'Clients bring back entire wardrobes': Tailors say Ozempic is reshaping Wall Street

Michael Andrews is the co-founder and CEO of Michael Andrews Bespoke.

Christian Rodriguez for BI

In his two decades as a Wall Street tailor, Michael Andrews learned to ignore clients who said they planned to get in shape. He only took them seriously when their weddings were approaching.

Over the past two years, however, many of his regulars — investment bankers, private equity executives, and the lawyers who serve them — have been returning to his NoHo shop with their suits hanging from much slimmer frames.

"We've had dozens of clients bring back entire wardrobes," Andrews said. "For a couple of clients, it's 20 to 40 pieces that we've had to take in because they've lost 20 to 30 pounds."

Those kinds of transformations used to be "exceedingly unusual," Andrews said. Now, they're commonplace. On Wall Street, Andrews said, "the Ozempic effect is real."

Israel Zuber runs LS Mens Clothing.

Christian Rodriguez for BI

GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro famously cause people to lose a lot of weight, and fast. Some studies show that people taking GLP-1s on average lose up to 15% of their body weight in a year.

A November 2025 poll of 1,350 people by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 18% of Americans said they had ever used GLP-1 medications. About three-quarters said they used them to lose weight specifically, rather than treat diabetes or other medical conditions.

The booming weight-loss drug market is top of mind on Wall Street, with UBS projecting it will reach $126 billion by 2029, roughly double its size in 2025.

When COVID — and GLP-1s — moved the needle

Over the years, Andrews has seen clients gain and lose weight, and has kept track of major alterations — which he defines as jackets and pants being taken in or let out by at least two inches — to make sure adjustments are carried forward into future orders.

It's easier to make a garment smaller after major weight loss than to make it bigger after major weight gain, and clients who lose weight tend to be more comfortable returning to show the change, Andrews said.

That might partly explain why, in the eight years that Andrews has been collecting data, he found that for every two to four clients who had their suits taken in, one had theirs taken out.

There were two big exceptions: 2020, when almost 10 times as many clients had their suits taken in as out. Andrews put it down to lifestyle changes, like his customers having fewer client dinners and drinking less during COVID. In the years that followed, the ratio returned to its normal range — until 2025, when for every suit Andrews took out, he took in 11.

In 2025, Andrews received 17 requests to enlarge garments, while he fielded 192 to make garments significantly smaller. That's more than double the 2024 total of take-ins, and five times the number of alterations during the 2020 spike.

The effects of GLP-1s go beyond slimmer customers — they've reshaped Andrews' business, too. To keep up with what he sees as the GLP-1 effect causing a surge in demand for alterations, Andrews said he added two additional tailors to his five-person team in 2025.

Jonathan Sigmon is the proprietor of Alan Flusser Custom.

Christian Rodriguez for BI

Clients weigh what they did in high school

Alan Horowitz, who makes suits for men at Blackstone, BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, and other Wall Street institutions, similarly said the rise of GLP-1s has had a "dramatic impact on our business."

Horowitz's business offers free lifetime alterations, a policy that only about 2.5% of clients used to use, typically for adjustments of 3 inches or more. Last year, 16% took advantage of the offer, mostly to have their suits taken in. The average chest size of his clients in 2025 was down about 1.5 inches from 2023, he added.

On the one hand, alteration costs have surged, he said. The upside is that clients who lose weight tend to feel better about themselves and replace their wardrobes entirely rather than alter older suits.

"People are at weights that they haven't seen since college, and sometimes even high school," he said.

Elsewhere in the city, Jonathan Sigmon, the owner of Alan Flusser Custom on 48th Street and Fifth Avenue, said his store handled about 30% more alterations in 2025 than in 2024, and roughly double the number it did in 2023. Most were take-ins.

While many clients are now slimmer, Sigmon said only a handful of new clients are asking for fundamentally different cuts or "slim-fitting silhouettes." The majority want their existing clothes altered to fit their new body shapes.

"Most understand that our house style has a bit more ease, and is guided by the proper proportions meant to flatter the individual rather than follow current trends," he said.

Israel Zuber of LS Mens Clothing has noticed a shift in style over his decadeslong career in tailoring.

Christian Rodriguez for BI

Other tailors, however, have seen a shift in style preferences in recent years. Israel Zuber, the owner of LS Mens Clothing on West 45th Street and Sixth Avenue, said his clients now ask for less shoulder padding, shorter jackets, and a trimmer overall fit.

Some of that reflects a more modern style, Zuber said, but it also serves another purpose: slimmer cuts tend to accentuate weight loss.

"People are dressing thinner," he said. "They're dressing thinner in the arms — even the conservative people, the business people."

After more than 40 years in the tailoring business, Zuber said one change stands out above the rest: "You don't see as many portly people as you used to."

Tailors for Wall Street clients have had to pick up the pace on alterations.

Christian Rodriguez for BI

Back in NoHo, Andrews doesn't think Wall Street's move toward slimmer bodies has anything to do with changing beauty standards. It's not about a new desire to look lean, he said, but about how achievable that ideal has become.

He knows this firsthand.

Andrews said he lost about 20 pounds after starting Ozempic in 2024. "I'm one of those people who had to get 80 pairs of pants altered," he said.

While waistlines may be shrinking, the workload for New York's tailors is not.

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Is this a bad time to look for a job? Companies can wait to hire, but would-be employees can't.

It's easier to apply for a job, but not so easy to land one.

MementoJpeg/Getty Images

• It's taking longer to fill job postings than a few years ago.
• Meanwhile, job seekers are settling for roles out of necessity.
• Economist Cory Stahle expects the low-hire, low-fire job market to continue this year.

You may be desperate to quickly get a job, but hiring managers aren't feeling the same pressure.

It's easier to apply to jobs, but employers are taking longer to fill openings. From sales positions to tech jobs, the lengthier hiring process is across the board. The reward from job switching has also been waning; wage growth has slowed as employers aren't as worried about finding talent.

Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, said the job market is in limbo as unemployment inches up, job postings are around pre-pandemic levels, and year-over-year growth in advertised wages on the job-search platform has cooled to over a five-year low.

How is your job search going? Reach out to this reporter to share what it's been like at mhoff@businessinsider.com.

More people are job searching than there are openings. People waiting for a dream role may have to settle or shift their perspective.

"Longer hiring times, paired with muted overall hiring activity, suggest that finding a job may prove difficult for many job seekers in 2026," Stahle said.

Employers are taking their time in filling jobs

Stahle said macroeconomic conditions affect how long it takes to hire. Uncertainty, less urgency than in the pandemic recovery and Great Resignation years, and a qualifications mismatch could be why it's taking longer.

