Amanda Hoover

The average American picks up their phone more than 200 times a day. Teens are pinged with some 250 notifications a day — during school, after school, and overnight. The apps meant to prevent you from checking apps have done little to stop the problem. Now, some of the tech companies that helped create our screen dependence are trying to disrupt it.

Later this year, OpenAI plans to debut a small, screenless device that Sam Altman describes as more “peaceful” than a smartphone. Apple, the Oz of screentime, is developing smart glasses, a pin, and AirPods with more AI built in, according to a Tuesday report from Bloomberg, with the rumored pendants featuring microphones and cameras to be the “eyes and ears” of the iPhone. Meta has teased its fully augmented reality Orion glasses since 2024. While that device doesn’t have a release date, the company last year sold some 7 million pairs of its smart glasses, which is the start of the post-smartphone future Mark Zuckerberg has predicted. Eventual smart specs could be more screen all-the-time than screenless, but they also rely on AI to make the experience much more hands-free than swiping and scrolling on a phone.

Could AI be what finally breaks our phone addiction?

Since 2007, no device out of Silicon Valley has captured universal imagination the way Steve Jobs did when he put your iPod, your phone, and the internet together on a 3.5-inch screen. Competitors have tried for a decade-plus to get people to shift us from the iPhone to smart glasses, and largely failed. The awe around smartphones has turned to derision, as excessive screen time is linked to disrupted sleep, anxiety, and fractured attention. Now, developers are hoping the AI boom can give us the next big thing.

Beating the smartphone would mean replacing a device that 91% of American adults now carry — a device for which millions of apps have been developed and people now depend on in lieu of wallets and cameras and health monitors. New AI devices can’t just copy what smartphones do, says Ramon Llamas, a research director at a technology intelligence firm IDC: They have to show they have a solution to an everyday problem. If they don’t, Llama says, “these things are just gonna really end up as solutions looking for a problem to solve.”

Critiques of screen time can be as blunt and smoothbrained as what the critics say excessive screen time makes you. A seven-hour daily log may seem like a staggering amount of dependence, but what did the person spend those seven hours doing? Doomscrolling late into the night, or FaceTiming with a far-away friend? With AI wearables, there’s the risk of becoming dependent on the device for different reasons.

“The screen may not be there, but what’s getting filled in the back is already this problem of AI companionship,” says Olivia Gambelin, an AI ethicist and author of the book “Responsible AI.” An AI device designed to do something very specific — like listen to a meeting and then send follow-up emails or messages related to action points discussed — could save people time and keep them from writing tedious emails and Slack messages from their desk. But that same device listening in to personal conversations with family and friends could compromise a relationship, and erode the positive effects that texting a friend to check-in can have on both people (already, my friends are tiring of AI summaries on the iPhone that summarize our group text and become an intermediary into our threads of gossip and jokes in the name of efficiency). Wearing microphones and cameras to social interactions and into businesses is likely to really weird out some of the people around you. More people are entering into romantic, dependent relationships with AI companions, and a swell of loud dissenters are criticizing the technology for taking jobs and attempting to replicate human relationships.

But OpenAI is betting that it can package its technology in a device in a way that calms the user. “When I use current devices or most applications, I feel like I am walking through Times Square in New York and constantly just dealing with all the little indignities along the way,” Altman said in November. OpenAI’s device, he said, would be less Time Square, more “sitting in the most beautiful cabin by a lake and in the mountains and sort of just enjoying the peace and calm.” That’s because the AI device would learn “contextual awareness of your whole life,” and when best to send you alerts.

The screen itself may not be the problem; it’s what’s summoning us to the screen.

Other AI wearables have failed by falling short of that goal. Humane AI sold a wearable pin, priced at $700 plus a monthly fee to connect it, but pulled it from the market a year ago. It failed perhaps because it tried too hard to replace our phones — it didn’t interact with them, but provided a shoddy replacement. Novelty wasn’t a factor that could outshine usability. The AI Friend pendant, which can’t search the internet or help with tasks outside of sending reminders and acts instead as an eavesdropping sycophant around its user’s neck, was mocked relentlessly and sold just a few thousand devices after it hit the market last year.

Companies trying to make AI hardware should focus on “transformative features,” Jason Low, research director at Omdia, tells me in an email. AI wearables must be more than “marginally more convenient,” should integrate with our existing products, and have a clear, stated value. For example, glasses that provide real-time language translation or devices for fitness and health tracking offer features our smartphones can’t do as well. The Oura ring continues to grow in popularity, particularly among women after starting out as a niche tech bro buy, for the novel insights it can offer; the company announced last fall it has sold 5.5 million rings since 2015, with more than 2.5 million sold between June 2024 and September 2025. “These devices often deliver a more polished user experience compared to general-purpose, do-it-all AI devices,” Low says.

Llamas tells me that the AI functions of a wearable have to be “contextual, personalized, and actionable,” like reminding the wearer to send birthday flowers or responding accurately to being asked to direct the user to the nearest Starbucks. A first attempt device shouldn’t try to replace the smartphone, but to integrate with the Apple or Google ecosystems, he says. Apple and OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment about their rumored products for this story.

If anything has hyped Silicon Valley like the iPhone, it’s been AI. But three years after the mainstream adoption of ChatGPT, the value generative AI in the white collar workforce has yet to be fully realized. That could make a product for consumers a hard sell, too. “Some of the overwhelm that’s coming with AI that I see in general users is you can use it for everything, or it’s promoted that way, which is actually quite stifling,” Gambelin says.

In our quest to find a peaceful equilibrium with tech, the screen itself may not be the problem; it’s what’s summoning us to the screen. Its bright colors, games, and infinite scroll give quick dopamine hits that entice us to stay glued to it. But much of what pings my phone throughout the day are useless notifications trying to get me to reopen one of the dozens of apps — a markdown moment on a clothing thrifting app, a like on the Instagram story I’ve posted of my dog from my best friend, and ironically, a report of how much time I’ve already logged. There’s a relentless business model at play to keep us on these apps. No screens would mean no infinite scroll through TikTok, no Candy Crush — but app developers and companies may need to find new ways to reach people if wearables caught on, and an always-there AI device and companion might not be as peaceful as Altman describes. Our collective screen time is a problem, but the AI wearable will have to surprise us all with something novel to be useful.

Amanda Hoover is a senior correspondent at Business Insider covering the tech industry. She writes about the biggest tech companies and trends.

• DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis said artificial general intelligence efforts still leave a lot to be desired.
• Current systems cannot learn continuously, cannot plan long-term, and lack consistency, he said.
• He said last year that it would take five to 10 years for the world to see real AGI in play.

True artificial general intelligence is on the way, but it still has some ways to go, said Google DeepMind’s CEO.

Speaking at an AI summit in New Delhi, Demis Hassabis was asked whether current AGI systems can match human intelligence. AGI is a hypothetical form of machine intelligence that can reason like people and solve problems using methods it was not trained in.

Hassabis’ short answer: “I don’t think we are there yet.”

He listed three areas where current AGI systems are falling short. The first was what he called “continual learning,” saying that the systems are frozen based on the training they received before implementation.

“What you’d like is for those systems to continually learn online from experience, to learn from the context they’re in, maybe personalize to the situation and the tasks that you have for them,” he said during the discussion.

Secondly, Hassabis said current systems struggle with long-term thinking.

“They can plan over the short term, but over the longer term, the way that we can plan over years, they don’t really have that capability at the moment,” he said.

And lastly, he said that the systems lack consistency. They’re adept in some areas and unskilled in others.

“So, for example, today’s systems can get gold medals in the international Math Olympiad, really hard problems, but sometimes can still make mistakes on elementary maths if you pose the question in a certain way,” he said. “A true general intelligence system shouldn’t have that kind of jaggedness.”

Humans, in comparison, would not make mistakes on an easy math problem if they were math experts, he added.

Hassabis said in a “60 Minutes” interview last year that true AGI would arrive in five to 10 years.

The executive cofounded DeepMind, an AI research lab, in 2010. The lab was acquired by Google in 2014 and is the brains behind Google’s Gemini. In 2024, Hassabis won a joint Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on protein structure prediction.

AGI is a disputed topic in Silicon Valley. Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi said at a September conference that current AI chatbots already meet the definition of AGI, but Silicon Valley leaders keep “moving the goalposts” and pushing toward superintelligence, or AI that can outthink humans.

The AI Summit in India, from Monday to Friday this week, has attracted big names from the tech and AI spheres. Notable speakers on the summit’s agenda include OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Meta’s chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang.

• The EU is investigating Shein for having an “addictive design” and selling illegal products.
• The European Commission said Shein uses points and rewards for engagement, which jeopardizes consumer well-being.
• Shein has been the subject of numerous probes in recent years.

The European Union is going after Shein for hooking customers with what it calls “addictive design.”

In a press release on Tuesday, the European Commission announced that it had launched a probe into Shein under its Digital Services Act.

The Commission said it would investigate Shein for “addictive design, the lack of transparency of recommender systems, as well as the sale of illegal products, including child sexual abuse material.”

Shein’s platform is addictive because it uses points and rewards for engagement, the Commission said in the press release, which could jeopardize consumer well-being. Shein, a Chinese fast fashion brand, is headquartered in Singapore.

The Commission added in the release that it would investigate the systems that Shein has in place to limit the sale of illegal products in the European Union, such as “child-like sex dolls.”

The probe comes after the French government tried to have Shein’s website suspended in the country last year after reports of sex doll listings on the site.

Reuters reported in December that a Paris court had rejected the suspension and ordered Shein to implement age verification for adult products and impose a fine for any breach.

This is not the first time the EU has taken action against Shein for its marketing tactics.

In May, the bloc accused the company of deceiving customers with fake discounts and misleading information, failing to process refunds, and hiding the contact information of customer service agents, which it called a “breach of EU law.”

Shein has also been the subject of probes by other countries. South Korean authorities found toxic substances in quantities above legal limits in Shein’s products on numerous occasions.

And in December, a Texas court said it would investigate Shein for “unethical labor practices and the sale of unsafe consumer products.”

“Any company that cuts corners on labor standards or product safety, especially those operating in foreign nations like China, will be held accountable,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a press release.

Representatives for Shein did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Ducati’s North America CEO, Jason Chinnock, said that he hopes motorcycles never become self-driving.
• He said Ducati builds motorcycles for the thrill of the ride, not just to get from point A to point B.
• Ducati, an Italian luxury motorcycle brand owned by Volkswagen Group, turns 100 this year.

Ducati’s top executive said he hopes he’ll never see the day when motorcycles can drive themselves.

Jason Chinnock, who has been with the Italian luxury motorcycle company for over 20 years and served as its North American CEO for a decade, said being a motorcyclist is a core part of his identity.

He told Business Insider in an interview that a self-driving motorcycle would “take away the entire reason to ride a motorcycle.”

Autonomous cars, he said, are useful for mobility — they transport people in a “safe, smooth, efficient, and carefree way.”

He said Ducati’s motorcycles are less about transportation and more about entertainment and the riding experience.

“We are not building mobility. We’re building motorcycles. We’re building something for joy and for fun,” Chinnock said. “If it takes away the ability to operate it and experience it, then just get in a pod and go from point A to point B.”

There are no commercially available self-driving motorcycles. Some companies, such as Japan’s Yamaha and the Singapore-headquartered Omoway, have started work on self-balancing bikes.

However, Ducati is not entirely dismissing autonomous features, adding them where necessary for safety. For instance, Chinnock said some of Ducati’s models come with electronic cruise control, traction control, and an anti-lock braking system.

Ducati, which was founded in Bologna, Italy, in 1926, is owned by the Volkswagen Group.

Its motorcycles cost more than $10,000 in the US, with some models exceeding $40,000. In 2024, Ducati sold about 55,000 motorcycles worldwide, earning 1 billion euros, or about $1.17 billion, in revenue.

Autonomous cars are gaining traction globally. Tesla’s robotaxis and Alphabet’s Waymo both offer autonomous taxi services in San Francisco and the Bay Area, with Uber set to join the fray this year.

• Lauren Rose Kocher, now 39, grew up in Indiana and became fascinated with Japan as a kid.
• She studied Japanese in college and has built her career — and started a family — in Japan.
• As CEO of a Tokyo-based marketing agency, she’s learned not to assume silence means satisfaction.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lauren Rose Kocher, 39, an American entrepreneur and CEO of Vegas PR Group in Tokyo. Her words have been edited for length and clarity.

I grew up in a small town in Indiana, but my interest in Japan started early. I still remember watching a “Sesame Street” episode where Big Bird visits Japan. That image stuck with me.

