• Match Group's CEO said that he was very pleased with Hinge's performance.
• Hinge's success contrasts with a broader decline in the online dating industry.
• The company plans to apply Hinge's strategies to improve Tinder's performance.

Hinge may be a bright spot in the fizzling online dating industry.

On Tuesday's earnings call for Hinge and Tinder parent Match Group, CEO Spencer Rascoff said that Hinge is an example of what can be achieved with a motivated team and a great product.

"Simply put, Hinge is crushing it," Rascoff said. "Hinge's success should put to rest any doubts about whether the online dating category is out of favor among users."

Match's chief financial officer, Steven Bailey, said that Hinge generated $168 million in revenue in the second quarter, a 25% increase from the same time last year.

The dating app's paying users grew by 18% year over year to 1.7 million, and revenue per paying user grew 6% to nearly $32.

Rascoff added that the company is following Hinge's formula in its turnaround plans for Tinder. The company did not disclose as many numbers for Tinder as it did for Hinge, but said the app's revenue was down 4%, to $461 million.

"Hinge's success gives me pride in Hinge, but also confidence in Tinder," the CEO said. "At Hinge, everything ladders up to one north star: getting users on more great dates."

Rascoff said that Hinge was successful because it keeps "intentionality" at the core of a user's dating experience and was using AI to craft "thoughtful high-quality responses, helping spark better first impressions."

'Numbers game'

In a memo in March, Rascoff, who joined Match as CEO in February, said that Tinder and Hinge users feel that the company is too driven by metrics.

"Too often, our apps have felt like a numbers game rather than a place to build real connections," Rascoff wrote, adding that this needs to change.

"I've heard incredible stories of love," Rascoff said. "But I've also heard frustration from users searching for real, meaningful matches and expecting more from the experience."

Rascoff's overhaul of the platforms follows a broader sentiment shift away from online dating. Swiping fatigue and the rising costs of going on dates are leading many users to ditch apps for outlets that allow in-person connections.

Between May 2023 and the end of 2024, more than half a million users left Tinder, according to a report from the UK-based online behavior research group Ofcom.

That's showing up in dating apps' bottom lines.

Revenue for rival app Bumble decreased 6.5% to $201.8 million in the first quarter of the year. Bumble reports its second-quarter earnings on Wednesday, August 6.

On Tuesday, Match reported $864 million in second-quarter revenue, unchanged from the same time last year. It reported a 5% drop in operating profit to $194 million.

Match's stock rose close to 7% after hours on Tuesday. The company is down 5.5% over the last year.

• The $325 million yacht of Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov is now on sale.
• The six-deck, 348-foot-long superyacht was made in 2017 and seized by the US government in 2022.
• It will be sold by sealed auction on September 10. Interested buyers must pay a 10 million euro deposit.

A $325 million yacht that belonged to a Russian oligarch is now up for grabs.

The US government is auctioning off the Amadea, a 348-foot-long superyacht seized from sanctioned billionaire Suleiman Kerimov in 2022.

The yacht, built in 2017 by the German shipbuilder Lürssen, can accommodate 16 guests in 8 staterooms and 36 crew members.

The yacht offers numerous amenities on its six decks, including a gym, a 32-foot swimming pool, an outdoor jacuzzi, a private cinema, and a helipad.

"This is perhaps the most spectacular, exacting and beautiful ship any of us will ever see," Bob Toney, chairman of National Maritime Services, said in the auction press release on Tuesday. "An opportunity like this for discerning owners is exceedingly rare — maybe once in a lifetime."

The yacht's buyer will be guaranteed a "substantial discount on the original price of the yacht," per information provided by a representative of Fraser Yachts, the luxury yacht broker representing Amadea's sale.

The representative added that the yacht has been "virtually untouched" since it was seized.

The yacht will be sold by sealed bid auction on September 10 to the highest bidder in its berth in San Diego. To be considered for the bid, interested parties must deposit 10 million euros, or $11.6 million.

Per a May 2022 press release by the Department of Justice, the Amadea was seized off the coast of Fiji by the FBI and local law enforcement.

"Last month, I warned that the department had its eyes on every yacht purchased with dirty money," Lisa Monaco, the then-US deputy attorney general, said in the release. "This yacht seizure should tell every corrupt Russian oligarch that they cannot hide — not even in the remotest part of the world."

Representatives for the National Maritime Services and Fraser Yachts did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• Software is no longer being built for people, but for AI agents, said Vercel's CEO.
• "Your customer is the agent that the developer or non-developer is wielding," said Guillermo Rauch.
• AI agents have been on the rise, and they could change how apps and software interact with users.

The future of software isn't being built for people — it's being built for machines, said Vercel's CEO, Guillermo Rauch.

"Your customer is no longer the developer," said Rauch on an episode of the "Sequoia Capital" podcast published Tuesday. "Your customer is the agent that the developer or non-developer is wielding."

The CEO of the web infrastructure startup, valued at $3.25 billion last year, said code isn't just being written for humans to read or interact with anymore. It's increasingly being written so AI agents can understand, use, and extend it.

"That is actually a pretty significant change," said Rauch. "Is there something that I could change about that API that actually favors the LLM being the, quote-unquote, entity or user of this API?"

This new AI-first era means software tools may need to evolve based on how large language models interact with them.

"LLMs' strengths and weaknesses will inform the development of runtimes, languages, type checkers, and frameworks of the future," Rauch said.

Rauch also said that in the AI era, Vercel's newer users — who may not be developers but designers, marketers, or even AI agents — expect things to just work.

Developers were used to dealing with errors and "terrible, negative feedback all day long," he said. But today's users have a much shorter fuse when something goes wrong.

Still, he sees that as an "amazing pressure" for product builders. "You want something that works 99.99% of the time," he added.

Last year, Vercel raised $250 million in a Series E round led by Accel, with investors including Tiger Global and GV.

Rauch and Vercel did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Rise of AI agents

2025 has been hailed as the year of AI agents. They could change how the internet works and how apps and software interact with users.

Bernstein analysts wrote in February that while websites and apps won't go away, users may no longer interact with them directly. Instead, they will access information, content, and widgets through an AI assistant that becomes "the aggregator of the aggregators."

"If it scales and plays out like we think it might, this. Changes. Everything. The aggregators get disaggregated, and much of consumer internet may be structural shorts. Welcome to the Agentic AI era," the analysts wrote. "There's nowhere to hide."

But these agents are not perfect. Researchers have warned that agent errors are prevalent and compound with each step they take.

"An error at any step can derail the entire task. The more steps involved, the higher the chance something goes wrong by the end," Patronus AI, a startup that helps companies evaluate and optimize AI technology, wrote on its blog.

The startup built a statistical model that found that an agent with a 1% error rate per step can compound to a 63% chance of error by the 100th step.

Still, they said that guardrails — such as filters, rules, and tools that can be used to identify and remove inaccurate content — can help mitigate error rates. Small improvements "can yield outsized reductions in error probability," Patronus AI said.

• Y Combinator founder Paul Graham says AI is not coming for every job, just the boring ones.
• AI is "good at scutwork," and low-level programming jobs are "already disappearing," Graham said.
• Graham said the best way to save your job is to do it better than AI can.

Paul Graham, the founder of startup incubator Y Combinator, said identifying and leaning into your passions will be the best way to secure your job in the age of AI.

"It may be a mistake to ask which occupations are most safe from being taken by AI," Graham wrote in an X post on Tuesday.

"What AI (in its current form) is good at is not so much certain jobs, but a certain way of working. It's good at scutwork. So that's the thing to avoid," he continued.

Graham said programming jobs "at the bottom end" are not safe from AI, adding that "those jobs are already disappearing." Top programmers "who are good enough to start their own companies," on the other hand, can still command top salaries, he wrote.

"So I think the best general advice for protecting oneself from AI is to do something so well that you're operating way above the level of scutwork," Graham said.

Representatives for Graham at Y Combinator did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Graham said that to become a superstar in your chosen field, you've got to have passion.

"It's hard to do something really well if you're not deeply interested in it," he added.

Graham isn't the only one who has acknowledged AI's disruptive potential on the job market. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told podcaster Joe Rogan in a January interview that he expects AI to be able to write code like a midlevel engineer within this year.

