I tried 4 patriotic fast food promotions, and the best one captured the spirit of America's 250th birthday

McDonald's brought its fried apple pie — which was discontinued in 1992 — back in time for America's 250th birthday celebration.

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert

• Fast food chains have rolled out limited-time promotions to celebrate America's 250th birthday.
• I taste-tested patriotic desserts from McDonald's, Burger King, Krispy Kreme, and Wienerschnitzel.
• The best dessert made sense for the occasion and felt timelessly American.

As America gears up to celebrate its 250th birthday, many fast-food chains are marking the occasion the way they know best: with limited-time desserts loaded with red, white, blue, and plenty of sugar.

I taste-tested patriotic dessert promotions from McDonald's, Burger King, Krispy Kreme, and Wienerschnitzel to see which chains delivered a worthy tribute to the nation's semiquincentennial.

Some leaned heavily on festive colors or flavors, others on nostalgic Americana. One stood out by doing both.

Krispy Kreme's USA-themed doughnuts

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert

I have a soft spot for Krispy Kreme and fond memories of road trip doughnut stops with my family as a kid, my sisters and I savoring fresh-out-of-the-fryer rings in the back seat.

As an adult, I rarely visit the chain — in part because the nearest location is more than 20 minutes away, but I've also since found it's not as craveable as it once was.

With three semiquincentennial offerings this summer, each priced at around $3.39 in my market, though they're as low as $2.50 in others, I hoped the chain would make a comeback in my mind. I left disappointed, as it was the least favorite of my four stops.

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert

Two of the three doughnuts tasted exactly the same — plain rings with vanilla icing. One merely had sprinkles while the other had no additional toppings.

The third had a cookies-and-cream filling that I found cloyingly sweet, with no discernible cookie flavor to set it apart from the others.

All three, as part of their USA-themed decorations, featured highly concentrated food dye that stained my fingers and the corners of my mouth.

Don't get me wrong, they were doughnuts, and by no means unpleasant, but unfortunately, Krispy Kreme's patriotic treats looked more festive than they tasted.

Burger King's cinnamon apple pie and firecracker cookie pie

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert

Burger King's July 4th dessert menu includes its firecracker cookie pie as well as the "cinnamon apple pie," a direct competitor to its longtime fast-food rival, McDonald's apple pie.

The cookie pie was explicitly rolled out for America's 250th celebration and featured more festive packaging and decorations, while the cinnamon apple pie debuted earlier this year and will remain available while supplies last.

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert

I thought the firecracker cookie pie, with a sugar-cookie crust, vanilla mousse filling, and a whipped cream topping, was a bit one-note and overly sweet, though the mousse had a pleasant texture.

Although it wasn't to my taste, served cold, it felt like a refreshing, creamy dessert to be enjoyed on a hot summer day.

With a price tag between $2.99 and $3.59, depending on your location, it was slightly pricier than the apple pie, but I found the cookie crumbs and sprinkles on top were an added patriotic bonus that helped it stand out from the other desserts on the list without being too try-hard.

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert

Burger King has offered handheld apple pie before — notably, it discontinued its Dutch Apple Pie in the summer of 2020 after its manufacturer stopped producing it.

However, McDonald's vastly outperforms Burger King in both total revenue and average store sales, and the pie seemed a perfect example of the competition: Burger King's version, while tasty, felt like it was trying to replicate the McDonald's classic rather than carve out its own lane.

Although the taste was very similar to McDonald's pie, the dough in Burger King's apple pie was denser, less flaky, and a little less flavorful; it also had larger bites of apple but a similar cinnamon taste in the filling. Priced at $2.13, with a range between $1.99 and $2.69 depending on location, Burger King's version was less expensive, but it didn't feel like a better value.

Wienerschnitzel's funnel cake

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert

My most surprising stop was at Wienerschnitzel — a brand that has been around since the 1960s, boasting a menu of "Mmm-Merican" food, but one I must admit I am not particularly familiar with.

Their new menu item for the nation's 250th birthday includes a limited-time summer menu of hot dogs, corn dogs, and, for the first time, funnel cakes topped with apple pie filling, strawberry, or Oreo cookies.

