America's biggest career hurdle: Being a daughter

Oil prices inch up as peace talks between the US and Iran fail to materialize

The Strait of Hormuz remains closed, keeping oil and energy costs high worldwide.

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

• Oil prices crept up on Sunday as the US-Iran conflict nears two months.
• Trump said Saturday he won't send a delegation to Pakistan for a new round of negotiations.
• The Strait of Hormuz remains closed, and the US Navy continues to blockade Iran's ports.

The price of oil inched upward on Sunday as a second round of peace talks between the US and Iran never materialized.

Brent crude oil futures and West Texas Intermediate rose around 2% in overnight trade, to $107.60 a barrel and $96.27, respectively, at 2:30 a.m. ET.

An end to the conflict, which has lasted nearly two months, remained uncertain this weekend. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Special Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner would travel to Islamabad for negotiations during a press briefing on Friday.

However, an X post by Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday said no meeting was scheduled between the US and Iran.

Then, on Saturday, an Iranian delegation left Pakistan, and President Donald Trump said he would cancel Witkoff's and Kushner's trip. In the end, no new round of talks was held.

"I just cancelled the trip of my representatives going to Islamabad, Pakistan, to meet with the Iranians. Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work!" Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Saturday.

He added: "Also, we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!"

Vice President JD Vance traveled to Pakistan on April 11 to negotiate with Iran, though those talks ultimately failed after 21 hours. On April 19, Trump said negotiations with Iran would resume that week, but hours later, Iran's official news agency said it would not participate.

Despite the failed talks, the US and Iran have so far held to a ceasefire. Trump said he extended the ceasefire in a Truth Social post on April 21.

As peace talks between the US and Iran remain elusive, the Strait of Hormuz — a waterway off Iran's coast through which a fifth of the globe's oil and liquefied natural gas passes — has remained closed. Iran initially closed the strait in late February following the US and Israel's attacks, but briefly reopened it in April as part of a ceasefire deal.

However, after the first round of failed peace talks in Islamabad, Trump announced the US would implement a naval blockade of Iran's ports. In response, Iran again closed the Strait of Hormuz.

The closure, compounded by damage to major oil hubs across the Middle East, has sent oil and jet fuel prices skyrocketing worldwide. The price of oil surpassed $100 for the first time in nearly four years in March, prompting some countries to adopt energy-saving measures to address rising costs. The Philippines, for example, implemented a four-day workweek for federal employees and began seeking out alternative sources of petroleum products.

In the US, the national average price for a gallon of gas climbed to $4 in late March.

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This startup wants to build an army of humanoid robot soldiers

Phantom, a humanoid robot built by Foundation, was sent to Ukraine for a pilot demonstration of a supply pickup scenario.

Courtesy Foundation

• Foundation is a startup building general-purpose humanoid robots.
• Two of Foundation's robots were sent to Ukraine for a demo of a supply transport scenario.
• CEO Sankaet Pathak said he sees humanoids becoming valuable for precision operations in warfare.

Humanoid robots rather than flesh-and-blood soldiers could one day take on some of the most dangerous jobs in war — and one startup is already testing that idea in Ukraine.

Sankaet Pathak, cofounder and CEO of Foundation, said there's a "moral imperative" to put humanoid robots on the front lines rather than in people's kitchens.

"I thought all of this stuff around home use was kind of stupid," Pathak told Business Insider. "I feel like people can make the coffee and fold their laundry. I was like, 'We need to do something else.'"

Advancements in drone technology and robotics are now central to the arsenal of modern warfare, enabling precision attacks at scale and at lower cost; however, that capability hasn't always translated into clean, risk-free operations.

In the age of smart weapons and AI-enabled, autonomous systems, modern warfare still carries a high risk of civilian casualties, especially in dense urban environments.

Foundation wants to deploy its robots for reconnaissance and supply logistics.

Foundation

Pathak said the current approach to war is often "brute force," either risking soldiers' lives or destroying a building to eliminate a single target.

He believes that in the future, humanoids could execute "surgical" operations, such as extracting a target. Near-term, they could support military operations such as reconnaissance and logistics.

Foundation said it recently conducted a test that could pave the way for those missions.

In February, the startup sent two of its Phantom robots to an undisclosed location in Ukraine for a closed pilot demonstration.