Then, in May, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told Axios in an interview that AI could wipe out 50% of entry-level office jobs in the next five years.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York published a labor market report in February that said computer science graduates faced an unemployment rate of 6.1%. That was higher than other majors, such as history at 4.6% and biology at 3%.

Other business leaders like "Shark Tank" star Mark Cuban and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang have criticized Amodei's prediction.

Cuban voiced his disagreement with Amodei in a post on Bluesky, arguing that "new companies with new jobs will come from AI and increase TOTAL employment."

Huang told reporters at the VivaTech 2025 conference in Paris in June that AI could also create new opportunities, while some jobs could disappear.

"Do I think AI will change jobs? It will change everyone's. It's changed mine," Huang said.

• Household debt rose to $18.39 trillion, and delinquency remained "elevated," the New York Fed said.
• Credit card balances hit $1.21 trillion, with rising student loan debt and mortgages.
• Economic signals are mixed, with a strong stock market and spending, but weakening job growth.

The stock market and consumer spending may be up, but so is household debt.

A new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows total household debt has risen to $18.39 trillion when adjusted for inflation — that figure is about $1.05 trillion less than the all-time peak in the last quarter of 2008. Around 4.4% of household debt is at some stage of delinquency, a percentage that the bank's researchers called "elevated."

Credit card balances have also risen to match last year's all-time high, to a collective of $1.21 trillion, up 2.3% from the previous quarter.

"This quarter's flow of household debt into serious delinquency was mixed across debt types, with credit card and auto loans holding steady, student loans continuing to rise, and mortgages edging up slightly," Joelle Scally, Economic Policy Advisor at the New York Fed, said in a statement.

The report comes as the economy is giving mixed signals, with the full impact of the Trump administration's tariffs remaining to be seen. While the stock market continues to be strong and consumer spending saw a 0.3% increase in June, employment is weakening, and inflation is inching up.

Reports from other financial research agencies also show rising debt and potential financial distress in certain sectors of borrowers.

A WalletHub report on Tuesday shows household debt increased by $28 billion during the second quarter of 2025, which was nearly six times the increase in the same period in 2024.

A separate Q2 report by Equifax also detailed that while delinquency rates haven't spiked overall, strain is beginning to show in borrowers with less-than-ideal credit scores as they take up a growing share of bank loans. Compared to May 2021, when pandemic stimulus and a pause on student loan payments freed up funds for "subprime borrowers" to finance their bank cards, the share of bank loans that those with lower credit scores are responsible for has seen a 50.9% increase.

"At the surface level, our second quarter data showed that consumers are continuing to spend and avoid delinquency," wrote Tom O'Neill, Market Pulse Advisor at Equifax, in the report. "However, there's a growing K-shaped split in the consumer landscape, with subprime borrowers falling behind."

• Rivian reported mixed Q2 earnings results; the stock fell about 5% after trading hours.
• The company says it expects headwinds due to changing policies around EVs in the US.
• Tariffs will impact the cost of production by a "couple thousand dollars," Rivian's CFO said.

Rivian is expected to experience some headwinds in the near future due to the rapidly evolving policies that impact EV production in the US.

Rivian's CEO, RJ Scaringe, said during the company's second-quarter earnings call on Tuesday that the "changes to EV tax credits, regulatory credits, trade regulation, and tariffs are expected to have an impact on the results and the cash flow of our business."

The company increased its anticipated EBITDA losses — or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization — to a range of $2 billion to $2.5 billion for the 2025 fiscal year. That's up from the previous guidance of $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion reported last quarter.

Claire McDonough, Rivian's chief financial officer, provided a sobering picture of how the policy environment will have an impact on Rivian's business.

The CFO said the company expects to "roughly break even" for total gross profit by the end of 2025. Total sales in regulatory credits — or credits that automakers receive in the US to incentivize EV production — are expected to be around $160 million, nearly half of its prior outlook of $300 million in regulatory credit sales, according to McDonough.

Production costs will also increase for the remainder of the year, McDonough said.

Recent policy changes will impact Rivian's cash flow, she said, and "this includes increased tariffs, which had a minimal impact during the second quarter but are expected to have a net impact of a couple thousand dollars per unit for the remainder of 2025."

Guidance and results for Rivian's second quarter provide a snapshot of how the Trump Administration's move to eliminate federal incentives for EVs, such as a $7,500 clean vehicle credit, will impact automakers.

Tesla, the leading EV company in the US, and other automakers have been urging consumers to buy their electric cars before the tax credits expire later this year.

Scaringe previously told BI that the end of the EV credits will have minimal impact on his company, but it will ultimately slow down US automakers' momentum to transition from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles.

"I think that the move away from some of the tailwinds that were previously in place for electric vehicles is actually good for Rivian, it's good for Tesla, it's bad for the US auto industry, and it's bad for my kids," he said at the time.

Despite the near-term challenges, Rivian appears to be on track to deliver its much-anticipated R2 model, a $45,000 to $50,000 midsize SUV expected to come next year.

Scaringe said during the call that Rivian has secured contracts with suppliers that ensure the cost of making R2 will be about "half that of R1."

"We've spent the last two years in development and time negotiating with suppliers — to put in place contracts that we both selected —suppliers that can scale with us and ramp appropriately, but also can deliver a much lower cost structure," he said.

The company reported a mixed second-quarter earnings result, slightly beating Wall Street estimates on revenue — $1.3 billion vs. $1.28 billion estimate — while reporting higher operating losses than anticipated. Total operating expenses were $908 million, Rivian reported, slightly missing the Street's estimate of $876.2 million.

Rivian's stock fell about 5% after trading hours.

Metinee Kingpayome arrived in Bangkok on her 20th birthday.

Born in Maryland and raised in New York City by Thai immigrant parents, Kingpayome had only visited Thailand twice as a child.

That trip back to Thailand in 1992 marked more than just a birthday milestone; it marked the beginning of her new life.

"It was something special," Kingpayome, now 53, told Business Insider. "Something that would change my life forever."

Troubled teenage years

Raised in a working-class neighborhood in Queens, Kingpayome was around 9 when her parents separated. As the oldest of four — and the only daughter — she often took on the responsibility of looking after the house.

"My brothers were still quite young, so I had to help my mom at a very young age," Kingpayome said.

She spent her childhood in a tight-knit Thai-American community, and her mother enrolled her in Sunday school to help her learn Thai.

At home, her mom spoke to her in their native language.

"She was very traditional, and she tried to raise me in that way," Kingpayome said. "We clashed a lot. You spend 16 hours a day speaking English, living the Western life, and then you come home, and your mom is super strict."

Her teenage years were especially rough. By 14, she was getting into trouble and clashing with her mother. She barely made it through high school.

A wake-up call came when the boy she was dating in her late teens got arrested. Working a dead-end job as a waitress in a Thai restaurant, she knew something had to change.

"I just felt like, OK, this is not working out. There's got to be more," Kingpayome said.

She'd always been drawn to fashion and decided to try modeling. But in the early '90s, the industry favored blonde hair and blue eyes — a beauty standard that she didn't fit.

Determined not to give up, she decided to give Thailand a whirl. Just for six months, she told herself.

She booked a one-way ticket, moved in with an aunt, and entered a beauty pageant. Several months later, she won Miss Thailand World 1992.

An unexpected beauty queen

Kingpayome says she didn't intend to be a beauty queen, but modeling was competitive.

"I thought that would be a very good stepping stone," she said. "Pageantry was huge back in the '80s and '90s. So I entered a beauty pageant, not expecting to win, but then won."

Winning the crown changed everything. She was thrust into the spotlight and, at the end of the year, represented Thailand at Miss World 1992, where she was crowned Continental Queen of Asia and Oceania.

The transition from being unknown to a recognizable face was tough to navigate, especially for someone still finding her footing in a new country.

Thai society was more conservative at the time, and women were generally expected to be more reserved, she said.

"All of a sudden, I have to be this very proper, polite woman, and I struggled with that for a year," Kingpayome said. "Being born and growing up in the States, I was very, very vocal."

Once her pageant contract was up, she started modeling.

In the late '90s, Kingpayome was featured in advertising campaigns for brands such as Lux Soap and Sony. Since then, she's also appeared on the covers of the Thai editions of Vogue, Elle, and Harper's Bazaar, among many others.