Stahle said many people voluntarily quit their roles in 2021 and 2022, likely leading employers to create job postings to backfill those gigs. The quits rate dropped from 3% in March 2022 to 2% this past November, suggesting workers are less confident about finding something new.

When employers aren't desperate to fill a spot, hiring decisions could take longer. Stahle said employers can "wait for the 'perfect' candidate" when they're looking to expand their head count, rather than just backfill.

The average time it takes for a posting to become a hire climbed to 49 days in August, the highest since early 2019. Stahle said the rise in the spring and summer could've been due to continued uncertainty, such as with trade policies.

"Some of that uncertainty has waned since, but hiring timelines remain longer than they were at the start of 2025," he added.

While employers can wait for their dream employee, job seekers might not have time to find their ideal role.

"Any offer is much harder to come by in this environment versus a couple of years ago, when there was a lot more power in the hands of the worker," Nicole Bachaud, an economist at ZipRecruiter, said.

It's taking about two months for tech postings to become a hire

Indeed's data showed the average time for a posting to turn into a hire varies by job group, but it's taking longer than it did a few years ago across the board.

For tech occupations, the three-month moving average has increased from 42 days in March 2021 to about 57 days this past November. For food and beverage jobs, the average number of days surged in 2025, from about a month to about 51 days in September and October.

Healthcare has been prominent in job market data because of its job growth. Indeed's data showed healthcare postings are taking longer to become a hire than a few years ago. These gigs can require specific skills and education, which Stahle said could make it harder for employers to find what they're looking for and employees to get hired.

Meanwhile, Stahle said there could be more applicants than jobs actually being filled for occupations with weak hiring.

"In that case, it's reasonable to assume that time-to-hire may increase further as employers take more time to weed through a larger pool of candidates and may feel like they can take their time in the process," he said.

What to do if you're looking to get a job

Stahle doesn't see the cooling job market stopping soon, given economic uncertainty.

Unemployed job seekers may need to take a role that doesn't cater to all their ambitions.

"A job with lower pay is better than no job with no pay," Bachaud said. "We're seeing a lot of drive from necessity."

That doesn't mean you have to take a job you hate. Bachaud said to find a job where you think you would be comfortable with the day-to-day routine and who you work with.

"There still are opportunities to find places that offer meaningful work and offer consistent and good work-life balance and benefits, and those things that workers are really driven toward," Bachaud said.

Talking to your network or developing one can be helpful when many people are trying to get hired. Lisa Simon, the chief economist at Revelio Labs, said to lean on connections like a referral since so many people will tailor their application materials to the job posting, with or without the help of AI.

"The thing that is going to get you to the front of the line when jobs are scarce is interpersonal relationships with people who are willing to go above and beyond and expend political capital to help you," communication coach Dorie Clark previously told Business Insider.

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One chart helps explain why Elon Musk is axing Tesla's Model S and X

Tesla is giving the Model X the ax. Its sales have likely been in decline for a few years.

Wang Gang/VCG via Getty Images

• Elon Musk said Tesla's Model X and Model S — the company's highest-priced cars — are getting the ax.
• While Tesla doesn't specify how many were sold, earnings show demand has been falling for years.
• Musk was sentimental when announcing the high-end EVs would get an "honorable discharge."

Tesla is taking its Model S and Model X to pasture.

The automaker will end production of the $94,990 sedan and $99,990 SUV next quarter, CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday's earnings call.

Based on recent delivery numbers, the decision isn't particularly surprising.

Tesla does not break out Model S and Model X sales individually; instead, it groups them with the Cybertruck under "other models." Still, earnings presentations suggest demand for the category has been declining for years.

In 2025, Tesla sold 50,850 "other model" units worldwide — accounting for just over 3% of the automaker's 1,636,129 sales.

By contrast, its two best-selling options — the Model Y and Model 3 — sold 1,585,279 vehicles.

The "other model" figures are also down sharply from prior years. Tesla sold 85,133 vehicles in the category in 2024 — the first full year of Cybertruck deliveries.

That means sales fell about 40% in 2025, far steeper than the roughly 7% declines for the Model 3 and Model Y.

The soon-to-be-discontinued cars will remain an important part of Tesla's history. The Model S, launched in 2012, was the automaker's first car built from the ground up. The Model X came three years later, giving the company a foothold in America's best-selling vehicle category, the SUV.

The Model X has faced reliability issues from the jump. The car's sweeping gullwing doors were difficult to mass assemble, Musk said, calling the vehicle a "Fabergé egg" during a 2019 earnings call.

And while Tesla refreshed much of its lineup in 2025, the Model S and Model X received comparatively modest design updates — a contrast with the more aggressive changes to the Model 3 and Model Y.

Instead of chasing a revival of the aging car's sales, Tesla said it is discontinuing the program's production in favor of its Optimus humanoid robot. Musk projects building one million bots a year.

Tesla's Model S, the company's first ground-up build, will end production next quarter.

Sjoerd van der Wal/Getty Images

"It's time to basically bring the Model S and X programs to an end with an honorable discharge, because we're really moving into a future that is based on autonomy," Musk said, adding that the decision was "slightly sad."

The move underscores how far Tesla has shifted away from its legacy luxury models as growth slows and Musk pushes the company toward robotics and autonomy.

Still, analysts aren't fully sold on the idea that Tesla's manufacturing switch-up will lead to immediate profits or sales results.

"The company appears to be on track with the rollout of Robotaxi service in nine US cities, alongside the start of production for the Cybercab and Semi," Steve Man, the senior auto industry analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, told Business Insider. "But we believe a commercially ready Optimus robot remains at least a couple of years away."

Tesla didn't respond to Business a request for comment from Business Insider.

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Should you list 'olive oil' as an interest on your résumé? Recruiters weigh in on the latest internet debate

An X post about "olive oil" as a résum´é interest is reigniting the debate over a "hobbies" section.

bernardbodo/Getty Images

• A viral X post described rejecting a finance candidate because they listed "olive oil" as an interest on their résumé.
• Four recruiters told Business Insider what they thought about the post — and the state of hobbies on résumés.
• One recruiter said hobbies were necessary in the age of AI. Another said they were risky. Tell us what you think in our survey.

Some people like reading or long walks. Others like olive oil.

But would you list olive oil as an interest on your résumé? That's the latest internet debate after a post about the interests section on résumés went viral on X.

The person, who said they were reviewing résumés for a banking role, wrote that applicants needed to be "normal" and "well adjusted."

"I reviewed a resume that listed 'olive oil' as an interest. That is not an interest," they wrote. "It's been hours and I cannot stop thinking about it. There will not be an interview."

The identity of the X user, @90daysliquidity, isn't clear, but they list "Tech Analyst" in their bio. They did not respond to a direct message from Business Insider.

Cannot stress how much of an advantage it is to be a normal, well adjusted, applicant for banking roles.

