• Peter Thiel’s fellowship is offering young entrepreneurs $200,000 to skip or leave college and build their own billion-dollar startups. The program launched in 2011 has since generated more than $100 billion in business value, with notable alumni including Figma CEO Dylan Field and Scale AI cofounder Lucy Guo. While Gen Z questions the value of a college degree amid rising loans and limiting job opportunities, Thiel and his fellows agree that true education comes from real-world experiences rather than a classroom.

Venture capitalist Peter Thiel will give you $200,000. He only asks that you have a great idea and fully commit to it—and the $26 billion tech entrepreneur thinks the only way for young, aspiring entrepreneurs to go all-in is by dropping out of college.

Since 2011, the Thiel Fellowship has been equipping young people with money and an influential business network. So far, the program’s fellows have founded over 11 unicorns with a combined worth of over $100 billion. While not every college drop-out entering the program has been successful, it’s launched the likes of Ethereum and Plaid into industry stardom. Figma cofounder Dylan Field and Scale AI creator Lucy Guo—the youngest self-made female billionaire—are just two of the influential names that got their start from the Thiel Fellowship. 

It may seem daunting for young professionals to ditch their Ivy League schools after being promised six-figure salaries after graduation. But Thiel actually created the program out of a deep cynicism toward the traditional education system for 20-somethings, which he has often called a “corrupt institution.” 

“Higher education is the worst institution we have,” Thiel said in the release of this year’s batch of entrepreneurs. “For these exceptional fellows, we are providing an alternative.” 

These ex-fellows prove that dropping out can result in serious success.

Dylan Field, cofounder and CEO of $40 billion company Figma 

Bloomberg / Contributor / Getty Images

Sitting in a Brown University dorm room just a decade ago, then-19-year-old Dylan Field conceived Figma, a company offering a collaborative design tool that now rivals Adobe. However, things didn’t get off the ground until he dropped out of the prestigious college after less than two years in order to receive a Thiel fellowship. His mother told CNBC in 2012 that she “wasn’t thrilled about it,” concerned about the long-term impact of not having a college degree on his future career prospects. But after Figma’s breakout success, she shouldn’t be so worried anymore. 

Last month, Figma’s triumphant IPO made Field a billionaire; He went from being a college-dropout with just $100,000 in his pocket from the fellowship to amassing a net worth now standing at about $5 billion.

Aside from an eye-popping net worth, Field said that the fellowship gave him something far more valuable than what a college degree would provide—uninterrupted time to focus entirely on building his idea. With time and mentorship, they send you off: “Go build something amazing,” Field said in that same 2012 interview. And he did.

“Here was this 19-year-old, who had a lot of clarity about what he wanted to do—democratize the world of design, and provide tools to everyone,” Danny Rimer, an early Figma investor, told Fortune last month. 

Lucy Guo, cofounder of $29 billion tech company Scale AI

Gonzalo Marroquin / Stringer / Getty Images

Before Lucy Guo became the youngest female self-made billionaire, she was an undergrad at Carnegie Mellon unhappy with what she was learning at school. Guo told Fortune that, while at the Pennsylvania college, she felt days-long coding competitions taught her more than the professors did. 

So she dropped out in 2014 and soon after came up with the idea for Scale AI—a data labelling startup— with her cofounder, Alexandr Wang, whom she met while working at Quora. Meta recently acquired the company in a $14 billion deal that valued the company at over $29 billion. Guo left the company in 2016, and her 5% stake made her the youngest self-made female billionaire, dethroning record-holder Taylor Swift. 

Looking back on her success, she called the Thiel Fellowship the best thing that has ever happened to her. “You’re the average of the five people you hang around the most, and the Thiel Fellowship surrounds you with ambitious, smart people that are all a little crazy.” 

Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, Surya Midha, cofounders of $2 billion AI company Mercor 

Craig T Fruchtman / Contributor / Getty Images

One of the biggest AI successes bolstered by the Thiel fellowship is Mercor, an AI hiring platform that is attempting to transform the candidate-matching process. The business ballooned to a $2 billion valuation in February of this year, due to big demand for AI-powered recruitment. All three members of the cofounding team—Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha—were recipients of the billionaire’s fellowship funding.

As AI advances at dizzying speed, the founders felt it was unwise to stick it out through four years of college and delay building their startup. Midha, cofounder and COO of Mercor, told The New York Times that he felt both an “extreme urgency” and “existential dread” about letting the AI boom pass by him. 

Adarsh Hiremath, cofounder and CTO of the AI business, also said he was receiving diminished returns from the Harvard University experience after his first year at the Ivy League. Instead, he chose to take the fellowship opportunity  to “give it [his] all.” 

Massive student loans and lack of job opportunities are diminishing college returns 

Silicon Valley has always idolized the high-achieving college dropout, from Mark Zuckerberg to Larry Ellison. The fellowship is responsible for the billions in business value its alums have created. Thiel’s blessing gives a startup founder credibility that college just can’t. 

Beyond the entrepreneurial sphere, Gen Z has been grappling with the diminishing returns of a degree, and are looking for alternative ways to establish a career. The price of U.S. college tuition has increased to an average of $38,270 a year, making the cost unmanageable for the nearly half of Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck. Plus, for some, the career edge may be gone; for men with a degree, the unemployment rate is the same as it is for men who did not attend college.

About 38% of graduates feel like their student loans have limited their career growth more than their diploma has accelerated it, according to a recent survey conducted by Indeed. Thiel has echoed that sentiment, saying at the inception of his program that college has become a distraction “because young people coming out of college are saddled with student loans, which start tracking them into careers that pay well but are ultimately not going to help our country.” 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

• "Love Island" drew large crowds at Tom's Watch Bar, co-CEO Brooks Schaden told Business Insider.
• The sports bar hosted streaming events for the reality show, sending sales spiking nearly 900%.
• Now the bar is looking for its next unconventional group of fans to host watch parties for.

A bombshell just entered Tom's Watch Bar: The reality show "Love Island" spiked major sales this summer.

Despite being known as a haven for sports fans, events centered on the reality television series — known for drama-filled dating antics in the "Love Island" villa — were among the most popular events hosted this summer.

Tom's Watch Bar is a chain of 16 screen-filled restobars that cater primarily to sports fans, cofounded by industry icon and food scientist Tom Ryan and former Quiznos CEO Rick Schaden.

Last November, Ryan and Schaden named Brooks Schaden, Rick's cousin, and Shannon McNiel co-CEOs to succeed them in leading the company. And the new leadership may have found new soul ties with its latest promotion geared at reality TV lovers.

The very first "Love Island" event, held on a steamy Monday evening earlier this summer in Sacramento, drove a nearly 900% rise in sales during the otherwise slow sports season, with hundreds of people lined up to watch, Schaden told Business Insider.

"Normally we'll do a couple thousand dollars in sales — there's just not much going on in the summer at that property," Schaden said. But with its flagship "Love Island" watch party, he added that the store made $30,000 in sales in a single night. "So it was a massive, massive increase."

Normally, big-ticket events at Tom's Watch Bar are football and baseball games, soccer matches, and UFC fights. But fans can be fickle and hard to predict, so the chain is susceptible to big fluctuations in foot traffic. Schaden said that during opening baseball week for the Rockies, the Denver location made $2,000 on Wednesday and $220,000 that Friday.

Being prepared for wild swings in customer demand turned out to be a superpower when the "Love Island" events started, Schaden said. Tom's Watch Bar was able to roll out regular watch parties for the show, which airs new episodes multiple times a week, at all of its locations for the rest of the summer.

Schaden said the dating show's watch parties, featuring commercial-break entertainment by local DJs and influencers, were consistently attended more than most other summer events. Cast member Kenzo Nudo attended the Vegas location for the dating show's season finale, as did family members of cast member Chris Seeley in Los Angeles.

On "Love Island" nights, the chain's lavender lemon drop martinis surged to become its No. 1 selling item — rather than the typical beer and wings usually topping the sales charts.

"That week leading up to the finale, we've got pictures and videos of our places just packed with 'Love Island' fans and cheering and crying," Schaden told Business Insider.

