Los Tacos No. 1 serves 1,200 NYC customers a day. Its CEO is betting private equity can help it scale.

Christian Pineda, CEO and cofounder of Los Tacos No. 1, serves a taco at the chain's Chelsea Market location.

Dolly Faibyshev for BI

• Los Tacos No. 1 came under fire on social media after receiving a private equity investment.
• Some fans feared the beloved New York City Tijuana-style taco chain would lose its iconic flavor.
• The chain's CEO told Business Insider they will scale cautiously, preserving quality and low prices.

Christian Pineda, CEO and cofounder of Los Tacos No. 1, couldn't fall asleep.

He was caught in a scroll of enraged social media posts. The storm of customer indignation followed news last month that the beloved New York City taco chain had received an investment from the private equity firm TSG Consumer. The internet seemed convinced their favorite carne asada and adobada tacos would lose their quality, and Pineda had not expected the reaction.

To remedy the situation, he said he felt it was his duty to address his customers directly. He woke up at 4:30 the next morning to clear the air.

"No, we're not going to start charging extra for guac. We're not switching to horse meat. And no, we're definitely not messing with the tacos," read the Instagram post published September 4.

"I wanted to keep it simple, honest, and comical too at the same time," Pineda told Business Insider. "I saw it as inspiring, honestly, to really prove our customers wrong — that private equity is not always bad."

Christian Pineda, CEO and cofounder, and Jacobo Ackerman, chief operating partner, run the taco chain's day-to-day operations.

Dolly Faibyshev for BI

Colin Welch, managing director and head of New York at TSG Consumer, said the backlash among some underscored what TSG saw in the taco business to begin with: a "cultlike following" customer base protective of the food, and an experience that made Los Tacos a "New York institution."

"It's our responsibility to show those skeptics that it's going to be exactly the same Los Tacos experience, and that nothing's going to change for the worse," Welch said. "We got to show them, not tell them, and that'll happen over time."

The PE firm, founded in 1986 and with $14 billion in assets under management, also has investments in food names Pura Vida Miami, Crumbl, and Dutch Bros Coffee. TSG declined to disclose the terms of the deal or the amount it paid for its investment in or stake in Los Tacos No. 1, which opened in 2013.

Welch said the firm plans to let Pineda and his team run the show, while TSG will provide guidance on future expansion. He pointed to Pura Vida Miami, a lifestyle café chain founded in Miami. It grew from locations in two states to seven since TSG announced its minority stake in 2025.

Los Mariscos is Los Tacos No. 1's sister restaurant, specializing in fish tacos and other seafood dishes.

Dolly Faibyshev for BI

Pineda said the chain focused on finding an investor that would allow Los Tacos No. 1 to scale in a "cautiously smart" way. With 10 locations in Manhattan and a sister location, Los Mariscos, at Chelsea Market, the taco chain wants to continue expanding into other boroughs and markets. It's looking to open a new location in Brooklyn before the end of the year, and another three new locations are planned to open in 2027.

The PE investment comes after 13 years of growth in New York City — a journey that began with three architects and the search for a good taco.

Selling an experience

Pineda and his co-founders, Tyler Sanders and Kyle Cameron, moved from California to New York City in 2010. They lived together in a one-bedroom apartment in the West Village, where Pineda and Sanders, both architects, spent days knocking on doors to find jobs. They found jobs, but there was one thing they could not find wherever they looked — a good taco.

The three men had been raised on Tijuana-style tacos. Pineda was born in San Diego but was raised between there and Tijuana, where his parents are from. Meanwhile, Sanders and Cameron were born in Brawley, California, a city near the border with Mexicali.

"No ticket, No taco" is the order model at all Los Tacos No. 1 locations.

Dolly Faibyshev for BI

Thus, the "No ticket, No taco" order model was born. Customers get a ticket from the cashier, and then have to find and give it to one of the many "taqueros," or cooks, working at once. They can then give the taquero specific instructions for their tacos and watch them prepare the food in front of them. The interactive experience is designed to induce an organized chaos, brought to life by Mexican folk music in the background as the staff speaks in Spanish among themselves.

Growing and scaling a business in NYC

It's no secret that the Big Apple is expensive, and as the cost of living increases, so do expenses for businesses like Los Tacos No. 1.