I reviewed a resume that listed “olive oil” as an interest. That is not an interest. It’s been hours and I cannot stop thinking about it. There will not be an interview.

— 90 Days Liquidity (@90daysliquidity) January 27, 2026

The post caused a stir online. Memes abound, both celebrating and scoffing at the supposed olive oil-enjoyer.

An employee at Elon Musk's xAI commented that they would hire a "cracked finance professional" who is interested in olive oil.

"If you have olive oil as an interest on your resume, we want to talk to you," the official Coinbase account posted.

Is it really so bad to list "olive oil" — or any offbeat hobby — on your résumé? Business Insider asked five recruiters what they thought.

What makes a good hobby?

Paula Mathias Fryer would want to see just one more word added.

The SLO Partners senior director from California has been a technical recruiter for 15 years. She would have preferred olive oil "taster" or "grower," she told Business Insider.

"It would have explained it a bit more," she said. "Just those two words is a bit odd."

Brianne Sterling, a New York-based director at Selby Jennings who leads investment banking recruitment, also wants more information. Are they just eating olive oil all day long?

"Do you make your own olive oil?" Sterling said. "If someone made their own olive oil, I would find that really interesting, and I might want to speak to them."

Sterling is a fan of chocolate, but doesn't plan on putting it on her résumé anytime soon.

Hobbies offer a common interest between the applicant and the hirer, Sterling said. She listed some popular ones in investment banking: football, basketball, travel, and World War II history.

It poses a question: what makes a good résumé hobby?

The off-limits topics are more obvious: politics, religion, anything you wouldn't talk about at the dinner table. Picking the best hobby, on the other hand, depends on the recruiter.

Margaret Buj, a London-based principal recruiter at Mixmax, wants candidates to be interesting. Olive oil was "weird" to her — but better than the answers that are "cliché and vague."

"Traveling, socializing, reading," Buj said. "Who cares? We all do that."

Should you even list hobbies or interests?

Space on a one-page résumé is a precious resource. Hobbies don't display relevant work experience, and they don't directly show what your contribution to the team would be. Is it even worth listing them?

Mathias-Fryer used to vote no. She saw hobbies as "less professional," an unnecessary waste of space. Then came AI, which has upended recruitment and filled hiring managers' inboxes with identical, ChatGPT-generated CVs.

Applicants now need to do "whatever they can do to stand out," she said. "If that's a hobby, so be it."

Matt Stevenson disagrees. The New York-based managing director of executive search agency 33eleven loves to see a quirky hobby. It's another thing to connect about, he said. But, on the candidate side, Stevenson thought that hobbies were too risky.

"You don't know who is going to be reviewing that résumé, what their hobbies are, and what their personality is like," he said.

As for that X user, endlessly thinking about the olive oil-loving applicant?

"I would pick up the phone and call the guy," he said. "Scratch that itch."

What do you think? Take our survey:

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I own a Minneapolis bike shop that shut down for the strike. Closing was a big ask for a small business, but worth it to help my community.

Perennial Cycle participated in the ICE OUT protest strike, and held its own fundraiser.

Courtesy of Perennial Cycle

• Specialty bike shop Perennial Cycle closed for the ICE OUT protest in Minneapolis January 23.
• Community events are central to Perennial Cycle's mission; the shop also hosted a fundraiser.
• Minnesota businesses like Perennial face challenges from ICE activity and tariffs.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Luke Breen, co-owner of specialty bike shop Perennial Cycle in uptown Minneapolis. The following conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Perennial is a specialty bike shop. We do cargo bikes, city utility bikes, and commuting bikes, and have been a niche business for 33 years.

Perennial focuses on community events. Last year, we did 35 organized community rides. So, while we do rely on selling bikes, we're very community-driven. That's always been a big piece of Perennial Cycle.

You cannot be in Minneapolis without ICE's presence impacting your day-to-day. You just simply cannot. Imagine: We had to shut down our schools to keep children safe. It is insane what is happening right now.

As a bike shop, we've had meetings so we can be aware of each other's levels of anxiety — how we're doing, is everybody OK? For some people, it's going to affect them a little differently, and we've come up with a plan for if ICE is on the block.

We were closed on Friday, January 23, for the ICE OUT protest. To me, it's a big ask to have small businesses go on strike, and later I heard that it was the first general strike in 80 years. I'm really glad that Perennial did that.

I also went to the march in downtown Minneapolis last Friday afternoon and was a little overwhelmed with emotions. I had no idea how massive it was. When you're in a march like that, you can kind of see the few thousand people that are around you. It isn't until later when you see those overhead videos posted online, and it's like, 'Oh my God.'

It had an amazing vibe. There was not a lot to cheer about, and yet there's a lot to be together about. It took a lot of awesome organizing to pull that off. There were restaurants that were handing out food. There were tables with cases and cases and cases of hand warmers. It was minus 10 when I went down there, and the wind was blowing. I did not expect that many people because it was so cold.

After Alex Pretti was shot, we came together to raise money and find community

We held a fundraiser for MIRAC, a local immigrant rights organization, scheduled for Sunday. I talked with Brieanna, the artist and screenprinter I am working with. We considered canceling. Brieanna and I decided that canceling is exactly what ICE would want us to do. We did not cancel the event.

There was a line outside the door that was a half-block long at one point. Tons of people showed up. Everybody was just happy to be part of the community. A couple of legal observers explained what it's like to be an observer, knowing that lots of people are very curious about it, but it's pretty intimidating when you just go by what you're seeing on the news and on Instagram. That was part of the aim of the fundraiser: to foster observer conversations.

We raised over $4,000. We brought in, I don't know, probably like 20 grocery bags of food for a food shelf. All those things were great, but the most appreciation came from people saying they were happy to be together, happy to have a place to go and be around other people who were kind of in mourning.

We had little cheat sheets with information about the event that we handed out when visitors walked in the door. One of the things was, "Yes, we're a bike shop Monday through Saturday, but today we're not. Please don't ask us questions about bikes." We just didn't have the capacity to do bike stuff.

There were plenty of people at the fundraiser who weren't familiar with the bike shop. But plenty of people who were like, "Wow, this is kind of weird. Why is this happening in a bike shop?" And that was kind of fun explaining that, actually, this is very normal because we focus on community events. We have Cambros containers for serving coffee to 100 people. We have serving trays for treats. We have all the things that are necessary to organize an event like this. The bike shop actually already has the musicians who were singing.

It's off-season for me. I am really happy to have found a place to plug in to be useful during what's happening in Minneapolis right now. Numerous people came up and thanked me for opening the shop and doing the fundraiser. Most of the kind words were about community and not about raising money.

ICE, in addition to tariffs, means my business is dealing with multiple crises

Hopefully, the shop will make it through, but honestly, it is a real challenge.

