of late. AI threatens to concentrate wealth not only with those who have assets, he explained, but those who use this technology.

“The vast majority of wealth has flowed to people who owned assets, not to people who earned most of their money by working,” Fink wrote in his annual letter to shareholders on Monday.

“Now AI threatens to repeat that pattern at an even larger scale—concentrating wealth among the companies and investors positioned to capture it.”

Research from the Federal Reserve has found America’s haves and have-nots have rarely been this far apart. In the third quarter of last year, the gap was the widest it’s been since 1989, when the Fed began tracking household wealth divergence. The top 1% held 31.7% of U.S. wealth, comparable to all wealth owned by the bottom 90%. With most high-income wealth held in assets from stocks to real estate, it’s become increasingly inaccessible to a growing segment of Americans. And with the speeding growth and corporate adoption of artificial intelligence, that trend risks accelerating, according to Fink.

Uneven returns

AI-driven productivity might potentially raise wages across the board, but most evidence so far suggests AI adoption has raised wages in a relatively small pool of jobs, while excitement surrounding the technology has boosted stock markets. Fink wrote that since 1989, median wages in the U.S. have lagged stock market returns by a factor of 15.

Now, AI looks most likely to lengthen that trend rather than reverse it—at least in the short term. For people not directly exposed to its benefits, the wealth gap might soon look a lot wider.

“When market capitalization rises but ownership remains narrow, prosperity can feel increasingly distant to those on the outside,” Fink wrote. “This is where much of today’s economic anxiety comes from: a deeper feeling that capitalism is working—just not for enough people.”

In his letter, Fink described AI as the most significant technology since at least the computer, but nonetheless risks putting inequality on steroids. He warned that AI could concentrate massive wealth primarily among a handful of companies and investors best positioned to capture its value. It could accelerate “K-shaped outcomes” for the economy, he added, where firms and investors with greater access to capital benefit from faster growth, while those less exposed to rising asset valuations stagnate, driving inequality even further.

“Transformative technologies create enormous value—and much of that value accrues to the companies that build and deploy them, and to the investors who own them,” he wrote. “The companies with the data, infrastructure, and capital to deploy AI at scale are positioned to benefit disproportionately.”

The data so far seems to support Fink’s argument. The U.S. is increasingly mired in an economy supported by wealthy consumers, according to Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi. Spending from high-earners has surged in recent years, while low and middle-income households have seen their discretionary spending slow or even plateau. 

The trend grows more worrisome with the use of this new tech, as AI-driven gains in the stock market are a big part of high-income confidence, Oxford Economics CEO Innes McFee recently told Fortune. While the technology has led to a 7% rise in U.S. wealth, that benefit is almost entirely contained to high-earning households, he said. While AI could “absolutely” even out wealth inequality eventually, it is more likely to maintain the U.S. economy’s K-shape until at least 2035, McFee said.

The same trend is visible in jobs. So far, AI-related productivity boosts are mostly reserved for workers whose jobs demand AI-related skills, roles that can expect a wage premium as high as 43%. But for most jobs, AI has yet to translate to significant productivity or wage gains, and might actually be leading to larger workloads for employees tasked with managing AI.

A long run equalizer?

Over the long term, AI-driven efficiency could lead to higher wages and job growth among low-income professions in sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing, potentially reducing inequality in countries heavily reliant on those sectors, according to modeling last year by PwC. And some experts, including analysts at the Urban Institute, have argued for a universal basic income program drawing royalties from AI companies as a measure to lessen inequality.

But for the moment, benefiting from AI requires working in a role requiring AI skills or being financially invested in its growth story. With nearly 40% of Americans not exposed to the stock market at all, a sizable portion of the population could be caught on the outside looking in.

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The most powerful voices in artificial intelligence (AI) really want you to worry about your job—if you’re a white-collar worker. Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman predicts AI will cause office jobs to crumble in 18 months. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei thinks entry-level jobs in the space will be cut in half in a similar timeline. Even Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has warned that AI is quietly impacting the labor market as job creation hovers close to zero.

But behind closed doors, business leaders controlling company headcounts are actually telling a more subtle story. A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that, out of a survey of 750 chief financial officers from U.S. firms, less than half (44%) say they plan on some AI-related job cuts. When the co-authors calculated what that amounts to across the broader economy, they found just 0.4%, or about 502,000 roles out of about 125 million roles, are expected to be lost this year. Just about half of those job losses will come from the white-collar world.

That 9x increase from last year’s 55,000 AI-attributed layoffs is striking — but still a rounding error against the overall workforce.

“It’s not the doomsday job scenario that you might sometimes see in the headlines,” John Graham, co-author of the study and the director of the Duke CFO survey, conducted in partnership with the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and Richmond, told Fortune.