Kingpayome says she stood out in the industry because of her bold fashion choices, such as taking part in photoshoots while wearing swimsuits.

"I felt I was part of the movement where things were starting to shift from conservative to modern," Kingpayome said.

'I was always professional'

Unlike the "sabai sabai" Thai way of life, where locals often adopt a relaxed, go-with-the-flow attitude, Kingpayome said her work ethic set her apart.

"If the call time's eight. I'm there at seven-thirty. It doesn't matter how hungover I am. I might look like crap, but I was there," she said. "I was always professional."

Still, it took time to convince her family of her career choices, as they struggled to understand the nature of her work.

It was only years later, when her mother eventually relocated to Bangkok from the US, that she began to understand, especially once Kingpayome started bringing her along to photoshoots.

"She's like, oh, OK. You're not actually taking off your clothes," Kingpayome said, recalling her mother's reaction.

Trading covers and catwalks for motherhood and a slower life

Young, independent, and suddenly in demand, Kingpayome's life in Thailand took off.

"I worked hard, but I played harder because, as a teenager, I never had that kind of life. When I left New York, I was only starting to be legal to go clubbing and stuff," she said.

Everything in Thailand felt so different and new, she added.

"I kind of got lost in the party scene, and my career was taking off. I was in every fashion show. I was on every cover of every magazine. It was just like, wow, oh my God, I love this life," she said

In addition to modeling, she also built a successful career in show business, working as a TV presenter and appearing in numerous Thai movies and TV shows.

Her fast-paced lifestyle lasted nearly a decade before she began to feel burned out and decided to slow down.

In her mid-thirties, she got married and later had her son, who is now 16 and a competitive swimmer. The marriage ended in a divorce, but she still co-parents with her ex.

In recent years, she's served as a mentor and judge on modeling reality shows and has coached contestants in the Miss Universe Thailand pageant.

In 2021, she established a modeling academy with her brother called Muse by Metinee.

"We use runway modeling as a tool to help people gain confidence. So our youngest student is 4 years old, and my oldest student, who is still with us, is 59," Kingpayome said.

Many of her students are kids who have been bullied or who have low self-esteem, and seeing them break out of their shells and become more confident has been rewarding, she added.

Since pageantry is still big in Thailand, she also coaches men, women, and members of the LGBTQ+ community who aspire to compete. The academy has since expanded to include a modeling agency.

Jack Titus, the winner of Mister Model International 2025, who also grew up straddling both American and Thai cultures, told BI that his training at the academy was "the backbone" of his performance in the pageant.

"From the way we walked to the way we spoke, every moment was designed to prepare us for the world stage," Titus said. "The discipline, presence, and emotional resilience I gained at Muse played a massive role in that win."

Thailand, always

Over three decades later, Kingpayome is still one of Thailand's biggest stars.

Parisa Pichitmarn, a millennial journalist based in Bangkok, told BI that she has always admired Kingpayome.

"She comes across as a strong woman who's professional and also doesn't take any crap," Pichitmarn said.

Manorat Sangsuk, a Thai Gen X finance specialist, told BI that in the '90s, a lot of the models were half Western and half Thai, and having someone who "just looked Thai" was refreshing. "She's pretty cool in her own way — you know, not like sweet, gentle, traditional Thai type."

It's hard to say whether Kingpayome would have enjoyed the same level of success if she had stayed in the US.

"Because you're a tiny fish in a big pond, whereas in Thailand, I was a big fish in a tiny pond. So it was very different," she said.

These days, Kingpayome lives in Bangkok and considers herself to be more Thai than American.

"When I go back to America, I feel I'm visiting. I don't feel like it's home," she said.

She used to visit the US more often, especially when her son was younger. But now, with her mother and two of her brothers living in Thailand, there's less reason to return. Only one brother remains in New York, still living in the Queens apartment they all grew up in.

Years from now, Kingpayome says she might end up living by the beach, running a small bed-and-breakfast. Or she might move to wherever her son decides to live when he gets older.

"But I think my life is in Thailand," she added.

Do you have a story about moving to Asia that you want to share? Get in touch with the editor: [email protected].

• "If you come to Palantir, your career is set," Palantir CEO Alex Karp said on Monday's earnings call.
• Dozens of Palantir alums have become startup founders, raising over $30 billion from investors.
• Some tech recruiters told us they're more interested in what candidates have built than whether they worked at Palantir.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp talks a big game when it comes to his employees, calling a job there "by far the best credential in tech."

So, do recruiters agree?

Karp has boasted on several occasions that Palantirians, as the company refers to employees, are the crème de la crème of tech workers.

"If you come to Palantir, your career is set," Karp said on Monday's earnings call. He's previously said that "no credible institution in commercial life can really be built without Palantir or an ex-Palantirian."

Palantir has minted founders and startups in droves.

Former Palantir alums have raised over $30 billion total at an average valuation of almost $800 million per company, according to AI predictive intelligence firm CB Insights. That figure is somewhat skewed by defense tech darling Anduril, which recently raised at a $30.5 billion post-money valuation in June.

Three Anduril cofounders — Trae Stephens, Matt Grimm, and Brian Schimpf — all worked at Palantir before starting Anduril alongside Palmer Luckey in 2017, according to their LinkedIn profiles.

Over 6% of founders who previously worked at Palantir started companies now worth over $1 billion, according to CB Insights.

Palantir, which reported just under 4,000 full-time employees as of December 2024, grew its revenue to $1 billion in the second quarter of 2025, a first for the company. Karp called the earnings "bombastic," and in his letter to shareholders Monday, said Palantir's skeptics have been "defanged and bent into a kind of submission." The stock is up over 600% in the last year.

So do the people hiring from the tech talent pool buy Karp's glowing view of Palantirians?

Business Insider spoke to more than half a dozen tech recruiting professionals to find out if having Palantir on your résumé is as powerful as Karp has made it sound.

The Goldman Sachs of tech

Deepali Vyas, a senior partner and global head of data, AI, and fintech at global consulting firm Korn Ferry, told BI she can "absolutely say that he's right," and she considers Palantir the Goldman Sachs of the tech industry.

"I've pulled people from Palantir," Vyas said. "They are a home run every single time."

Vyas said Palantir employees tend to work long hours, and the company has a "very hands-on culture" that allows even junior employees to work alongside the firm's "brightest minds." Having that proximity helps create a certain level of training, she added.

Vyas said another factor that makes Palantir stand out is its ability to recruit people who are passionate about their work.

"There's something in the sauce there," Vyas said. "They want to work on the complex problems because that's what excites them."

Janelle Bieler, the head of US tech talent at global tech talent and engineering company Akkodis, told Business Insider that Palantir is known for hiring elite talent and candidates that tackle complex issues. While candidates still need to be individually evaluated on what they worked on at the company, she said working at Palantir signals "intellectual horsepower."

"When a recruiter sees it on a résumé, it usually signals that this person went through a tough interview process and likely that they can hold their own in a pretty rigorous and fast-paced environment," she said.

Bieler added that Palantir's branding also stands out to recruiters. She said Palantir is neither regarded as Big Tech nor a typical startup, and the name has a level of mystique. Given the company's niche work environment, though, recruiters want to know that candidates can thrive in a variety of workplace settings.

Jason Saltzman, head of insights at CB Insights, previously told Business Insider while working at a company that tracks employment changes, that "Palantir seems to be the stop on people's career journey that accelerates them the most." Almost a quarter of former product managers at Palantir have since become founders, he said.

Ex-Palantir employees also tend to end up at a Big Tech company or "one of the hottest startups," Saltzman said. Google and Meta, as well as Anduril and OpenAI, employ many former Palantir workers, he said.

"Not only is Palantir a rubber stamp on someone's résumé that allows them to go onto whatever they do next, but also many of them want to go solve the world's biggest problems that are shaping the future as we know it, either by joining a company or starting their own," Saltzman said.

"That Palantir stamp gives the founder credibility, which makes hiring early employees easier," said Alex Klein, founding partner at Nucleus Talent. Klein's company hires partner-level venture investors and early leadership for startups. He hasn't done any work for Palantir.

"A founder or CEO who worked at Palantir for three years — even if they're 27 years old — will win the recruiting battle against the 35-year-old founder who worked at a tier two tech company," Klein added. "Palantir is absolutely a gold star on a résumé."