"You can hear bombs go off. You can hear electricity get cut. You're actively in a warzone," Pathak said of Foundation's visit to the country, which for years has been fighting off a Russian invasion. "Most of the places are a battlefield as soon as you start going out of Kyiv."

The CEO said the Phantom test solely focused on "supply pickup" to demonstrate that bipedal robots can effectively "carry supplies from outside to inside and avoid a soldier getting shot at."

There was "significant interest based on what has been communicated" to the company, Pathak said. A spokesperson for Foundation said the startup has also secured a $24 million contract with the Pentagon. Eric Trump, the president's son, was appointed chief strategy advisor in March.

Humanoid troops aren't ready for deployment

Pathak said he didn't want to "overstate" the Ukraine pilot. A large gap still exists between a humanoid that can slowly clean a test kitchen and one that can use an M4 carbine in a battlefield firefight.

Battery life and durability are among the constraints. Pathak said robot soldiers need longer battery life and must withstand water, dust, and shock.

Pathak said the test demonstrated that bipedal robots can be used for certain applications.

Courtesy Foundation

Reliable manipulation — the ability for a robot to pick up an item and do something with it, like pulling the trigger on a rifle — also remains a major technological bottleneck.

"Right now, the big engineering hurdle is how do you build a highly-dextrous hand that is reliable, easier to manufacture, isn't too massive, and isn't too expensive," Pathak said.

The CEO offered ambitious predictions for overcoming these challenges, saying that key engineering hurdles could be solved within a few years and that humanoid robots could carry out complex missions, such as target extraction, within five to 10 years.

Beyond the technical questions, ethical dilemmas surrounding autonomous weaponry, including concerns of accountability when humans are no longer in the loop, are also a consideration.

Pathak said that while there isn't a simple line that can be drawn around autonomy, in ordinary circumstances, "you probably want a human in the loop before any kind of kill action is invoked." Many Western militaries have made that a priority amid rapid technological advances in artificial intelligence and autonomous systems, though the extent remains an active debate.

"So if you actually need to shoot a gun, you need a human to really sign off, which is what happens with drones today as well," he said. "But then there are exceptions to those cases as well, like an anti-drone gun or the Iron Dome. Those, you cannot wait for human reaction times because the alternative is 100% certainty of fatality."

The defense industry at large pushes robotics and autonomous weapons as a matter of national security. Anduril cofounder Palmer Luckey has repeatedly said that the United States needs to be ahead of China on AI weapons. The top US admiral in the Pacific said this week that America's AI technology lead over China is only six months to a year at best.

Unlike many other companies, Foundation has been particularly outspoken on using humanoids on the battlefield.

"Courage comes in limited supply," Pathak said, while arguing that China is not having the same debate over military humanoids and that the US, Europe, and their allies need to be on alert. "If you build a utopia," he said, "you have to be able to defend it."

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Now we know who paid $100,000 to unlock a Sam Altman podcast interview

Both Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, OpenAI's CEO and president, sat down together for a rare interview. Someone paid $100,000 to release the podcast to the public.

Taylor Hill/FilmMagic

• A CEO spent $100,000 to make an interview with OpenAI executives free to the public.
• Sam Altman and Greg Brockman appeared on Ashlee Vance's podcast.
• The interview was behind a paywall, and Vance said he would unlock it for a fee.

He put his money where their mouths were.

A manufacturing entrepreneur paid $100,000 to unlock a paywalled interview with OpenAI's top executives.

The interview, featuring CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman, was initially published behind a paywall by journalist Ashlee Vance as part of his "Core Memory" podcast. After some listeners complained on X that it wasn't free, Vance said he would consider making it public if someone forked over about $100,000.

Jim Belosic, the CEO of Nevada-based laser manufacturing company SendCutSend, reached out.

"He saw the tweet that I put up and reached out," Vance told Business Insider. The "real, American cash" payment came together quickly, he said, describing the interaction as "the magic of Twitter or X."

Well, you guys all wanted to know who paid the $100k to unlock this pod.

Am very pleased to reveal it was @jimbelosic and @sendcutsend, who, in addition to unlocking this for everyone, have come on as new podcast sponsors as well. We plan to do some special things for you all.… https://t.co/FCaqBvvR5G

— Ashlee Vance (@ashleevance) April 24, 2026

Vance said the funding was not pre-arranged and that he would have been cautious about accepting money from companies closely tied to OpenAI or its competitors.