Our city's under siege, but in reality, we all know it's our country that's under siege. We know a lot of people are super challenged by what's going on right now. I sell pretty expensive bicycles. These cargo bikes are not cheap. So for me, the tariffs have completely turned my life upside down. I'm learning that there is a plural for the word crisis, and it's crises. And that's what I'm looking at — one crisis on top of another.

I have high seasons and low seasons. It's a low season, so I have to be very protective with my money right now. Any loss of income is a big deal because we're barely going to cover expenses for the month. This is a typical cycle for a business in Minnesota, a very seasonal business, so none of that is overwhelming. But, yeah, that's why the strike was definitely a big ask, and I'm so happy I did it. I believe that the store will reap rewards on the other side of this.

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Prediction markets group begins 7-figure PR blitz after suspicious Maduro trade sparks insider-trading concerns

The Coalition for Prediction Markets' members include platforms such as Kalshi, Coinbase, and Robinhood.

AP Photo/Olga Fedorova

• Prediction markets have sparked insider-trading concerns since a suspicious bet on Nicolás Maduro generated headlines.
• Now, the Coalition for Prediction Markets is taking out a full-page ad in the Washington Post.
• It's the opening salvo in what's expected to be a seven-figure PR blitz over the coming months.

Prediction markets are getting a bad rap amid concerns about insider trading. Now, some of them are fighting back.

The Coalition for Prediction Markets, which includes companies like Kalshi, Coinbase, and Robinhood, took out a full-page ad in the Washington Post on Wednesday.

The ad highlights the companies' support for a ban on insider trading on prediction market platforms and calls on Congress to work with them to "keep prediction markets safe and transparent."

"CFTC regulated prediction markets (already) ban insider trading," the ad reads.

The ad that will appear in the Washington Post on Wednesday.

Coalition for Prediction Markets

A spokesperson for the coalition told Business Insider the ad is the "opening salvo" in a coming PR blitz pushing for the codification of federal regulation for prediction markets — a key goal for the companies, as regulators in some states seek to clamp down on the burgeoning industry.

"The coalition plans to spend seven figures in the coming months in coordination with its government relations outreach," the spokesperson said.

The PR campaign comes after a trader on Polymarket made more than $400,000 off of a well-timed bet on former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's political future just hours before his capture by US forces.

That's led to greater scrutiny of prediction markets broadly, along with a new proposed bill to formally ban insider trading by government officials who might have access to sensitive information.

In the wake of that trade, Kalshi has sought to distinguish itself from Polymarket, which was banned from serving US users from 2022 to 2025 and only recently gained approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Polymarket is not a member of the Coalition for Prediction Markets, and the group's spokesperson said that the ad is meant to draw "a clear contrast with offshore platforms where concerning scandals such as the Maduro trade have occurred." A Polymarket spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The company, which has signed partnerships with the Wall Street Journal and the Golden Globes, hasn't made any public statements about the Maduro trade controversy. Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan has previously suggested that insider trading can help disseminate information more broadly.

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Billionaire Bernard Arnault kicked off LVMH's earnings call with a dash of dark humor

Bernard Arnault started LVMH's earnings call with a dark joke.

Ludovic MARIN / AFP via Getty Images

• Bernard Arnault started his earnings call by reassuring investors in the French luxury giant LVMH.
• "I think we'll make it through the winter," the CEO said when the Tuesday call kicked off.
• The company reported a 5% sales decline in 2025, as it struggles to recover from the luxury slump.

LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault started a Tuesday earnings call with some dry humor, telling investors that his company will see the end of winter.

The French luxury tycoon, who is worth $197 billion, announced the company's full-year 2025 results during a call with investors.

"I'm delighted to present to you the figures for 2025, to begin with a good piece of news," he said. "I think we'll make it through the winter."

He said that LVMH's results were "solid" in a challenging geopolitical and economic climate, and the company has "managed to get through this period."

"2026 won't be simple either, but one thing at a time," he added. Arnault has been the luxury giant's CEO since 1989.

The group posted revenue of €80.8 billion, or about $96.9 billion, in 2025, a 5% decline from 2024. Of this, its wine and spirits division took the largest hit, with sales down 9% from 2024.

LVMH has seen its revenue growth slow down in recent years. In 2020, it was hit hard by the COVID pandemic, seeing its annual revenue drop 17% compared to 2019. Business picked back up in 2021, where it saw a 44% revenue increase compared to 2020.

However, the luxury slump that followed has since taken a toll on the business, as aspirational customers cut down on luxury purchases, squeezed by inflation after the pandemic. Luxury customers in China, one of LVMH's most important markets, were hit by a real-estate-linked economic crisis and reined in their spending.

LVMH's sales went into the red in 2024, when it reported a 2% revenue dip compared to 2023.

And last year, it faced a new challenge: President Donald Trump's tariffs. Company executives said in May last year that prices for some of its premium goods could increase 2 to 3% to offset the tariffs.

It's not just LVMH that is suffering from the luxury slump. The upscale US department store company, Saks Global, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on January 13, owing millions to luxury companies Kering, Chanel, and Capri Holdings.

Representatives for LVMH did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

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Despite the hype, AI hasn't changed work — yet

"When we asked our employees to take mandatory training for AI," says Francine Katsoudas, chief people, policy, and purpose officer as Cisco, "it actually had a bit of a negative impact."

Riana Daehler

Ever since the introduction of ChatGPT, companies have been eagerly anticipating the day AI will turbocharge their workers and forever transform their businesses. Three years later, they're still waiting. Why? And what's the fix?

These two questions dominated pretty much every single conversation I had with executives in Davos last week — including a Business Insider roundtable I moderated with 15 chief people officers and other senior executives.

One explanation that came up again and again was incomplete adoption among employees. Many professionals are understandably worried about what these tools will mean for their jobs, or at least skeptical of their usefulness as AI slop abounds. To bulldoze through this hesitation, bosses have stepped up the pressure, making AI use mandatory and incorporating it into performance reviews.

But a number of executives at the roundtable advised against strong-arming. Cisco learned that the hard way. "When we asked our employees to take mandatory training for AI, not only did it not drive sustainable usage, it actually had a bit of a negative impact," said Francine Katsoudas, the company's chief people, policy, and purpose officer. What worked, she explained, was "providing choice" — like when Cisco gave its engineers access to half a dozen different AI tools, allowing them to decide which ones to use and how to use them. "They absolutely loved that," she said.

Another theory was that even if employees want to use these new tools, they don't have the necessary skills to get the most out of them. Part of the fix, some argued, involves hiring people who are already good at using AI. Kyle Lutnick, the executive vice chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald, said he wants to bring in more new college grads at a time when other businesses are hiring fewer of them, precisely because they have more fluency using these tools than their older counterparts. But hiring new blood won't be enough. Employers will need to do a lot more to train their existing workforces too. "Investment has been primarily on the technology and not so much on the people," said Elizabeth Faber, global chief people and purpose officer at Deloitte. "That needs to shift."