Moreover, the study finds a wide gap between the perceived and actual productivity gains from AI, finding that perceptions of AI’s gains are larger than the reality. The researchers say this likely reflects a delay in realized revenue. This reported lag matches what economists have been saying about AI’s productivity gains.

Goldman Sachs senior economist Ronnie Walker noted earlier this month that amid AI investment zeal, “we still do not find a meaningful relationship between productivity and AI adoption at the economy-wide level.” It’s not just economists; workers have reported that AI is actually making them less, not more productive, placing greater strain on their workflows, with time spent across some job responsibilities increasing by up to 346%.

Lagging productivity gains and Solow’s paradox

Economists have a name for this gap — and it dates back to the dawn of the personal computer era.

In a comparison to the lagging technological innovation associated with the dawn of the internet era, the researchers invoke Solow’s paradox, also known as the productivity paradox, to contextualize the current divide between perceived and actual productivity from AI. Coined by Nobel Laureate Robert Solow in 1987, the paradox speaks to the observation that transformative technology—like computers, or in this instance, AI—can appear ubiquitous while remaining absent from economic data. 

“You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics,” Solow said.

Graham said what executives are seeing with productivity today is actually more of a wish than a realized fact. Companies see the potential of AI without the financial results to match. “Companies have invested and they’re realizing all these kind of cool things that they’re either starting to do or they hope to do in the near future,” he said. “But it’s not really showing up yet in revenue”

The current state of AI-related layoffs

However, the study still represents a step in the direction of heightened job losses thanks to the technology, adding some credibility to what tech execs have painted publicly. Employers reported about 55,000 layoffs attributed to AI in 2025, according to research firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That’s just 4.5% of all job losses from last year. Still, if the study’s numbers are right, that would mean a 9x increase in AI-related layoffs this year.

There have already been several sizable AI-related layoffs reported by firms this year. Jack Dorsey’s Block cut about 40% of its workforce, or more than 4,000 employees, because of the technology. Australian-American financial services firm Atlassian cut 10%. And Meta is reportedly planning on cutting 20% of jobs, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly creates an AI agent clone of himself. On top of that, the job market is in a lull. U.S. employers posted 92,000 jobs losses last month, and the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4%.

But the report also finds that AI adoption could actually lead to an increase in hiring among smaller firms, further contradicting the public claims from AI’s biggest leaders. Many smaller firms, or those with fewer than 500 employees, have only just begun to invest in AI as most incur the brunt of AI-related operating expenses, slowing down adoption rates. But as adoption increases, small firms noted they plan to increase hiring in technical roles. On top of that, larger firms are planning on holding technical roles constant.

“If anything, small companies are hiring a bit on the technical side which will offset [losses] a little bit,” Graham said.

Still, the study only paints a picture for the short-term, so it’s difficult to entirely rule out the dire predictions some tech leaders have made of the technology’s ability to soak up white-collar jobs.

“Who knows what’s going to happen in 2028?” Graham said. ”I’m not making a prediction that there will never be any jobs lost two, three and five years from now to AI.”

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On Monday morning, it looked like President Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed “Master of the Deal,” had done it again.

After roiling oil markets over the weekend with an ultimatum on Iran, he declared victory before the opening bell, posting about 15 points of agreement and pausing his threat to bomb the country’s power plants. Nearly $2 trillion was moved within minutes as Wall Street clamored to do what it has learned to do with this president: put some TACO dip on its proverbial chip.

TACO—Trump Always Chickens Out—became the defining trade of last year’s tariff wars after the shock dip on “Liberation Day” last April. The term was coined by FT journalist Robert Armstrong to describe the pattern Trump exhibited: Escalate, terrify, then reverse course and claim victory. When traders realized that Trump, at his heart a businessman, would never let markets dip back to their levels on April 2, 2025, they began to price in the bluster and bought the dip. It worked in 2025 because tariffs are a toggle: flip them on with a Truth Social post, flip them off with another one. Through this strategy, Trump secured diplomatic and economic concessions in Brazil, India, Japan and across Southeast Asia,  all while never suffering from severe backlash by traders. 

War, however, doesn’t so easily toggle back and forth. TACO has a hidden assumption baked in: that your counterparty wants off the roller coaster as much as you do. Especially with a wounded Iranian regime that has nothing to lose and made its survival synonymous with holding the global economy hostage. 

Within hours of Trump’s announcement, Iranian state media denied any talks had occurred. The speaker of Iran’s parliament, taking a page out of Trump’s 2016 campaign playbook, wrote on X that it was “fakenews” designed to “manipulate financial and oil markets.” And as of Tuesday, it doesn’t seem like the primary objective —getting tankers to transit the Strait of Hormuz—has changed at all. 