In college, that curiosity took shape: I studied Japanese at the University of Chicago and spent a summer in Hokkaido. After graduating, I moved to Japan in 2008 to teach English, though a career in teaching was never my goal.

I wanted to work for a Japanese company and use the language skills I’d built in school. I’d never worked full-time in the US, so my understanding of corporate culture has been formed almost entirely in Japan.

Building a career inside corporate Japan

After teaching, I transitioned into corporate roles in Japanese companies. I spent three years as an assistant and international concert promoter before joining Sony Music’s business development division for four years. I later became the cofounder and COO of a VC-funded ticketing platform.

After nearly a decade inside corporate Japan, I stepped into senior leadership.

Now, I’m the CEO and sole founder of Vegas PR Group, a Tokyo-based marketing agency focused on culture, the arts, music, and fashion. Our bilingual team of nine works across Japanese and international clients.

Since 2024, I’ve also overseen two businesses founded by my late husband, a sandwich restaurant and a clothing brand.

I plan to stay in Japan long-term. My two children are half-Japanese, and I value raising them here.

How decisions are really made

Japanese business culture relies heavily on consensus-building, often through “nemawashi,” the process of privately aligning stakeholders before any formal decision is announced.

Feedback is similarly indirect. Japanese teams are often hesitant to raise concerns openly, which means issues can remain unspoken until they surface all at once. Decision-making is cautious and risk-averse, and change tends to be incremental rather than dramatic.

I’ve learned to factor this into timelines, particularly when working with Japanese clients who require internal alignment before moving forward. The people I hire tend to defy that stereotype and slot easily into our open, international culture.

I wouldn’t say my management style is particularly American, but my American communication style and entrepreneurial instinct certainly are. I try to respect local expectations, though I know my tendency to move quickly and take decisive swings has occasionally come across as abrasive in a culture where decisions are slow, and relationships are built with great caution.

Enforcing local business standards

Because all of my work is rooted in the Japanese market, I encourage international staff to follow Japanese work customs when dealing with local clients, while leaving room for each person to navigate what they’re personally comfortable with.

Punctuality is one example. In many countries, joining a Zoom call a minute or two late is inconsequential. In Japan, it’s not. Logging in at 9:01 a.m. for a 9 a.m. meeting is considered late, and I enforce that expectation.

The same applies to in-person meetings, where arriving at least 10 minutes early is standard. When doing business in Japan, being on time is non-negotiable.

My leadership philosophy is rooted in servant leadership. I’m heavily invested in the success of the people I work with, and that approach has helped me build trust across Japanese and international teams.

Identity, privilege, and perspective

As a white American woman in Japan, I’m perceived first as foreign. I’m also conscious of the privilege I carry. For anyone moving to Japan to lead a team, my advice is to be slow and deliberate.

Deliver important news one-on-one before making major announcements. Don’t expect clear or immediate feedback, and don’t assume silence means satisfaction. It’s also critical to respect people’s attachment to their roles, hierarchies, and existing relationships, which hold significant weight in Japanese workplaces.

I learned all of these lessons firsthand.

Do you have a story to share about working abroad? Contact the editor at akarplus@businessinsider.com.

• Hidde van Vliet quit his corporate job after realizing the traditional career path wasn’t for him.
• While traveling in South Africa, he saw digital nomads thriving — but lacking real community.
• Last year, he cofounded a community in Bali, which has since hosted 250+ events for remote workers.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Hidde van Vliet, 37, the cofounder of Entourage in Bali. His words have been edited for length and clarity.

In 2023, the industrial logistics firm I worked for relocated from Amsterdam to Malta, and I was promoted to general manager. On paper, it looked like a step up. In reality, it was the first sign that the way I was structuring my life no longer fit.

I helped lead the company’s move — setting up the office, hiring staff, and building operations from scratch. Malta had what I thought I wanted: sun, ocean, and easy access to the outdoors. Socially, something was missing. Every six weeks, I flew back to Amsterdam just to see friends and family.

Nine months in, I quit. There was no dramatic blow-up — just a steady realization that the life I was building wasn’t right.

Soon after, I went to Cape Town for a university reunion. There, I slipped into a different rhythm: sunrise beach runs, surfing, padel at night, and constant social energy.

When the trip ended, my friends went back to their jobs. I didn’t.

I pushed my flight home twice, and later returned to Cape Town solo on a three-month visa. That’s where I first encountered digital nomads. Their days centered on work, wellness, and connection.

It looked like the dream. It also clarified something for me: A traditional corporate path wasn’t going to give me the life I wanted.

Back in Amsterdam, I took on freelance strategy and finance work to rebuild my savings. Around that time, my friend Joost — now my cofounder — left his job too.

We’d met years earlier at PwC and stayed close. On a weekend trip to Barcelona, over a glass of rosé, he said, “This remote work trend is incredible. We should do something with it.”

That conversation changed everything

Post-COVID, remote workers were clustering in places like Cape Town and Bali. As we spoke to friends living that lifestyle, one pattern kept coming up: Most communities started organically but weren’t built to scale. Events were scattered, inconsistent, or hard to access unless you already knew people.

We wondered what it would look like to build a community intentionally — one centered on health, wellness, and connection, with structured events designed to make meeting people easy. Over two months, that idea took shape into Entourage, a city-based network for digital nomads, built around shared activities and deliberate space for conversation.

Choosing where to launch was the next question. Cape Town felt personal but seasonal. Joost knew Bali well. I’d never been, but its year-round density of nomads made it the obvious choice.

Field research in Bali

In October 2024, we spent three weeks in Bali speaking with dozens of travelers and local businesses — gyms, cafés, padel clubs — to understand what was missing. The opportunity felt real.

We moved to Bali in March 2025 and got started the day we landed. We aimed to build as leanly as possible. Joost and I invested about $17,500 of our own money into the business, excluding living costs. This covered visas, company setup, and some marketing spend.

Within weeks, we were hosting padel games, run clubs, and surf sessions. Not everything worked. Some events flopped. Early runs were small.

The turning point came when Bali Social Club, a padel and wellness space in Canggu, offered to co-host our weekly morning run with ice bath access. We went all in, planning a scenic route, inviting everyone we knew, even printing custom T-shirts.

That first morning, 40, then 50 people showed up. Watching strangers connect afterward, I realized we’d built something bigger than an event.

Building a community

By the end of our first year, we had hosted over 250 events across Bali, and our WhatsApp communities had grown to over 4,000 people. Most gatherings were free or pay-per-event, supported by venue partners.