I opted for the apple — since what's more American than apple pie? — and found myself going back for bite after bite of the treat.

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert

The funnel cake itself was well-fried, with crispy edges and a fluffy center, and the topping was the classic mix of sweet and cinnamon that you'd expect. It came with a layer of whipped cream topping that melted into the cake since it had clearly come straight out of the fryer.

At $6.45 after tax, this dessert was the most expensive that I tried — and they can run as much as $8.00 depending on flavor and location — but it was also the biggest, and could easily be split between two people and still be satisfying. It was also one of my favorites, and made me want to try more of Wienerschnitzel's offerings.

McDonald's fried apple pie

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert

Last seen nationwide in 1992, McDonald's fried apple pies' return this season made headlines for good reason.

When the golden-arched giant switched to baking their apple pies, fans lost the blistered, crispy crust you can only get from deep frying. Reviving the fried version in time for the nation's birthday was a deliberate (and, in my opinion, wildly successful) nod to McDonald's — and America's — roots.

I say this as someone too young to have tasted the original and therefore not biased by OG nostalgia: this thing slaps.

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert

With the return of its fried apple pie, McDonald's once again proved why it remains at the top of the fast-food leaderboard. At $3.01, the pie was almost the least expensive treat I tried, but I would have happily paid a dollar more for how much I enjoyed it. If you're lucky, you can snag one in a lower-price market for as little as $1.99.

The crust is delightfully light and flaky, a step up from the baked version, while the filling delivers the iconic apple flavor you've come to know and love from the burger chain.

Served piping hot, it is a bit of a burn risk, but what's the 4th of July without a little fire?

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2 reasons there's a 'mom-cession' brewing in the US job market

Labor force participation has declined among women with the youngest child under 5.

Jessie Casson/Getty Images

• It's tough to be a job-seeking mom with young children, and some may choose to leave the workforce.
• Labor force participation has dropped for women with children under age 5.
• Return-to-office pushes and childcare issues are two major factors.

When Fatema Ali was laid off from her IBM project manager job in 2024, one of her biggest concerns was how she and her husband would support their three children, the youngest of whom was 8 months old.

She hoped to find another job quickly. But she's still looking for full-time work.

A few months earlier, her husband had left his job to pursue a startup idea that wasn't yet generating income.

"I didn't want that pressure to show on my face," said Ali, who's in her 30s and lives in Texas. "I don't want my children to feel like there is anything wrong."

The past few years have been especially challenging for job-seeking moms with young children. As hiring has remained low, return-to-office pushes and ongoing childcare challenges have made it harder for some mothers to find jobs and stay in the workforce.

Are you a mom that's been job searching or dropped out of the workforce? Reach out to these reporters to share at mhoff@businessinsider.com and jzinkula@businessinsider.com.

Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, described the situation as a "mom-cession," based on an analysis of job-market data by Matthew Nestler, a senior economist at KPMG. Nestler found that unemployment of college-educated women with at least one child under age 5 has increased, while their employment-to-population ratio dropped.

Nestler doesn't see the situation improving soon, as employers have been calling people back to the office, and childcare remains expensive or hard to get.

"It's really heartbreaking because we're in a moment of time, coming out of the pandemic, where women are experiencing record gains in the American labor force," Long said. "So it's particularly tough to watch moms of young kids unable to find opportunities at this moment, that this should be a boon for all American women."

The pressures on working moms

Nestler found labor force participation among college-educated women whose youngest child is under 5 has declined from December 2023 to May 2026. He said this group of women disproportionately benefited from increased pandemic-era flexible work arrangements, which were common in white-collar jobs. Meanwhile, participation has increased for women without children and for most groups of men.

Two big factors are making it harder for parents to stay in the workforce: Return-to-office mandates and the difficulty of finding affordable childcare. Casey Peeks, the senior director of Early Childhood Policy at the Center for American Progress, previously told Business Insider that almost half of young children in the US live somewhere without sufficient licensed childcare. "Childcare is too expensive, but it's also really hard to find," Peeks said.

A pandemic-era program in the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act helped childcare providers with wages, rent, and other costs. Nestler said the end of those funds in late 2023 led to a flattening of childcare employment.