“There is no change in the status in the Strait of Hormuz, and every day that waterway remains closed to traffic, the world is losing over 15 million barrels of oil from inventories and stocks,” Rory Johnston, an oil market analyst, told Fortune. “The longer this goes on, the worse that situation is going to get.”

The Oil Air Pocket: Why Prices Are Holding — For Now

The White House has been effective, so far, at jawboning oil prices lower than the $120-$150 levels bearish commodities analysts have warned about. Every time Brent drifted much above $110, Trump or another official comes out and declares victory over Iran, or promises to start pulling back the war. Johnston says that works, for now, because the physical shortage hasn’t actually reached most of the world yet, leading to a gaping spread between the price of Dubai crude, which has been in the $120s and $130s, and Texas futures, which have hovered below $100. 

“A lot of the physical shortage still hasn’t reached land,” Johnston said. “The tankers stopped flowing and you’re building this air pocket on the water of what normal trades look like. But eventually that air pocket hits land.”

He expects that to start happening within the next week or two. 

“Eventually the paper barrels run against the physical barrels, and you have to reconcile,” Johnston said. “And you’re going to reconcile toward physical.”

Iran Is Not Playing by Trump’s Rules

It also takes two to TACO, as other analysts have written. The tariff TACOs worked because Trump’s counterparties, China, the EU or Canada, were rational economic actors who needed stability and were fine to take a face-saving deal to get it. 

Iran is not so predictable. Its supreme leader is dead, its military infrastructure is decimated and four weeks in it’s still not behaving like a counterparty looking for an off-ramp. If anything, it’s behaving like one that thinks it’s winning. 

Despite losing senior leadership and absorbing enormous punishment from US and Israeli strikes, Iran has effectively held the global economy hostage through the Strait of Hormuz. They’re exporting more oil now than before the war; its rate of missile and drone fire has picked up; and they’re now collecting a $2 million “toll” for ships to pass through. And its strikes have inflicted serious damage on energy infrastructure across Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE—the very US allies Trump promised to protect.

Tehran has been escalating its demands. Iranian officials have called for massive reparations, the expulsion of US forces from the region, and to make the Strait’s toll booth status more permanent, with every passing ship required to pay Tehran for transit. One adviser to the supreme leader told Iranian state media that Iran would turn itself  “from a sanctioned country to an enhanced power in the region and the world.”

Johnston thinks the administration badly misread the situation from the start.

“I think Trump thought he could do in Iran what he did in Venezuela,” Johnston said. In Caracas, the US captured and arrested former President Nicolas Maduro, and a US-friendly pragmatist from within the government emerged to cut a deal. The expectation was that after the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, someone similar would step forward in Tehran.

“The Iranian regime is just deeply, deeply different in about every single way, politically, from the Chavista regime in Venezuela,” Johnston said. “I think he thought that once he killed the supreme leader and a bunch of the leadership, someone would come forward and beg for a deal. And that just isn’t what has happened.”

What happened instead is that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps appears to have consolidated control, and the IRGC has a long history of being more maximalist and hardline than the regime it is replacing. During the Iran-Iraq war, Iran liberated its territory by 1982 but didn’t agree to a ceasefire until 1988, after hundreds of thousands of additional casualties and an international hostage crisis. 

Two Options, Both Historically Anathema to Trump

That leaves Trump staring at two options, both of which are historically anathema to him.

Option one: escalate to a ground war. US Marine Expeditionary Units are assembling and will arrive in the Middle East on the same day the truce is scheduled to run out, Friday. The administration might soon have the capability to invade Kharg Island or occupy coastal positions around the Strait. Trump has called this “a simple military maneuver” with “so little risk,” which military experts disagree with. 

Option two: accept a deal that falls short of the war’s stated objectives and walk away, leaving Europe to manage the Strait. But walking away would leave US Gulf allies exposed to an angry, emboldened Iran that has just demonstrated its ability to destroy their energy infrastructure at will. It would leave Iran’s stocks of highly enriched uranium largely unsecured, and it would also give Tehran the kind of mythologized martyr narrative—we withstood America and Israel—that the Islamic Republic used after the Iran-Iraq war to entrench itself for decades.

“My bias remains that he’s going to pull back, because I think he needs to pull back,” Johnston said. “But I thought that for most of the war thus far, and I’ve been wrong.”

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When the bombs started raining down on Iran on February 28, many business leaders hoped the conflict would be short and the economic effects would be transient. Neither has turned out to be the case. 

In the latest sign that “war effects” are becoming embedded, the World Economic Forum is the latest global organization to announce the postponement of its key Gulf conference in Saudi Arabia, citing “current regional developments”. 