That was the gap I’d felt moving between Malta, Cape Town, and Amsterdam. I didn’t want backpacker chaos or closed expat circles. I wanted community — people committed to their work and well-being, wherever they landed.

In Bali, I have it all: lifestyle, friendships, and purpose.

Do you have a story to share about living abroad? Contact the editor at akarplus@businessinsider.com.

• An Amazon tech lead says it’s hard to resist the allure of vibe coding.
• Anni Chen, who vibe codes daily, says it’s definitely a productivity boost.
• But she cautions against using vibe coding at scale or for production, and says technical knowledge matters.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Anni Chen, who has worked at Amazon for about three-and-a-half years. It has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified her employment history.

I’m a tech lead at Amazon responsible for deploying large-scale generative AI and LLM-driven systems. I focus on what we call memory, which powers personalization in generative AI experiences across Amazon.

I vibe code every day. It’s definitely a productivity boost.

For debugging or small tasks, I sometimes treat it like a lottery. Maybe it will produce something amazing. Sometimes, it does.

Vibe coding helps me brainstorm what the solution could look like, even if I don’t adopt the final solution it proposes. Vibe coding also speeds up the time spent rewriting code when you realize a requirement wasn’t covered.

Vibe coding is faster, even with double-checking

When I vibe code, it’s always iterative. I give it the basic information it needs, it produces a version, then I check it — similar to a code review with coworkers. I might say, “You missed this part” or “You missed that part.”

The AI sometimes fixes issues but introduces something new. You have to keep an eye on it.

For complex tasks, you need more double-checking. But even with the extra checking, it’s still faster.

I was working with a partner team and ran into complex locking issues. Without an LLM, I might have taken a day to research possible solutions, especially since it was relatively new to me.

Within 15 minutes, I brainstormed with the LLM about possible solutions. I pointed out weaknesses in its suggestions and asked it to improve them. In 15 minutes, I had a proposal to send to the team.

Technical knowledge helps — you know what’s a good solution and what’s not. You know what tastes good, but you don’t know what dishes are available. The LLM brings up all the dishes, and you choose.

Vibe coding for scale might not work, and technical knowledge still matters

Still, I’m hesitant to use vibe coding directly in production.

LLMs are very good at solving problems, but sometimes they make implicit assumptions you don’t realize they’re making. If you don’t tell it explicitly, for example, that something needs to work for multi-threading, it might just produce the minimum version that works, but when it’s large-scale or productionized, it could crash.

Non-technical builders could tell an LLM to build something that handles millions of users. But if you have zero technical knowledge, it’s hard to anticipate constraints upfront. If you don’t tell the model the implicit assumptions, it won’t respect those constraints. Later, you’ll run into problems.

Non-technical people might use the LLM to fix issues reactively. But technical people can anticipate constraints proactively and prevent problems in the first place.

Technical people also understand vibe-coded content better, and they’re in a better position to understand what LLMs are good at and not good at. For example, knowing how they’re trained and why they’re weaker at certain tasks like math. That understanding helps you master them as tools.

When you scale to one million or 100 million customers, systems need to be coded differently to handle that scale.

Vibe coding is hard to resist

Initially, leadership pushed vibe coding. Our team is a GenAI team, so we were naturally more receptive. In non-GenAI teams, engineers initially reacted like, “No, I won’t let AI do my job. I don’t trust AI-generated code.”

After people tried it, attitudes shifted. People realized it’s pretty good sometimes. Now it’s more widely adopted.

It’s very hard to resist vibe coding nowadays. If you’re an employee, leadership sees the productivity boost and will encourage you to use it.

When your peers are using it and coding faster, it’s hard to resist. If you can’t keep up with the speed, it becomes difficult to collaborate.

Even if you resist, you still consume AI passively. AI comments are embedded in code reviews. So even if you don’t vibe code directly, you’re still interacting with AI outputs.

Do you have a story to share about vibe coding? Contact this reporter at cmlee@businessinsider.com.

• Bradley Akubuiro was an intern for Rev. Jesse Jackson at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in 2009.
• Jackson taught him to lean into hard moments and to hold tension between conflict and conversation.
• Akubuiro was able to visit Rev. Jackson in the hospital before his death on February 17.

Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. took a chance on me as a 19-year-old college student.

At that age, as an intern in 2009, I should’ve been pouring coffee, maybe making copies. Instead, he put me to work on college affordability policy, youth violence prevention, and immigration reform at his Rainbow PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) Coalition on the South Side of Chicago.

That was nearly two decades ago. This week, he passed away.

A few weeks ago, I sat with him in the hospital. He was extremely present even as Progressive Supranuclear Palsy disorder had taken his voice — the same instrument that had formed seemingly impossible coalitions and made the moral case for justice in language that brought people together instead of tearing them apart.

I considered Rev. Jackson a close mentor

I met him in 2009 at a press conference he held to announce his intention to negotiate the release of journalist Roxana Saberi from an Iranian prison.

Saberi was an alum of Northwestern University, where I was a student. Several classmates and I had staged a rally to call attention to her issue, and Rev. Jackson had invited us to join him at his press conference in Chicago.

When it ended and everyone packed up to leave, I made a split-second decision.

I grabbed him by the shoulder — strongly enough that his security detail sprang into action — and asked if I could volunteer for his Reduce-the-Rate initiative on college affordability. It was an issue that deeply resonated with me, as I’d borrowed a crippling amount to attend Northwestern. He said yes.

That moment changed everything. Less than a month later, I became the campaign’s manager, working part-time during school. I handled policy research and community interface and accompanied Rev. Jackson to meetings and events. I spent time with him every week and at times even did my homework at his house.

He became a mentor, coaching me and looking out for me not only professionally, but personally. I left the role in 2011, but over the years, we stayed close.

From Rev. Jackson, I learned three lessons about leadership that have shaped everything I’ve done since.

Lesson 1: Lean into hard moments, not out.

Rev. Jackson had a pattern: When things got difficult, he moved closer to the problem, not away from it.

He negotiated the release of over 200 hostages across Syria, Cuba, Iraq, and Serbia. He flew into war zones and sat across the table from dictators. He showed up to Texaco’s headquarters during their discrimination scandal. He walked into corporate boardrooms where he wasn’t welcome.

Many leaders I know do the opposite. When crisis hits, they create distance — delegate to lawyers, let the public relations team handle it, wait for it to blow over.