"The dramatic expansion, especially of college-educated moms of young children's participation and employment coming out of the pandemic, overlapped directly with that recovery in the childcare sector," Nestler said.

For mothers balancing childcare responsibilities, return-to-office mandates have narrowed the pool of jobs that fit their needs. An analysis by staffing firm Robert Half found that just 4% of new job postings in the first quarter of 2026 were fully remote, compared with 19% that were hybrid and 77% that were fully on-site.

Moms with elementary-school-aged children are also having a difficult time. Prime-age women with at least a bachelor's degree whose youngest child is between 5 and 12 have seen labor force participation cool a little. "When the workday and calendar do not align with the school day and calendar, there's going to be more stress there," Nestler said. Meanwhile, the rate for college-educated women with a teenager as their youngest child has increased.

What can be done

Long said a loss of workplace flexibility has been brutal for moms and that there needs to be a middle-ground compromise between staff who want to work from home and CEOs who want workers back at office desks.

A Pew Research Center survey of US working parents in March found that 71% of those not self-employed said flexibility to work from home when needed would be very or extremely helpful to them, but only 23% said this flexibility is available to them.

Even with the benefit of remote work, parents still face challenges. About half of parents working from home most or all of the time told Pew it's difficult to balance work and family life, and said being employed makes it harder to be a good parent.

The survey also showed parents want access to childcare at work. "A majority (59%) of working parents with children 5 or younger — including 68% of working moms with a kid in this age group — say it would be extremely or very helpful to have onsite childcare at their workplace," Pew said. "But just 7% say this is available to them."

The US can also look to other countries' offerings. "The United States used to be a leader in women in the workforce, and we really fell behind for many years in the past decade, and countries like Japan and Canada surged ahead of us," Long said, adding that the solution was investing in subsidized childcare. For now, though, many US parents are left to navigate those challenges on their own.

Over time, Ali's husband returned to the workforce, easing the financial pressure on the family. As her children have gotten older, Ali said she's been able to devote more time to her career, splitting her efforts between her job search and a different startup opportunity she launched with her husband.

"Being unemployed hasn't felt like much of a break," she said. "When you're dealing with financial uncertainty, caring for children, looking for work, and trying to build something new, your mind is always racing."

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US pullback from NATO echoes the set-up of an unsettling German wargame

Boris Pistorius, the German minister of defense, said Germany will assume some responsibility for assets the US is withdrawing from Europe.

Bernd von Jutrczenka/picture alliance via Getty Images

• NATO leaders are expected to focus on how quickly European forces can shoulder more responsibility.
• The US has notified European allies that it will withdraw some forces, leaving capability gaps.
• A new podcast examines the challenges Germany would face in a war crisis without US support.

When NATO leaders meet in Ankara next week, they are expected to focus on a pressing question within the alliance: how, and how fast, Europe can shoulder the responsibility for its own defense as the United States reduces its military role on the continent.

"It is happening," Germany's defense minister Boris Pistorius said in June, "and Germany will assume responsibility." He added that an "orderly transition" was needed, "because nobody — including the Americans — should have any interest in seeing dangerous capability gaps arise as a result of a disorderly withdrawal that cannot be compensated for in a timely manner."

Those capability gaps are at the center of the debate. While European governments are increasing defense spending and expanding military capabilities, many acknowledge that the continent will need time before it can replace key US assets. The main concern is what happens if a major security crisis emerges before the transition is complete.

A public wargame simulating a Russian attack on Lithuania explored that question earlier this year, focusing on Berlin's response. As Europe's largest economy, NATO's logistical hub for reinforcing the alliance's eastern flank, and a country that has pledged to build the continent's strongest conventional army, Germany would be expected to play a central role in such a crisis.

Developed by the German media outlet WELT together with the German Wargaming Center at Helmut Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces, the wargame examined how Berlin would respond under pressure, whether it could assume a leadership role if American support proved uncertain, and which legal and political constraints would shape its choices.

By the end of the exercise, Russia had achieved its immediate military objective. Germany, meanwhile, remained focused on managing the crisis rather than altering its course, suggesting that its greatest challenge lay in the speed and nature of political decision-making.