A third explanation was that big productivity gains require a fundamental overhaul of the way work gets done inside companies. If the Googles or the Amazons of the world were to start from scratch today, they almost certainly wouldn't have the team structures, workflows, and job descriptions they currently do. I think that's why we're seeing the AI revolution most clearly right now in early-stage startups, which are starting from the ground up in the post-ChatGPT era.

Kyle Lutnick, executive vice chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald, said he wants to bring in more new college grads because they have more fluency using AI than their older counterparts.

Riana Daehler

"84% of work processes have been left in their legacy state when adopting AI and have not been redesigned," Faber said. "So 16% of organizations and work processes are really being developed in an AI-native way."

All of these proposed solutions are far from quick fixes. Encouraging employees to opt in voluntarily takes more time than threatening to fire them. Training staff — and actually getting them to learn — takes time too.

Redesigning jobs will prove to be an even heavier lift. Many large businesses don't even know what employees do on a day-to-day basis. It's painstaking work to build out a comprehensive database of the skills employees have and the tasks they perform — and then to systematically tease out which of them can be delegated to AI and which of them can't. One chief people officer I spoke to said that it'll take years for her HR department to complete that process across every function at her company.

Once all that heavy-lifting is done, what will these businesses look like? I put the question to the group at the roundtable, asking how many of them expect their workforces to shrink in three to five years' time. Two out of the 15 raised their hands — a tally I suspect would have been higher if I weren't there. One of them, Gina Vargiu-Breuer, chief people officer at SAP, explained that her company is currently keeping headcount flat because the business is still growing.

"But when you're not growing, then I think this is where you have to talk about, 'OK, do we have to reduce headcount?'" she said. "I have a lot of peers in German companies where they are starting to reduce headcount dramatically. So it's a reality. For us, it's not, because we're growing, but I think it will happen going forward."

Even at SAP? I asked.

"At the moment we stay flat," she said. "But if productivity goes up and growth is slowing down, then I think we have to look at that with different eyes."

By the end of the week, I left Davos with a sense that a workplace truly reshaped by AI — one that would allow companies to run on meaningfully smaller teams — isn't coming as soon as I'd thought. Those days seem to be still several years away, given all the painstaking work businesses need to complete to get there.

That's something many economists had predicted early on, given how difficult it has always been to fully integrate new technology into the workplace. They told me that things will change less than we expect in the short term, and a lot more in the long run. No matter how fast a technology advances, humans change less readily.

C-suites around the world are coming to the same realization, which is probably why I detected quite a bit of frustration in Davos. Svenja Gudell, Indeed's chief economist, compared the world's urgency around AI to the impatience of a parent potty-training their kid. "It's messy, it's a long process," she said. "You're like, 'Why is this not happening? It's been three weeks already.'" Her message to executives: "Give yourself some grace."

The slower timeline is good news for the rest of us — it gives us time to learn new skills, debate new public policies, and try to shape the future we actually want. But it would be a mistake to read the so-far modest changes as evidence that tectonic shifts aren't coming. I came away from Davos convinced that when they do happen, they'll be far bigger than anything we're imagining now, for better and for worse.

---

Aki Ito is a chief correspondent at Business Insider.

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This viral crying horse plushie has become an iconic symbol for the Chinese white collar worker's hustle life

Sad horse toys have become popular in China ahead of Lunar New Year.

Nicoco Chan/REUTERS

• A sad horse toy is winning Lunar New Year in China.
• The toy, with an upside-down snout, has resonated with tired corporates across the country.
• Consumer research experts said the sad horse toy was a smart move, much like Pop Mart's Labubu.

A horse toy in China meant to be a Lunar New Year decoration has turned into a symbol of corporate agony on Chinese social media.

The red horse toy in question, made by the shop Happy Sisters in China's western Yiwu city, features an upside-down snout, giving it a morose look at odds with its festival golden bell. Per the Chinese zodiac, the incoming year will be the year of the horse.

The seller told local media that a shop worker had accidentally sewn the horse's smile upside down, turning it into a frown. But after the toy went viral on social media, the shop decided to produce more of the defective toy.

Happy Sisters did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

An icon of corporate doom and gloom

A manufacturing error turned out to be a happy mistake for the toy seller.

Nicoco Chan/REUTERS

For many Chinese workers, the crying horse came to represent permission to be vulnerable — rare in the country's high-pressure work culture. China is infamous for its grueling 9-9-6 work culture, which means 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.

A user, He Qingshan, wrote on RedNote earlier this month that the doll is "healing in a high-pressure society."

Priced at about 25 Chinese yuan, or $3.60, its affordability helped it spread quickly online, turning it into a "national-level emo doll" and a form of "collective emotional projection," they wrote.

Another person on RedNote, Liang Chenxing, said in a post in January that the horse's "drooping mouth" had "struck a chord with contemporary workers." The post received more than 1,000 likes.

"Who hasn't had moments when they want to cry but still have to hold it together?" the user wrote.

On the platform, creators have begun placing the horse beside their office computers, posting photos with captions like: "Me when my proposal gets rejected."

One RedNote user described keeping it on their desk as having "a little companion that understands all your fatigue and your dreams."

"It's okay to cry on the face, but life must always be moving forward!" they wrote.

A smart marketing choice

Mark Tanner, the managing director of Chinese consumer research firm China Skinny, said he wasn't sure he believed the manufacturing error story, but it was a smart business move nonetheless.

"This has been happening for some years, particularly with movements like lying flat, but it captures a general psyche where many Chinese consumers are feeling less optimistic at the moment," Tanner said.

Jacob Cooke, the CEO of Beijing-based e-commerce consulting firm WPIC Marketing + Technologies, said that "younger consumers are increasingly comfortable acknowledging stress in light, ironic ways."

"Consumer products and internet memes can act as outlets for discussing work pressure, especially on platforms like Xiaohongshu, where consumer culture and emotional expression are tightly intertwined," Cooke said.

He compared the crying horse toy to Chinese toymaker Pop Mart's "ugly-cute" IPs, Labubu and Crybaby.

And Jason Yu, the managing director of Beijing-based CTR Market Research, said the handmade sewing mistake on the toy resonated with audiences because it did not feel like a "cold assembly-line product."

"The emotional value the toy conveys is higher than any perfect toy can provide," Yu said.

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Your boss is about to pull back your gym benefits

Ukraine's drone forces commander says his pilots are hitting Russians at such close range that they're 'under our feet'

A Ukrainian drone pilot controlles a flying drone during military training in Kyiv.