The technology conference, Leap, private equity group, Partners Group Holding AG, and JP Morgan have each announced postponements or changes in venue since the war started. The risk index for the Gulf economies is rising.  

“In light of the current regional developments, and in close consultation with the Ministry of Economy and Planning of Saudi Arabia, the World Economic Forum will be rescheduling the Global Collaboration and Growth Meeting, which had been planned for April 2026 in Jeddah,” WEF said in a statement. 

“This reflects a commitment to convening the meeting under conditions that ensure its full strategic impact. We remain committed to facilitating a forward-looking agenda for the region and beyond and will provide updates about the rescheduled meeting in due course.” 

We will be back, WEF is saying. This will be a relief to in-region business leaders concerned that confidence is, at present, only travelling in one direction. 

Initial analysis at the beginning of March suggested that the positive economic momentum of the Gulf—a center for innovation as well as liquidity—would outweigh drone attacks and retaliation strikes. As the conflict drags on, the data is becoming more negative. 

“Our analysis suggests that oil output this year could fall by around 12% in Saudi Arabia and by 16% in the UAE,” Goldman Sachs said in a note to clients as the conflict entered its second week. “In Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain, we think oil output could fall by over 25% this year in the event of a prolonged war.” 

Read more: An AI jobs apocalypse? The CEO of Tech Mahindra is not so sure

Second-order effects are also starting to bite. The closure of airports and the negative impact on tourism and real estate sales are obvious.  

“We estimate that the total potential contraction in real GDP this year ranges from 1% in Oman to 14% in Kuwait and Qatar,” Goldman Sachs said. “Saudi Arabia is moderately exposed, with a potential contraction in GDP of just over 3%, while the UAE could see a contraction of around 5%.” 

The region has built much of its economic forward momentum on its convening power. “Get me to the Gulf,” was the regular request of chief executives hoping to find new markets and ways of thinking. And in an age of increased regionalization, it was events like WEF Gulf that signaled intent. 

I spoke to Mirek Dusek, Head of Global Programming for WEF, before the decision was taken on the Gulf. He said that, with geopolitical instability increasing, the Forum was becoming more significant, not less—evidenced by the attendance at the WEF’s annual summit at Davos. 

“We did have overall record participation among the political leaders, the business leaders, innovators and civil society leaders. What was notable was that we really tried to put dialogue first,” Dusek said. 

“We were playing on the spirit of Davos, which is really the fact that the town of Davos has always had this spirit of really coming together for a conversation. 

“Obviously, we are operating in a more contested geo-political and geo-economic environment, and so we were not naive about this. We just wanted to make sure that we put front and center the need to have that conversation, even if people disagree. 

“We’ve always been an organization that has global reach, multi-regional reach, and so we’ll continue, in addition to Davos, that important role of connecting people, leaders, stakeholders. We have a long-standing tradition of convening our second-largest gathering in China every year, and we will be gathered in Dalian at the end of June. We call it the Annual Meeting of the New Champions.” 

WEF is committed to returning to the Gulf, which is welcome. Business and political leaders there know that the need for conversation and the hunt for solutions is now paramount. 

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Back in high school, Yaxel Lendeborg wasn’t even on the basketball team (and had even been cut from the middle-school team) and played video games 12-14 hours each day. 

Now, the Michigan Wolverines Forward is the Big Ten Player of the Year—referred to as “The Dominican LeBron”—and is set to take on the Alabama Crimson Tide in the Sweet 16 on Friday.

His journey from the couch to the court is the kind of story coaches tell recruits to illustrate the success that can come from a single decision. Ahead of his senior year of high school, Lendeborg’s mother, Yissel Raposo, learned her son wasn’t on track to graduate, so she had a heart-to-heart conversation with him that served as a “wake-up call,” she told Hoops HQ in a December 2025 profile of the player. 

It was a decision that largely paid off: Lendeborg’s grades dramatically improved when he enrolled in Camden County College, so much so that he was able to join the varsity basketball team for the final 11 games of his senior season. These were the only 11 high school basketball games Lendeborg ever played.

Right after high school, Lendeborg started working with his mother at a cell-phone accessory warehouse, but felt guilty about not doing more. 

“It kind of hurt being in that space with my mom, seeing how much she’s been doing for us,” the 6-foot, 9-inch, 240-pound player told Hoops HQ. “So it was like, damn, I really messed my life up. And I’m not helping my mom out.”

That’s when everything changed. 

Yaxel Lendeborg’s career timeline

Through the grapevine, coaches at Arizona Western College learned of Lendeborg. Although he wasn’t thrilled to be going, according to Hoops HQ, Lendeborg shipped himself off to Arizona, where he played 78 games in three seasons from 2020 to 2023. There, he was a two-time NJCAA All-American and won the ACCAC Player of the Year award twice. 