WELT and the Helmut Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces examined a European security crisis where US support is uncertain in a scenario-based role-playing game earlier this year.

Tobias Grabow/Business Insider

One of the central variables in the wargame was the role of the United States. Set after a ceasefire in Ukraine, the scenario assumed a US administration determined to avoid being drawn into another war in Europe. Represented by former US diplomat and NATO official Jeff Rathke, Washington initially declined to discuss invoking NATO's collective defense clause after Russian troops entered Lithuania.

Since then, the question of how quickly — and to what extent — the United States would become involved in a future European crisis has become more pressing. Washington is reviewing its military posture in Europe, plans to withdraw capabilities from NATO's force model, and recently ended the rotational deployment of more than 1,000 US troops in Lithuania without an immediate replacement. US President Donald Trump said in April he was weighing whether to pull out of NATO, disgruntled with alliance members resisting his calls to join offensive operations in the war on Iran.

"All of that has added to fractures within the alliance," said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, who played the Russian president in the wargame. Since the outcome of the simulation was first published, he said, uncertainty surrounding the future US role in European security has become "much more pronounced."

The wargame drew international attention when its results were first published in German earlier this year. Among those responding publicly was NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who said the alliance was "well prepared" to respond to any attack against its members. This week, WELT is releasing an English-language version of the five-part podcast titled "Ernstfall" based on the wargame.

Carolina Drüten, the International Security Correspondent at WELT, is the host of the award-winning podcast "Ernstfall: What if Russia attacks NATO? Inside a German Wargame." An English version is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network harnesses the resources of the company's newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, Onet and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms: online, print, TV and audio.

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An AI data center suing for Colorado River water highlights a bigger question: Who should get the West's water?

Drought has long been a challenge in California's Imperial Valley.

Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

• A data center developer in California is suing for access to Colorado River water.
• The developer wants to use water allocated to farmland and use it for cooling instead.
• Water experts and local advocates say it raises bigger questions about how water should be used.

The developer behind what would be California's largest AI data center is suing for access to Colorado River water, the threatened source of freshwater for 40 million people and the subject of countless disputes over water use in the West.

The lawsuit, filed this month by Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing, says the company needs access to 287 million gallons of water for the 330-megawatt data center. If the proposed project in Southern California's Imperial Valley is built, it would be the largest AI data center in the state.

The lawsuit was filed after the Imperial Irrigation District, a local agency that delivers Colorado River water in the Imperial Valley, denied the company's request for water for the project. It also comes as communities across the US push back against data centers. The Colorado River is the only source of freshwater in the Imperial Valley, which has long faced drought and water supply issues.

The developer, Sebastian Rucci, said the project would not add to demand on the river overall because the company would fallow, or stop irrigating, nearby farmland and use that water to cool the data center instead.

Rucci told Business Insider the proposal would have "zero impact" because the data center would not require any additional allocation from the Colorado River, adding that its water demand would be similar to that of a 160-acre farm.

Water experts and local advocates say the case raises a bigger question than how much water a single data center should use: As water becomes scarcer and new industries increase demand, should water historically used for farming be redirected to power the AI boom?

Moving water from farming to data centers

Imperial Valley's identity has been tied to farming, with cattle, alfalfa, lettuce, and spinach among its top commodities. John Fleck, a writer and water policy expert at the University of New Mexico, told Business Insider that "taking land out of agricultural production to use for other things is a values question, even if it's a small amount."

The Colorado River is the source of freshwater for 40 million people.

Thomas O'Neill/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Michael Cohen, a senior fellow at the Pacific Institute focusing on Colorado River Basin water use, said the issue is not necessarily the amount of water, but rather the developer's plan to access farmland, dry it up, and reallocate it for industrial use.

"There's a lot of resistance in any agricultural community to 'buy and dry' because that's jobs," he said.

Rucci said his company has a contract to purchase the land and water assignments from farmers. He also said he pursued this strategy after his proposals to use reclaimed water were rejected.

While individual landowners may profit from the practice, taking farmland out of production can have cascading effects in agricultural communities, including fewer farm-related jobs.

