South Korea's Kospi price swings are increasingly reverberating through global technology markets.
Jung Yeon-je/AFP/Getty Images
South Korea's has become an unlikely bellwether for the AI trade.
Its stock market swings are increasingly spilling into Wall Street.
Chip stocks and leveraged bets are fueling the turbulence.
South Korea's stock market is becoming one of the world's most important gauges for the AI trade, with its sharp swings increasingly spilling over into Wall Street and beyond.
On Tuesday, the country's benchmark Kospi index closed 3.6% higher following a program trading halt, extending another volatile stretch that began when a record-setting rally earlier this year gave way to a sharp pullback in recent weeks. Samsung Electronics' stock closed 6.2% higher while SK Hynix's shares ended 4.1% up.
Once dismissed as a market trading at a discount to its global peers, South Korea has become a focal point for investors as AI spending turbocharged chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, reshaping the country's stock market.
That's becoming a problem for global markets.
"What may be most unsettling to investors, though, is the degree to which the violent moves in Korea have become the 'Tail' that 'Wags the Dog' of global asset markets broadly, and NDX specifically," wrote analysts at Evercore ISI, referring to the Nasdaq-100 index.
They added in the Sunday note that the correlation between the Kospi and the Nasdaq 100 has reached "an astounding .95," suggesting the two markets have recently moved almost in lockstep as investors increasingly treat South Korea as a proxy for the AI trade.
South Korea's market has become "effectively a barometer for the AI trade," Michelle Gibley, the director of international equity research and strategy at the Schwab Center for Financial Research, wrote in a Monday note.
Gibley attributed the market's volatility to memory chips' critical role in the AI supply chain, booming chipmaker profits, South Korea's heavy concentration of semiconductor stocks, and growing leverage.
Those forces helped propel the Kospi to record highs earlier this year, alongside optimism over President Lee Jae Myung's market reforms aimed at narrowing the country's longstanding "Korea discount."
Leveraged bets amplify market swings
Retail investors have added another layer of volatility by pouring money into leveraged single-stock ETFs, particularly those tied to Samsung and SK Hynix, magnifying swings in the market's biggest AI stocks.
The result has been dramatic gains and equally dramatic losses that have already triggered the Kospi's circuit breaker seven times this year.
"Korea has become a focal point for investors, where intensifying memory scarcity meets unusually concentrated exposure across its economy and equity market, while a risk-seeking retail base magnifies that concentration through leveraged single-stock bets, driving violent index price action," Evercore's analysts wrote.
The volatility became so extreme that South Korean regulators have paused approvals for new leveraged single-stock ETFs, seeking to rein in speculative trading.
The regulators' move underscores just how heated the market had become. Evercore said the boom-and-bust pattern is typical of major investment themes like AI.
"The six-week drawdown has been relentless, but tech investors know the pattern: powerful secular themes overshoot in both directions, lasting 'longer than investors can stay solvent,' particularly when copious leverage is involved," the analysts wrote.
The Kospi is 18% lower over the past month but remains 113% higher over the past year. The index is 60% higher year to date.
Brenda Eicher-Beard's husband had a stroke in 2023.
Courtesy of Brenda Eicher-Beard
Brenda Eicher-Beard quit working once her husband had a stroke in 2023.
She returned to the workforce after Medicare stopped covering care.
She thinks assisted living wouldn't meet his needs, and it's cheaper to care for him at home.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Brenda Eicher-Beard, in her 70s and living in Virginia. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I spent most of my career life in Maryland, but I moved to Virginia a decade ago because my daughter lives and works there.
We kept our home in Maryland because we intended to return after helping with childcare. However, we ended up staying due to my husband's health declining, to be near my daughter for her assistance, and for the medical facilities and physicians.
When my grandson was in kindergarten, my husband was in good health and helped with childcare while I continued to work. He picked him up from school and things like that. His health started to decline a bit in 2021, and we were trying to figure out a diagnosis. After seeing several different neurologists, the doctors said that he had atypical Parkinson's.
He also had blood pressure issues that we were dealing with, and then he had a hemorrhagic stroke in January 2023, just a few months after the Parkinson's diagnosis, and I quit working. This fall I went back to work full time as a reading specialist to afford keeping him at home with private paid care.