Some say Karp could be overstating things

Aaron Sines, director of technical recruiting at global cloud consulting firm Edison & Black, told Business Insider that while there's some truth to Karp's statement, overall he's seeing a "results revolution" among companies, where outcomes are placed above academic credentials and company names.

"My team tells me all the time results are almost always coming over academic credentials," Sines said.

Natan Fisher, the cofounder and co-CEO of tech and legal recruiting firm SingleSprout, similarly said that "execution matters more than brand," adding that "companies that want six plus days in the office are going to optimize for someone who is hungry and scrappy above all else."

"No doubt, Palantir is a strong hiring signal, but the idea of a golden ticket in tech is outdated," Fisher said. "The real hiring market doesn't reward brand names alone, it rewards execution and adaptability — who built what and scaled systems at speed."

While a gig at Palantir alone isn't necessarily a career maker, Fisher has seen an increase in tech companies hiring Forward Deployed Engineers, a job title Palantir coined for software engineers who work directly with customers.

Fisher said that tech companies often seek to hire from "multiple high-caliber" talent pools such as Ramp, Stripe, Linear, and Notion, adding that they aren't clients of his.

Sines said that Palantir has a reputation for seeking out top talent and having a "rigorous" and "results-oriented" hiring strategy. However, he said that while it carries a "badge of honor," for some clients, it may signal too much intensity for others. It depends on how companies perceive culture, Sines said.

Farah Sharghi, a job search coach and former recruiter at tech companies including Google, Lyft, Uber, and TikTok, said that while Palantir's hiring process is "very stringent," a good employee at Palantir may not be a good employee everywhere else because "there might be some nuances to some companies versus others in terms of cultural fit."

"It's really subjective relative to what the company does, what their needs are, and so on," she said.

While culture may vary across tech companies, Sharghi says the guiding philosophy when it comes to hiring is largely the same across the board.

"They're not looking for breadth of experience," she said. "They're looking for technical depth of experience."

Calling Palantir the best credential in tech, as Karp did, "flattens the reality," she added.

"Tech is broad. What makes someone a great hire at Palantir doesn't always translate to, for example, a legacy company trying to modernize systems," she said. "That takes a different skill set. There's no universal best, only fit for the problem at hand."

• Linda Yaccarino stepped down as the CEO of X in July, after two years in the role.
• In August, she took a job as CEO of eMed Population Health, a telehealth company.
• Yaccarino has had a long career in advertising, from her early days as an intern at NBCU.

Linda Yaccarino made waves when she announced she was stepping down as the CEO of X on July 9, 2025, but her career didn't start in the tech space.

From decades at Turner Broadcasting, to climbing the ladder at NBCUniversal, to becoming chief executive of X, to leading a telehealth company, Yaccarino has climbed the advertising ladder.

Here's a quick breakdown on her path to — and now away from — X.

Yaccarino is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University.

According to her LinkedIn, Yaccarino was a liberal arts student who studied telecommunications between 1981 and 1985.

She had an early internship at NBCU, where she eventually worked decades later.

Yaccarino told Salesforce in an interview that she arrived on her first day as a "bright cheery new intern," but soon learned that the company didn't have a record of her in its system and she ended up on the media planning team.

"That's where the love affair was born," Yaccarino said of her interest in working in the media industry.

Yaccarino spent nearly 20 years at Turner Broadcasting System.

She spent nearly 20 years at Turner, formerly known as Turner Broadcasting System, eventually rising up to the role of executive vice president/chief operating officer of advertising sales, marketing and acquisitions.

Yaccarino worked there until late 2011.

Yaccarino worked at NBCU for 11 years.

An NBCU "boomerang" return hire, Yaccarino once again worked at NBCU after leaving Turner.

She began her second chapter at the company as its president of cable entertainment and digital advertising sales.

She eventually became the company's advertising chief.

Throughout her time at NBCU, Yaccarino rose to become the company's chairperson of global advertising and partnerships. She oversaw around 2,000 employees who produced more than $100 billion in ad sales, according to her old company profile page.

At NBCU, Yaccarino was key to the company's push into digital streaming.

Yaccarino was a strong advocate for NBCU's foray into streaming television through the service Peacock.

She also worked to keep NBCU competitive with Big Tech companies like Meta and Google.

In May 2023, Yaccarino announced that she had resigned from NBCU "effective immediately."

In a statement at the time, Yaccarino said that "it has been an absolute honor to be part of Comcast NBCUniversal and lead the most incredible team."

Elon Musk announced Yaccarino's role at Twitter the same day she announced her resignation.

Musk made the announcement on what was still Twitter at the time: "@LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology."

He called her "smart, fair and reasonable" in a separate post after some conservatives on Twitter had criticized her ties to the World Economic Forum, an annual event for executives and influential figures in Davos, Switzerland.

Yaccarino also worked with President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden's administrations.

She served on a sports fitness and nutrition council for two years after Trump appointed her to the role in 2018.

In 2021, she worked with the Biden administration on an educational COVID-19 ad campaign.

She was CEO of X during a chaotic two years.

Musk renamed Twitter to X one month into Yaccarino's tenure, and she led the company during a tumultuous time.

She oversaw the platform during an advertiser exodus, working to convince advertisers to return. Advertisers began to return under her leadership, but Musk's changes to X — including loosening content moderation — continue to pose potential challenges.

Yaccarino announced she's stepping down as CEO of X on July 9, 2025.

Yaccarino made the announcement in a post on X: "I'm incredibly proud of the X team - the historic business turn around we have accomplished together has been nothing short of remarkable."

She has a new job in the weight-loss industry.

Yaccarino said on August 5 that she's becoming the CEO of eMed Population Health, a telehealth company that focuses on weight-loss drugs called GLP-1s. A press release from the Miami-based company called Yaccarino's hiring a "game changing moment" and said that she "turned around one of the most complex digital platforms in the world."

Yaccarino announced the news on her X account, too, saying that she is "energized by the opportunity to help lead what could become the most impactful health initiative of our time."

Grace Kay contributed to reporting.

• Linda Yaccarino was named CEO of EMed, a telehealth company, a month after leaving X.
• Yaccarino's tenure at X was turbulent and involved doing a lot of damage control for Elon Musk.
• The new role could help her bolster her CEO chops in a company outside the media world.

It didn't take Linda Yaccarino long to get a new job after leaving Elon Musk's X, where she was CEO.

On Tuesday, just a month after exiting her high-profile job, she was named CEO of EMed, a telehealth startup that sells weight-loss drugs.

It might seem like a right turn for an executive who's made her name selling advertising for big-name companies. Before X, Yaccarino was the head of ad sales for NBCUniversal.

But if you look closely, it's not that surprising. Yaccarino told confidants for years before taking the X job that she wanted to be CEO of a company. And despite Yaccarino being X's CEO, Musk continued to manage major parts of the company, including product design and technology. She hadn't yet gotten a full shot.

After X, landing atop a media company might have been an uphill climb after a turbulent tenure that included the social-media company suing several prominent advertisers, including Nestlé, Colgate, and Shell.

EMed, on the other hand, gives her a chance to establish her CEO bona fides outside the blast radius of Musk.

"She finally gets to be a true CEO that I don't think Elon let her be. It's an opportunity to rehabilitate her reputation," said Lou Paskalis, a longtime ad industry figure who's been close to Yaccarino.

For EMed, it's a chance for a little-known company to leverage Yaccarino's connections with business leaders and CEOs as it looks to expand.

"They're capitalizing on those relationships," Paskalis said.

EMed cited Yaccarino's time at X as an asset in announcing her hire, calling her a "hands-on visionary" whose experience will help it expand to develop employer and government partnerships.

"Her ability to forge game-changing partnerships and navigate complex markets will position the company to become the definitive global leader in population health solutions," the company said in a statement.

Yaccarino, for her part, said in the statement that she saw an "opportunity to combine technology, lifestyle, and data in a new powerful way through the digital channels that impact consumers directly in ways that have never been done before."

When Musk hired Yaccarino at X, many in the industry had high hopes for her success, given her strong relationships with the ad community. Instead, she had to spend a lot of time doing damage control for Musk, as Business Insider previously reported.

The EMed role might just be Yaccarino's chance to get what she wanted all along.