Rev. Jackson taught me that the moments when you want to step back are precisely when you need to step forward. Your measure as a leader is taken in the hardest moments, not the easy ones.

Lesson 2: Never stop investing in people.

Rev. Jackson had no reason to believe in my abilities. But he understood that individuals have incredible capacity for growth — they just don’t start off optimally productive.

He put a 19-year-old on policy work that mattered, then put me on-air representing the campaign. That wasn’t reckless — it was intentional investment. He knew that by giving people opportunities, some would disappoint him over the years, but the ones who didn’t might surpass what he could’ve imagined.

I’ve carried that forward — looking for people others overlook and investing in their growth. Not everyone pans out. But the ones who do become extraordinary.

Real leadership isn’t about finding perfect people. It’s about developing the potential in imperfect ones.

Lesson 3: Conflict and conversation can coexist.

Rev. Jackson was simultaneously the agitator and the negotiator. The prophet and the pragmatist.

He showed up uninvited to shareholder meetings and organized boycotts, but also sat down with those same executives afterward to identify resolutions.

“Diamonds can’t be produced without pressure,” he once told me. This applies to individuals, organizations, and systems.

He understood that real change requires both confrontation and conversation. You can’t just be nice and hope things improve. But you also can’t only apply pressure and expect people to come around.

I watched him do this with the Wall Street Project, pressuring corporations like Texaco and Coca-Cola to commit billions to diversity initiatives. He made them uncomfortable with boycotts. Then he sat down with their leadership and helped build solutions.

Too many leaders think they have to choose to either be tough or be empathetic. Rev. Jackson taught me that’s a false choice; the best leaders do both.

The work continues

Rev. Jackson once told me the work of justice isn’t about being comfortable. It’s about being consistent. It’s about showing up when it’s hard, especially when staying silent would be easier.

He showed up. Consistently. The work he did — building coalitions across impossible divides, making the moral case in language that united rather than divided — we need it now more than ever.

Last year, during one of my Saturday visits to Rainbow PUSH, I brought the manuscript for my book “Faster. Messier. Tougher: Crisis Communications Strategies in an Era of Populism, AI, and Distrust.” He saw how I was continuing on the work and agreed to put his name behind it.

Last week, when I held the first copy from the printer and saw the quote from him on the front cover, it was so moving. That he could support me one last time means the world to me.

I grabbed his shoulder at 19 because I didn’t want to let the moment pass. He taught me to lean into hard moments, develop people others overlook, and hold the tension between conflict and conversation.

That work doesn’t end with him. It’s up to us to pick it up.

Bradley Akubuiro is a partner at Bully Pulpit International, where he advises corporate leaders like Levi Strauss and the NFL on high-visibility reputation and diversity and inclusion matters.

• Peter Steinberger is joining OpenAI, moving from Europe to the US for tech opportunities.
• He cited strict European regulations as a challenge for tech company growth in the region.
• Europe lags behind the US in tech innovation, as highlighted by an EU report.

In Europe, there’s been a lot of handwringing over why there are very few large, successful tech companies in the region. Peter Steinberger, the creator of the agentic AI hit OpenClaw, has an answer.

Steinberger was recently hired by OpenAI and is moving from Europe to the US. An Austrian by birth, he previously split his time between London and Vienna.

On X, a professor from a European university asked why Europe couldn’t retain this tech talent.

Steinberger replied that most people in the US are enthusiastic, while in Europe, he’s scolded about responsibility and regulations.

If he built a company in Europe, he would struggle with strict labor regulations and similar rules, he added.

At OpenAI, he said most employees work 6 to 7 days a week and are paid accordingly. In Europe, that would be illegal, he added.

The most valuable company in Europe is Dutch chip-equipment maker ASML, valued at about $550 billion. In contrast, there are 10 US companies worth more than $1 trillion. Most of these are tech companies.

In 2024, a landmark EU report found that the region had fallen behind the US, particularly in innovation. It proposed a series of changes to tackle the problem, but by the end of 2025, few of the recommendations had been implemented.

Steinberger said he was hopeful about EU INC, an effort to create a single corporate legal framework to make it simpler to run a business across the region.

But this seems to be “fizzling out,” he wrote on X. “Watered down, too much egoistic national interest that ultimately hurts everyone.”

Sign up for BI’s Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.

• Perplexity is the latest AI startup to move away from ads, while OpenAI goes all-in.
• Instead, Perplexity says it’s doubling down on its paying users, such as businesses and CEOs.
• Perplexity says it will take monetization more seriously than it did in the past.

Perplexity is going full steam ahead with subscriptions and business sales and plans to focus more on monetization than it has in the past, executives said at a roundtable with reporters on Monday.

The AI search startup, based in San Francisco, is the latest to publicly distance itself from putting ads in chatbot answers, with one executive saying it isn’t exploring any ad deals at the moment. That’s a contrast to OpenAI, which is going all in on ads, while arch-rival Anthropic has publicly touted the opposite.

One Perplexity executive said the startup is increasingly targeting large businesses. The company has only five people on its enterprise sales team and plans to ramp that up, the executive added. It also wants to serve high-powered users such as finance professionals, doctors, and CEOs.

The focus on selling to businesses positions Perplexity more directly as a competitor to startups like Glean, which lets employees search internal files and data more efficiently with AI.

The move comes amid some VC skepticism about Perplexity’s prospects, with Silicon Valley investors voting it the company they’d most like to bet against in an informal poll at an AI conference last year, amid back-to-back funding rounds and talks of a wider AI bubble.

Perplexity will focus more on revenue and revenue retention than on other metrics, such as the number of questions it answers, the executive said. Perplexity also pledged to keep allowing people to use the product for free, with rate limits.

At the roundtable, the company declined to share specific financials and shared that revenue grew 4.7 times last year. Perplexity generated over $150 million in annual recurring revenue by mid-last year, its head of communications Jesse Dwyer told Business Insider in August. It hit $200 million in ARR in October, Alex Heath of Sources reported.

The news comes after several months of the AI startup lying low, as Perplexity said in a press invite. The company’s leaders said it was busy building and not focusing on AI-related drama.

Perplexity had announced in 2024 that it would start experimenting with ads. That effort stalled, with the top ads leader, Taz Patel, quietly leaving last year. One consistent issue with ads in AI-generated answers is that users won’t believe them, the Perplexity executive said.