He never really took a day off work
My husband was a very healthy person. He never really took any time off from work. He was an athlete, went to college on a basketball scholarship, and was a teacher. He taught US history for decades and coached football and basketball. He was placed in the Maryland High School Coaches Hall of Fame for his football coaching.
His stroke a few years ago has impaired him health-wise. They medevaced him from the local hospital to another. He was in intensive care for a month. Then he was in their stroke ward for several days before being in a rehabilitation hospital for a month.
He came home, but went back into rehab a few months after. He had some other issues, but he's been home since then. Medicare was covering home healthcare for the first few months. It also covered occupational and physical therapy, but that ended in June 2025 based on the progress he had made. So I've been paying for home health and physical therapy; my husband no longer needs occupational therapy.
We did speech therapy as an outpatient, but he was released from that. I paid privately for a speech therapist, but they're very limited, so it's hard to find. If Medicare does cover it, sometimes it's through an online call, which doesn't work for everybody, certainly not for older adults.
We used money from selling our home because Medicare only covered so much
We sold our home in Maryland in 2021, and we had some of those financial resources to use, but Medicare only covered so much. It covered a lot, don't get me wrong, but it stopped covering once he was out of the rehab hospital, and he did a little bit of therapy. To have more therapy, I had to pay individually. I was somewhat astounded that Medicare would stop paying, but they did.
I guess I had the false conception of — my husband and I worked for school systems, we have a decent pension, we have Social Security, we have Medicare — Medicare would kind of come in and cover those things that we didn't. I worked for Baltimore County Public Schools for 30 years, and when I retired, they covered my health benefits until I reached Social Security and Medicare age. I just had no concept that Medicare wouldn't cover his nursing home care other than the initial 30 days of the rehab.
We spend about $5,000 a month
I pay at least $240 a month for a private certified nursing assistant to come and assist with his showers. I was paying $140 an hour for physical therapy twice a week, but now paying $110 an hour for three times a week with a different company for an exercise physiotherapist. My husband can do limited walking with a walker and assistance. Working with the exercise physiotherapist allows my husband to stay home, because if he gets to the point where he's totally bedfast, I won't be able to take care of him by myself.
Now that I work again in the education system, I'm basically there with him from 4:30 p.m. until I leave at 7:30 a.m. or 8 a.m. to come to school. I employ multiple caregivers, but only one would come for a day; the pay is from $20 an hour to $29 an hour for home healthcare in this area.
We spent about $5,000 a month, with over $1,000 coming from physical therapy and the rest from other expenses, including the shower assistance and eight to nine hours a day for multiple caregivers. Since school was out in June, I paid very little for caregiving since I wasn't working. I'll be paying for more care again in July since I'll be getting surgery and need the help. I'll be working full time again in August.
It's cheaper than assisted living memory care units. It's what I can afford at this point in time without going bankrupt, so I can still have money for expenses and other things. I can keep and maintain my car. If I need to buy clothing or decide I want to buy a gift for my grandchildren, I'm not at the bare-bones broke, which I would be if he were in assisted living.
I don't know if assisted living would meet his needs
I feel better about doing care this way because I don't know that assisted living or a nursing home would actually meet his needs at this point in time.
He doesn't speak as much as he used to, but he still reads and maintains an interest in sports and history. At a lot of the places I visited, I didn't see things that would actually keep him entertained.
I just feel more comfortable with him at home because he can go to plays or we can go to things that he's interested in, even though his mobility is limited. He still requires a lot of care, but there are also important things for his quality of life.
We've gone to football games. We went to the University of Maryland in April because my husband got an award for his high school coaching, and a lot of his former players and people associated with his coaching career were there. The local university does a lot of summer theater and plays. My daughter usually takes us, and we usually go to at least one or two of those during the summer. We watch football games or lectures or things through my Chromebook online. He's very interested in that. He likes to read. A couple of them, nursing homes and rehab centers, really don't have anything for people to read.
I like working
I retired from Baltimore County after 30 years, and then I worked in Pennsylvania in literacy for a period of time, and I actually had enough time there to meet the qualifications to retire from them. So I had two retirement things going on, and then we moved to Virginia. I was still working, so I worked here in the school systems. I did retire briefly, and we did a bit of traveling and other things.
When he started to have some issues with Parkinson's, I left the school system. I did a little tutoring and some work at a preschool. When he had a stroke, I was scheduled to work with another school system, but that kind of shut everything down because that was a full-time job.