• Billionaire Gabe Newell bought Oceanco, the Dutch superyacht builder behind Jeff Bezos' Koru.
• Newell, the cofounder of video game developer Valve, owns at least one Oceanco superyacht.
• The shipyard is known for building fully customized yachts that cost well into the nine figures.

Some gamers spend weekends on the couch. Others spend them luxuriating in the most expensive assets money can buy.

Gabe Newell, the cofounder of video game developer Valve Corporation, has purchased Oceanco, the Dutch builder behind some of the world's most prominent superyachts.

The amount that Newell, who Forbes reports is worth $9.5 billion, paid for the shipbuilder has not been disclosed. The previous owner, Mohammed Al Barwani, purchased Oceanco in 2010.

Neither Newell nor Oceanco responded to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Newell's Valve is behind some of the most beloved video games, including the "Half-Life" and "Portal" series. It also created Steam, the biggest PC gaming platform, and the handheld PC gaming device Steam Deck.

With Oceanco, he's moving into sun decks and main decks.

The shipyard has built some of the most renowned superyachts and only delivers a couple of fully customized vessels, which cost well into the nine figures, each year.

Its largest build to date is Koru, Jeff Bezos's 127-meter-long sailing yacht, which was delivered in 2023 to much fanfare and has been praised for its aesthetics.

The Koru build had its controversial moments. Oceanco initially requested that a historic bridge be dismantled to deliver the yacht, but then rescinded the request. Separately, the company was fined for failing to properly trace the teak used to craft some of Koru's furniture and interiors.

Oceanco is also behind Alfa Nero, the 82-meter yacht seized from a Russian oligarch in 2023, and Bravo Eugenia, the 109-meter yacht owned by billionaire Jerry Jones.

Newell owns at least one Oceanco design: Draak, a 91.5-meter-long yacht with a helipad, spa, gym, and swimming pool. He is also rumored to be the future owner of Oceanco Y722, a 111-meter project expected to be delivered later this year.

While the prices of Oceanco's new deliveries are largely kept under wraps, the six yachts for sale from the builder range in price from $5.8 million for a 49-meter vessel built in 1995 to $341 million for a 105-meter superyacht built in 2000.

Newell will take a hands-off approach and plans to "leave the team alone," according to a press release from August 1 announcing the acquisition. There is hope, however, that his tech background will influence production.

"What happens when you let yachtbuilders talk to worldbuilders? When craftsmen get access to tech usually reserved for game devs and mad scientists?" the press release says. "You get innovation that doesn't just look good. It feels good."

• CEO John Stankey is reshaping AT&T to be leaner and more nimble like Verizon and T-Mobile.
• The 140-year-old telecom company's transition shows signs of paying off, with its stock outpacing rivals so far this year.
• To accomplish this, Stankey has shown himself willing to make big bets. So far, Wall Street seems to approve.

AT&T is facing a once-in-a-century challenge, and CEO John Stankey is pushing the company to "disrupt itself" and go hardcore to meet the moment.

The telecom's sprawling network of copper wires is no longer suited to 21st-century demands for speed and mobility, demands that increasingly require new infrastructure of fiber optic networks and wireless spectrum.

Stankey, who took the helm as CEO in July 2020, knows this. He's shown himself willing to do something about it — even if that means a sharp departure from the legacy company's past to prepare for the future.

As the company moves to sunset most of its copper network in the US by the end of 2029, Stankey has also instituted a broad cultural shift internally. He's moved away from prioritizing 20th-century corporate values like loyalty and tenure in favor of a tech-style, "more market-based culture," the AT&T CEO wrote in a sweeping memo last week that was first reported by Business Insider.

It's a strategy that is showing signs of paying off, with many Wall Street analysts recently boosting their price targets for the stock. AT&T shares are up 22% this year compared to 8.25% for T-Mobile and 6.7% for Verizon.

"They refocused on fundamentals, and the fundamentals are just getting better," BNP Paribas telecom analyst Sam McHugh told Business Insider. "Investors really like that simple strategy. It gives a very clear message — it's delivering financially."

It's a transition that Stankey says is vital to the company's future — and will take time to accomplish.

"We are midstream on a multi-year journey to build the company we want, not simply optimize the one we have," the CEO wrote in his memo.

"I tried to pick my brain for an example of another 100+ year old company that didn't have to disrupt itself to secure sustainable relevance. I am still searching for the first example," he added. "I suspect our willingness to disrupt ourselves is the under-pinning of why this company approaches 150 years of relevance."

AT&T's bid for continued relevance has meant the building of large and growing wireless and fiber optic networks as it looks to fend off increasing competition from Verizon, T-Mobile, and a host of smaller operators.

The company has managed to keep pace with its top competitors in terms of mobile phone accounts as it ramps up an aggressive fiber optic expansion that Stankey says will lead to further mobile signups from customers looking to bundle services.

AT&T beat expectations for its second quarter earnings, released in July, on the back of strong wireless and fiber subscriber growth and a multi-year estimated tax benefit of up to $8 billion from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

It could face a more challenging second half of the year.

The company said that some of the second quarter's lift came from new customers pulling orders forward to avoid tariff-related price hikes, and that it was cautiously anticipating higher rates of customer churn in the latter half of the year.

"We are assuming that we're going to continue to have a competitive environment," AT&T CFO Pascal Desroches told analysts.

Another area that Stankey is reshaping is AT&T's workforce.

Without such a massive legacy copper network to support, most of AT&T's competitors have managed to grow with a comparatively smaller head count.

AT&T now has roughly 141,000 employees, and the company has taken several rounds of reductions in recent years to align its workforce more with its peers. Verizon has 99,000 and T-Mobile has 70,000, and Verizon also gave buyouts last year to some 4,800 workers.

The increasingly strict return-to-office mandate that AT&T has rolled out in phases over the past year has also resulted in further reductions, multiple employees have told Business Insider, and Stankey signaled in his memo that he's fine with more people leaving if they're not on board with the company's new direction.

"If a self-directed, virtual, or hybrid work schedule is essential for you to manage your career aspirations and life challenges, you will have a difficult time aligning your priorities with those of the company and the culture we aim to establish," he said in the memo.

Stankey has taken a similar my-way-or-the-highway approach in the past.

He was the company's chief operating officer who drove the acquisition of Warner Media and reportedly led the division with a high-handedness that ruffled the entertainment executives. The move was part of a larger trend of network services providers seeking to own content producers, and Stankey (as CEO) shrugged off setbacks as he pursued a vision of expanding HBO to rival Netflix and Amazon Prime.

AT&T jettisoned Warner Media in 2022 at a loss of over $40 billion, and finalized its exit from the media business earlier this year when it sold its remaining stake in DirecTV to private equity firm TPG at a steep discount.

While Stankey's apparent appetite for taking big bets seems unchanged, the circumstances around this chapter in the company's history are potentially more favorable.

"I'm sure there's a book to be written one day of how you can turn around your profile among investors," said McHugh, the BNP Paribas telecom analyst, who said many long-term investors previously dismissed the company for its poor execution and misallocation of capital into non-core assets, like the media deals Stankey led.

"I covered European telcos for a long time. Basically, the stocks that do best in the sector are the ones who have a simple story and just focus on their core competencies," he added. "By luck or by good judgment, I think they're now on the right track."

In his memo, Stankey said the workplace and technological shifts were essential for AT&T to succeed in the market, citing US Army General Eric Shinseki as saying, "If you dislike change, you're going to dislike irrelevance even more."

• Andreessen Horowitz, a top VC firm, has left Delaware and urged others to consider doing the same.
• The entities it moved to Nevada aren't corporations, so the move is more about sending a signal.
• One lawyer said a16z's move could advance its founder-friendly reputation.

Andreessen Horowitz wants startup founders to reconsider their relationship with Delaware — but the venture firm's own breakup with the state is more complicated than it seems.

On July 22, the VC giant executed the plan it teased in a blog post earlier in the month, registering three new entities in Nevada: a16z Capital Management LLC, a16z Holdings LLC, and a16z Development LLC. The move wasn't just administrative — it was meant as a signal, part of the firm's effort to convince founders that Delaware shouldn't be the default choice for forming their companies.

Andreessen Horowitz, often called a16z, cited several reasons for moving to Nevada: stronger legal protection for corporate directors, tighter limits on shareholder lawsuits, and a business-friendly court system. It said this sets Nevada apart from Delaware, where an outsize share of America's business lawsuits are filed.