Perplexity also launched a product for enterprises in 2024 that uses internal and external data to generate research reports, among other features.

• Nevada regulators sued Kalshi, saying its markets are actually illegal sports gambling.
• The suit was filed just as the Trump administration sided with prediction markets.
• Other states have also sued Kalshi, and many legal observers expect the Supreme Court to weigh in.

Nevada gambling regulators sued the prediction markets company Kalshi on Tuesday, saying the platform’s rapid growth forced their hand.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board and the state attorney general sued in Carson City District Court shortly after a federal appeals court rejected a request by Kalshi to stop the state from taking action. The state is seeking an order to stop Kalshi, the country’s largest prediction market, from operating what it sees as an unlicensed sports betting operation.

“Kalshi has continued to dramatically expand its business, rather than attempting to maintain any kind of status quo,” Nevada authorities said in a letter earlier this month.

The regulators emphasized that Kalshi has grown rapidly, doing 27 times as much business on Super Bowl Sunday this year compared to the year before. Meanwhile, regulated Nevada gambling operations saw their business shrink, the state said.

A Kalshi spokesperson declined to comment on Tuesday afternoon, but the company swiftly asked a federal court to take over the new state case. They argued that only federal law applies to prediction markets, and that the new state enforcement action turns on the same questions that federal courts are already considering.

Kalshi has said that its markets are “event contracts,” a financial instrument regulated by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. The CFTC on Tuesday sided with another events-contracts company that is fighting with Nevada regulators, and its chairman, Michael Selig, filmed a video statement defending the new platforms.

“Today, the CFTC is taking an important step to ensure that these markets have a place here in America,” Selig said. “To those who seek to challenge our authority in this space, let me be clear: we will see you in court.”

Economists and political scientists have long been fascinated by prediction markets as a way to channel the so-called wisdom of the crowds. They were generally a niche activity until the 2024 US presidential election, when people wagered millions of dollars on sites like Polymarket.

Since the election, sports and cryptocurrency speculation have become the dominant markets. Today, more than 90% of the money that flows through Kalshi’s platform is staked on sports-related events, and the growth of platforms like Kalshi has spurred traditional sportsbooks like FanDuel and DraftKings to create their prediction markets to take advantage of the light-touch regulation and lower taxes they offer.

Legal battles are pending on the East Coast as well, with regulators in Maryland and New Jersey having clashed with prediction markets. Attorneys and other industry commentators have said they expect the Supreme Court to eventually weigh in on the legality of sports contracts on prediction markets.

• Tesla is building a fully autonomous car, called Cybercab, for its robotaxi service.
• Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that people will be able to buy the car.
• The Cybercab still needs regulatory approval in order to be street legal.

Tesla says its purpose-built robotaxi just reached an important manufacturing milestone.

In an X post on Tuesday, the company said the Cybercab, a two-door car without a steering wheel, came off the production line at Tesla’s sprawling Gigafactory in Austin.

“Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab!” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on X.

The Cybercab was designed for Tesla’s nascent robotaxi ride-hailing program.

Tesla’s robotaxi program has so far deployed only 2025 Model Ys and mostly relies on human safety monitors to supervise rides. Tesla began offering a limited number of unsupervised rides to the public in January.

Unlike the Model Y, the Cybercab doesn’t have a steering wheel or pedals — it’s intended to be fully autonomous. Amazon’s Zoox similarly manufactures purpose-built robotaxis designed solely to transport passengers.

Tesla has said it expects to start production of the Cybercab in April.

What’s less clear is the timeline for when the automaker expects the Cybercab to be fully street legal.

Federal vehicle safety standards were written with human control systems like a steering wheel in mind, which means Tesla would likely need special approval from regulators for any requirements it can’t meet. Notably, Zoox received such a federal exemption and now operates a limited public service in Las Vegas and San Francisco.

Musk also said people will have the option to buy the car. Selling a car without pedals or steering controls not only requires clearing federal regulatory hurdles but could also expose Tesla to a patchwork of state-by-state rules governing registration, insurance, and autonomous vehicle operation.

“What we designed is optimized for autonomy,” Musk said during an earnings call in October 2024. “It will cost on the order of — cost roughly 25K, so it is a 25K car. And you can, you will be able to buy one exclusively if you want.”

A Tesla spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

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TA3’s suits were first introduced to the world on Shark Tank when founder Leila Shams demonstrated the powers of her waist-sculpting swimwear to the sharks. Since then, it’s joined the legendary annals of brands that didn’t sway the show’s investors, but nonetheless became sensations.

Though the word “viral” is overused these days, TA3 went well and truly viral on TikTok. Videos of people pulling the corset strings and gasping at the camera amassed nearly 100 million views on the app. So we knew we had to try it for ourselves.

We first reviewed TA3 in 2022, when there were only three styles of suits and no apparel. Throughout the years, we’ve kept returning to this brand of high-quality swimwear that actually does what it promises. And though $178+ might sound like a lot for a swimsuit (because it is), our team is still wearing the suits we got back in 2022.

Before we dive into our TA3 swimsuit review, though, we’ll just say this: All bodies are perfect just the way they are, and no one needs to change their body shape or make themselves look “snatched” in order to be beautiful.

If you want more of our favorite suits, see the best swimsuits for women.

Sally’s review of the TA3 Lifty in size large, F cup, short torso

I love all of my TA3 swimsuits, but the Lifty suit is my favorite because the underwire is so supportive and prevents the dreaded uniboob that some one-piece bathing suits can cause. The way the sizing works is nothing short of a miracle. You get to choose your bodice length (short or regular/long), your usual swimsuit size (from XS-4X), and your cup size (from A-J/K,) to get the absolute perfect fit, plus there are a bunch of color options. I’ve truly never had a one-piece fit me better!

The thick shoulder straps are comfy and adjustable, and the cups cradle me perfectly with no digging. It even looks super cute as a bodysuit, so you could theoretically wear it with jeans or flowy linen pants and no one would be the wiser. But I know you’re all here to find out whether it actually does what it promises to do, which is give you a snatched waist. The short answer is: yes!

The longer answer is absolutely yes; the lacing in the back actually works like a dream to cinch your waist in. But the good news is that if you’re ever feeling bloated or you just want something a little less compressive, you can always just loosen it up. It’s like having two sizes in one! Anyway, if you have a large chest, you won’t regret buying this suit — as someone with an F cup, it’s definitely the most comfortable and supportive one-piece I’ve ever tried. This suit even topped our list of the best swimsuits for large busts because of the great sizing options and supportive underwire.