Zinchenko/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images

• A drone commander said his elite pilots have recently been hitting Russian infantry at close range.
• On average, they've been attacking troops 0.89 miles from the contact line, Robert "Madyar" Brovdi said.
• His 12 elite drone crews have been increasingly deployed to hit infantry over the last month, he added.

The leader of Ukraine's special drone branch said his operators are striking advancing Russian infantry at extreme close range, providing rare insight into how some of the country's best pilots are fighting.

Maj. Robert "Madyar" Brovdi, the commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces, wrote in a statement on Sunday that his pilots have, over the last month, been engaging enemy troops at an average strike depth of 1.44 km, or 0.89 miles, from the line of contact.

That's a roughly 10-minute brisk walk for the average person.

"This figure fluctuates, but: We are literally working under our feet," Madyar wrote.

His remarks reflect how top Ukrainian commanders in some areas have been prioritizing their limited resources. Using elite strike crews for short-range suppression could also be a sign of heightened pressure on Ukrainian lines.

The Unmanned Systems Forces is a relatively new elite formation in Ukraine that focuses on providing strike or reconnaissance support with smaller drones. Madyar, a prominent drone unit commander appointed to lead the group in June 2025, said on Sunday that his branch comprises 12 combat crews who are present on 30% of the front line.

Robert "Madyar" Brovdi, commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces attends an event in December 2025.

Viktor Fridshon/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images

Russia relies on ground infantry assaults to gradually take territory in Ukraine, and has been aggressively attempting to advance along some key frontline areas in recent months.

Madyar wrote that his units are assigned to corps commanders, who have been deploying the operators to attack such advancing troops at closer range.

"Not a single Corps commander, who has many hundreds of crews from their own brigades and subordinate units within their area of responsibility, is ready to release SBS work to proper depth," Madyar wrote, referring to the Unmanned Systems Forces as the SBS.

He added that this was due to Ukrainian commanders wanting to protect their troops in the trenches.

For Ukrainian soldiers, being sent to hold a trench is one of the war's most high-casualty tasks. They're often outnumbered by waves of attacking Russian troops, and typically need the help of friendly drone pilots to thwart assaults before they can get close.

But ideally, these drone operators prefer to spot and engage enemy infantry farther away, roughly 6 to 10 miles from the line of contact, as these troops form up or begin to launch assaults.

"To systematically reach proper depth, it is necessary to manage to create new crews, at least three times more than the current number," Madyar wrote. "The existing ones, for the most part, will remain in tactical depth."

Drone pilots striking more infantry in December

Madyar also said infantry strikes have recently accounted for a larger share of his units' time.

According to him, the SBS has a usual goal of targeting infantry in 30% of its strikes, but nearly 40% of its successful attacks, against roughly 12,000 soldiers, were against infantry in December.

Still, the commander wrote that in the SBS' entire history, the majority of its engagements have been against Russian equipment and logistics routes, at ranges of roughly 2.3 miles to 9.2 miles, depending on the type of system targeted.

Madyar's branch has struck over 1,200 "launch points" for Russian drone pilots, at an average depth of 2.25 miles, he added.

Elite units typically make a name for themselves by using small, inexpensive drones to strike priority air defense systems, logistics routes, or command posts deep behind enemy lines.

Indeed, the commander had posted his statement on Sunday in response to what he said were recent criticisms that his units were focusing too much on strikes against Russian soldiers.

Madyar also wrote that not all SBS crews are equally contributing to these strike statistics.

"Only six to seven out of 12 SBS units are working at the desired pace; the others are catching up and need more time," his statement said.

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Robotaxis are in a literal land grab moment

Voltera, a charging infrastructure company, is picking up real estate property to prepare for the robotaxi boom.

Voltera

• Voltera acquires urban real estate to build charging depots for robotaxi operators like Waymo.
• Challenges include zoning, power access, and community concerns in cities such as Santa Monica.
• Voltera aims to streamline depot development as robotaxi fleets expand in major US cities.

The robotaxi takeover — assuming they take over — will also be a real estate story.

As Waymo, Uber, Tesla, and other competitors race to flood the streets with fully autonomous cars, robotaxi operators will need to find places to park, charge, and maintain their vehicles.

Voltera, a charging infrastructure company based in Palo Alto that has partnered with Alphabet-backed Waymo, is buying up real estate now to prep for the AV boom.

"We need to get shovel-ready assets in the ground," Brett Hauser, CEO of Voltera, told Business Insider in an interview. "You need to buy property in advance of customers."

The hard part isn't finding an empty parcel of land. Robotaxis serve dense, highly populated regions and are all-electric, which means depots need to be close to customers and near a power grid.

Voltera repurposed a structure in San Francisco into a robotaxi depot.

Voltera

Once the depots are running, there's no guarantee they'll peacefully co-exist with their neighbors.

San Francisco residents previously reported Waymo's incessant nighttime honking at a charging depot, which the robotaxi company had to fix. In December, the city of Santa Monica filed a lawsuit demanding Waymo halt nighttime charging operations after residents complained about the noise and light pollution. Voltera, which manages Waymo's Santa Monica depot, was also included in the suit.

"I fully believe that's going to have a favorable outcome," Hauser said of the legal battle.

A spokesperson for Waymo did not respond to a request for comment.

Hauser spoke to Business Insider on how his company is preparing for a rapid influx of robotaxi operations, the challenges behind getting a depot ready for service, and whether the United States' infrastructure is ready for the robotaxi revolution.

The interview was edited for length and clarity.

Tell the readers a little bit about Voltera

Voltera is a developer and operator of charging depots for electric fleets. We've been focusing on the light-duty segment and AVs in particular for the last 12 to 14 months. To date, we have 10 sites operational, mostly geared toward robotaxis — about 400 charging stalls and about 37 megawatts of power. We've got about double that in development right now.

Brett Hauser, CEO and chairman of Voltera

Voltera

Our approach is to go in and, first of all, buy the real estate. If you control the real estate, you control the timelines. Owning it — and getting the power in a timeline with certainty — is what our customers and the industry need.

I think that is kind of the trickiest part of this.

You've said building charging depots can feel like "hand-to-hand combat." Why is that?

It'd be great if there were a national framework for identifying a site, ensuring the zoning is correct, ensuring power is available, and then bringing your construction team in behind it. But every city has its own zoning codes, and what's permissible is going to be different. Every utility has its own process for figuring out where power is available, and what the timeline is to get power, and who pays for it is very different.

It's not only different city to city, but within a city, it can be very different. In Los Angeles, for example, one side of a street could be Department of Water and Power territory, and the other could be Southern California Edison.