Imperial Valley's economy has long relied on Colorado River agriculture. If it weren't for that part of the country around Imperial and Yuma, Arizona, "no one in America could afford a salad in February," Rhett Larson, a water-law expert at Arizona State University, said.

Larson said that while farmers may make money selling land or water rights, the people who are often hurt are the fertilizer salesmen, tractor repairmen, teachers, dry cleaners, or anyone in these rural communities who doesn't have land or water rights to sell.

Rucci said the data center would bring major economic benefits to Imperial County, including 1,688 construction jobs, over a hundred permanent jobs, and an estimated $2.95 billion in economic improvement over 30 years, citing an independent economic study prepared for the county.

"Economic diversification is exactly what the area needs," Rucci said in an emailed statement, pointing to Imperial County's high unemployment. The county's unemployment rate was about 17% as of May, according to state data.

California's Imperial Valley is a major agricultural hub.

Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Who makes decisions about water?

Eric Reyes, an Imperial Valley resident and the executive director at the advocacy organization Los Amigos de la Comunidad, said he's concerned the lawsuit is an attempt to circumvent the Imperial Irrigation District (IDD), a publicly owned utility governed by an elected board. Water rights in the area have long been held in trust by the IID, rather than individual landowners.

Reyes said the developer's plan "raised a huge red flag" because it could involve a "private deal with a landowner and then use it for his own purpose." He sees it as an attempt to circumvent the IID and give landowners more power over water, some of whom, he says, want to "farm water instead of farmland" — or sell water intended for farming — because it can be more lucrative.

Rucci rejected the idea that the company is trying to circumvent IID's control and said farmers have the right under state law to assign water, and that the proposals would not require "a single additional drop" from the Colorado River.

Larson said the case shows why water fights in the West are rarely only about conservation.

"Everybody will say, 'Well, we need to conserve water,' but they'll often stop at that point," he said. "We need to ask another question, which is, 'conserve it for what?'"

Moving water from farms to data centers could be a choice some communities make, Larson said, but there will be tradeoffs.

"The Colorado River basin has to decide what we want to be when we grow up and what it will take to get there," he said. "We have enough water to do a lot of great things. But we don't have enough water to do every good thing."

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2 jobs with career security and 2 that are riskier

Healthcare work is more secure, as it's less affected by changes to the job market.

Reza Estakhrian/Getty Images

• Healthcare workers and job seekers are in a more stable position than tech workers.
• As one economist said, there will always be a need for nurses and doctors.
• Employers might not want to hire more data scientists and other tech workers if there's economic uncertainty.

The job market is looking brighter, but some places are a better bet if you're looking for stability than others.

It's especially tough if you're looking for work in the tech- and media-heavy information sector. Major tech companies have laid off workers due to AI and automation.

Have you made a career pivot or been job searching? Share with this reporter what that experience has been like, at mhoff@businessinsider.com. If you made a career trade-off, fill out this form to share.

Other sectors offer better career security or are more resilient to economic cycles. That includes many healthcare roles. "It doesn't matter how the economy is doing. We will always need doctors. We always need nurses," Loujaina Abdelwahed, the head of economic research at Revelio Labs, said.

Below are some of the more and less secure kinds of work.

More secure: Healthcare

The healthcare sector has typically been adding jobs each month, making up about 20% of overall net job growth in May. Daniel Zhao, the chief economist at Glassdoor, said turnover can be pretty high in healthcare, but so is worker demand, making it easier to get a new job compared to in some other sectors.

Based on Bureau of Labor Statistics employment projections, several healthcare occupations are projected to increase a lot from 2024 to 2034. Home health and personal care aides and registered nurses are projected to experience robust demand to help care for the aging population. BLS projected large job growth in medical and health services managers, as more healthcare demand means more people are needed to oversee work.

New college graduates will likely have an easier time navigating the job market if they're on a more rigid path, like the requirements and schooling for doctors, nurses, or teachers.

"Graduates in education and healthcare, where there are licenses or pathways into a job, it's a lot easier right now," Cory Stahle, senior economist at Indeed, said. Meanwhile, computer science majors are more likely to be affected by job market fluctuations and can have a more flexible post-college path, which can lead to greater uncertainty.