There’s even an option for a high-cut version of this suit here if you prefer to show more leg.

Sally’s review of the TA3 Plungey swimsuit in size large, short torso

I opted for the regular plunge version of the suit in sapphire blue (there’s also a high-cut version here). I have a DDD cup size so I specifically wanted to see if the low-cut suit could handle larger cup sizes. I was honestly amazed by how secure I felt while swimming and snorkeling during my vacation to Mexico! The suit kept everything in place and I felt really confident doing lots of activities in it.

I also love the way the pull-string emphasized my curves without making me feel too constricted. I could pull it tight for a compressive feel and more pronounced hourglass shape, but I could still let it out a bit when I wanted something looser. And, I really appreciate that the straps are adjustable and that I could opt for a short torso cut because I’m only 5’1.

As far as longevity goes, the swimsuit has held up well for me even after washing it five or six times. I haven’t experienced any discoloration or stretching yet. Given how sturdy the construction is, I suspect it’s going to last me a really long time, making the $178 price tag more justifiable.

Jaclyn’s review of the TA3 Plungey swimsuit, size XL, regular torso

I felt like a catfish in a swimsuit. The fit up top was great, and I felt very secure and flattered at the bust, something that usually concerns me about swimsuits that aren’t bra-sized. However, I felt like the suit gaped at the bottom.

The Plungey is very reminiscent of a shapewear bodysuit. It’s not the most comfortable swimsuit I’ve ever worn, but it’s a small trade-off for a few hours to feel confident enough to have a photo shoot out in public of myself in a swimsuit.

I felt secure swimming in it, too. I was originally worried the long strings would get in the way with swimming, but it was no issue going for a few laps, or jumping in. Everything stayed put.

Sam’s review of the TA3 Plungey swimsuit in size medium, short torso

You know that Photoshop feature where you can pull your waist in so that it looks smaller? Well, this suit does that in real life. Now, no one’s waist ever needs to look smaller — all bodies are beautiful. But as someone with a larger chest and a short torso, I feel most comfortable in clothing with waist definition (A-line dresses are my go-to).

And boy, oh boy, does the Plungey suit excel in waist-defining. It actually lifts your breasts while pulling your waist in, creating an hourglass shape that I’ve never seen with another swimsuit. I got tons of compliments when I wore this, which is a true testament to the power of this simple black bathing suit with its magic lacing.

I’m five-foot-two, so I got the suit in the short version, but there are also different lengths, which is why this suit also made our list of the best swimsuits for long torsos.

A review of TA3’s clothing

TA3 doesn’t just make swimsuits. They’ve also created a line of shaping clothing, such as dresses and corset tops. These products are made for days when your destination is a bar or dinner rather than the pool or the beach.

Sam’s review of the Squarey Convertible Bubble Dress

I really love this drop-waist number with TA3’s signature lacing on the back. It’s made of structured scuba material that is super supportive. I wore it on vacation to Puerto Rico, and the fabric didn’t wrinkle at all in my suitcase. Though I paired it with white heels and a raffia purse on vacation, it would look just as good with sheer black tights for a holiday party.

The dress is comfortable, super trendy, and versatile enough that I know I’ll get tons of wear out of it. Plus, it has the same high-quality construction that we love TA3 for.

Gabi’s review of the Corsety Square Neck Sleeveless Top

This corset top didn’t work for me. The underwire is supposed to lift and shape your breasts, but I, being a meager size 34B, do not have enough material to fill out the cups. The caved-in neckline made my chest look flatter. Secondly, the fabric in the rear bunches up when the corset is pulled taut, so it sticks out almost like a duck tail. And third, the fabric feels kind of scratchy and too dense to sweat in.I did like that it zips up like a vest, making it much easier to put on than other skintight going-out tops. I also liked that it has the classic TA3 waist-cinching effect. But overall, I don’t think it’s worth the discomfort, and the fit is not ideal for those with small busts.

What we don’t like about TA3

The corseting can cause drooping on the butt part: Gabi and Jaclyn reported the same issue. When the corset is pulled tight, it creates some gaping at the seat of the suit, which can make the back look a little unflattering.

The Lushy’s fit on small busts: “I didn’t like the Lushy’s underwire because it dug into my skin, and the thick padding didn’t create enough lift for a size 34B. Instead, the molded cups left gaps in the top, and despite the rest of the suit fitting like a glove, it doesn’t flatter a small chest. I recommend it more for people with at least C cups” — Gabrielle Chase, style editor.

When pulled tight, the suit isn’t the most comfortable, but we highly recommend loosening the corset straps when you’re just lounging on the beach. The snatching effect is great for pictures or for when you want to be seen, but it does make you feel a little like you’re in the Victorian era.

FAQs

How do TA3 swimsuits work?

The garment’s fabric feels like activewear compression material, not all that dissimilar to a super supportive sports bra. The front and back waist area is lined with power mesh, which helps smooth and shape.

The corseted design starts at around the mid-back, near where the waist is typically smallest, and laces up to around the shoulder blades. With adjustable straps, removable bust pads, and some leeway with the corseted strings, the suit’s sizing is quite accommodating and able to be modified depending on your preference for the day.

How does the sizing work?

When shopping for your perfect size, note that you are able to choose from the regular/long or the short torso fit, which is available for all of their current styles. And from XS to 4X, they have an impressive size range that feels inclusive and intentional. We found that the suits fit true-to-size, but the lace-up system offers a lot of wiggle room in terms of sizing.

Different neckline styles can also be paired with different cuts on the hips, but not every style has a high-cut version.

The bottom line

It’s no secret that these are on the pricey side – but given the quality, TA3 is worth it. Each suit is an investment piece that will be a staple in your closet for many summer vacations of beachside getaways to come.

Aside from comfort and its customizable fit, many appreciate a piece that pairs well with an outfit in between sunbathing and swimming (say, walking around a beach town or at the resort lunch spot) – and this one-piece acts as the ideal complementary item for denim shorts, a swimsuit coverup, or even loose beachy pants.

If you want to feel polished, snatched, and totally secure when playing around in the water, this suit may be your next best purchase.

• At Toy Fair, the big industry convention in NYC, the search for the next Labubu was on.
• For years, capybaras and axolotls have been the hot plush toy. Now, highland cows may be next.
• Toymakers at the fair also said tariffs have been biting into their prices.