In April 2023, Lendeborg transferred to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he helped the school earn the 2024 American Conference Tournament Title. He also earned AAC Tournament MVP honors, was named AAC Defensive Player of the Year twice, and helped the school reach the NCAA Tournament, among several other accolades.

Then in April 2025, Lendeborg committed to the University of Michigan, joining what would become the top team in the country under head coach Dusty May. His debut was somewhat injury-limited, but he quickly became Michigan’s star player. He averages 14.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 3.2 assists per game, according to ESPN, and led Michigan to a 19-1 Big 10 record (and 33-3 overall), the program’s first regular-season title since 2020-2021. 

This March, he was named Big Ten Player of the Year and helped Michigan earn the No. 1 seed in the Midwest Regional for this year’s March Madness tournament. Now, he’s projected as a first-round NBA draft pick.

A late bloomer who caught fire

Lendeborg’s success story defies the typical blue-chip narrative in basketball recruiting. Typically, recruiters are after a 4- or 5-star player who has been heavily scouted since middle or early high school, appears on national rankings lists, and gets dozens of scholarship offers from top programs before their senior year. 

Instead, Lendeborg, now 23, developed much later than his peers. This meant he had to outwork players with years of structured training—and now he’s competing in what’s widely considered the most physically demanding conference in college basketball. But Michigan basketball coach Dusty May says Lendeborg deserves every ounce of recognition he’s getting.

“I think it’s pretty obvious why he’s player of the year,” May told CBS reporter Tracy Wolfson in early March. “He does everything on the basketball court, and he’s incredibly unselfish while doing it. And he’s just scratching the surface of how good he can be.”

The business of breaking through

Lendeborg’s unlikely rise can serve as a compelling lesson for the business world, too. Talent without focus is just potential. For years, Lendeborg had the innate talent to perform at a high level, but lacked the motivation.

A 2007 study by American academic and psychologist Angela L. Duckworth shows that grit can be just as important in determining success as talent. 

“The achievement of difficult goals entails not only talent, but also the sustained and focused application of talent over time,” she and her co-authors wrote in the study.

So, it wasn’t until Lendeborg committed to “sustained and focused” training that he met his big break, and it’s all paying off. 

Not only has Lendeborg earned numerous accolades in recent years, but his hard work is also paying off. His name, image, and likeness (NIL) valuation is estimated at $2 million, according to On3, ranking him among the top 25 in college sports overall and No. 7 in basketball. 

But Lendeborg also said in a March interview with the Associated Press he had turned down an NIL deal from Kentucky worth $7 million to $9 million dollars to stay with May and the Wolverines. That’s because he was prioritizing his long-term goals over money.

“I was raised without it, and I went my whole life without it,” Lendeborg told the AP. “Anything was going to make me super, super happy at the time.”

“I was thinking long term. What if I mess up my career because I chased the money instead of a future? Another big reason why I went with Dusty was he didn’t talk about money at all,” he continued. “It was all about making me better and helping me achieve my goals.”

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From Gen Z to baby boomers, workers across industries are on the hunt for ways to future-proof their careers as artificial intelligence threatens to upend the labor market. Palantir CEO Alex Karp is offering a starkly simple view of who will come out ahead.

“There are basically two ways to know you have a future,” the 58-year-old billionaire said on TBPN earlier this month. “One, you have some vocational training. Or two, you’re neurodivergent.”

Karp’s first category reflects a growing consensus: skilled trades professionals—from electricians to plumbers—are difficult to automate and are increasingly in demand as Big Tech companies build out massive data centers and the U.S. faces existing labor shortages.

The second category is more personal. Karp has long spoken about living with dyslexia, the learning disability that can affect reading, writing, and information processing. More broadly, neurodivergence can include conditions such as ADHD and autism. 

For Karp, that cognitive difference can be an advantage in an AI-driven world—less because of the diagnosis itself and more because of the mindset it can foster. Success, he argued, will favor people who think differently and take risks, or in his words, be “more of an artist, look at things from a different direction, be able to build something unique.”

One-fifth of sales organizations within Fortune 500 companies are expected to actively recruit neurodivergent talent to improve business performance by 2027, according to a Gartner study.

As Alex Karp warns AI will wipe out jobs, Palantir is betting on neurodivergent talent and high school grads

While being neurodivergent is not a requirement to land a job at Palantir, the company has made it clear it sees such candidates as a strategic advantage. 

It offers a dedicated “Neurodivergent Fellowship,” aimed at recruiting talent that may think differently from traditional hires.

“Neurodivergent individuals will play a disproportionate role in shaping the future of America and the West,” the job posting stated. “They see past performative ideologies and perceive beauty in the world that still exists—which technology and art can expose.”