He added: "It was quite a shock to us, but I think our biggest takeaway was, it's the same way people are with sports: people want to connect with other enthusiasts of whatever it might be, and we want to provide a place for them all to get together and cheer and laugh and cry and whatever else might go along with it."

Banking on the success of the "Love Island" parties, Schaden said Tom's Watch Bar is now looking to engage with other groups of enthusiasts at their own watch party events. Think slap fighting, dog surfing, or other reality TV smash hits.

Perhaps "90 Day Fiance" fans will soon rejoice.

• Dr. Keith Sakata said he has seen 12 patients hospitalized in 2025 after experiencing "AI psychosis."
• He works in San Francisco and said the patients were mostly younger men in fields such as engineering.
• Sakata said AI isn't "bad" — he uses it to journal — but it can "supercharge" people's vulnerabilities.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Dr. Keith Sakata, a psychiatrist working at UCSF in San Francisco. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I use the phrase "AI psychosis," but it's not a clinical term — we really just don't have the words for what we're seeing.

I work in San Francisco, where there are a lot of younger adults, engineers, and other people inclined to use AI. Patients are referred to my hospital when they're in crisis.

It's hard to extrapolate from 12 people what might be going on in the world, but the patients I saw with "AI psychosis" were typically males between the ages of 18 and 45. A lot of them had used AI before experiencing psychosis, but they turned to it in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it supercharged some of their vulnerabilities.

I don't think AI is bad, and it could have a net benefit for humanity. The patients I'm talking about are a small sliver of people, but when millions and millions of us use AI, that small number can become big.

AI was not the only thing at play with these patients. Maybe they had lost a job, used substances like alcohol or stimulants in recent days, or had underlying mental health vulnerabilities like a mood disorder.

On its own, "psychosis" is a clinical term describing the presence of two or three things: false delusions, fixed beliefs, or disorganized thinking. It's not a diagnosis, it's a symptom, just like a fever can be a sign of infection. You might find it confusing when people talk to you, or have visual or auditory hallucinations.

It has many different causes, some reversible, like stress or drug use, while others are longer acting, like an infection or cancer, and then there are long-term conditions like schizophrenia.

My patients had either short-term or medium to long-term psychosis, and the treatment depended on the issue.

Drug use is more common in my patients in San Francisco than, say, those in the suburbs. Cocaine, meth, and even different types of prescription drugs like Adderall, when taken at a high dose, can lead to psychosis. So can medications, like some antibiotics, as well as alcohol withdrawal.

Another key component in these patients was isolation. They were stuck alone in a room for hours using AI, without a human being to say: "Hey, you're acting kind of different. Do you want to go for a walk and talk this out?" Over time, they became detached from social connections and were just talking to the chatbot.

Chat GPT is right there. It's available 24/7, cheaper than a therapist, and it validates you. It tells you what you want to hear.

If you're worried about someone using AI chatbots, there are ways to help

In one case, the person had a conversation with a chatbot about quantum mechanics, which started out normally but resulted in delusions of grandeur. The longer they talked, the more the science and the philosophy of that field morphed into something else, something almost religious.

Technologically speaking, the longer you engage with the chatbot, the higher the risk that it will start to no longer make sense.

I've gotten a lot of messages from people worried about family members using AI chatbots, asking what they should do.

First, if the person is unsafe, call 911 or your local emergency services. If suicide is an issue, the hotline in the United States is: 988.

If they are at risk of harming themselves or others, or engage in risky behavior — like spending all of their money — put yourself in between them and the chatbot. The thing about delusions is that if you come in too harshly, the person might back off from you, so show them support and that you care.

In less severe cases, let their primary care doctor or, if they have one, their therapist know your concerns.

I'm happy for patients to use ChatGPT alongside therapy — if they understand the pros and cons

I use AI a lot to code and to write things, and I have used ChatGPT to help with journaling or processing situations.

When patients tell me they want to use AI, I don't automatically say no. A lot of my patients are really lonely and isolated, especially if they have mood or anxiety challenges. I understand that ChatGPT might be fulfilling a need that they're not getting in their social circle.

If they have a good sense of the benefits and risks of AI, I am OK with them trying it. Otherwise, I'll check in with them about it more frequently.

But, for example, if a person is socially anxious, a good therapist would challenge them, tell them some hard truths, and kindly and empathetically guide them to face their fears, knowing that's the treatment for anxiety.

ChatGPT isn't set up to do that, and might instead give misguided reassurance.

When you do therapy for psychosis, it is similar to cognitive behavioral therapy, and at the heart of that is reality testing. In a very empathetic way, you try to understand where the person is coming from before gently challenging them.

Psychosis thrives when reality stops pushing back, and AI really just lowers that barrier for people. It doesn't challenge you really when we need it to.

But if you prompt it to solve a specific problem, it can help you address your biases.

Just make sure that you know the risks and benefits, and you let someone know you are using a chatbot to work through things.

If you or someone you know withdraws from family members or connections, is paranoid, or feels more frustration or distress if they can't use ChatGPT, those are red flags.

I get frustrated because my field can be slow to react, and do damage control years later rather than upfront. Until we think clearly about how to use these things for mental health, what I saw in the patients is still going to happen — that's my worry.

OpenAI told Business Insider: "We know people are increasingly turning to AI chatbots for guidance on sensitive or personal topics. With this responsibility in mind, we're working with experts to develop tools to more effectively detect when someone is experiencing mental or emotional distress so ChatGPT can respond in ways that are safe, helpful, and supportive.

"We're working to constantly improve our models and train ChatGPT to respond with care and to recommend professional help and resources where appropriate."

• Many couples don't talk about their long-term life together until after they're engaged.
• Wedding therapist Landis Bejar said delaying those conversations can be a mistake.
• She recommends talking about children or handling finances before getting engaged.

When you get engaged, your first conversations with your partner are likely about wedding planning and giddy daydreams about spending your lives together.

After that excitement settles, though, many engaged couples start discussing the kind of life they want to live together from a practical perspective, from their financial future to whether they want kids.

Those conversations are important, but a therapist told Business Insider that couples should have those discussions before getting engaged.

You shouldn't wait until you're engaged to discuss life-changing topics with your partner.

Landis Bejar, a wedding therapist and the founder of AisleTalk, told Business Insider that for many people, a proposal marks the beginning of a life together.

However, she said that waiting to talk about important topics until you have a ring on your finger can lead to problems, as you may discover you and your partner want different things as you talk.

"When you start to feel serious about one another, it's time to start talking about those things," Bejar said. "You want to make sure that you're not just on the same page about life in the moment that you're meeting."

"Breaking off an engagement feels different than breaking up for a non-engaged couple," she added.

You should discuss kids before you agree to spend your life with your partner.

Bejar said that early in your relationship, you should discuss whether you want children and what having children would look like for you and your partner.

"How many? What are your views on parenting?" Bejar recommends asking. "How were you parented? What were your experiences being parented? What were your relationships like with your parents growing up, and how are they now? What do you envision would be your ideal version of that if you do want to become a parent?"

Bejar also said spending time with children as a couple can be helpful before you take that step.

"If you have a sibling or a friend with kids and they need some time away and they trust you with their kids, spend some time with them," she said. "It can invite some really fruitful conversation about how you handle the stress of that."

It's also important to talk about money as a couple.

"People really don't like talking about money," Bejar told Business Insider. "Money feels very, very taboo."

She said it is crucial to discuss money with your significant other because your personal finances impact nearly every aspect of your life, even if you don't plan on combining your money with your partner when you get married.

"You want to get on the same page because there's a lot of variability about what partners' expectations are or how they handle their money," she said.

"I really like to start premarital counseling with questions like, 'What does money mean to you? How was money talked about growing up in your family?'" Bejar added.

For some, money offered a sense of security, or it could have been a huge source of stress or even trauma.

"That's all going to impact the way that you talk about money, the way you feel about money, the way you spend money, the way you invest money, and the way you save money," Bejar said. "All of that is really rich with story and emotion and behavior, and it can very easily be swept under the rug as not relevant in your relationship."

You might have different expectations of the roles your families will play in your life together.

As Bejar told Business Insider, having in-depth conversations with your partner about your "families of origin" can help you understand not only your partner's upbringing but also the vision they have for their family in your life.