Within healthcare, security can vary. Zhao pointed to the difference in nursing assistants and anesthesiologists, where the latter requires specific expertise, medical school, and completion of an internship and medical residency. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed there were over a million nursing assistants as of May 2025, compared to about 39,000 anesthesiologists.

"Generally speaking, having more education, more experience, more credentials helps you define a rarer set of skills and helps that thus create more job security," Zhao said.

More secure: Skilled trades

From electricians to plumbers, skilled trades are another more secure career option; Zhao said these jobs won't be replaced by AI and are geographically spread out.

"It's not nearly as concentrated as some white-collar sectors, with tech or finance that tend to be concentrated in the big cities," Zhao said. "So in that sense, there is more flexibility and more security in that."

Electricians are projected to be a fast-growing job, and they typically are paid well. Employment is projected to grow 9% from 2024 to 2034, and plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters are projected to grow 4%, just above the projected 3% for all occupations.

Skilled trades can also be an opportunity for being your own boss, said Ed Brady, president and CEO at Home Builders Institute. "Once you master that skill, once you perfect that skill, now you know what you're doing, you can hire people, you can build your own business and become an entrepreneur," he said.

Working in skilled trades can take time, including attending trade school and thousands of hours of on-the-job training to become an electrician, a career guide from Indeed showed.

"If you're working your way up in one of the skilled trades, those early years, you might feel very insecure or very unstable," Zhao said. "And in fact, there's even a higher cost of switching at that point because you've sunk that time and effort into going down that path."

Less secure: Leisure and hospitality

Despite the flashy headlines of white-collar layoffs, lower-paying service work in sectors like leisure and hospitality has historically been much less stable.

"It tends to be blue-collar workers who face the most instability and insecurity," Zhao said. "If you think about hospitality, for example, which would include restaurants, hotels, and workers at those sorts of firms, those tend to be some of the places where you see the highest amount of uncertainty and insecurity."

The leisure and hospitality sector tends to have a high quits rate, and the arts, entertainment, and recreation subsector tends to have a high rate of layoffs and discharges.

Less secure: Tech

Abdelwahed said data scientists and software engineers are among the "nice to have" jobs for many businesses, where adding new hires might not be essential for them if there's economic uncertainty going on.

Employment in the computer systems design and related services sector has generally been falling, down 1.5% from a year ago as of May. Employment in computing infrastructure providers, data processing, web hosting, and related services was down 3%.

"Many computer science and computer engineering graduates are still holding out for the tech job market to turn around, and they have a degree that, in theory, should be valuable once this downturn in the tech market ends," Zhao said.

Zhao said people in tech can branch out to employers in industries that are looking more stable and that need workers with technical skills. Still, job seekers may prefer being in tech. Zhao said maybe someone wants to join a startup, hoping it becomes the next unicorn and offers high compensation.

"For some workers, they might have more appetite for risk in their careers and be willing to really try to make it work in the tech sector, knowing that there is this higher risk if the economy slows down," Zhao said.

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The hottest new real estate marketing tactic: accepting IPO stock

Some luxury home sellers — including the Miami and Tribeca properties above — have started saying they'll accept tech stocks in place of traditional financing.

Maria Corina Martinez; Francisco Rosario | DD-Reps

• In a slow market, luxury home sellers have started saying they'll accept tech stocks as payment.
• Advertising stock options in listings allows real estate marketers to subtly target wealthy buyers.
• Although the strategy is making headlines, it's not clear if it has translated into completed sales.

Luxury-home sellers are finding a new way to stand out in a sluggish market: telling buyers they'll accept startup stock.

Listings from Brooklyn to the Bay Area have begun advertising that sellers are willing to consider accepting shares in companies such as Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX in exchange for multimillion-dollar properties.

While few expect many homes to ultimately trade hands this way, some real estate marketers say the strategy can be an effective way to capture the attention of newly wealthy tech workers and investors sitting on hard-to-access private-company equity.

Andrew Rohm, founder of the luxury real estate marketing firm DMR Media, said the tactic works "100%" as a marketing strategy, adding that, while stock-for-home transactions aren't unheard of, they're uncommon.

Most buyers with significant stock holdings simply use those assets as collateral for loans rather than trading the shares outright, he said. However, as a marketing tool, IPO stock may be a different story.