Some critics say a16z's beef with Delaware's corporate laws don't make much sense because it's not a corporation; all the entities that it moved to Nevada are LLCs, or limited liability companies.

"They're either being accidentally imprecise or intentionally disingenuous," said Samantha Prince, a law professor at Penn State University. "Andreessen is criticizing Delaware and its statutory corporate framework, but that doesn't apply to LLCs."

Not all businesses are corporations

Laypeople don't often draw distinctions between corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, and other legal entities. Even lawyers and judges sometimes can't keep it straight; a 2023 paper Prince co-authored found over 9,000 references to "limited liability corporations," which don't exist, in court documents.

But the differences matter. Corporations are bound by corporate law that sets baselines for what directors must do and the rights of shareholders. Delaware's corporate laws — and judges' decisions interpreting those laws — are what have some so angry.

By contrast, limited liability companies are "largely creatures of contract," said Ben Edwards, a corporate law professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which means they generally write their own rules in their operating agreements and other agreements among their members.

While states also have laws that outline how LLCs work, they can often be overridden by agreement, said Prince.

Founders rule

Delaware's body of corporate law has attracted big businesses for more than a century. Lawyers see the law as responsive and reliable because of the large number of cases interpreting it, and they generally praise the smarts and sophistication of the state's judges.

Recently, some have said Delaware court rulings could upset its business-friendly reputation. In 2024, two rulings challenged pro-CEO actions at Tesla and Moelis & Co., and another hit the brakes on Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Elon Musk responded by convincing investors to reincorporate Tesla in Texas.

In its blog post, Andreessen alluded to its interests in other companies. "For founders considering a similar move, there is often a reluctance to leave Delaware, based in part on concerns for how investors will react," said the post, written by in-house lawyers Jai Ramaswamy and Andy Hill and government affairs partner Kevin McKinley.

"As the largest VC firm in the country, we hope that our decision signals to our portfolio companies, as well as to prospective portfolio companies, that such concerns may be overblown," they continued.

Just because Andreessen Horowitz isn't itself a corporation, it still needs to care about changes in corporate law, said Edwards, the UNLV professor.

The firm "makes lots of investments in corporations, and so I think the criticisms that are saying, 'They're not giving their real reasons because they're not a corporation themselves' are really misplaced," Edwards said. "I think they have a strong and vibrant interest in the content of corporate law."

• The Pentagon awarded a massive $3.5 billion to RTX Corporation for more AIM-120 air-to-air missiles.
• The foreign military sales aspect includes a long list of US allies and partners.
• The AIM-120 AMRAAM is a pivotal weapon for many US partners, and global usage has surged.

The Pentagon just inked a record $3.5 billion deal with RTX for AIM-120 air-to-air missiles. It's a massive order that underscores how global conflicts are stressing stockpiles and dramatically increasing demand for key munitions.

Demand for the AMRAAM has been growing amid global crises like the war in Ukraine and fights in the Middle East.

The massive deal, which was part of a total $7.8 billion awarded to Lockheed Martin and RTX for missile production, was signed late last month. Other systems in the contracts include Lockheed Martin's Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) and the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM).

The AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, or AMRAAM, award was especially notable, not only for its size but the number of allies and partners that will receive the missile.

The Foreign Military Sales portion of the massive contract includes Japan, Canada, Germany, the UK, and Ukraine, RTX told Business Insider. The Department of Defense contract details identified sales to 19 allies and partners.

It also comes less than a year after a $1.2 billion contract for the AMRAAM, another record-breaking deal that followed a $1.15 billion deal in 2023. These three deals point to a demand to refill and expand stockpiles.

"As global conflicts intensify and air threats become more sophisticated, AMRAAM continues to give allied forces a decisive edge in combat," said Sam Deneke, the president of Air & Space Defense Systems at Raytheon, said in a statement.

The AIM-120 has seen use in Ukraine, with both Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jets and Norway's Kongsberg Defense and Raytheon's National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS). The AMRAAM has also seen use in the Middle East by the US planes battling the Houthis and other threats. These conflicts pull from US and allied stockpiles.

The weapon is an all-weather, beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile with active radar for decreased dependence on the aircraft for intercepts. There are multiple variants of the AIM-120.

The newest one is the AIM-120D, which has a reported range exceeding 100 miles. It's highly useful for taking out air threats like uncrewed aerial vehicles and drones, but it's also an expensive tradeoff, with each AIM-120 costing around $1 million.

The US has pursued alternatives to taking out these threats, and military officials have acknowledged that the need for more cost-effective answers.

Part of the demand for the AIM-120 is that it's a highly desired system by militaries around the world. It is an essential weapon as countries consider air dominance and defense demands in modern warfighting.

Despite many other investments in air-to-air systems, "the AIM-120 AMRAAM series remains and likely will remain the backbone of Western and Western-aligned air-to-air weaponry for many years to come," Justin Bronk, an airpower expert at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, told Business Insider.

RTX highlighted that the AMRAAM is used on 14 different platforms, including fighter aircraft and surface-to-air missile systems, in 44 countries and is combat-proven.

Global usage of the missile, Bronk said, has far outpaced production, making the new contract not only important for filling stockpiles but also increasing production capacity.

Decades of steady usage have left stockpiles thin, with lawmakers in Washington expressing concern about existing stocks. Among other efforts to boost the numbers, the US and Japan are now considering co-production of the AIM-120 to help close the gap.

• Disney's quest to make Disney+ a streaming super app has some employees wondering about Hulu's future.
• Analysts say they expect the Hulu app to eventually disappear.
• But insiders say several obstacles stand in the way of phasing out Hulu.

Disney is on a mission to make Disney+ its one-stop shop in streaming, prompting some employees to wonder: Where does that leave Hulu?

Nine Disney streaming staffers tell Business Insider that it's become impossible to ignore the company's increasing emphasis on Disney+ over Hulu.

"Internally, the Hulu brand isn't a priority," an employee on the ads side of Disney's streaming business said.

The Mouse House has been steering bundle subscribers to the Disney+ app by loading it with most Hulu movies and shows and some ESPN content. Unbundled Disney subscribers can also watch some Hulu and ESPN shows free of charge on Disney+. But Disney+ content isn't available on Hulu.

Disney CEO Bob Iger said in May that these changes are "definitely having a positive impact" on the streamer's engagement and cancellation rate.

Disney is also making changes internally. It's discouraging Hulu-only ad buys and merging the platforms' ad servers, employees said.

Two sales-side employees said they need special permission to sell a Hulu-only ad spot, excluding certain interactive ads that only work on Hulu. They said the sales team is pushing advertisers instead to buy across both Disney+ and Hulu, as part of what one of the staffers called a "massive" companywide push "to prioritize Disney+ over everything."

And last week, Disney moved to a unified ad server for Disney+ and Hulu. This shift, known internally as "Mission Control," was labor-intensive and at times painful but necessary, the employees said.

"Everything going through one ad server makes a lot less work for everyone involved when it comes to getting ad campaigns live," the first ads employee said.

Disney's changes show the Hulu brand is now decidedly on the back burner, this person said. They viewed the shift as mostly positive and said further unification of Disney+ and Hulu would give consumers a better experience while simplifying the ad sales process.

Hulu fans' migration to Disney+ is off to a slow start, so far.

Two Disney streaming employees with access to viewer data said the overwhelming majority of Hulu viewership still comes directly from the Hulu app, not through Disney+. Hulu has centered its identity on dramas and comedies for adults and next-day TV.

Disney is seeing some progress, though: One Hulu-focused streaming employee said the "Hulu on Disney+" section has been starting to get more engagement as subscribers start to discover that they can use Disney+ as an all-in-one app.

However, the Hulu-focused employee, who's familiar with the service's analytics, said many Hulu subscribers don't pay for Disney+ and aren't necessarily interested in its family-friendly content dominated by franchises like Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney animation.

Several media analysts support Disney's direction, though, in going all in on Disney+.

Further integrating Hulu into Disney+ could save the company about $3 billion through "the elimination of duplicative technology and administrative costs," MoffettNathanson's Robert Fishman said in a mid-July note.

UBS media analyst John Hodulik told BI in July that Disney fully consolidating Hulu into Disney+ is "one of the steps they need to take to Netflix-ify their streaming business."