"As you shift from being a child of your family versus creating your own family, how do you integrate those two identities?" Bejar said.

Bejar said you might want to talk about how often you expect to see your in-laws throughout the year and how involved you anticipate them being with your children if you plan on having them.

Plus, if either of you plans on having your parents live with you someday as they age, you should discuss that with your partner, as that would have a dramatic impact on their day-to-day life in addition to your own.

"You want to have a sense of where you guys stand on that and whether that's going to be something that creates challenges along the way," Bejar said. "We're not coming to a compromise right now, but maybe it'll be something that we need to compromise on in the future."

Cultural and religious differences can become sources of stress if you don't talk about them early in your relationship.

As Bejar told Business Insider, even if you were raised in the same culture or religion as your partner, your upbringings could have looked quite different.

"As you're combining a family together, you want to talk about how you formed your own cultural or religious identity," Bejar said. "If you do want to have a family, talk about what sort of values you'd like to bring in from your own upbringing. Do those conflict with your partner's experience? How does that look when you're talking about it with kids?"

Bejar also said wedding planning might be easier if you discuss your religious and cultural backgrounds early in your relationship.

"It actually comes up a lot with weddings because sometimes, you have a couple who might not be actively day-to-day practicing within their religion or their cultural background or their ethnicity," she said. "But a wedding is a big life milestone where you would infuse that."

Finally, you shouldn't assume you and your partner will automatically be on the same page about sex.

Although sex might seem like an intuitive aspect of a relationship for some people, Bejar said she encourages her clients to talk about intimacy expectations if they're considering getting married.

"You want to talk about how you feel good sexually with your partner. You want to talk about what doesn't feel good," she said.

For instance, one person might want to have sex more often than the other, and being open with your partner about your needs can help ensure a difference in sex drive doesn't lead to conflict.

"You want to have open lines of communication about sex," Bejar went on to say. "And you want to have open lines of communication about what to do if things change. How can we talk about that?"

When you spend your life with someone, things will inevitably evolve, so establishing a "culture of communication," as Bejar puts it, can prepare you and your partner to take on those changes in stride.

• Texas has become one of the top destinations for movers in the US.
• Its business-friendly climate and lower cost of living attract people from all walks of life.
• Supermodel Bella Hadid and actress Emma Stone are among the celebrities who have moved to Texas.

Texas is popular for many reasons.

The second-largest US state is the birthplace of the iconic musician Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter as well as NFL star Michael Strahan and actresses Selena Gomez and Reneé Zellweger.

It's also home to a beloved football team, the Dallas Cowboys, and internationally famous festivals including South by Southwest (SXSW).

Beyond its cultural significance, Texas has a reputation for its affordability, largely due to its relatively lower cost of living and absence of state income tax. This personal-finance appeal, combined with a business-friendly environment, has attracted entrepreneurs and their companies over the years.

Word has gotten out — and cities in the Lone Star State often lead lists of top places Americans are moving to.

According to a Business Insider analysis of individual-level data from the Census Bureau's 2022 American Community Survey, over 668,300 people moved to Texas between 2021 and 2022, the most recent time period for which data is available. This makes Texas the second-most popular destination in the US for movers, just behind Florida, which had about 739,000 inbound movers during the same period.

Several celebrities are among the hordes of movers to Texas. This reflects a broader trend of wealth realignment in the United States, where even the proverbial Joneses are moving to areas where their money goes further and the weather is more favorable.

Consider supermodel Bella Hadid, who moved to Fort Worth, Texas, this year to live with her professional horseman boyfriend, Adan Banuelos. Actress Emma Stone and comedian and podcast host Joe Rogan have decamped from LA to Austin in recent years.

Many other stars have also relocated to Texas.

Business Insider has compiled a list of 14 notable celebrities and businesspeople who have moved themselves — and in some cases, their businesses — to the Lone Star State.

The list is presented in alphabetical order by last name.

Haylie Duff admitted it took a while to realize she could still have an acting career without living in LA.

A native of Texas, Duff decided with her fiancé Matt Rosenberg to pack up the kids and leave California once the pandemic hit.

At first, she was nervous that the move would hurt her career.

"I think so much of my fear of moving out of Los Angeles was that my career was there and that I would never work again or something like that," she told Fox News Digital in 2022. "And, you know, I think this has all taught us that Zoom certainly can be a very powerful tool. And we can, you know, very luckily for me, get to continue to work from here, and I get to live near my dad. I haven't lived, here, near my dad in a really long time."

Scott Eastwood loves living in Texas because it "slows life down."

The son of Clint Eastwood, Scott has been methodically building his own career, showing up in the "Fast and Furious" franchise and Guy Ritchie movies.

During his downtime in Texas, he does everything from fishing to hunting.

"I think that's why people who come to Texas really can fall in love with it," he told Flaunt in 2021 from his home in Austin. "There's more community, people are more neighborly, people are nice. It slows life down a little bit. It's not this fast-paced living in a big city like New York or Los Angeles."

Bella Hadid said she moved to Texas for her health.

After spending most of her life jet-setting around the world trying to conquer the modeling industry, Hadid decided recently to take some time away from the spotlight.

In early 2024, she spoke to Allure about moving to Texas to focus on her mental and physical health (she was diagnosed with Lyme Disease in 2013), and be with her cowboy boyfriend Adan Banuelos.

"Just as I have styled myself for years now — which I still do — I love being able to do my own hair and makeup, be happy with how I look, and get ready with my girlfriends here in Texas," Hadid told Allure. "We have the best time, and I never feel like I need to do too much."

"For the first time now, I'm not putting on a fake face. If I don't feel good, I won't go. If I don't feel good, I take time for myself. And I've never had the opportunity to do that or say that before," Hadid added. "Now when anybody sees me in pictures and they say I look happy, I genuinely am. I am feeling better; my bad days now were my old good days."

Since James Marsden moved to Texas, he lives closer to his mother.

The star has enjoyed visiting Austin for decades but finally decided to live there in 2020.

"I love it. I've been coming here for 20 years," he told "Live with Kelly and Ryan" in 2020. "I'm much closer to my mom and everybody. I love it. It's great."

Keith Lee fell in love with Dallas' restaurants.

The former mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter turned TikTok food critic has set up shop in Texas.

After living in Las Vegas, Lee relocated to Texas in November 2024. In a December video reviewing the downtown Dallas restaurant The Wicked Butcher, he revealed that he now lives in Dallas.

"One thing I do love about the Dallas food scene — we've been here a month, a month and a half — they do have some nice fine dining restaurants," Lee said.

Matthew McConaughey wanted to be closer to family.

Oscar-winner Matthew McConaughey and wife Camila Alves settled in Austin in 2012 after buying a 10,800-square-foot mansion.

According to a 2024 profile in Southern Living, the move to Texas was initially because of a "family crisis," when he needed to help his mother and two brothers. The couple decided to stay put and raise their three children there.

"Ritual came back," McConaughey said of being back in Texas. "Whether that was Sunday church, sports, dinner together as a family every night, or staying up after that telling stories in the kitchen, sitting at the island pouring drinks and nibbling while retelling them all in different ways than we told them before."

Elon Musk moved to Texas and brought his companies with him.

In July, Elon Musk vowed to move two of his companies, X and SpaceX, out of California and into Texas. He already moved Telsa to Texas in 2021.

In 2020, Musk announced that he had already moved to Texas himself at The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council summit.

Musk has claimed to own a tiny home in Texas, and records show he bought a house in Austin in 2022.

Shaquille O'Neal has been buying up properties in North Texas.

In 2022, O'Neal bought a 5,269-square-foot home in Carrollton listed at $1,224,000 and sold it in 2024 for an undisclosed amount, though it was listed for $1.7 million, according to Realtor.com.

That year, Chexy Trust, tied to the Carrollton purchase, bought a 4,670-square-foot home in Rockwall County. In 2024, O'Neal opened a branch of his Big Chicken chain restaurant in Fort Worth.

As his footprint in the region grows, he told WFAA he plans to make the area his home base.

"I'm 75% going to move here full time," O'Neal said in June. "I have to see what's going on with TNT next year, but based on that, you'll probably be seeing a lot more of me."

Glen Powell got tired of the lack of freedom living in Los Angeles.