Rohm said real estate marketers have long tried to position homes in front of buyers as they approach major liquidity events. In the AI boom, that means employees at companies like Anthropic and OpenAI who could eventually see windfalls from public offerings.

Housing advertisers face restrictions on targeting buyers by profession or demographics, Rohm said. By explicitly mentioning pre-IPO stock in listing descriptions and advertisements, sellers can create marketing that resonates with a specific audience without running afoul of the rules.

"You just have to call someone out through the advertising," Rohm said, adding that modern algorithms tend to identify and amplify those messages to prospective buyers.

The trend is emerging as luxury homes are taking longer to sell. High home prices and elevated mortgage rates have sidelined many buyers, while homeowners with low-rate mortgages have been reluctant to sell. For luxury properties, which already appeal to a limited audience because the pool of potential buyers is relatively small, standing out has become increasingly important.

"Houses are sitting on the market extremely long right now," Rohm said.

By explicitly mentioning stock deals in listing advertisements, luxury sellers can market toward a specific audience without running afoul of restrictions on targeting buyers based on profession.

Barak Blackburn Team

The investment appeal of a tech stock deal

One example is a Tribeca apartment owned by Sebastian Sagar, a finance professional and investor. The property has been on the market for about a year and has taken a $1.5 million price cut after being originally listed at $7.8 million.

Sagar said the idea came to him after he learned Anthropic had leased office space a few blocks from his apartment.

He said he had been reviewing his portfolio and realized he wanted less exposure to real estate and more to AI. At the same time, he imagined Anthropic employees sitting on valuable private-company equity that they couldn't easily sell or borrow against.

Sagar described the arrangement as a potential "win-win" that would allow him to gain early access to a company he believes has significant long-term upside while helping a buyer acquire a home near work.

In Miami, Luis Noguera said his family is open to accepting shares in Anthropic, OpenAI, or SpaceX for a $2.6 million home owned by his father.

Noguera, who previously worked in tech, said his family recently established a family office and views AI companies as potentially attractive long-term investments.

Luxury properties typically sit on the market for six months or more. In the current market, some homes — like the Tribeca apartment above — haven't sold in more than a year, despite aggressive price cuts.

Francisco Rosario | DD-Reps

The house, which was previously a rental, doesn't really play a strategic long-term role for the family, Noguera said. Owning stock in one of the companies instead, he said, feels like a better investment.

In Brooklyn, the owner of a townhouse at 3 Wythe Lane told Business Insider that mentioning Anthropic shares in the listing was less about a specific company than a broader acknowledgment of where wealth is being created.

"Every generation has its wealth-creation vehicle," the anonymous seller said in an emailed statement, sent through their listing agent. "For many people today, that's private technology companies and digital assets."

The seller said the reference to Anthropic was intended to signal openness to "creative transaction structures" and to appeal to buyers who may be approaching a major liquidity event.

Some of the sellers experimenting with the idea acknowledge that any eventual deal would likely involve a mix of cash and stock rather than an all-equity transaction.

Whether any homes ultimately trade hands for startup shares remains to be seen, but for sellers struggling to attract attention in a difficult luxury market, that may not be the point: The listings generate headlines, spark conversations, and put properties in front of a highly specific group of potential buyers.

In a market where multimillion-dollar homes can sit for months, simply getting noticed may be more valuable.

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A relationship banker and a risk manager: Meet the two candidates vying to succeed JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon

Doug Petno and Troy Rohrbaugh are the two frontrunners in the race to succeed Jamie Dimon.

JPMorgan

• JPMorgan named Troy Rohrbaugh and Doug Petno co-presidents, making them the frontrunners in the CEO race.
• Though they co-led the investment bank, Rohrbaugh and Petno have distinct strengths.
• Here's a guide to the two top contenders, one a great risk manager, the other a client confidant.

And then there were two.

JPMorgan elevated Troy Rohrbaugh and Doug Petno to co-presidents on Thursday, the clearest sign yet that they are leading the race to replace CEO Jamie Dimon.