The money will help "run the business" behind the "Core Memory" podcast and YouTube channel. SendCutSend is now a sponsor, Vance said, and Belosic is scheduled as an upcoming guest.

In the interview, Altman criticized what he called "doomerism" around AI and accused rival Anthropic of using "fear-based marketing" to promote its new model, Claude Mythos. The conversation also touched on OpenAI's ongoing legal battle with Elon Musk.

OpenAI and Belosic did not respond to requests for comment.

Vance said one of his biggest takeaways from the interview was the dynamic between Altman and Brockman, whom he described as having gone through "extraordinary ups and downs" together. He also pointed to Brockman's role at the company, saying he appears to be increasingly involved in shaping OpenAI's strategy.

"They are two people who've been through these extraordinary ups and downs," he told Business Insider. "I think people are kind of underestimating how much Greg has really come back to set OpenAI's strategy."

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Office AI leaderboards are here. Tell us if you think they're fun or fraught

Dimitri Otis/Getty Images

• There's a new office rivalry brewing around who can rack up the most AI tokens.
• JPMorgan, Disney, and others are tracking AI usage and ranking their employees on leaderboards.
• We want to hear about your AI leaderboards and whether you're a "tokenmaxxer."

White-collar workers are jostling to climb rankings on AI leaderboards in a new kind of workplace competition known as "tokenmaxxing."

The trend is separating AI power users and laggards at large companies, including JPMorgan, Disney, and Meta.

At JPMorgan, dashboards categorize employees as "non," "light," or "heavy" users, Business Insider reported. A Disney "AI Adoption Dashboard" shows one employee invoking Claude 460,000 times in nine days — likely with the help of automated agents, BI found. At Meta, engineers can earn titles like "Token Legend" for their usage of tokens, a measurement of data used by AI models, The Information reported.

We want to understand how this is changing office dynamics. Tell us: Does your company track your AI usage? Do you think AI leaderboards brew healthy competition — or reward volume over value? Are you envious of the AI legends around your office? Or skeptical of what they're doing with all those tokens?

Fill out this quick survey.

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Meet the first graduating class of CollegeGPT

The AI boom won't last, a top VC warns, as he urges startups to cash out

Venture capitalist Elad Gil

Vaughn Ridley/Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images

• Elad Gil is urging AI startups to consider selling soon due to the potential for changing market dynamics.
• Gil is Silicon Valley's top solo VC, with billions at his disposal.
• He sees parallels between the AI boom and the 1995-2001 internet boom.

Elad Gil, Silicon Valley's top solo venture capitalist, has a stark message for AI founders: sell your company soon, while conditions are still favorable.

"Founders running successful AI companies should all take a cold, hard look at exiting in the next 12-18 months, which may be a value-maximizing moment for outcomes," Gil wrote in a blog post this week.

Gil's perspective carries weight. He's raised more than $2 billion for a personal war chest to invest in AI startups. Gil, a serial founder who sold a startup to Twitter (now X), has backed several notable players in the space, such as Harvey, Mistral, Pika, and Perplexity. He was also an early investor in Anduril, Airbnb, and Stripe.

Investors have raised the alarm of an AI bubble since last year. But Gil's warning reflects both optimism about AI's growth and caution about how quickly the tech landscape can change.

Gil's reasoning draws on history. During the internet boom of 1995 to 2001, roughly 2,000 companies went public, but only a dozen or two dozen survived long-term. He thinks a similar pattern could emerge with today's AI boom.

Right now, demand for AI is surging. Many startups are seeing rising revenue and appear durable. But Gil warned this momentum may not last. As competition intensifies and the market matures, weaker or less differentiated companies could struggle to maintain their position.

"In the AI era, most companies, including those that are ramping revenue today, will see the market, competition, and adoption, turn on them," Gil wrote.

For founders, that creates a narrow window. Selling or merging while valuations remain high could maximize returns before conditions shift.

"While the tide is rising, many companies will seem to be unstoppable and durable — whether they are or not in the long run remains to be seen," he warned.

That said, he does not believe all AI startups face the same fate. A small group, such as major model developers like OpenAI and Anthropic, are likely to become foundational players.

"A handful of companies should absolutely not exit (eg. OpenAI, Anthropic) but many should if they can while everything is on the upswing," Gil wrote.

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

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