Since they opened, annual revenue has grown by around 30% each year, and they currently serve about 1,200 customers per day, with an average check of about $20, Pineda said.

In recent months, the expenses that have increased the most are beef, limes, avocados, and tomatoes, Pineda said. Beef prices were 5.9% higher in August 2026 than in August 2025, and they are forecast to increase a total of 9.4% this year, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

"Psychologically, people think tacos are cheap or should be cheap — and they should — but with the prices of New York City and the quality that we're doing, it's tough," Christian Pineda said.

Dolly Faibyshev for BI

To adjust to these increases, the chain keeps other expenses "tight, lean and sustainable," and will not raise prices or cut quality because of a temporary spike, Pineda said. To keep up, the business has to "be efficient in everything else," Pineda said.

"Our idea was always you need to have the best taco and the cheapest taco," Pineda said. "Our carne asada started at $3.50 in 2013. Now our carne asada tacos are $5.95 after 13 years, so we take pride in that."

Pineda sees the new partnership with TSG Consumer as an opportunity to grow the company while preserving its quality, and maybe going public one day, debuting by ringing the opening bell on a stock exchange.

"We want to be in a room where we're with people who have done 100, 200, 1,000 locations. We haven't done that," he said. "We partner up with them because of their knowledge and the people that they've worked with, the brands that they've helped with — a big goal has been if we can ring the bell — that'd be amazing."

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I model my day off pro athletes. Here's what that means for my schedule, my team's, and my approach to 996 culture.

Jagda told Business Insider '996 culture' misses the point.

Courtesy of Proximity Works

• Hardik Jagda wants to function like an Olympian, and waking up at 3 a.m. helps him do that.
• He commits long hours to his AI-based company, but says he doesn't enforce 996 hours on his team.
• For Jagda, 996 misses the point. Here's how he structures his day instead.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Hardik Jagda, 35, the CEO of Proximity Works, who lives in San Francisco. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2017, I wanted to build my own company, but I couldn't jump into it full-time because of my financial obligations at home.

Instead, I'd spend the mornings and evenings outside my full-time job working on my side projects. That time was foundational for building my company, Proxmity Works, which I launched in 2019. My aim was to help broadcasters scale their live sports streaming platforms worldwide. In 2020, we started building AI infrastructure for live sports.

Those years made me aware of how my body clock works. I read a lot of autobiographies from entrepreneurs and athletes to understand what allowed them to build what they achieved. I noticed athletes would talk about starting their day early to train and work, in time for rest and recovery throughout the day. I started modeling my days after this, waking up early so I could have four to five hours to build my company before work started. I still stick to this lifestyle now that I'm a full-time founder and CEO.

I want to structure my day to function like an Olympian

In the early stages of Proximity, I performed pretty much every role in the company. Today, I have a team of roughly 45 people, five in the US and the rest spread out globally. My cofounder is based in India.

After 7 a.m., my time isn't mine anymore because I have requests coming in from employees in different time zones.

I like to start the day early, so I'm protecting the first three hours as time for myself. I usually wake up between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. Between 3 and 6 a.m., I don't touch my emails or look at messages.

I use these early hours to focus on strategic decisions. There was one point, roughly two years ago, when we had to interview a lot of engineers quickly for a new project. I sat down with my talent acquisition team and found a way to redesign our recruitment workflow to take place within 72 hours. That wouldn't have been possible if I didn't give myself the three-hour morning block.

Jagda tries to protect the first 3 hours of his day.

Courtesy of Hardik Jagda.

In the mornings, I work out and write my goals down. These are usually measurable and trackable goals for my company, as well as goals for myself and my fitness.

Most of my team calls don't start before 7:30 or 8 a.m. I usually take my first couple of meetings at home before driving to the office. During the day, I try to minimize Zoom calls and take meetings as audio calls so I can move around during them. I try to wrap up my meetings by 2:30 p.m., work out at 3 p.m., and then focus on more creative tasks, like speech-writing, after that. I spend my evenings with loved ones before going to bed around 9 p.m. and trying to get seven hours of sleep.

It's not like I start my day at 4 a.m. and just work through the next 12 hours. I build in slots for "recovery" throughout the day. On my calendar, I put in 15-minute slots before important meetings, where I remind myself of my goal for the call.

For the most part, I work six days a week, spending my Saturdays focusing on a key skill I want to develop, like public speaking.