The "Twisters" star, who is also a native Texan, moved back to Austin from Los Angeles recently to be close to his family and for his own mental health.

"When all you do is consume movies and entertainment, you could become a little self-aware and maybe derivative of yourself," Powell told USA Today. "Your personal life, there's no sort of freedom there, there's storytelling around that, and I feel like that's just not good for you on the long term."

Jared Padalecki has a soft spot for Austin.

Padalecki ditched Hollywood for Texas before it was a trend. The "Supernatural" star, a San Antonio native, relocated from Los Angeles to Austin with his wife, Genevieve, in 2012.

In an Instagram video taken on Austin's 24th Street in 2020, he explained why he loves the city so much.

"Austin brings me a warmth and a happiness and a peace that I have been unable to find anywhere else in my travels," Padalecki said. "I love being here."

Joe Rogan ended up in Texas once the pandemic hit.

Like many other celebs, Rogan left Los Angeles once the pandemic hit.

In a 2023 episode of his popular podcast, "The Joe Rogan Experience," he explained why he ended up in Texas.

"Then we went to the lake, and people are playing music and jumping in the water," said Rogan, adding that his kids "were like, 'We want to live here!'"

"That was it. Two months later, I lived here," he said in the podcast episode.

Jamie Lynn Sigler has felt more connected to her craft since moving to Texas.

"The Sopranos" star moved to Austin in 2021 with her family, husband Cutter Dykstra, and sons Beau and Jack.

"I almost feel more connected to my craft and why I love acting," Sigler told The New York Times in 2021. "When the calls come in, it's a beautiful surprise. I'm still on things and I'm still a businesswoman and it's still my career, but I don't feel the pressure around it because we took a stand for ourselves and we made decisions for our families."

Emma Stone moved to Texas after the birth of her child.

Stone, who gave birth to her first child in 2021, was looking to settle down away from the grind of California life.

In 2022, the two-time Oscar winner and her husband, David McCary, bought a several-million-dollar, four-bedroom property on 1.2 acres in Austin, according to celebrity real-estate website Dirt.com, which is now part of Robb Report.

James Van Der Beek wanted to get his kids out of LA.

A year after renewing his vows with his wife, Kimberly, in Austin, the "Dawson's Creek" star moved the whole family there.

They now live on a 36-acre property.

"We wanted to get the kids out of Los Angeles," Van Der Beek told Austin Lifestyle in 2021. "We wanted to give them space and we wanted them to live in nature."

• Reese Witherspoon shares insights on balancing her Hollywood career with motherhood in an Instagram post.
• She emphasizes the importance of family and finding meaning in her work despite challenges.
• "Even though it was challenging at times, having kids gave me perspective about what was important in life," she wrote.

Reese Witherspoon is getting candid about balancing her busy Hollywood career with motherhood.

In a recent Instagram post, the "Big Little Lies" star posted seven photos of herself with her three kids over the years, alongside captions explaining what it's like parenting while being a major player in Hollywood.

"Someone asked me what raising three kids and building a career in Hollywood looked like…," the caption in the first photo reads, with a shot of Witherspoon alongside her daughter Ava Phillippe, 25, son Deacon Phillippe, 21, and youngest son Tennessee James Toth, 12. (She shares her two oldest children with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe, and her youngest with ex-husband Jim Toth.)

"It looked like spending a lot of time in trailers together," the next caption reads, alongside a photo of Witherspoon and Tennessee smiling in what appears to be a trailer.

"I'd cry working 14 to 17 hours, sometimes all night long, and still woke up early for carpool," Witherspoon continues on another slide caption. "I was deliriously tired."

Next to a photo with Tennessee on set, she continues: "It looked like trying to say something positive about work when I got home at night. So my kids would know that my work was meaningful to me and could be fun!"

In the final photo, a shot of the Oscar winner with daughter Ava, the caption reads: "In conclusion, even though it was challenging at times, having kids gave me perspective about what was important in life. Nothing was better than getting to come home and hug them and hear about their day!"

• Most of my travel over the past decade has been to visit friends and family.
• To me, this approach to travel is easier, cheaper, and more fulfilling.
• I enjoy seeing my loved ones' favorite places and helping them explore their cities in new ways.

A few years ago, my partner and I took a trip to Southeast Asia and didn't know anyone.

Although we undoubtedly had some great adventures together, it was exhausting trying to figure out everything on our own, from the best things to do to how to get around.

That trip made me realize just how much more I enjoy the kind of travel I've been doing for the past decade — using most of my vacations to visit loved ones in places like Los Angeles, London, Seattle, Melbourne, Chicago, Monterey, Washington, DC, and more.

In addition to saving money on hotels, traveling this way gives me everything I crave from a vacation: exploration of a new place, quality time with people I love, and a certain amount of ease.

I love getting to see a city through my loved ones' eyes

One of my favorite things about traveling this way is that it gives me insight into my loved ones' favorite things about their cities, like coffee shops, restaurants, and parks.

We get to build memories together, and later, when we're catching up from afar, I'll know some of the places and people they're talking about. I think it's special to be able to picture my friends and family members in their homes and haunts.

I often get to enjoy incredible experiences I never would have found on my own, too — like when my former coworker who lives in Melbourne invited me to her friends' annual bike bar crawl.

And sometimes, I even get to help them discover new parts of their cities. For instance, during a trip to Colorado, my friend and I took my aunt and uncle to a local magic show they'd never heard of. They both loved it and said they'd have to bring future visitors.

I typically plan some of my own activities and have frank conversations about scheduling and boundaries

I always try to make it very clear to my host that they don't have to entertain me the whole time I'm in town. Before I arrive, I usually ask about their work schedule, existing plans, and if they need me to leave the house at any point during the day.

I also do some research and try to pick one or two things I want to do while visiting. Then, I'll either invite my loved one to join me or let them know I'm happy to venture off on my own if they need some alone time.

Doing so has led to some incredible solo adventures. During my trip to Melbourne, for example, I joined a multi-day tour group along the coast of Victoria since my friend had to work during the week. It was great to have the opportunity to explore freely without relying too heavily on my friend during my visit.

I still go on other trips, but this will always be my preferred way of traveling

There are places I'd like to visit one day where I don't have anyone to stay with, so I'll definitely continue to plan travel that doesn't involve visiting friends and family.

However, I don't mind spreading those out further so that my annual trips can be focused on my loved ones.

I find more meaning in seeing the wonderful people in my life than the wonders of the world — but this way, I get to do both at the same time.

• Cold Stone Creamery has over 20 combinations of ice cream and mix-ins called Signature Creations.
• The Founder's Favorite was too sweet for me, even though I liked the brownies.
• I loved the Banana Caramel Crunch, which tasted like a piece of banana bread fresh out of the oven.

One of the hardest decisions for me to make is what to order at an ice cream shop.

So, I chose to avoid the decision altogether and order 26 of Cold Stone Creamery's pre-set combinations of ice cream and mix-ins known as Signature Creations.

I ordered all of the varieties in a "like it" cup (comparable to a small) from my local store in Kansas City, Missouri, for $7 each.

As an ice cream lover who normally gravitates toward flavors full of chocolate, fruit, and peanut butter, I was excited to try everything and rank them from worst to best.

Here's what the experience was like.

Disclaimer: The availability of some Signature Creations may be subject to change.

26. Founder's Favorite

This flavor might be the founder's favorite, but it wasn't mine.

The sweet cream ice cream was, admittedly, too sweet for me, especially when paired with brownie pieces, fudge, caramel, and pecans.

The brownie pieces were super soft, though, which was delightful.

25. Cookie Doughn't You Want Some

Similarly, I thought the French vanilla ice cream was an incredibly sweet base for this combination of cookie dough, fudge, chocolate chips, and a hint of caramel.

It was so rich that I was glad I only ordered a small cup.

24. Oreo Overload

With a sweet cream ice cream base and Oreos, fudge, and chocolate chips, this Signature Creation delivered a little too much sugar to my senses, but I loved the texture.

The loud crunch of the cookies was satisfying when paired with pockets of smooth fudge and hard chocolate chips.