Then I went back to work full-time with the school system again, and they were incredibly generous, giving me all my years of experience. So I went in at the top of the pay scale, which made it conceivable for me to hire people to stay with my husband because someone has to be with him all of the time. He is in a wheelchair or in his lift chair. He can't move on his own without assistance, and he needs someone to prepare his meals.
I'm a reading specialist. I like my job and don't mind working. I'm going to be working probably for a long time.I recently renewed my teaching certificate, so I'm good until I'm 80.
I'm sure I'll be working until then because that's the only way we'll be able to manage all the things we're doing for my husband's care. If he declines more, because he does have atypical Parkinson's, and if that leads to more decline and he does require more help, either in-home or a nursing home situation, then definitely I'll be working.
I'm not really concerned about future caregiving needs for myself. I'm fairly healthy. My father lived until his late 80s. I have a grandmother who lived well into her 90s, so I hope I have some long-winded genes in there. I have a good family practice person here. We have good medical care here, so I keep up with that. I'm trying to stay healthy myself so that I can swing all this that we're doing.
I know that if push came to shove, my daughter and son would be helpful, and they have helped with their dad in a lot of different ways, but I don't really look ahead. I look at it as one season at a time.
Kimi K3 has intensified the debate over China's growing influence in the global AI race.
Long Wei/VCG/Getty Images
Kimi K3 is fueling fresh excitement around China's AI ambitions.
Alibaba and Tencent stand to benefit beyond their Moonshot stakes, Bernstein says.
Kimi's breakthrough is reigniting debate over AI spending and chip stocks.
China's Kimi K3 has emerged as the latest AI model sensation, drawing so much interest that developer Moonshot AI temporarily paused new subscriptions just days after launch.
"K3 represented another instance where the ability of China's top AI labs to keep pace with the US frontier has surprised global investors," Bernstein analysts led by Robin Zhu wrote in a Friday note.
Beyond the excitement surrounding Moonshot itself, Kimi's breakout is bringing fresh attention to Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Tencent, both investors in the startup.
Alibaba acquired a 36% stake in Moonshot during a February 2024 funding round, while Tencent is also a known investor.
But their opportunity extends beyond their Moonshot stakes, Bernstein's analysts wrote. As AI models become more competitive, cloud providers and internet platforms stand to gain bargaining power over the model makers.
For Alibaba, Bernstein said Kimi's success is "probably a positive for Alicloud revenue growth."
Tencent, meanwhile, may have an overlooked asset in Workbuddy, its desktop AI assistant, which has 8 million to 9 million monthly visits.
Alibaba shares rose as much as 6% in Hong Kong on Monday, while Tencent gained 4%. The Hang Seng Tech Index climbed 4%, as Kimi reignited the AI narrative that DeepSeek helped spark last year. The broader Hang Seng Index added over 2%.
The enthusiasm for Kimi has also fueled a broader debate over AI economics.
AI chip stocks sold off sharply on Friday, with investors questioning whether lower-cost Chinese models could reduce the need for the massive AI infrastructure spending underpinning the current boom.
Chinese AI models are approaching frontier-level performance while priced closer to mid-tier US systems.
"That challenges the economics of the current US-led AI stack, where frontier capability has been associated with very high compute and capital intensity," Deutsche Bank analyst Jim Reid wrote in a note on Monday.
The concerns weighed on South Korea's stock markets, which were on a red-hot rally until late last month,
On Monday, South Korea's benchmark Kospi index closed 4% lower as index heavyweight Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both lost over 4%. The Kospi is now 28% lower than a month ago, although it's still 55% higher this year to date.
The Japanese markets were closed for a public holiday.
Erin Kee says voice memos to Claude has helped her as a working mom.
Erin Kee
Erin Kee is a mom of two kids under four. She sends at least one long voice memo to Claude a day.
"I don't think moms need any more information," Kee said. "We actually need a system."
Kee uses Claude to manage her schedule and aggregate parenting advice.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Erin Kee, the 38-year-old founder of Kee To Wellness and writer of The Mental Load Memo. She also works in tech sales and lives in Austin. It's been edited for length and clarity.
I have a 3.5-year-old daughter named Claire and 1.5-year-old son named Liam.
We're in the thick of things right now. We're transitioning to a new school in the fall, as her old school is closing. It's summer, so we're doing swim lessons. My husband just started a new job. There's a lot of stuff happening in the calendar that needs to be managed.