'996' misses the point. I don't run my team with this schedule in mind.

For the most part, I work six days a week.

I work more than 40 hours a week, but I don't keep track of the time. I listen to my body.

We don't keep track of how many hours the team works. It's more about a culture of ownership, where people really care about the problem they're working on.

Even though I've become a morning person, we're fine with engineers who are more productive at night, as long as they maintain a five-to-six-hour overlap with the other engineers.

"996 culture," working six days a week from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., has gained traction in Silicon Valley. I think it misses the point. It's more about volume than it is about structure. You want to structure your day towards putting in your best work by thinking about when you'll spend time training, recovering, and learning new skills. I'd rather focus on the right structures than on volume.

Do you have a story to share about working in a 996 culture? Contact this reporter at ccheong@businessinsider.com

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If you've gotten a raise in the past two years, it's now been nearly all eaten away by inflation

Getting a job is the important part, as these job seekers might attest. But getting a raise is also a big deal: For many workers, the raises they've gotten over the past couple of years have now been wiped out by inflation.

Allison Joyce/Bloomberg via Getty Images

• Have you gotten a raise over the past couple of years? Inflation has likely eaten it away.
• Inflation-adjusted hourly earnings, which had risen after Donald Trump first took office, are now declining.
• And there are ominous signs that inflation could get worse.

If you've gotten a raise over the last two years, almost all of those gains have now been eaten by inflation.

That is, if you're the average wage-earner, considering the latest statistics released this week showing that prices were rising at a faster clip than expected.

It's more evidence that affordability challenges in the US economy aren't going away. It also means that average hourly pay, which had risen after Donald Trump took office in January 2025, is now right back to where it started, when taking inflation into account.

The average hourly wage was $35.84 in January 2025, according to federal statistics, or $37.79 in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation. The average hourly wage last month was $37.81 — basically unchanged over the past 20 months.

Wednesday's consumer price index inflation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics came in hotter than expected, with prices up 3.7% over the year in September. Economists had expected a 3.6% increase, and the rate was well above August's 3.4%.

"We read the September CPI report as another piece of evidence that the US is facing a persistent inflation problem," economists at BNP Paribas said in a note to clients.

That problem means high prices — including gasoline that was up 9.1% in September compared to the previous month — are gobbling up pay increases you might get at work.

Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, underlined that consumer price growth since 2025 has eroded nearly all wage gains, citing the impact of the war in Iran, which began at the end of February, on Americans' wallets.

"This is a very different picture from President Trump's first term when wages were up over 15%, well above about 8% inflation," Long said. "It helps explain the frustration many households feel right now with the economy."

Higher prices are adding to a general sense of malaise about the economy. The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index dipped to 46.3 in October, down from 71.7 in January 2025.

Joanne Hsu, the director of the survey, said higher gas prices driven by the Middle East conflict have added to the ongoing cost-of-living pressures over the past several years.

Higher prices and inflation outpacing wage growth can be especially tough for Americans who are on tight budgets or living paycheck to paycheck. "When we look at the majority of the US workforce, people who are middle- and lower-income households, higher costs in things like gas and groceries take up a larger share of their income," said ZipRecruiter economist Nicole Bachaud.

Have you made any changes to your budget or savings? Has your paycheck kept up with rising prices? We want to hear about how people are doing in today's economy. Reach out to this reporter to share at mhoff@businessinsider.com.

It's important to note, there is more than one way to read the wage numbers as they relate to inflation — and in some ways, workers have actually come out ahead.

For example, average weekly earnings have grown faster over the last year than average hourly earnings, as the number of hours the typical worker works has edged up.

The Trump administration, when asked for comment, highlighted annual earnings. "Under President Trump, private sector workers have seen their wages continue to outpace inflation, with average annual earnings growing by more than $600," said White House spokesperson Matthew Middleton.

Inflation will play a role in the midterms

The midterm elections are in just a few weeks, and affordability will likely be a key concern.

An Economic Innovation Group and Echelon Insights survey in September asked people what elected officials should prioritize most to make life better for workers. The survey said that 45% of American workers wanted officials to prioritize reducing the cost of everyday essentials, and 23% wanted them to focus on making housing more affordable.