23. Surrender to Strawberry

Surrender to Strawberry reminded me of a strawberry shortcake, thanks to its combination of strawberry ice cream, yellow cake, strawberries, and whipped topping.

However, it was less filling than I expected it to be.

22. Somewhere Over the Rain-dough

With a cookie dough ice cream base and rainbow sprinkles, frosting, and sugar crystals mixed in, this creation was way too sweet for me.

It tasted like a cupcake with too much frosting on top, only this time, I couldn't scrape anything off to make it taste better.

21. Coffee Lovers Only

Coffee Lovers Only includes a reliable mix of coffee-flavored ice cream, roasted almonds, Heath bar pieces, and caramel.

It was super crunchy and had a bit of a bitter aftertaste. However, I'm not a big fan of Heath bars, so this flavor didn't rank highly for me.

20. Cookie Mintster

An upgrade to the classic mint chocolate chip ice cream, the Cookie Mintster had an incredible texture thanks to plenty of Oreo cookie crumbles and a dash of fudge.

Although I do enjoy mint, this flavor combination was less impressive to me than other Signature Creations I tasted.

19. Peanut Butter Cup Perfection

I'm a big fan of Reese's peanut butter cups, so I really enjoyed this blend of chocolate ice cream, peanut butter, Reese's, and fudge.

However, the flavors weren't unique enough for me to rank this creation any higher.

18. No One Lays a Finger on My Butterfinger

Peanut butter ice cream made with Butterfinger served as the base for this Signature Creation, which is topped with more Butterfinger pieces, fudge, and caramel.

I thought it was tasty and original, but I didn't like the way the cold Butterfinger got stuck in my teeth.

17. Berry Berry Berry Good

The combination of sweet cream ice cream and fresh-tasting raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries mirrored a refreshing cup of berries and cream. I enjoyed this simple and light Signature Creation.

16. Apple Pie a la Cold Stone

In my experience, ice cream shops usually only feature an apple pie flavor seasonally, but Cold Stone has a Signature Creation that mirrors one year-round.

Its Apple Pie a la Cold Stone includes French vanilla ice cream, apple pie filling, graham cracker pie crust, caramel, and cinnamon.

Although the flavors blend deliciously, I'd still prefer a fresh slice of apple pie à la mode any day.

15. Mint Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip

Although the Cookie Mintster was a good start, the Mint Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip was the true mint chocolate chip upgrade I'd been waiting for.

With chocolate chips, brownie pieces, and fudge mixed into a mint ice cream base, this option was a little more filling for me. I'm also partial to the soft, decadent brownies.

14. Our Strawberry Blonde

The Our Strawberry Blonde is made with refreshing strawberry ice cream topped with strawberries, caramel, graham cracker pie crust, and whipped topping.

The final creation was thick and decadent without being overbearing, and had a fun crunch.

13. Don't Cry Over Spilled Silk

This vegan-friendly option, made with Silk chocolate almond milk, almost passed for regular ice cream, save for being just a little grainy and icy in its consistency.

Still, I thought it paired well with the bananas, peanut butter, and roasted almonds.

12. Cookies Make Everything Batter

This Signature Creation includes cake batter ice cream, Oreos, Golden Oreos, and whipped topping.

The ice cream tasted sweet like the center of an Oreo, but I couldn't really tell that the whipped topping was there. Still, I thought it was really good, and a small cup was almost too much for me because of how filling it was.

11. Going Bananas for Jell-O Pudding

This creation mixes crunchy Nilla Wafers, bananas, and whipped topping into a Jell-O banana cream pudding ice cream.

I thought it had a true banana pudding taste and a creamy texture.

Normally, the texture of pudding bothers me, but I love the taste, so I would absolutely eat this in its place.

10. One Smart Brookie

I initially raised my eyebrows at this treat, as I expected the base ice cream flavor to be vanilla, not cookie dough.

However, I thought the cookie dough ice cream was a nice addition that tasted like a mix between French vanilla and cake batter. I also liked the addition of cookie dough and brownie pieces to finish the creation.

9. Chocolate Devotion

The Chocolate Devotion is an irresistible blend of chocolate ice cream, chocolate chips, brownie pieces, and fudge.

The ice cream itself was delightfully creamy, and there were so many soft chunks of brownie, I almost thought they were the main ingredient.

If you're craving chocolate, don't consider anything else.

8. Cheesecake Fantasy

I thought the cheesecake ice cream base was incredible.

With Graham cracker pie crust, blueberries, and strawberries mixed in, this Signature Creation was a delightful, thick treat that tasted just like a bite of cheesecake.

7. Reese's Peanut Butter Awesome Sauce

The Reese's Peanut Butter Awesome Sauce pairs sweet cream ice cream with the saltiness of Reese's peanut butter sauce and Reese's peanut butter cups. This was a surprisingly delicious treat, especially since I'm clearly not the biggest fan of sweet cream ice cream.

Together, this creation was outstandingly thick and creamy, almost like cookie dough.

6. Dough for It

The Dough for It is made with cookie dough ice cream, chocolate chips, cookie dough, and sugar crystals.

I thought the ice cream was really creamy and would be enjoyable on its own. The sugar crystals weren't too sweet and added a fun crunch.

5. Cake Batter Batter Batter

I expected this Signature Creation to be too sweet and didn't think cake batter ice cream would pair well with the cookie dough and brownie pieces.

However, it was surprisingly amazing. I found myself eating it more slowly because of its decadence, and couldn't put the spoon down.

4. Birthday Cake Remix

The Birthday Cake Remix combines cake batter ice cream, brownie pieces, fudge, and rainbow sprinkles. As soon as I took a bite, I said, "Amazing."

This Signature Creation had the distinct flavor of three staple desserts — ice cream, cake, and brownies — and the perfect amount of richness, while still being a little unique.

I highly suggest this if you're a fan of sprinkles, too.

3. Banana Caramel Crunch

The Banana Caramel Crunch tasted like sweet banana bread that had been pulled fresh out of the oven.

Roasted almonds added a fun crunch to the soft, ripe bananas and sweet caramel drizzle mixed into a French vanilla base. The whole thing somehow managed to taste warm and inviting.

2. Mud Pie Mojo

I want to wake up to this concoction of coffee ice cream, Oreos, peanut butter, roasted almonds, and fudge every morning.

The creamy coffee ice cream was light and sweet, with a bit of a bite in the aftertaste, which created a great base to balance all the flavors.

I also loved the array of textures the toppings provided.

1. Dough-lightful Peanut Butter

My favorite Signature Creation was the Dough-lightful Peanut Butter.

I loved the cookie dough ice cream base and thought the added peanut butter, Reese's peanut butter cups, and sugar crystals provided an interesting crunch and a filling, balanced, salty-sweet taste. I would eat this as a meal any day.

This story was originally published on May 20, 2025, and most recently updated on August 15, 2025.

• I've been to all 50 states, but Santa Fe, New Mexico, feels unlike anywhere else I've ever visited.
• The architecture makes me feel like I'm walking through a beautifully preserved historic village.
• I love that art is everywhere, from public murals and street galleries to handmade sculptures.

I've traveled to all 50 states and visited hundreds of cities in the process, but Santa Fe, New Mexico, stands out in a way that's hard to explain.

The city, built on the traditional lands of the Northern and Southern Tewa, reflects centuries of Native American, Mexican, and Spanish history in its language, art, food, and even street names.

From the moment I first arrived over 12 years ago, I immediately felt like I was transported to a different country.

The colors, pace, food, and architecture are all unlike anywhere else I've experienced in the US — which is why I've traveled back countless times.

Santa Fe is full of distinct architecture.

You won't find glass skyscrapers or cookie-cutter homes here. Santa Fe's low-slung adobe buildings, soft curves, and natural colors are rooted in the traditions of Pueblo and Spanish Colonial architecture.

These adobe structures give the whole city a warm, earthy tone that feels more like a preserved historic village than a modern capital city.

Strict building codes have been in place since the 1950s to maintain this aesthetic consistency throughout the city, making walking through town feel like wandering through an open-air museum.

Art and creativity are integral to the city.

Santa Fe has long attracted artists, writers, and spiritual seekers. In fact, the famed Canyon Road is a half-mile stretch of land home to over 80 galleries and studios.