The emphasis reflects Karp’s broader skepticism of traditional career pathways. Despite holding three degrees to his name—including a JD from Stanford and a PhD in philosophy from Goethe University in Germany—Karp has been blunt about the limits of higher education in an AI-driven economy. 

“[AI] will destroy humanities jobs,” Karp said at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland earlier this year. “You went to an elite school, and you studied philosophy—I’ll use myself as an example—hopefully, you have some other skill, that one is going to be hard to market.”

Palantir similarly launched a separate program—the Meritocracy Fellowship—designed specifically for high school graduates not enrolled in college. The program’s first cohort required Ivy League-level test scores to qualify, and attracted over 500 applicants. The 22 admitted students were a mix of those who felt attending college wasn’t compelling, or didn’t get into their dream schools, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The next round, currently recruiting for fall 2026, offers participants $5,400 a month as a stipend and pitches itself with a clear message: “Skip the debt. Reclaim years of your life. Earn the Palantir degree”—and top performers can even receive full-time offers at the company.

Entry-level roles for Gen Z are drying—but not everyone has given up on college

As traditional entry-level roles dry up for Gen Z graduates, many young people are coming to a similar conclusion as Karp: a college degree alone is no longer a guaranteed path to success.

Still, some tech leaders argue that higher education is far from obsolete—and that liberal arts in particular may become more valuable in the age of AI. Jaime Teevan, Microsoft’s chief scientist, believes the next generation will benefit from studying disciplines that emphasize how to think, not just what to do.

“Metacognitive skills will be very important—flexibility, adaptability, experimentation, thinking critically, being able to challenge things. Developing critical-thinking skills requires friction, doing things that are hard, doing deep thinking,” she told The Wall Street Journal. “For that, a traditional liberal-arts education is really important.”

In direct contrast to Karp, Daniela Amodei, cofounder of AI firm Anthropic, said studying the humanities will be “more important than ever.”

“The things that make us human will become much more important instead of much less important,” she told ABC News last month. “And what I mean by that is when we look to hire people at Anthropic today, we look for people who are great communicators, who have excellent EQ and people skills, who are kind and compassionate and curious and want to help other people.”

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Workplaces have long surveilled their employees, from tracking badge swipes to keyboard strokes. Now, JPMorgan Chase is rolling out a program to monitor the hours of its junior investment bankers—and the $782 billion bank says it’s for their own well-being. 

As part of JPMorgan’s new pilot plan, it will assess whether the hours claimed by junior bankers on their time sheets match up with the activity electronically recorded by its IT systems, according to recent reporting from the Financial Times. Each week, these employees will be issued reports showing the comparison between their self-reported time and a figure based on their computer footprint, including video calls, desktop keystrokes, and scheduled meetings. The tools will not be used for evaluation purposes. 

“Much like the weekly screen time summaries on a smartphone, this tool is about awareness—not enforcement,” JPMorgan said in a statement to the Financial Times. “It’s designed to support transparency, wellbeing, and encourage open conversations about workload.”

While many workers would be anxious at the idea of their employers tracking their days online, the pilot plan is actually an effort to counteract overwork among its junior staffers, according to the reporting. And it’s part of a larger movement among Wall Street titans to try and safeguard employees against potentially dangerous workloads. 

Fortune reached out to JPMorgan for comment.

Junior investment bankers were working 100+ hours a week—and one banker even died

Wall Street’s famous “always on” culture of intense, sleepless workdays has started to show cracks as of late. 

Much of the issue came to a head just two years ago, when Leo Lukenas III, a Green Beret who joined Bank of America as an investment banker, died of a blood clot after working extremely long days at the business. 

While the coroner’s report did not establish a connection between the banker’s death and his intense Wall Street workload, his death spurred attention to the long hours and health declines of overworked investment bankers. 

That same year, junior bankers were logging 100-hour workweeks—more than double the 40-hour load of many professionals. 

Banks are stepping up and helping their junior bankers avoid burnout

JPMorgan’s most recent monitoring tool is only a continuation of the banking industry’s clampdown on the concerning “rite of passage.” 

The Wall Street bank started implementing guardrails around the issue a couple of years ago; in 2024, the JPMorgan capped its junior bankers’ working hours to 80 hours a week. This policy was added on top of its “pencils down” period between 6 p.m. Friday to noon on Saturday, and the guarantee that staffers would have one full weekend off every three months. Some cases, like live deals, were exempt from the policy. 

Other banks have taken notice of widespread intense burnout. 

A 2024 Wall Street Journal investigation found that many junior investment bankers at Bank of America were routinely told by their superiors to lie about how many hours they worked in order to skirt limitations. After the reporting, the bank started encouraging its young staffers to accurately log their hours—and wave the red flag if any bosses told them to do otherwise. 