Long, at Navy Federal, said the "modest increase" in grocery prices is a silver lining in the latest consumer price index report. Food at home, which includes groceries, rose at a slower pace than April's 2.9%, with prices increasing 1.8% year over year in September.

"But it's inevitable food prices will likely rise in the months ahead as higher diesel and transport costs are passed along to consumers," Long said.

There are other ominous signs that inflation could worsen. Thursday's producer price index report showed that final demand prices rose 1.3% in September, the highest since 2022.

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Young New Yorkers are facing a tough job market — and a college degree may not make a difference

Workers walking in New York City.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

• Unemployment rates for NYC graduates and non-graduates are converging.
• 22- to 27-year-old New Yorkers face similar unemployment rates whether or not they have a degree.
• Fewer Americans see college as vital, partly due to rising costs, per a recent Gallup poll.

It's been a cornerstone of the job market for decades: Higher education is the surest path to steady employment. But in the Big Apple, there are signs that may no longer be the case.

The unemployment gap between young New Yorkers with college degrees and their peers without degrees has dramatically narrowed; for a few months this year, the latter actually had slightly lower unemployment than the former — a potential sign that entry-level white-collar roles are succumbing to AI creep.

Business Insider analyzed the 12-month moving average of the unemployment rate for 22- to 27-year-olds with and without college degrees in the NYC metro area, using data from the Current Population Survey, accessed via IPUMS.

In June, the unemployment rates for both young New Yorkers without a degree and those with a bachelor's degree or higher were at the same level of 7.7%. By September, non-degree candidates had returned to a higher rate of 8.1%, while those with a degree stood at 7.3%.

A May report from New York City Comptroller Mark Levine found that this was the "first time on record" young adults with a Bachelor's degree or higher experienced an unemployment rate slightly higher than that of those without a college degree.

This historic swap comes after an increase in the unemployment rate among recent graduates and a decrease in the unemployment rate among same-age adults without a degree, which has "historically been relatively high," according to the report.

The decline in New York's college degree premium comes in a broader low-hire, low-fire economy, where layoffs have remained low, and job openings have been fewer. That's especially true for industries hardest hit by AI, such as tech, where there's been a pullback in entry-level job openings.

"This is because technical skills—many supplanted by AI—have become less imperative, while soft skills and specialized company or industry-specific knowledge have become more so," said the report from the New York City Comptroller. That dynamic impacts young workers — who haven't had a chance to accumulate institutional knowledge — the most. On X, Levine highlighted the changing fortunes of the city's young workers as "one more possible sign that AI is already impacting employment in NYC."

That comes as more Americans question whether higher education is worth it, especially in the age of AI. A record low number of 31% of Americans consider college "very important," according to a Gallup poll released in October. The percentage of those who perceive going to college as "not too important" has increased by about the same level. The decrease was seen across demographic groups, including those who typically placed greater importance on college.

These shifts in perspective could be partially tied to the rising cost of college, according to the Gallup report. But, even if AI is making it harder to find a job, the college wage premium hasn't dissipated — it might just take younger workers longer to land those salaries.

Are you a young worker newly entering the labor market? Share your experience with a reporter at mros@businessinsider.com or jkaplan@businessinsider.com

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Ukraine says a sudden Starlink speed limit is disrupting drone missions

Ukraine is heavily reliant on Starlink for military operations.

Inna Varenytsia/REUTERS

• Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday that Kyiv's access to Starlink has been disrupted.
• Slower-than-normal speeds have affected military operations, the officials said.
• Ukraine is heavily reliant on Starlink, specifically for communications and drone missions.

Ukraine's access to Starlink internet service was suddenly disrupted, interfering with military operations, sources in the country's defense ministry and a top presidential advisor said on Wednesday.

Serhii Beskrestnov, a top advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a social media post that Elon Musk's SpaceX had implemented speed limits for Starlink terminals overnight. He did not provide evidence to support his claim.

Beskrestnov said the restriction throttles the operation of Starshield, the company's dedicated satellite network for military services, at speeds above 100 miles per hour. He said the Ukrainian military was not notified in advance.

Sources in Ukraine's defense ministry confirmed the disruption and told Business Insider it complicates military operations, including logistics and drone strikes. They said the cause is being investigated.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Critical in combat

Starlink has become critically important to Ukraine's military, which has adopted it as a battlefield comms system and also uses it in drone warfare. Drones equipped with Starlink dishes, which can be controlled remotely by pilots hundreds of miles away and adapted to new targets mid-mission, have become one of the country's most potent weapons in the battle against Russian forces.