However, art isn't just confined to designated spaces — it's woven into everything. Public murals, street-side sculptures, handmade pottery, weavings, and spiritual symbols appear everywhere you look.

I recommend visiting Meow Wolf's House of Eternal Return, an immersive art experience where visitors can interact directly with the installations.

The many unique and historic accommodations perfectly match the city's vibe.

Santa Fe's hotels aren't just places to sleep — they're often extensions of the city's identity.

I love staying at the historic La Fonda on the Plaza, an iconic building in the heart of town. With hand-painted tiles, wood-beamed ceilings, and a warm, historic feel, staying here felt like waking up in another country.

There are also dozens of cozy inns, casitas, and bed-and-breakfasts tucked away throughout the city, many of which are located in historic adobe homes. These make it easy to feel like a local, even just for a weekend.

New Mexican cuisine is rooted in history and tradition.

The food in Santa Fe is deeply rooted in its cultural heritage. The cuisine blends Indigenous, Spanish, and Mexican influences into bold, flavorful dishes.

Many dishes are served with red or green chile sauce, and if you can't decide on one, you can order "Christmas style" — a combination of both.

From stacked enchiladas and carne adovada to breakfast burritos and sopapillas served with local honey, you won't leave hungry.

There's so much natural beauty in Santa Fe.

Santa Fe sits over 7,000 feet above sea level and is dramatically surrounded by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

The landscape is diverse, featuring pine forests, desert hills, and wildflowers, so there's always something new to explore.

Plus, the sunsets are unreal, casting a golden glow across the adobe walls and desert cliffs. The dramatic, vivid colors of the sky and landscape even inspired artists like Georgia O'Keeffe to capture them in their work.

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says AGI, once it's reached, could allow humans to have bigger families.
• Global population growth has slowed, and many Gen Z and millennials are delaying parenthood.
• Altman isn't the only AI leader concerned about rates of procreation.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says having a kid has been "amazing" and thinks everyone else should have one, too.

He also says AGI could maybe help with that.

AGI, or artificial general intelligence, is a still theoretical version of AI that reasons as well as humans. Achieving AGI is the ultimate goal of many of the leading AI companies and is what's largely driving the AI talent wars.

Meanwhile, the world's population growth is slowing down. In the United States, Gen Z and millennials are delaying having children or not having children at all to focus on their financial stability. Some prominent futurists, including Altman, say that's a cause for concern.

He said this trend is a "real problem" during an episode of "People by WTF" with Nikhil Kamath on Thursday. Altman, who had his first child earlier this year, said he hopes that building families and creating community "will become far more important in a post-AGI world."

He said he thinks this will be possible because AGI will allow for a world "where people have more abundance, more time, more resources, and potential, and ability." As AI progresses and becomes a more useful tool, he says society will grow richer and there will be more social support.

"I think it's pretty clear that family and community are two of the things that make us the happiest, and I hope we will turn back to that," Altman said.

When Kamath asked about Altman's own experience with fatherhood, the CEO said he strongly recommends having children. "It felt like the most important and meaningful and fulfilling thing I could imagine doing," he said.

Altman has described himself as "extremely kid-pilled" and said that in the first weeks of being a dad, he was "constantly" asking ChatGPT questions. Using AI is a skill that he says he plans to pass down to his children.

"My kids will never be smarter than AI," Altman said on an episode of The OpenAI Podcast in June. "They will grow up vastly more capable than we grew up, and able to do things that we cannot imagine, and they'll be really good at using AI."

Altman isn't the only prominent CEO in the AI industry who's passionate about procreation. Elon Musk, the founder of Grok-maker xAI, among other companies, has fathered over 10 known children. Musk has said he's "doing his best to help the underpopulation crisis."

"A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far," Musk said in an X post in 2022.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Tech job postings have plunged 35% since early 2020, with some roles seeing radically lower demand.
• The decline began post-pandemic and continued after ChatGPT's release in late 2022.
• AI and machine learning roles are in demand, while junior positions require more experience.

Tech hiring has fallen dramatically in recent years, and certain jobs are no longer in demand, while other specific roles have surged.

New tech hiring data from Indeed shows overall postings have plunged 35% from early 2020.

Roughly half this decline happened during the post-pandemic sell-off, when tech companies realized they'd overhired. The other half happened after ChatGPT came out in late 2022.

"While there isn't a smoking gun linking AI to the plunge, automation trends could be a reason the weakness persists," said Brendon Bernard, a senior economist at Indeed. "We're also seeing potential AI effects show up in the types of tech jobs still in demand, and rising experience requirements among the opportunities that remain."

Demand for AI and machine learning roles is up, while listings for junior tech positions have dropped significantly. More job postings now require 5+ years of experience.

Here's what hot, and what's not, in tech jobs over the past five years or so:

I often think that the most boring technology ends up being the most profitable. So it may not be surprising to see an SAP job at the top of the table on the right here.

No disrespect to SAP. Shares of the German enterprise software giant have more than tripled since late 2022.

Sign up for BI's Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at [email protected].

• One of the most famous figures of the Gilded Age was J. Pierpont Morgan, also known as J.P. Morgan.
• Toward the end of his life, Morgan became obsessed with building an impressive collection.
• Now, his personal library is a museum for anyone to visit and enjoy.

HBO's "The Gilded Age" may be over for the year but, thankfully, the era is inescapable if you're in the New York area.

A new character added to season three was none other than J. Pierpont Morgan — you may know him as J.P. Morgan. Yes, like the bank.

If his introduction to the show made you curious about the Morgan family, how he made his fortune, and, crucially, how he spent his millions, you need look no further than the Morgan Library and Museum, located in Manhattan.

After Morgan's death in 1913, his son, Jack, decided to turn his father's private library into a public library for people to view his father's extensive collection. It opened in 1924.

The museum, which costs $25 to enter, is actually comprised of three buildings once owned by various members of the Morgan family. The buildings are connected by a large lobby that was constructed in 2006.

The oldest building is the Pierpont Morgan Library, which was completed in 1906. It was built to hold Morgan's rapidly growing collection of art, antiquities, books, and manuscripts that he spent millions of dollars amassing. Today, it looks exactly as it did when Morgan spent his time there.

The second building is the Annex, which stands on the land that used to be Morgan's brownstone. It opened in 1928. The third building, now known as the Morgan House, was originally the brownstone owned by Morgan's son, Jack. It was purchased by the museum in 1989.

Entering the library felt like stepping back to a time when families like the Morgans, Astors, Vanderbilts, and Rockefellers ruled NYC.

Here's what it's like to visit the Morgan Library and Museum.

I visited the Morgan Library and Museum, located in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan.

The museum is open every day (except Mondays) for visitors to take a trip back to the early 20th century.

There are also temporary exhibits inside. From June to September, there's an exhibit dedicated to Jane Austen that's included with admission.

J. Pierpont Morgan, a famed Gilded Age figure, commissioned the library in 1902. It was completed in 1906.

You enter the museum through this modern addition that features floor-to-ceiling windows and the museum café. It was built in 2006.

There's a scale model of the library in this entryway.

There's also the original brass bell from Morgan's third yacht, the Corsair. It's still rung daily to signify closing time.

The section of the museum that houses Morgan's library is clearly marked.

Even just walking across the threshold felt like entering a time machine. The modern wood and glass was replaced with marble and dark wood.

This rotunda connects to the three rooms open to the public in Morgan's library.

When visiting the entire museum, you shouldn't forget to look up. The ceilings in every room are works of art.

The first room I entered was Morgan's private study.

This ceiling was imported from Italy by architect Charles McKim. It's believed to have been constructed in the 1500s.

This is Morgan's desk. Many deals were made in the presence of this desk — Morgan was known as "America's greatest banker."

A portrait of Morgan hangs above the fireplace.

Notice the unique walls — it's not wallpaper, it's silk damask. The pattern is based on a design made for the Renaissance banker Agostino Chigi.

Morgan collected fragments of Renaissance-era stained glass for years until he had enough to construct windows in his study. Installation took two years.

In the corner of the room is the door to Morgan's private vault.

The walls of the vault are lined with steel. It's still the home to some of the rarest books in Morgan's collection.

After going back through the rotunda, I entered the main event: Morgan's library.