In turn, Bank of America rolled out a new monitoring tool in the fall of 2024, which required U.S.-based junior investment bankers to log their hours daily rather than weekly, the WSJ reported. The young employees were also instructed to input information on the deals they were working on, the senior bankers supervising them, and their ability to shoulder more work on a scale of 1 to 4.

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Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Tuesday declared a state of national energy emergency to respond to the impact of the Middle East war, which his administration said posed “an imminent danger of a critically low energy supply.”

Under the declaration, which will initially last for a year, Marcos will lead a contingency committee that will ensure the availability and orderly distribution of fuel, food, medicines, agricultural products and other basic goods.

Authorities were ordered to take action against the hoarding, profiteering and manipulation of the supply of petroleum products. The Department of Migrant Workers, meanwhile, was asked to brace for the possible rescue and evacuation of Filipinos in the Middle East.

The government has started to provide 5,000 pesos ($83) each to large numbers of motorcycle taxi drivers and other public transport workers nationwide to help them cope with soaring gasoline and diesel prices. Free bus rides have also been provided to students and workers in selected cities.

About 2.4 million Filipinos live and work in the Middle East, including about 31,000 in Israel and 800 in Iran. Most have opted, however, to stay and work in the region, with only several hundreds being flown home so far with government help since the Middle East hostilities began.

A Filipina caregiver, Mary Ann de Vera, was killed in Tel Aviv, Israel, in an Iranian missile strike on Feb. 28 while helping bring her elderly charge to a bomb shelter, Philippine officials said.

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As states that already ban abortion look to further restrict access this year, much of the focus is on pills sent by out-of-state providers.

A survey released Tuesday helps explain the emphasis. It suggests that more women in states with bans obtained abortions last year using the pills prescribed via telehealth than by traveling to places where it’s legal.

Most of the states with the political will to impose broad bans have already done so in the nearly four years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and opened the door to enforcing them. So far this year, just one state has a new one.

Here’s a look at where things stand as many state legislatures are wrapping up or have completed their 2026 sessions.

States are taking steps to make abortion pills harder to get

South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden, a Republican, signed a bill last week that makes it a felony to advertise, distribute or sell abortion pills.

Similar measures have cleared both legislative chambers this year in Mississippi, where the House and Senate need to iron out differences before sending a bill to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves.

A survey of state abortion policies from the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, finds that at least three states — Florida, Oklahoma and Texas — already have laws that specifically ban providers from mailing the pills to patients. Louisiana has classified mifepristone as a controlled dangerous substance.

Bills intended to keep out the pills have cleared one chamber in Arizona, Indiana and South Carolina this year. Republicans control the legislatures in all three states and the governor’s office in two of them. In Arizona, any restrictions that pass could be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

Survey suggests more women using abortion pills in states with bans

A Guttmacher survey released Tuesday sheds light on why abortion opponents may be focusing on pills.

The report suggests that in 2025, for the first time, more women in the 13 states that ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy obtained pills through telehealth than traveled to other states for abortion.

The prescriptions come from providers in states with laws adopted since the fall of Roe that are intended to protect those who prescribe abortion pills to patients in states with bans. Most often, women using pills for abortion are prescribed a regimen of two drugs — mifepristone and misoprostol. They’re approved for use in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.

The estimated increase in the mailing pills comes as Guttmacher’s estimates also suggest fewer women are traveling to obtain abortions in states like Colorado, Illinois, Kansas and New Mexico.

Guttmacher’s estimates are based on data from a monthly survey conducted among a random sample of U.S. abortion providers, combined with historical data from every provider in the U.S. They reflect a trend documented in other surveys of abortion providers.

Court battles are also centered on pills

Multiple states are challenging the federal rules that allow mifepristone to be prescribed via telehealth. Requiring in-person prescriptions instead would at least dent the ability of out-of-state providers to get pills into states with bans.

Louisiana has such a lawsuit in federal court there; the attorneys general of Florida and Texas have one in Texas; those two states, along with Idaho, Kansas and Missouri, are making the same case in a Missouri court.

Meanwhile, Texas has filed civil cases and Louisiana criminal ones against providers accused of sending pills into their states.

The Food and Drug Administration last year approved a generic version of mifepristone, which frustrated abortion opponents.

One state imposed a ban, but its fate is uncertain

Wyoming is the only state this year that has imposed a new abortion ban.

Under a law signed in March by Republican Gov. Mark Gordon, it became the fifth state with a ban on abortion at about six weeks’ gestational age — before many women realize they’re pregnant. Like most of the others, Wyoming’s bans abortions once cardiac activity can be detected.