The announcement comes after more than a decade of speculation and a rotating cast of succession candidates. Even now, the field could keep shifting until the day Dimon steps down. While both are held in high esteem at JPMorgan, Petno and Rohrbaugh have distinct strengths — the former is known for his charm and client relationships, the latter for his trading chops and quieter risk management.

Petno and Rohrbaugh had jointly led the commercial and investment bank, which Petno will now lead on his own as Rohrbaugh becomes CEO of the firm's consumer and community banking unit. Marianne Lake, the current head of consumer and community banking who had been seen as a frontrunner in the CEO race, is retiring.

Though the announcement effectively narrows what had been a more crowded field to a two-person race, it doesn't seem that Dimon, 70, plans to step down anytime soon. Analysts from Bank of America said the announcement, especially Lake's retirement, suggests Dimon will stick around for several more years, and his timeline could impact whether Petno, 61, or Rohrbaugh, 56, lands his job.

"It's a question of timing more than anything," Mike Mayo, a Wells Fargo banking analyst, said. Mayo said that Rohrbaugh, with his relative youth, likely has a better shot at becoming CEO the longer Dimon stays in the position.

Their decadeslong careers at the bank

Petno has worked at JPMorgan for more than 35 years, though originally thought he would be a veterinarian, he told his alma mater, Wabash College, in 2019. He started at the firm as an investment banker and eventually became head of the natural resources group.

He became the CEO of commercial banking in 2012, and under his leadership, revenue more than doubled. In 2024, he became the co-head of global banking, before becoming co-head of the investment bank in 2025, the role he shared with Rohrbaugh.

Through his three decades at the firm, Petno became known as one of Dimon's close associates, with a finger on the pulse of top customers. Dimon described him as "a great client guy and a culture carrier" in an interview with Bloomberg at the beginning of last year, adding that he has a good sense of humor. The CEO has trusted him with big projects over the years, tapping him to help combine the corporate and investment banks and build up the firm's startup banking capabilities.

"I learned to observe the people and types of behavior I admire and embrace it, building it into my own style," Petno told Wabash in 2019 about his rise. "People took chances on me, including Jamie."

Rohrbaugh has been less of a public- and client-facing figure. A veteran trader who started at JPMorgan in 2005, he's built a reputation as someone who knows how to navigate risk — he said in an interview with Bloomberg last year that, being a trader by background, "I worry about everything." That skill could make him an attractive CEO candidate, an industry recruiter previously told Business Insider.

The 56-year-old studied political science and played football at Johns Hopkins, and started his finance career trading options at the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. He then worked at Banque Nationale and Goldman Sachs before joining JPMorgan's foreign-exchange business. Rohrbaugh helped stabilize and mature the business while pushing to modernize its technology capabilities. He's also served as head of global markets, and his experience at JPMorgan has spanned Asia, London, and New York.

Rohrbaugh was vaulted more publicly into the succession race when he became co-head of the commercial and investment bank in 2024.

In a video to Johns Hopkins' football team in 2023, Rohrbaugh, dressed in blue jeans, advised staying "calm under pressure" — potentially useful words of advice given his current circumstances.

Proving they're up for the job

Now that Rohrbaugh and Petno are locked into their roles as co-presidents — they each received a one-time $30 million retention bonus, according to an SEC filing — they'll need to prove they're up for the CEO job that's been synonymous with Dimon's name for decades.

Petno, as the sole head of the corporate and investment bank, has the chance to maintain his strong client relationships and impact on firm culture, Chris McGratty, an analyst at KBW, said in an email. On top of that, the veteran investment banker will need to demonstrate his handle on the markets business. He's also one of the people spearheading the Security & Resiliency Initiative, a $1.5 trillion effort that's a huge focus for Dimon.

Rohrbaugh, on the other hand, is now overseeing an entirely new group of people and line of business on Main Street rather than Wall Street, giving him wider insight into the sprawl that is JPMorgan. In his new position, he's overseeing more than 5,000 branches across the country. The new role could also address his more limited experience in high-profile leadership roles, which Mayo, the Wells Fargo analyst, described as a potential "shortfall."

With Dimon seemingly entrenched as CEO for at least a couple more years, the two men, former football and soccer players, have just started what might be the most public game of their lives. It seems all of Wall Street is filling the stands.

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