This room is a book-lover's dream.

I was overwhelmed by the sheer size, the artistry present in every detail, and the amount of history located in this room.

There are three floors of shelves.

In every corner, there was a piece of art to study.

I spent much of my time looking at all the books and manuscripts on the shelves.

Located in this beautiful binding are the Lindau Gospels, a manuscript from the ninth century.

This is the Stavelot Triptych. It's thought to contain a piece of the "True Cross," the cross on which Jesus was crucified.

There are dozens more pieces like that in this library. I could spend hours here.

I also visited the librarian's office.

While it's not as large as the library, it's nothing to scoff at.

The ceiling is covered in murals in the style of an Italian Renaissance painting.

The first librarian at the Pierpont Morgan Library was Belle da Costa Greene.

Greene, born in 1879, was the daughter of Richard T. Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard.

After her parents separated, Greene, her brother, and her mother began passing as white to avoid racism and segregation.

While working at Princeton, Greene met J.P. Morgan's nephew, Junius Spencer Morgan, who introduced her to his uncle.

Greene worked at the Pierpont Morgan Library from 1905 until 1948. This fictionalized version of her life is for sale at the gift shop.

My next stops were the temporary galleries. They're located in what was once J.P. Morgan's brownstone, which was annexed in 1928.

"A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250" was packed with visitors.

The exhibit, which runs through September 14, is a love letter to the "Pride and Prejudice" author's legacy.

In the museum, a sign pointed to this grille, which has "648 wrought-iron birds, each with a unique beak." This was added in the '20s.

I walked upstairs to look at the rest of the museum.

There's an impressive art gallery on the second floor.

I spotted memorabilia once owned by Edgar Allan Poe, Leonardo da Vinci, and Frédéric Chopin.

My favorite thing about the second floor, though, was the view.

My last stop was, of course, the gift shop. It's located in the Morgan House, which was once the brownstone of Morgan's son, Jack.

Of course, there were books for sale. I ended up buying "Sense and Sensibility," an Austen classic.

My final activity was taking in the museum's garden, which is open seasonally.

A plaque said the museum had been declared a National Landmark in 1966.

I was able to get a better view of the original exterior of the Pierpont Morgan Library from here.

This ceiling was also not to be missed.

There were also Renaissance statues inside the portico.

The garden itself wasn't that impressive.

But I was amused that, just a few feet away, modern life continued, even though I felt like I had just gone back 100 years.

Now that "The Gilded Age" is on hiatus, taking a trip to the Morgan Library is a great substitute for immersing yourself in New York gone by.

• Legalist, a government receivables startup, saw a boost as DOGE slashed contracts.
• The lender provides gap financing for vendors awaiting payouts from the federal government.
• As contractor payments hang in limbo, Legalist's loans are a temporary solution.

From the moment he became de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk seemed intent on carving up the federal bureaucracy like a Thanksgiving turkey. Thousands of federal employees were laid off, entire departments folded, and contracts worth billions of dollars were scrapped.

That mayhem created a lucrative opening for one startup.

In the first half of this year, Legalist, a San Francisco lender founded by one of tech billionaire Peter Thiel's fellows, extended more than $100 million to dozens of government contractors scrambling for cash. Founder Eva Shang says that's about twice what it deployed in the three years since launching its government business.

The company has doubled its origination team to meet demand, Shang said, and closed $40 million from new investors in June to expand the strategy.

Legalist is best known as a litigation funder. It uses algorithms to scan court dockets, backs cases it thinks are likely to win, and takes a cut of any settlement.

In 2022, at the urging of an investor tied to a university endowment, it branched into "government receivables," providing upfront cash to contractors for goods or services they've already delivered but haven't yet been paid for. Legalist takes its cut when the government eventually settles up.

That sideline became a profit center under the Trump administration, as contract terminations, stop-work orders, and spending freezes choked off cash for contractors.

DOGE says it's canceled about $58 billion in contracts, while a recent Politico analysis said that number was inflated by "accounting tricks" and claims that couldn't be verified. The White House defended DOGE's math, but Politico said it could identify $1.4 billion in money that was actually clawed back from contractors through July.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Federal rules let contractors recover money when policy shifts derail their work — either by adjusting the contract if the pause drove up costs, or by settling up if the job is canceled.

But in the meantime, those contractors have bills to pay, creating a billion-dollar opportunity for private credit lenders like Legalist and its largely regional competitors. (Shang says the company targets an interest rate of at least 12%, above the cost of capital at traditional banks.)

Legalist now has over 50 borrowers. One is a privately held international developer that incurred nearly $200 million in debt for services already rendered after Trump's sweeping freeze on foreign aid payments. Another is a manufacturer of aerospace engine parts that contracts with both the Department of Defense and private-sector clients.

In March, the Pentagon moved to slash over $580 million in programs, grants, and contracts.

Where Musk's cost-cutting frenzy whipped the contracting world into a maelstrom, Legalist has ridden the wave to new heights. Call it a DOGE bump.

Earlier this year, a group of foreign aid groups sued the Trump administration for refusing to spend billions of dollars that Congress had budgeted for federal grants and other programs. Federal judges then ruled to block parts of the funding freeze from taking effect.

An appeals court has now allowed the freeze on foreign aid payments to stand, not because the withholding is lawful, but because the plaintiffs did not have the legal standing to sue. (The decision doesn't alter federal rules letting contractors recover their costs, says Brian Rice, general counsel of Legalist.)

Shang says the ruling is unlikely to affect Legalist's pipeline. That's because the lawsuit pertains to federal grants and other programs, not the contracts that Legalist funds against.

"Some of the grants that Trump canceled, he's well within his right to cancel," she said.

The decision does, however, seep uncertainty into Legalist's world — a dynamic that could keep up demand for its advances, even as it makes collecting on them murkier.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at @meliarussell.01. Use a personal email address and a non-work device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• According to the charts, Alex Warren's hit single "Ordinary" is the undisputed song of the summer.
• The song has reigned at No. 1 on the Hot 100 for nine weeks, but fans and critics remain unenthused.
• The love song has taken off on pop radio and is perfect fodder for relationship montages on TikTok.

Where is this year's song of the summer?

It's the question that's haunted road trippers and pool partiers for months now. But like so many low-stakes mysteries, the answer has been hiding in plain sight (or, in this case, earshot) all along.

If we're going with cold, hard facts — Billboard chart data — there's one song that's dominated the airwaves as the weather has warmed. It's just that a soaring love ballad a 24-year-old TikToker wrote about his wife is not exactly the ideal soundtrack for your day at the beach.

Released in February, Alex Warren's "Ordinary" took a few months to take off, becoming a bona fide commercial juggernaut by June, when it ascended to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It's remained atop the all-genre chart for nine weeks so far, and continues to dominate Billboard's Songs of the Summer chart, where it hasn't budged from its No. 1 position since Memorial Day.

Though it makes every attempt to sound momentous, "Ordinary" is a love song that's true to its name. Dedicated to Warren's wife, Kouvr Annon, the song uses vaguely spiritual lyrics to describe their connection. His vocals backed by hymnal echoes and a pounding drum line, Warren insists "the angels up in the clouds are jealous" of his marital bliss and compares his wife to a sanctuary, a vineyard, and a sculptor. If the song's theme of divine love wasn't clear enough, the couple also costars in the music video, and Warren later released a "wedding version" of the song paired with footage from their real-life nuptials.

That the song is generically gooey has worked to its advantage in the airplay department. "Ordinary" owes much of its longevity to companies like iHeartMedia, America's biggest radio network, which allocates tens of thousands of spins to the song each week. In its most recent week atop the Hot 100, "Ordinary" tallied over 73 million radio airplay audience impressions, according to Billboard, compared to only 12.4 million streams and 6,000 copies sold.

The song's lack of specificity also makes it a broadly appealing soundtrack for lovey-dovey moments on TikTok, where both versions of "Ordinary" have been used in millions of videos with billions of cumulative views. Annon's own uses of the song, usually featuring sweet moments with Warren, frequently collect over 1 million likes.