The other piece of this is we don't have the luxury of always going to where the power is. Data centers can generally look to where power is available and build there. We have to be in and around urban infill areas because you don't want "deadhead miles," where vehicles aren't carrying a passenger and have to go back to base to charge. The depots need to be in and around where the drop-offs and pickups are happening, and that is not easy to find at the right price point.

So it's really about the orchestration. Any one of those things — finding the real estate, dealing with utility companies — can cause you a problem, so you have to be good at all of it. What works in Los Angeles may not work in Phoenix or Atlanta. The biggest risk is the timeline for getting the power. That's the biggest risk factor in getting these sites out and running.

If we're talking about hundreds of thousands of robotaxis in the next five years, is the US ready for that?

I don't know that we have that capacity today. If companies like Voltera are out there buying properties and entitling them now — and can give a customer a site within 12 months — then it becomes possible. But for a lot of people, perfecting the ability to find sites and bring power takes much longer. Some people can take 36 to 48 months, but depending on power availability and whether substation upgrades are needed, it can take longer.

So I think it's aspirational. We can knock a big piece of that out, but I don't know that you can have purpose-built depots at that scale in that timeframe.

Santa Monica has become a high-profile example of community friction with robotaxi and robotaxi depots. Was that something Voltera anticipated? And does it change Voltera's definition of the right location?

Waymo's charging depot in Santa Monica has faced some public scrutiny.

Eric Thayer/Getty Images

I think that's a very fair question. Let me start by saying that everything was done properly — zoning, permitting, above board, and by the book at this site. A couple of neighbors are frustrated and might remain so, no matter what gets done. I can't get into their head and discuss that.

Community outreach and engagement are important, and we did do that in this case. I think people are, for the first time, experiencing robotaxis: the joys, the benefits, and sometimes some of the challenges.

With Santa Monica, I think we've built a very good site — to code and to spec —and you've got partners willing to do the right things on behalf of the city and residents. I fully believe that's going to have a favorable outcome.

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A man lost 44lbs and learned 3 important lessons about losing fat while maintaining muscle

Mike Prytkov founded a weight-loss app inspired by lessons he learned from his own weight-loss journey.

Mike Prytkov

• Mike Prytkov lost 44 pounds in a year, but his extreme approach wasn't sustainable and he lost muscle.
• He experimented with different diets and routines until he found what worked for him long-term.
• Prytkov learned to think of weight loss as a lifestyle change and that there is no one-size-fits-all approach.

When Mike Prytkov lost 44 pounds in a year, he took the extreme route.

Now, he understands his approach was unhealthy and unsustainable.

In 2017, the entrepreneur either had one meal a day or ate in an 8-hour window followed by a 16-hour fast, known as the 16:8 diet. He also did three 7-day fasts, when he only drank water.

He lost weight quickly, but the diet negatively affected his life.

"I tried to do some workouts, and I had zero strength," Prytkov, 38, told Business Insider. "When the muscles are depleted of energy, just everything is hard."

Eating so little food, he couldn't get all the nutrients his body needed, and his strict routine affected his family and social life. "When everyone is having dinner and you're not eating, it can create tension," he said.

Then he had a body composition scan and learned that along with fat, he had lost 15 pounds of muscle mass. Muscle is essential for staying strong and mobile, and plays a key role in regulating metabolism.

Fasting meant he simply didn't have the energy to fuel a workout or the calorie budget to eat enough protein, both of which are crucial for maintaining muscle mass — but he didn't know it at the time.

"Now I understand that with better training and nutrition focus it could have been avoided" he said.

Prytkov focused on creating habits that would sustain both fat loss and support his long-term health.

"I worked with nutritionists, spoke with many people in the industry, and ran a lot of self-experiments to understand what works best for me," he said.

Prytkov loves cycling and has made it a part of his healthy lifestyle.

Mike Prytkov (TBC)

Prytkov added more strength training to his workout schedule of mainly cycling and swimming, and ditched the extreme fasts.

Dietitians previously told Business Insider that following a Mediterranean-style diet, which emphasizes fresh produce, lean proteins, and whole grains, and eating around 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, is recommended for maintaining muscle mass, and supporting overall health.

By focusing on eating a balanced diet of mainly whole foods and his body composition over the number on the scale, Prytkov said he has kept the weight off for eight years. He founded Simple, an AI weight loss app, based on his experience.

He shared the three lessons he learned about losing weight sustainably.

1) There isn't a one-size-fits-all fix for losing weight

Prytkov learned he needed to experiment to lose fat sustainably. It's also OK for your weight, diet, and workout routine to fluctuate depending on your goals and circumstances, he found.

A person with a busy job and three kids will likely have less time to meal prep and go the gym as a college student, for example, he said.

"It showed me how individual the process is and how deeply it affects your entire life," he said.

Everyone's circumstances are different, which means there's no one-size-fits-all approach to weight loss, Pryktov said.

TBC

2) Healthy living is a life-long journey

Treating weight loss like a box you can tick off after 30 days of dieting won't work in the long term, Prytkov said he learned.

"It's a lifestyle rather than just a one-time effort," he said.

It's unrealistic for people to stick to extreme diets, so they don't lead to long-term change.

Forming daily habits that help you maintain a healthy body weight and fit into your lifestyle is "the best thing you can do for yourself," in terms of sustainable weight loss, Prytkov said.

He likes routine, so for him, eating the same breakfast every morning and working out most days, rather than two or three days a week, works best.

3) Prioritize the basics (sleep, nutrition, movement)

On social media, we are bombarded with information about how to optimize every aspect of our lives, but Prytkov said he learned that focusing on the basics is key.

"I tried a lot of approaches and realized that none of the 'extras' matter if the basics are missing," he said.

It doesn't matter how many supplements you take, how much cold exposure you do, or which biohacks you try if, for example, your sleep is poor, Prytkov said.

"People tend to overeat when they're tired and sleep-deprived," he added.

Research suggests that getting enough good-quality sleep, being physically active, and eating a nutritious diet are what make the biggest difference to the average person's energy and fitness levels, mood, and body composition.

"If people would do just that without anything else, without any extreme workout routines or extreme biohacking protocols, it would do 95% of the improvement," he said.

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Student-loan borrowers are facing debt-relief whiplash under Trump

President Donald Trump's administration is creating uncertainty for student-loan borrowers.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

• Trump's administration announced a pause on wage garnishment and tax refund seizure for defaulted student-loan borrowers.
• At the same time, thousands of borrowers are waiting for debt relief through income-based repayment plans to be processed.
• The uncertainty is making it difficult for borrowers to financially prepare.

If there's one thing student-loan borrowers are familiar with, it's uncertainty — and there's a lot of that right now.

Around the time it was set to take effect in early January, President Donald Trump's Department of Education announced that it was pausing wage garnishment and tax refund seizures for defaulted student-loan borrowers. This gives borrowers behind on payments more time to find a way back to good standing, but it's unclear how much time they'll have.