Disney didn't respond to requests for comment.

Impacts on Hulu's business

Although Hulu still gets most of its viewership from its stand-alone app, there are signs Disney's emphasis on Disney+ could be affecting its ad business.

According to analysts at MoffettNathanson, Hulu generated the most US ad revenue of any paid streaming service in the second quarter, thanks to its mature ads business, which launched in 2008.

However, Hulu's ad revenue fell an estimated 0.3% last quarter, MoffettNathanson said. Hulu was the lone paid streaming service that didn't grow ad revenue in the second quarter, according to the firm. Meanwhile, Disney+ saw its advertising revenue soar 67% year-over-year in that same span, MoffettNathanson said.

Despite that, Disney+ has a long way to go to catch up. Hulu's ad revenue was more than four times that of Disney+ last quarter, MoffettNathanson said.

"Hulu having slightly lower ad revenue year-over-year while Disney+ has seen a huge increase makes perfect sense to me," the first employee on the ad sales side said, considering the company's continued emphasis on Disney+ over Hulu.

Another Disney+ employee said that "eyeballs are shifting into the Disney+ interface," in line with what one of their Hulu-focused colleagues said.

Both Disney+ and Hulu have seen gradual subscriber growth, even though Disney hiked prices of each service's ad and ad-free tiers last October.

Hulu is well ahead of Disney+ in how much money it makes per subscriber in the US. Hulu brought in $12.36 per subscriber in the first three months of this year, while Disney+ only generated two-thirds of that sum. But Hulu's average revenue per subscriber has fallen in each of the last three quarters, while Disney+'s has steadily risen.

Life after Hulu?

The idea of shuttering the stand-alone Hulu service has been raised internally as a thought experiment, an employee on the business side of Disney's streaming division who had been involved in those discussions said.

"Every time we go through that in our long-range plan, these things come up," this person said. "You're looking at, 'Alright, what would happen if we did this? Could we cut this? Could we merge? What would happen?' So you do those analyses in the background, but not all of them ever come to see the light of day."

A longtime Hulu employee said that Disney's focus with streaming has been on a "unified platform." They added that Hulu's tech had "serious degradation" issues and could feel outdated, given that it's one of the oldest streaming services.

Still, one potential issue with shutting down Hulu as a stand-alone app is that it's emotionally intertwined with the brand for staffers, sometimes called "Hulugans."

"Old employees have an affinity for it," a second veteran Hulu employee said.

• Microsoft may require employees to return to the office more often.
• The new policy could kick in at Microsoft's headquarters as soon as January.
• The shift aligns with increased performance demands at Microsoft and in the tech industry broadly.

Microsoft is considering a stricter policy on office attendance, and the software giant could implement this as soon as January for some employees, according to people with knowledge of the plans.

Implementation dates could vary across Microsoft's offices, but the company is considering requiring employees at its Redmond, Washington, headquarters to work from the office more often starting in January, the people told Business Insider.

The company is still finalizing the details and had been planning to make an announcement as soon as September, the people added. They asked not to be identified discussing private matters.

Microsoft has had a flexible work policy since late 2020, letting most employees work remotely for as much as 50% of the time without approval. In practice, this policy has been much more flexible, allowing most employees to work remotely most of the time.

Now, the company is considering a new policy that requires most employees to work in the office at least three days a week, the people with knowledge of the plans told BI.

Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw confirmed the company is considering updating its flexible work guidelines. He said no decisions have been finalized.

Getting in line on RTO

Such a move would bring Microsoft more in line with other Big Tech companies, which have been rolling out tougher RTO policies this year.

Amazon, Microsoft's crosstown rival, mandated a rigid RTO policy earlier this year that required employees to work in-person five days a week. AT&T introduced a similar policy late last year and CEO John Stankey recently told staff to get on board or get out.

The policy Microsoft is considering would be similar to those at Meta and Google, which generally require most employees to work from offices three days a week. Some Microsoft teams, such as the Corporate, External, and Legal Affairs (CELA) group, already work in the office more than three days a week.

More pressure on employees

Cracking down on remote work is part of a broader trend in the tech industry that includes increased employee-performance pressure at Microsoft and other companies.

Microsoft's cloud and AI boss Scott Guthrie told employees in an internal meeting last September that the company would not consider changing its flexible work policy unless there was a noticeable drop in productivity.

It's unclear whether that's happened, but what is clear is that Microsoft's approach to employee performance has changed since then. The company fired thousands of employees deemed low performers this year and introduced a new performance improvement plan meant to exit low performers more quickly.

Microsoft's top finance executive Amy Hood last week told employees in an internal memo that the upcoming year will require "intensity," building on an earlier memo from CEO Satya Nadella asking employees for "dedication, drive, and hard work."

Microsoft sells software that enables remote work, and has pitched hybrid work as a way to reduce costs, retain employees, and increase their productivity.

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• Fox and ESPN, the two biggest holdouts in the streaming wars, will finally launch their own services in August.
• But compared to previous streaming launches, these are pretty low-key affairs.
• There's a reason for that: Fox and Disney want the streamers to be successful — but not too successful.

Fox stayed out of the streaming wars for years. Now it's jumping in with Fox One, its $20-a-month service that launches August 21.

But if you're going to wait until years after everyone else to start streaming, you probably have pretty big ambitions. Right, Lachlan Murdoch?

Nope!

"Our aspirations for Fox One subscribers are modest," the Fox CEO told investors on Tuesday, adding that the company will be making a "measured investment" in the service.

Translation: Please don't make too much of this.

OK. What about Disney, which is finally launching its ESPN streamer for $30 a month in the next few weeks?

Disney holds its quarterly earnings call Wednesday morning, so we'll have to wait until then to officially compare hype levels. But my educated hunch is that CEO Bob Iger will also go out of his way not to over-promise the prospects for that service: When ESPN unveiled its years-in-the-making launch plans in May, it was at a very low-key event, devoid of almost all glitz.

The difference between these launches and the ones we saw at the beginning of the streaming wars, six or seven years ago, is quite striking. Back then, big media companies rolled out new services with a galaxy of high-wattage stars, and tripped all over themselves to explain how much they were spending to catch up with Netflix. New subscribers would pour in by the tens of millions a year, they promised. And yes, they'd lose a bunch of money along the way.

But if you've been paying attention to the streaming business over this time, the change is quite understandable.

Back in the early days of streaming, media companies thought Wall Street would reward them if they copied Netflix's "grow like crazy, figure out profits later" strategy. Instead, investors decided they didn't want growth at all costs, and pushed streamers to run their businesses like … businesses.

Which is partly why Murdoch reminded investors Tuesday that Fox One will be very cheap to launch, since there's nothing on the service that isn't already on existing Fox-owned channels.

But the other part of the messaging reflects the other reality at Disney and Fox: They would both like people to buy streaming services from them — but only if it doesn't cut into their old business of selling cable TV subscriptions.

That's because while cable TV is dying — (Would you like to buy a cable TV network? Make an offer!) — it still remains very profitable for the companies that sell it.

That's why both ESPN and Fox officials take great pains to explain that they don't think the services they're selling will convince a cable TV subscriber to cut the cord. Instead, they argue, this is for people who don't already have pay TV.

This isn't subtext. It's right out in public.

"We do not want to lose a traditional cable subscriber to FOX One, and we're doing everything we can to make sure, as much as humanly possible, that that's the way we market, and that's the way we plan the business," Murdoch told investors three months ago.

You can also see the needle-threading in the pricing for these services: In the past, new streamers launched at $10 a month or less, hoping to grab lots of market share. Now, Fox and Disney are coming in at double and triple that, at least in part so that they don't undercut the pricing of much bigger bundles sold through traditional cable.

So who might actually buy this stuff? We'll see. ESPN's service might appeal to college football fans, since the service has deals to show lots of games from marquee teams and leagues. NFL fans may be a little more frustrated, since ESPN will only have a slice of the season's games.

And as for Fox One: In theory, you might have people signing up to get Fox's weekly lineup of NFL games. But it seems most likely that the service is meant primarily to appeal to "people who like Fox News but either don't get cable or want to ditch cable and just get Fox News."