Call it the home court advantage: As a former YouTuber who joined Hype House, a flashy collective for big-name TikTokers, in 2020, Warren learned and then perfected the art of getting engagement. He and Annon briefly lived in the Los Angeles mansion together, constantly creating content, orchestrating David Dobrik-style pranks, and sharing glimpses of their lives together; Warren described the experience as "college, but for social media."

"It helped me learn how to create content that resonates with an audience and can captivate people," he told Variety.

Warren's self-conscious positioning as America's top new "wife guy" offers the media a tidy narrative to push while reporting on the song's success — and helps cement "Ordinary" as a favorite song choice for romantic montages and relationship content across the internet.

But the differential between the song's commercial utility and its artistic value has perplexed critics and fans alike.

"Genuinely WHO is listening to this," reads a recent tweet with over 27,000 likes. Even r/popheads, a Reddit community for recreational pop scholars whose self-appointed mission is to take the merits of the genre seriously, is full of cold contempt for the song's dominance.

"I don't think you can deeply hate the song by itself," one commenter wrote, "because it's so fucking boring."

Rolling Stone's Larisha Paul coined the phrase "'The Voice' Audition Core" to characterize the musical formula that "Ordinary" follows: ideal for soundtracking a throwaway emotional moment on reality TV, but devoid of any real personality. Indeed, Warren performed the song on the "Love Is Blind" season eight reunion special, slotting easily into a generic vision of happily ever after literally accompanied by a montage of couples.

Still, there's no denying that "Ordinary" is the summer's defining hit. Remaining atop the Hot 100 for over two months is no small feat, and even as late-season challengers have emerged — most recently in the form of a fictional K-pop group from a Netflix film — there isn't enough time before the autumnal equinox for another song to challenge Warren's reign.

It's just a shame that many excellent summertime jams actually have been released this year, they just lacked the radio push or market power to challenge "Ordinary" at the top of the charts.

Addison Rae is Warren's fellow former TikToker-turned-singer, but the similarities end there; her cool-girl collaborators and creative curiosity resulted in a debut album, "Addison," that toes the line between nostalgic and eccentric. (The appropriately named "Summer Forever" is a standout.) Lorde's latest album, "Virgin," includes gems like "Shapeshifter" and "Favorite Daughter," which wrap arresting lyrics in melodic, highly accessible packages, the ghost of last year's "Brat summer" hovering on the margins.

Care for something a little less personal, a little more irreverent? Tinashe and Disco Lines have you covered with the freshly remixed "No Broke Boys." And forget song of the summer, Haim's "Relationships" may be the song of the year. Danielle Haim and her sisters manage to spin the agony of indecision into flippant, funky magic.

As the season winds down, a new Taylor Swift album draws closer, and the charts begin to change shape, may "Ordinary" serve as a reminder that summer trends may disappoint or underwhelm — but they never last forever.

• Mark Zuckerberg has been offering $100 million+ packages to lure AI talent from rivals.
• Some AI experts have rebuffed Zuck, citing loyalty to their company's mission.
• I know what my father-in-law would say about this. It includes the letters B and S.

Since my dad died, I've grown close to my father-in-law Bill. He has a mix of joy and realism I admire, and his advice tends to stick.

One of his favorites: "We're all prostitutes when it comes to work." He's from an older generation, so I'll swap in "sex workers" as the appropriate phrase here. What he means is that we work mainly for money.

That's been on my mind as the AI talent war heats up. Mark Zuckerberg has been offering $100 million-plus packages to lure AI researchers and engineers from frontier labs and Big Tech rivals. Some have refused, citing loyalty to their company's mission.

"They are trying to buy something that cannot be bought. And that is alignment with the mission," Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said recently, noting his top talent has stayed despite Meta's offers. Staff at Thinking Machines Lab have also turned Zuck down, either over leadership concerns or mission loyalty, according to Wired.

My father-in-law would say a phrase that includes the letters B and S. According to the gospel of Bill, this is all about getting paid, as usual.

A Business Insider scoop backs this up: This week, Charles Rollet reported Zuck's recruiting drive has created tension among existing Meta AI experts, who resent newcomers getting higher pay in its new Superintelligence team. That's made some easier to poach. xAI has nabbed several, and Microsoft has a Meta talent wish list. On August 6, Laurens van der Maaten, a top Meta scientist, announced he was joining Anthropic.

Reacting on X, former Meta engineering director Erik Meijer wrote: "Every action has a reaction; the unintended side effects of creating a SI team," referring to the Superintelligence group. When asked for comment, he shared a YouTube clip of an experiment in which two monkeys performing the same task were given different rewards. The one that got a less tasty treat hurled it back and angrily shook its cage.

If we're all metaphorical monkeys or sex workers, what about the "mission-driven" folks staying put? One possible explanation: equity.

Many engineers and researchers get stock in their startups, and these awards typically vest over several years. If you're at a hot AI lab, your unvested equity has probably soared in value lately, or there's a chance it could.

For instance, Anthropic could be worth $170 billion soon, up from about $4 billion two years ago. If you got equity back then and you're waiting for it to vest, there's no way you're leaving right now.

No surprise: most folks are staying at Anthropic. Until that equity vests, anyway.

I want to hear back from AI experts who are getting big offers. Are you mission-driven and staying put, or will you take the $$$ like most of us monkeys? Let me know: [email protected].

And sign up for BI's Tech Memo newsletter here.

• Ukraine said on Friday that it carried out an attack on a Russian ship carrying Iranian ammunition.
• Kyiv's forces also struck a Russian oil refinery far beyond the front lines in a separate incident.
• The attacks mark the latest Ukrainian deep strikes against Russia's military and energy sites.

The Ukrainian military said on Friday that it carried out an attack against a Russian ship carrying Iranian ammunition, marking one of the latest deep strikes far behind the front lines.

Separately, Ukraine said that it struck an oil refinery that supplies fuel to the Russian military.

The two attacks are the latest in a string of long-range strikes deep into Russian territory and come as Ukraine continues to target critical military and energy facilities. Kyiv hopes this campaign will put additional strains on Moscow's war machine.

Ukraine's Special Operations Forces said they struck the vessel Port Olya 4 in Russia's Astrakhan region, which borders the Caspian Sea, during an operation on Thursday. It said the ship was loaded with parts for one-way attack drones and ammunition from Iran, adding that the results of the attack are still under investigation.

SOF said Russia uses the port as a logistics hub to transport military supplies from Iran. They said in a statement that "hitting this vessel disrupts a critical supply chain."

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said SOF was behind another long-range attack on Friday, this time striking an oil refinery in Russia's Samara region, which borders Kazakhstan.

It said in a statement that the Syzran refinery produces various fuels, including some for aircraft, and supplies the Russian military. It added that the attack caused fires and explosions.

It's unclear what weapons Ukrainian forces used in the attacks. Business Insider was unable to independently verify all the details of the two deep-strike operations.

Ukraine previously faced restrictions on using its limited arsenal of Western-provided cruise and ballistic missiles for strikes inside Russia, restrictions that hamstrung the Ukrainian military until they were lifted last year. The main problem now appears to be munition availability.

As a workaround, Kyiv began to invest heavily in locally produced long-range drones and missiles. Over the past year, it has used these weapons to carry out a range of strikes on Russian airfields, ammunition storage facilities, energy sites, and other high-profile targets.

In recent weeks, Ukraine has kept up its long-range attacks. Megan Ewert, a geospatial researcher at the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank that closely tracks the grinding conflict, found that Kyiv carried out 40 drone strikes in Russian territory between July 15 and August 10.

Ewert explained to Business Insider that the number of strikes correlates with the number of sites attacked and said the number of days each week with strikes seems to have an upward trend over the timeframe. She attributed this shift to a possible increase in the intensity of drone use, though ISW does not track the exact number of drones that Ukraine launches in each attack.

The number of Ukrainian drones often varies with each attack. On Monday, for instance, a source in Ukraine's internal security agency, the SBU, said at least four long-range drones struck a facility that makes parts for cruise missiles in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region. Other attacks may use a different number of munitions.

The SBU told Business Insider that facilities within Russia's military-industrial complex, which contribute to Moscow's war machine, "are absolutely legitimate military targets."

"The SBU continues to work on the demilitarization of facilities that produce weapons for the terror of peaceful Ukrainian cities," the source said in translated remarks.