As to when that pause will lift, not even servicers appear to know. An employee at a major student-loan servicer told Business Insider that they received communications about the pause just days before it was announced to the public, and they do not know when garnishment and treasury offsets will resume.

While the pause is good news for borrowers and provides them with relief as tax season commences, student-loan forgiveness backlogs continue to weigh on the thousands waiting for their relief to be processed. A recent court filing from the Department of Education said that 734,221 income-driven repayment applications were pending as of December 31, 2025, and that 3,400 discharges were approved in December.

Business Insider wants to hear about the challenges, successes, and unique experiences you're facing with your student loans. Do you have a story to share? Please fill out this form, and we'll be in touch.

Read more of our student-loan coverage:

• Student-loan borrowers are gearing up for higher monthly payments after Trump moves to ax their affordable plan: 'I'm bracing for an astronomical bill'
• How Trump's big spending bill will overhaul repayment for millions of student-loan borrowers
• Student-loan borrowers behind on payments are getting a major break

The department wrote in its filing that litigation over the SAVE income-driven repayment plan is preventing it from processing some borrowers' debt relief applications. SAVE, created by former President Joe Biden to give borrowers cheaper monthly payments and a short timeline to debt relief, has been blocked since July 2024, and the department's filing said that it is focusing on processing income-based repayment discharges for borrowers who became eligible for relief before April 2025, the month that the block on SAVE was expanded in court.

During this time, the department said that it is "evaluating the most effective way to resume discharges for the borrowers who would have become eligible under the SAVE Plan Final Rule criteria after the date of the injunction. Currently, the only cancellations taking place are for IBR borrowers who became eligible before April 2025."

The pause on consequences for defaulted borrowers provides some relief, while the pause on forgiveness processing prolongs uncertainty — and, with more repayment changes on the horizon, student-loan borrowers have described feeling stuck in limbo, unable to financially plan. Some policy experts and lawmakers have also said that while the pause for defaulted borrowers is needed relief, the uncertainty could put borrowers at risk.

The department said in a press release last week that the delay in collections is intended to give borrowers "additional time to evaluate these new repayment options once they consolidate their loans or complete a repayment or rehabilitation agreement."

Student-loan repayment changes loom

With all of the back-and-forth policy changes, it's difficult to keep track of what is, and isn't, happening for student-loan borrowers.

The main change that defaulted borrowers need to know is that their wages and other federal benefits should not be seized until the Department of Education announces that the pause is lifted.

"The Trump Administration is committed to helping student and parent borrowers resume regular, on-time repayment, with more clear and affordable options, which will support a stronger financial future for borrowers and enhance the long-term health of the federal student loan portfolio," Undersecretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement last week.

Meanwhile, borrowers should prepare for looming repayment changes, which were signed into law in Trump's "big beautiful" spending legislation.

Beginning in July, the department will begin rolling out new income-driven repayment plans and borrowing caps for graduate and professional degrees. Additionally, over 7 million borrowers enrolled in SAVE could be kicked off the plan sooner than anticipated; the department announced a proposed settlement that, if approved, would give SAVE borrowers a limited time to enroll in a new plan and face higher payments.

"I'm bracing for an astronomical bill," Brenda McCoy, a 60-year-old borrower on SAVE, previously told Business Insider.

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OpenAI's recently departed VP of research calls Google's comeback 'OpenAI's fumble'

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

• Jerry Tworek, former VP of research at OpenAI, said the startup fumbled its lead over Google in the AI race.
• OpenAI put the fear into not only Google but most of the tech industry with the release of ChatGPT.
• Tworek said Google's recent gains with Gemini are as much about the search giant as they are about OpenAI's missteps.

Sometimes a comeback story starts with a fumble.

A former top OpenAI researcher said Google's AI renaissance is as much about OpenAI's missteps as it is about what the search giant got right.

"Personally, what I think you should consider Google's comeback, I think it's OpenAI's fumble," Jerry Tworek, a former VP of research at OpenAI, said on a Wednesday episode of Ashlee Vance's "Core Memory" podcast.

Tworek, who spent almost seven years at OpenAI, said earlier this month that he left the startup "to try to explore types of research that are hard to do at OpenAI."

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declared a "Code Red" in December amid increasing competition from Google. The tech giant received wide praise across the industry for the capabilities of its Gemini 3 AI model, which some observers said had surpassed ChatGPT.

While declining to detail what he described as OpenAI's missteps, Tworek said that the pioneering AI company should never have lost the lead it established with the release of ChatGPT in 2022.

"If you are a company that is ahead and has all the advantages that OpenAI has you should always stay ahead," he said.

Overall, Tworek said, "Google did a lot of things right."

"Very clearly, Google started treating seriously at that moment, training large language models and, like, through OpenAI fumbling its lead, they are very, very close now in capability and in terms of models trained," he said, adding that the whole industry began to up its investment in AI when OpenAI showed ChatGPT could generate revenue.

As for OpenAI, Tworek said that the sheer toll of the AI race has led the non-profit-research lab-turned-public-benefit-corporation to place less of an emphasis on risky research that may not yield results. A spokesperson for OpenAI did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

"There are multiple aspects of certain things that are just hard to do in a company that has to compete in an extremely, extremely brutal and demanding race for having the best AI model in the world right now," he said. "One dynamic is there is naturally how much willingness of risks companies are willing to take from the perspective of trying to not fall behind."

Tworek said "all major AI companies" are facing pressure to show user growth and pay for GPUs while simultaneously competing to be the best available model.

"That does affect somehow your appetite for risk that you are willing to take," he said.

Do you work at OpenAI or Google? Contact the reporter from a non-work email and device at bgriffiths@businessinsider.com

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How well do you remember 2016? Take our quiz and find out

credit should read DON EMMERT/AFP via Getty Images

• Nostalgic millennials are yearning for 2016 — from the Chicago Cub's World Series championship to skinny jeans.
• But 2016 was also defined by political instability and corporate scandals.
• Business Insider put together a quiz about the year's top stories to see how much you remember. Can you ace it?

How well do you remember 2016?

The now decade-old year is having a moment on Instagram and TikTok. Nostalgic millennials are pining for skintight jeans, blasting Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop the Feeling," and lining up for the latest Jennifer Lawrence movie.

With the benefit of hindsight, 2016 feels like a calmer time. It was before a global pandemic, surging inflation, multiple wars, and the rise of AI and Big Tech.

But it didn't feel so simple back then.

Underneath the feel-good stories — like the Chicago Cub's ending their 108-year World Series drought or Hamilton's Tony Award win for Best Musical — the year was also defined by political upheaval, corporate scandals, and culture-shifting moments that still reverberate today.

So we put together a quiz to see how much you remember — including the good, the bad, and the political — from 2016.

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