But courts have rejected previous Wyoming efforts to limit abortion, and the Wyoming Supreme Court in January struck down a ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy.

The idea of punishing women is not gaining ground

No state has adopted a measure intended to allow criminal prosecutions against women who have abortions.

Proposals to do so keep getting made but sputter early in the legislative process.

The farthest such a bill has advanced was a hearing last year before a Senate subcommittee in South Carolina. One was scheduled for a subcommittee hearing in Tennessee this month, but didn’t get one.

Pregnancy Justice, which advocates for the rights of pregnant people, says it’s tracked new “abortion-as-homicide” measures introduced in six states in 2026 — down from 13 states last year.

The major established anti-abortion groups oppose the approach. “Women require compassion and support,” said Ingrid Duran, the state legislative director for National Right to Life. “Not prosecution.”

Melissa Murray, a professor at New York University School of Law, says that by introducing bills with penalties against women, the movement’s less compromising abolitionists can break down the idea that such policies are off-limits.

“You keep pushing the boundary, pushing the envelope, eventually you will get what you’re seeking,” Murray said. “It will no longer feel fanciful or shocking.”

She also noted that women are already sometimes charged with crimes related to their pregnancies. This month, police in Georgia charged a woman with murder after allegedly using an abortion pill and the opioid painkiller oxycodone.

Abortion will be on ballots in November

Abortion questions will be before voters in at least three states in November.

Missouri lawmakers are asking voters to repeal the right to reproductive freedom that they put into the state constitution in 2024.

Elsewhere, voters are being asked to add constitutional amendments that largely mirror current state abortion laws.

In Nevada, a state constitutional amendment to allow abortion until fetal viability — generally considered to be sometime after 21 weeks of pregnancy — passed in 2024, and needs voter approval a second time to take effect.

A Virginia ballot measure would guarantee the right to reproductive freedom, including access to contraception and making decisions on abortion care during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.

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Associated Press reporter Amelia Thomson DeVeaux contributed to this article.

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Kalshi and Polymarket, the two biggest prediction market platforms, rushed to institute new industry guardrails and add new surveillance tools on Monday after two key senators announced legislation that could severely curtail the industry’s prospects.

Kalshi said it would ban political candidates from trading on their own campaigns, and it would preemptively block anyone involved in college or professional sports from trading contracts related to the sports they play or are employed by.

In a statement, a Kalshi spokesperson said the company’s new features “further demonstrate our commitment to safe markets.”

Polymarket also instituted its own set of bans and rules. The company rewrote its rules to say clearly that users cannot trade on contracts where they might possess confidential information or could influence the outcome of an event. This would include athletes but could also include company officials, policymakers or anyone who would have enough influence to affect the outcome of an event or know the information in advance.

“These rule enhancements make our expectations abundantly clear for every participant across both platforms,” said Neal Kumar, Polymarket’s chief legal officer, in a statement.

Polymarket, in particular, has faced intense criticism after some of its users made substantial bets ahead of the war in Iran and the military action in Venezuela, earlier this year. Those users appeared to have profited handsomely from knowing in advance that President Donald Trump was going to take military action in those regions.

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, introduced broad legislation called the “Prediction Markets are Gambling Act,” on Monday that would ban prediction markets from creating contracts related to sports. While prediction markets allow users to bet on everything from the weather to political events, much of their recent growth has been in sporting events. The bill, if enacted, would substantially destroy much of Kalshi and Polymarket’s future business prospects. Both companies have signed business deals with several sports teams and leagues in order to bolster their credibility with sports fans.

Sen Curtis’ home state of Utah has been particularly aggressive in trying to keep Kalshi and Polymarket out of its state. Gov. Spencer Cox recently signed legislation that would expand the state’s definition of gambling to include what are known as “prop bets.”

Shares of the parent company of FanDuel and DraftKings rose sharply on Monday after the senators’ announcement.

While Sen. Schiff and Sen. Curtis are not the first politicians to propose a broad ban on the activities of prediction markets, the fact that both political parties are becoming skeptical of them is a cause of alarm for the industry. Several states have preemptively banned Kalshi and Polymarket, saying that the platforms effectively are a sports betting industry with a technological twist. While Kalshi has tried to sue to get its platform allowed in certain states, like Nevada and Utah, it has found little success so far.

Kalshi and Polymarket have found backing from the Trump-controlled Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal regulator of derivatives and other prediction markets activities. The CFTC’s chairman, Michael Selig, has said he would back Kalshi in any of its legal battles at the state level, arguing that federal law preempts any state law on this issue.

Any friendly decision the CFTC makes on this industry could end up financially benefiting the president’s family as well. President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., has invested in Polymarket through his venture capital firm and is a strategic adviser for Kalshi.

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