Ukraine's use of Starlink has made it reliant on Musk and SpaceX, however. In 2023, the world's richest man said he refused a request from Ukraine's military to activate Starlink to assist a Ukrainian assault on Crimea, and Reuters reported last year that SpaceX jeopardized a 2022 Ukrainian counteroffensive by cutting Starlink access to frontline troops.

Starlink antennas are a common sight in Ukraine.

Yan Dobronosov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images

Recently, Musk has proven to be a more reliable ally. In February, SpaceX clamped down on Russian forces' use of Starlink terminals in Ukraine after Ukraine's then-defense minister made a personal appeal to the billionaire CEO, a move that allowed Ukrainian forces to wage a successful counteroffensive.

'It is clear this action is not coincidental'

Musk has not yet addressed reports of Starlink disruptions in Ukraine. On Saturday, he reignited his past criticisms of Zelenskyy with a post on X that the Ukrainian president had "gone too far" with his strikes on Russian refineries.

The disruption comes after a series of Russian ballistic missile attacks against Kyiv on Monday and Tuesday nights. Ukrainian officials said that in both cases, international partners did not provide an advance warning about their launch, breaking from standard practice.

Elon Musk receives the National Medal of Science from President Donald Trump.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

Asked by reporters before the attack on Tuesday if the US would cut intelligence with Ukraine over its strikes on Russian energy sites, President Donald Trump said Washington continued to share it.

Zelenskyy's advisor suggested that the Starlink disruption could be linked to tensions between the US and Ukraine.

"It is clear that this action is not coincidental and is related to the current political situation," Beskrestnov said on Telegram, according to a translation of his statement.

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More babies, more workers, way more AI

Maxim Konankov; Agnès Bun; Thomas Trutschell; Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI

Work from home is dead: You've probably heard some version of this declaration from your boss over the past year. But the numbers show that WFH is actually very much here to stay. The prevalence of working from home has barely budged over the last two years, at around 26% of all American work days.

That's a lot less than the 62% we saw in the early months of the pandemic — but a near quadrupling since 2019, when that share was at a miniscule 7%. Had the pandemic never happened, it probably would have taken us 40 years to get to work from home as much as we do today.

We've reached a new normal for the corporate workplace — one where remote jobs have become a bigger minority, and it's also become totally normal for white-collar professionals to work from home at least a day or two a week.

That shift has brought about all kinds of other changes in American life — some profound, some life-saving, some strange and unexpected. Nobody's reflected on those changes more than Nick Bloom, an economist at Stanford who's the world's leading expert on remote work.

When I first spoke to him in early 2021, Bloom was right in the midst of helping rewrite corporate America's work policies, presenting his research to managers at companies including Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Apple. He warned that years of intense turmoil would follow as employees and employers fought over the new terms of where we work — and he couldn't have been more right. Now that the dust has largely settled, I caught up with him at his house on one of his WFH days to take stock of the most lasting impacts of America's work-from-home revolution.

1. Saved time

One of the biggest reasons why people love working from home is because it saves them time. The average commute in the US is about 40 minutes each way, and ahead of venturing out into the world, you need to spend a little extra time making yourself presentable to the world by showering and getting dressed. Rolling out of bed and opening your laptop? That takes 30 seconds. By Bloom's estimates, the typical American worker saves an hour and a half for every day they work from home. For those in WFH-friendly sectors like tech and finance, those time savings average about 3 hours a week.

What have people done with that extra time? They're getting more sleep and exercise, and they're cooking — and if they have kids, they're spending a lot more time on parenting. One study in the Netherlands found that when parents were allowed to work from home, their kids scored higher on an important standardized test that helps determine their high school track. "It's because you're home," Bloom says. "You know that your kid is up there doing their homework and you can smell it if they're smoking weed."

2. More workers

In 2020, 77% of Americans without a disability had a job, compared with only 32% for those with a disability. In a lot of cases, disabled people wanted to work but couldn't in an office-only world. Maybe they couldn't drive because they were blind, or they had knee and back issues that made navigating the stairs at the office too difficult.