If it's the former group, Murdoch will be happy. But if it's from the second …

• Roxana Ehsani is a board-certified sports dietitian who runs and strength trains.
• She focuses on a nutrient-rich diet with plenty of protein, fiber, and carbohydrates.
• She loves overnight chia seed pudding, sheet pan dinners, and "nice cream" for dessert.

As a board-certified sports dietitian, Roxana Ehsani knows how important a balanced diet is for staying fit.

Ehsani, who works in Miami, runs most days of the week and strength-trains two to four times a week. To help with her performance, she prioritizes high-quality protein sources, such as salmon and dairy, in her diet.

"I'm pretty good about getting plenty of protein in my meals and snacks," she told Business Insider. "I know it's just going to keep me full for longer, and also aids with muscle repair and recovery."

She eats lots of fruits and vegetables for added vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fiber that can help her energy levels. She also eats carbohydrates such as whole wheat bread, buckwheat, and quinoa.

Ehsani shared the meals and snacks she eats throughout the day to feel energized for workouts, build muscle, and recover.

Overnight chia seed pudding

Ehsani usually starts her mornings with a filling and nutritious breakfast.

"I'm pretty obsessed with chia pudding as of now, and it's super easy to make," she said.

Before bed, she mixes a few tablespoons of chia seeds with dairy milk and refrigerates it. In the morning, she tops it with fresh berries, a drizzle of almond butter, and some granola or nuts.

That breakfast gives her omega-3 from the chia seeds, which is fantastic for heart health and also promotes strong joints, she said. From the other ingredients like dairy milk, berries, and almond butter, she's getting protein, calcium, potassium, fiber, antioxidants, and healthy fats — all crucial for feeling good and energetic.

Sometimes, she changes up breakfast by eating oatmeal or a smoothie bowl, keeping many of the ingredients, like fresh fruits and milk.

Canned or smoked salmon for quick, high-protein lunches

Ehsani said that her lunch hours are "pretty busy," so she whips together a quick and protein-packed meal for lunch.

"I'll usually utilize something like smoked salmon or canned salmon as my protein source," she said. Often, she'll take either one and throw it into a wrap or sandwich with hummus, greens, and cut-up vegetables. Salmon is one of the highest sources of protein, with 27g of protein per serving.

Sometimes, she'll have soup or a sweet potato for lunch instead. But she's "always making sure to get plenty of protein, veggies, and some type of whole grain or starchy veggie."

Fruit right before a workout

Ehsani usually exercises in the late afternoon or early evening. To prepare, she eats some fruit 15 minutes before the workout.

She'll usually have a banana, seasonal fruit like mango, or dried fruits like dates or raisins. "I like to have it just pretty much right out the door, to top off my glucose stores and give me energy to get through that workout," she said.

She sips a few dairy beverages throughout the day

To get a little more protein throughout the day, Ehsani has dairy milk when she can, such as in an afternoon latte.

She also sips chocolate milk right after her workout.

"Chocolate milk is a great recovery beverage," she said, because it has a three-to-one carb to protein ratio to replenish muscle glycogen and electrolytes to make up for lost sweat. It also just tides her over while she prepares dinner.

She tries to drink chocolate milk 30 to 60 minutes after the workout for it to have an optimal impact on her body. "Usually, I'll try to do that really quickly after the workout, probably right away when I get home," she said.

Simple sheet-pan dinners for protein and fiber

Ehsani relies on sheet pan dinners a lot throughout the week because they're a quick and easy way to eat a fresh, balanced meal with protein, fiber, and other vitamins.

Usually, she'll season or marinate a piece of salmon, chicken, or sablefish along with veggies like sweet potatoes, eggplant, or broccoli. Sometimes, she deviates by throwing the ingredients on top of some mixed greens and making a salad or grain bowl instead.

"I chop a little bit, throw it in the oven, and then I can go shower and get ready," she said. "It just gives me all those nutrients in one."

Two-ingredient mango ice cream packed with vitamins

"I have a big sweet tooth," Ehsani said. For dessert, she and her husband will have a few squares of dark chocolate. More recently, she said they've been making homemade mango ice cream by blending frozen mangoes and dairy milk together.

"It makes a really nice, almost like a soft-serve consistency," she said, tasting like a satisfying dessert with some extra nutrients. For even more protein, she said Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, or protein powder can be added as well.

"We've been doing that a lot of nights, making some type of healthy-ish sweet treat in the evenings," she said.

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced GPT-oss, his company's return to releasing an AI language model with open weights.
• The company launched two new "open" models, gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b, on Tuesday.
• Altman had previously said OpenAI would release a "very powerful open-source model."

OpenAI's AI models are getting more open. At least, some of them are.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced GPT-oss on Tuesday, an "open" family of language models with "open weights" that the CEO said can operate locally on a "high-end laptop" and smartphones.

An AI model with "open weights" is one whose fully trained parameter weights are made publicly downloadable, so anyone can run, inspect, or fine-tune the AI model locally.

"We believe this is the best and most usable open model in the world," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote on X.

There are two different models: gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b. The smaller model is designed to run on "most desktops and laptops, " while the larger model is geared toward higher-end equipment.

Altman said GPT-oss has "strong real-world performance comparable to o4-mini."

Just before OpenAI's announcement, rival Anthropic revealed the Claude Opus 4.1.

Tuesday's announcement was not the long-rumored ChatGPT-5, which could arrive as soon as this week. Instead, the new model is OpenAI's first open-weight language model since the release of GPT-2 in 2019.

"As part of this, we are quite hopeful that this release will enable new kinds of research and the creation of new kinds of products," Altman wrote. "We expect a meaningful uptick in the rate of innovation in our field, and for many more people to do important work than were able to before."

Altman had previously signaled that OpenAI would return to releasing at least some open model, saying that, "We're going to do a very powerful open source model" that was "better than any current open source model out there."

Meta has long published the open weights of its LLAMA AI models.

• Sharon Stone said she earns more money from modeling than acting despite her Hollywood success.
• Stone began her career in modeling, signing with Ford Models as a teenager.
• Stone's acting roles include classics like "Basic Instinct" and "Casino."

Sharon Stone has been a Hollywood icon for over a quarter century, but when it comes to getting paid, her acting work isn't the most lucrative.

"I still make more money today modeling than in film," Stone, 67, told Business Insider. "It's still a huge part of my reality."

Stone started her career as a model, quitting school at 15 and moving to New York City to enter the fashion world. She was quickly signed by Ford Modeling Agency and found herself working regularly in Milan and Paris.

By 19, she returned to New York and began pursuing acting as a path to her initial goal: directing.

"Back then, I wanted to be a director, but the pesky vagina has stood in my way. Because how could you possibly have a brain and a vagina?" Stone told BI. "It seems to have confounded so many."

In those early days, Stone rollerbladed around Manhattan to her auditions, her giant modeling portfolio in tow. She got her big break in 1980, when she was cast as one of the extras in Woody Allen's "Stardust Memories," and was later asked to step in for a spot in the movie's opening scene, where Allen, sitting on a train, sees a beautiful woman across from him on another train.

"I was 19 and they put me in this tight dress, and I was so awkward about my body," Stone recalled. "The hair person put a real gardenia in my hair. It really meant the world to me that she did that. It made me feel important."

Stone became a hot commodity in Hollywood after "Stardust Memories." After regularly working in B-movies through the 1980s like "King Solomon's Mines" and "Police Academy 4," she landed the role that would change her life when she scored the female lead in the 1992 sensation "Basic Instinct." Though the role made her an icon, she wasn't paid like one.

In 2023, Stone revealed she was paid $500,000 for "Basic Instinct" while her costar Michael Douglas earned $14 million.

She went on to earn an Oscar nomination in 1996 for her performance opposite Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese's "Casino," and won an Emmy in 2004 for her guest spot on "The Practice." But her career was also dogged by money troubles: the actor revealed in 2024 that she lost $18 million in savings after suffering a stroke in 2001.

"When I got back into my bank account, it was all gone. My refrigerator, my phone — everything was in other people's names," Stone said. "I had zero money."

Over the years, Stone has modeled for high fashion brands like Dior and Dolce & Gabbana, and recently did ads for Mugler.

"I'm still one of the oldest women consistently modeling today," Stone said. "I'm very, very grateful I still get to do it."

Next, Stone will star in "Nobody 2," opening in theaters August 15.