I’m calling it: If you haven’t already, you’re going to start seeing highland cows in toy aisles around the country.

After visiting one of the industry’s largest fairs earlier this week, I think I’m qualified to say: The shaggy cow is taking over as the hot new animal for plush toys.

If you’ve been paying attention to toys — or if you have kids — you probably already know capybaras are big, but they’ve been the hot thing for more than a year now. Same with axolotls, the eerily cute pink salamanders. Those trends are peaking, though.

Stuffed animals seem to go in trend cycles. In the mid-2010s, llamas and owls were all over baby and kids’ clothes and toys. Before that, hedgehogs and foxes.

Not everyone I talked to at the Toy Fair, the toy industry convention held in New York over Presidents Day weekend, agreed with my assessment. I got a few other surprising predictions:

pigeons.

frogs.

squirrels.

woolly mammoths.

But enough people I asked said the same thing — that the trending animal is the highland cow, with its caramel fur and tawny mop of hair — that I feel I can say there’s a modest consensus.

Like I said, not everyone agreed on the cow. But there was agreement, among everyone I talked to, about three things casting a long shadow over the toy business: tariffs, TikTok, and Labubus.

I chatted with several small to midsize toy companies who said that the tariffs that began when President Donald Trump declared “Liberation Day” have hurt their businesses. One plush toy maker said they’re paying $10,000 extra per container in tariff charges for their high-end plush animals made in the Philippines. They haven’t raised prices yet, and the new fees just eat into their profit. Another plush maker said that they raised prices once after tariffs, but are trying to avoid another hike.

Toy makers’ ears must’ve been burning when Trump made comments about how perhaps kids could learn to live with just a few dolls instead of many. But Trump was right about something — kids do often have more toys now than they did 30 years ago because toys are, in fact, cheaper than ever.

The rate of inflation for toys is well below the national average for all things, meaning a Barbie or Hot Wheel costs relatively less today than it did back in 1995. (If you’re a parent looking at a mess of toys spilling out of boxes and shelves, you’re not alone.) Part of the reason toys have gotten cheaper is overseas manufacturing, which the tariffs are now hitting.

The big toy brands like Barbie, Lego, and Pokémon all had new items to debut at the fair. Among the smaller toy brands, a few trends emerged — blind boxes were huge, and many brands and distributors had cute figurines packaged in blind boxes or adopted the aesthetic of twee characters sold alongside Labubus at the Hong Kong-based retailer Pop Mart.

Still, no one seemed to think there was a clear heir apparent to Labubus, which were a singular meteoric event in the toy world (yes, there have been viral toys before, like Beanie Babies or Tickle-Me-Elmos, but the rapid internet and celebrity-fueled Labubu phenomenon feels unique).

“Labubu is such a great example of something from nothing, but really built on the foundation of everything. Blind boxes have been massive. Plush has been massive. It was the amalgamation of a ton of the listening, and it then getting discovered,” said Eric Morse, VP of new business initiatives at Spirit Halloween said during a panel talk about Gen Alpha trends.

Morse went on to explain they used a similar strategy for rushing out “K-Pop Demon Hunters” costumes this October after the surprise hit debuted on Netflix over the summer. (Of course, even though they pushed through a licensed costume at a far faster speed than normal, they still sold out well before Halloween, much to the ire of 8-year-olds everywhere.) “How we view the business is listen first, execute second,” Morse said.

When toy and candy trends happen rapidly on TikTok, it can be hard to predict surges in demand. And with on-again, off-again tariffs, it’s even harder to plan, lots of industry insiders told me. That’s something I kept hearing from all the vendors I talked with: uncertainty.

But one thing I feel confident about is highland cows. You heard it here first, folks.

• Elon Musk and an OpenAI engineer postured about free pizza over the weekend in recruitment posts.
• Musk touted xAI’s wood-fired pizza; the OpenAI engineer touted their dough and campus chef.
• The exchange comes as tech companies compete for top AI talent — and cancel other perks amid broader cost-cutting.

The rivalry between xAI and OpenAI is heating up again — this time, over wood-fired pizza.

Over the weekend, Elon Musk and an OpenAI engineer jockeyed on X about wood-fired crusts, dough fermentation, and campus chefs.

On its face, it was a lighthearted back-and-forth about free pizza for lunch. Underneath, it encapsulates a trend playing out in Silicon Valley: rival AI companies are publicly pitching culture — and perks like free lunch — in the talent war for top engineers.

The exchange began when Musk reposted a video of an xAI engineer calling his job the “opportunity of a lifetime.”

“Join @xAI,” Musk wrote.

The post quickly drew a response from xAI’s competitor, OpenAI.

“Or join Codex,” said Thibault Sottiaux, an engineering lead working on OpenAI’s Codex software agent, who is also hiring. OpenAI operates “with much of the same principles,” he wrote — before adding an increasingly common recruitment pitch.

“Join the bright side, we have pizza,” Sottiaux wrote.

Musk fired back: “But how good is your wood oven pizza?”

The pizza posturing then shifted to ingredients — and the corporate chefs preparing them.

“But how about the dough?” he wrote back. “Can’t take shortcuts, needs 24 hours at least. And our chef is 🔥.”

“Our chef is so good that God looked down at the food from heaven and said you my most delicious creation,” Musk replied.

“And after having a bite, he wasn’t 100% satisfied and asked our chef to improve upon the SoTA,” Sottiaux said. “Our chef delivered, and created a recipe now universally credited to accelerating the AGI timeline.”

The very real fight behind the pizza posts

The tomato pie-based banter was sweet — but the subtext was spicier.

AI labs are locked in a high-stakes dash for elite engineers, with high-end compensation packages stretching into the nine-figure territory.

Companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, and Musk’s xAI are competing for a relatively small pool of researchers capable of building the next generation of models and infrastructure.

Aside from money, two key perks have emerged in the AI talent wars, according to professional AI poacher Mark Zuckerberg: access to GPUs and fewer direct reports.

“People say, ‘I want the fewest number of people reporting to me and the most GPUs,'” Zuckerberg said in 2025 TITV interview.

At the same time, the broader tech industry has pulled back on many of the pre-pandemic perks amid cost-cutting. Remote work has narrowed, layoffs have gathered steam, and perks like pet care stipends and expansive wellness benefits are becoming less common for new hires.

But there’s one perk that has remained: the fancy lunch spread.

Might as well throw in wood-fired pizza, too.