The boom in remote and hybrid jobs in the pandemic changed that, increasing the ranks of disabled people with full-time roles by more than a quarter million people. Add to that all the women who, thanks to the flexibility of working from home, no longer had to quit working to juggle their childcare responsibilities.

That's been great for those workers, and great for the economy as a whole. "It's not impossible that hybrid increases labor participation rates by 1 to 2%, which probably increases GDP by about 1 to 2%," says Bloom. That would amount to an additional $300 billion to $600 billion in economic value. "This is huge."

3. More babies

From 2023 to 2025, people who worked from home at least one day a week had more babies compared to daily office-goers, Bloom and his cofounders found. They also planned to have more kids in the future. That's likely because of the increased flexibility of remote work that makes having more kids feel feasible — and also some basic biology. "My friend had this great line," Bloom tells me. "He said, 'My wife and I discovered she can't get pregnant by email.'"

Bloom estimates that working from home is associated with a roughly 5% increase in fertility in the US and Northern Europe — statistically significant, but not huge. Still, any increase is desperately needed in much of the developed world, which is fighting a declining birth rate. The fertility bump, Bloom notes, has been the most pronounced among women 30 and older, who have college degrees, and already have one kid.

4. Saved lives

In the early days of the lockdown, urban dwellers around the world got to enjoy better air quality. Did these improvements continue even once the workplace settled into a new hybrid world? Bloom and his coauthors looked at levels of nitrogen dioxide — which is linked to lung and heart conditions — across US cities to see.

In 2025, the largest city centers had 8% less nitrogen dioxide than in 2019. That translates to between 1,500 and 3,500 fewer deaths every year in the country.

5. Struggling cities

One clear loser of WFH has been city centers. Cities from San Francisco to Washington DC are struggling with budget shortfalls that they've attributed to a weaker commercial real estate market (in San Francisco, 29% of office space sat vacant in the second quarter, eight times higher than in 2019). In an even dire state are public transit systems in major cities. BART, which connects San Francisco to its neighboring areas, used to be able to cover about 70% of its operating costs with fares and parking. Now, it's 23%. Next month, Bay Area residents will vote on a ballot measure that would increase the sales tax to keep BART and other public transit systems afloat.

6. The AI takeover

First, it was work from home; now it's AI. Is it a coincidence that these two asteroids hurtled into white-collar work within the span of just a few years? Bloom argues that the two are related. The transition to remote and hybrid work, he says, made way for the rapid uptake of AI in the workplace.

For one, the switch to digital communication — Slack, email, Zoom — created an explosion of data for companies to train their AI models on. Before, these conversations were happening in person, disappearing into the ether as soon as they escaped our vocal cords. Now, so many of them are happening on some digital medium, recorded for posterity to fine-tune the machines.

Businesses can't get enough of this data. That's why Google recently purchased Spirit Airlines for $10 million in a recent bankruptcy auction. Google's goal wasn't to start its own airline, but to get access to Spirit's 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages, and 30 million lines of code.

Bloom argues that the shift to digital communication also created new norms for the AI era. Imagine your coworker pulling out their phone to record the audio of a meeting so they could send around their AI-transcribed notes to everyone afterwards. That would have been pretty weird, back in 2019. But that's totally normal now, thanks to the fact that we started using Zoom a lot more in the pandemic, and because Zoom has a record button. "It's just changed a lot of stuff that's made it more feasible to use AI," Bloom says.

Most white-collar workers like that they get to work from home more often than they used to. They see the remote work revolution as largely a positive one. But if it also accelerated AI's spread in the corporate workplace, that's more of a mixed bag. Would they go back to the daily slog into the office if it meant not having to worry about losing their job to Claude?

After all, Bloom notes, it's the fully remote back-office jobs that are probably the easiest to automate. The jobs that still require in-person charm, collaboration, and logistics are the ones the machines still can't touch.

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I'm the CEO of Midi Health. Walking all day and my daily Diet Coke keeps me sane.

Joanna Strober runs Midi Health, a virtual care platform for women in perimenopause and menopause.

Ian Tuttle for BI

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Joanna Strober, the 58-year-old cofounder and CEO of Midi Health, a virtual care platform dedicated to modernizing women's healthcare. She is based in Los Altos Hills, California. This story has been edited for length and clarity.

I'm the founder and CEO of Midi Health. We started the company to bridge the gap in healthcare by providing specialized, insurance-covered care for women in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s.

For many years, I didn't have time to take care of myself. Taking care of three kids and working was not easy. It was all-encompassing.

I had a big wake-up call when I was 44 years old and had a small fall and fractured my shoulder. I discovered that I had osteopenia, or low bone density, at a very young age. That was a good indicator that I needed to focus more on prevention and taking care of myself. Now I'm making up for the lost time.

Strober doesn't like to use trackers. Instead, she said she focuses on healthy behaviors.

Ian Tuttle for BI

I wake up at 6:30 a.m., and I walk

I wake up and have two Nespresso pods and two pieces of Levain bread from a bakery called Manresa Bread. It's a very dense multigrain loaf that fills you up. For the past 10 years, I've had this bread every single morning for breakfast, or as soon as the bakery opens.

Strober walks for an hour every morning.

Ian Tuttle for BI

Then I walk for about an hour. That is the most important part of my routine. I listen to podcasts about politics or AI. I like "Hard Fork," "The Daily," "The Ezra Klein Show," and "Call Me Back."

I'm in the office by 8:15 a.m.

The goal is to lift weights after my walk, but it doesn't always happen. I go to the office after, and then I have lots of Zoom calls and product meetings.

I try to schedule another 45-minute walk around lunchtime. I take a lot of phone calls and have been told I talk loudly when I walk. It's actually a joke in my neighborhood.

I allow myself one Diet Coke a day

I mostly drink chamomile tea in the afternoon, but I also let myself have one Diet Coke per day.

Keeping my bones strong is a big focus

I take Midi's Omega-3+, which also has vitamin D and K in it, and that's for my bones because I have osteopenia. I also take creatine and fiber. I either take the Midi fiber gummies or I just make sure I get enough fiber.

I also use hormone replacement therapy to help prevent bone deterioration.

Strober takes an Omega-3 supplement, as well as creatine and fiber.

Ian Tuttle for BI

I'm not neurotic about my meals

I have a salad or a sandwich for lunch, or sometimes I walk somewhere to get lunch.

For many years, my life was structured around getting my kids breakfast or dinner. Now they're no longer home, and it's actually very liberating. It means I can work much later and have fewer guardrails.

I usually get dinner between 6:30 and 7 p.m. Sometimes I'll pick up a random dinner on the way home or make pasta. Or, I'll eat ice cream for dinner.

I watch TV every evening and eat ice cream

I don't drink or do drugs. I love British detective TV shows. I find it very relaxing to watch TV and eat ice cream. I buy low-sugar blackberry jam from the farmers market and eat it with chocolate ice cream every night.

I'm asleep by 9:30 p.m.

Walking keeps me sane

Strober walks The Dish, which is a roughly three-and-a-half-mile uphill hike, at least twice every weekend.

Ian Tuttle for BI

In general, I've been trying different meditation apps. I can't say it's working, but I am trying.

Walking is my best route to sanity. I walk over 10,000 steps every day, but it's less about step count and more about making sure my body moves for multiple hours. My morning walk is in the hills, but when I walk flat, I try to wear a weighted vest.

Every weekend, I walk The Dish at least twice, and sometimes three or four times. It's our local hike in Palo Alto. It's about three-and-a-half miles, and it's uphill. I also schedule at least one or two walks a day with different friends for social activity.

On weekends, I also go to the farmers market and cook.

My 81-year-old mom makes me dinner every Friday

When I was younger and had children, my mom and I made a deal that she would cook dinner for my family every Friday night. Now the kids are gone, and she still cooks dinner for my husband and me every Friday.

It's the one night a week I know I'm going to get good food, and someone is going to take care of me. I feel really lucky.

I think a lot about prevention

Strober said she thinks a lot about prevention and that she prioritizes "sleeping enough, eating the right foods, and getting the right exercise."

Ian Tuttle for BI

I don't want to be crippled as an older lady. I've also watched what it's like to have someone with Alzheimer's in my family, and I'm scared of that. I think a lot about what I can do to stay healthy and prevent heart disease, Alzheimer's, and bone disease.

I don't track macros or anything like that, but I am very neurotic about my cancer screenings and the behaviors that are easy to do to make sure that I stay healthy as long as I can — like sleeping enough, eating the right foods, and getting the right exercise.

I think about what I can do to make sure I can eventually run after my grandkids.

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