I didn't realize that going from one to two kids felt like going from one to four. We had to get a lot more granular on how we were going to be managing our week.
Being able to link that into an AI automation has been really helpful. I'm not trying to spend my whole weekend doing logistics. I actually want to enjoy myself as a working mom.
I feel like every single week I'm finding a new way to use it.
In the beginning, I was messing around with ChatGPT and learning what I could do there. About a year ago, I started leaning more into Claude, which I think has way more functionality with the projects and automations.
One of the things I love the most that I've set up is an automated Sunday briefing. Every Sunday morning, it scours all of my calendars: from work, from my personal Gmail, from my wellness email. It gives me a briefing of what I can expect for the week and if anything is overlapping or needs to be rescheduled.
Kee has Claude send her a Sunday briefing with her week's schedule.
Erin Kee
It gets things I didn't realize, like a birthday party I need to get a present for. It'll even read those birthday invites and be like: "This is for a 4-year-old boy, here are some Amazon ideas that would be delivered by that day."
I also have a family briefing that gets sent to my husband and me. That includes our meal plans for the week. I have it connected to my Skylight recipe box, and it'll build a grocery list for me.
Why I send Claude multi-minute voice notes
I'm a big voice-noter. My friends and I voice note all day long. It's helpful when you have something more detailed to say.
I do a long voice note into Claude at least once a day. If I have a lot of feedback, or I have an idea and I need to get it out, I feel like it's easier than typing.
Most of the time, I'm doing voice-to-text, so I can go in and edit some of the words to make sure everything is correct. I can talk to it for three to five minutes sometimes. It depends on what I'm building.
There was a weird rash on my son. I'll open Claude up, sometimes add photos, and use voice-to-text. I'll be at my desk, I'll be walking around, I'll be in my car. If it hits my brain, I'm like: "I've got to get it out right now."
Sometimes, my daughter is like, "Who are you talking to?" She's aware of FaceTime. My mom, stepdad, and brothers all live up in Dallas. I think she thinks if I'm talking into my phone, it's FaceTime, and she gets to talk to Meemaw.
Sometimes she gets confused, and I have to let her know: "We're not on FaceTime, no one's here, I'm just talking to my phone."
Kee's daughter sometimes misinterprets voice memos to Claude as FaceTime calls with relatives.
Erin Kee
I'm struggling with getting her to sleep in her room at the moment. We've been trying to figure out different ways to get her to sleep up there.
I gave Claude: "She's starting a new school in August, and we have these different trips coming up." It said: "It's summer, she's going to bed later, so this makes sense. Over the next six weeks leading up to school, here are some ways you can optimize it. Maybe try: 'You can sleep in our bed during school nights, but on Friday night, you need to sleep in your own bed.'"
I told Claude to research a bunch of parenting experts like Dr. Becky and pull in tips on what people are doing in similar situations. We have a transition plan: "Mom will sleep in your bed one night, Dad will sleep in your bed the next night, and then moving forward, you're going to sleep in your own bed all the time."
There's so much information out there. I don't think moms need any more information. We don't need more things on our to-do list. Every time I get on the internet, it's: I need to be doing this with my kid, I need to be doing gentle parenting, I need to be building resilient children.
We actually need a system. How do we build and optimize a system that is taking things off their plate, and not adding more? That's what I'm thinking about as I automate.
Forma's "Pink Thermal Baths" imagines an underground data center that transfers the heat it emits to a public bathhouse above ground.
Forma
Generative AI has sparked a race among hyperscalers to build large data centers at high speed.
Some facilities are being built near communities, attracting opposition from concerned residents.
Architects are designing data centers that could benefit local neighborhoods.
A data center goes up in the middle of a California desert oasis, and in return, a nearby community gets a 32,000-square-foot bathhouse where people lounge in pools warmed by subterranean servers.
Forma, a New York-based architecture studio, designed the "Pink Thermal Baths" concept in 2021, before generative AI ignited a race to build computing facilities across America.
Miroslava Brooks, a founding partner of Forma, told Business Insider the concept wasn't meant to be a blueprint for turning hyperscale AI campuses into spas. Instead, it asks a question that has become more urgent as computing complexes pop up near residential neighborhoods:What can a data center give back to the place that hosts it?
"I really think that the first question is, what does this building give back? And that has to go beyond just energy and the data," Brooks said.
The cloud is getting harder to ignore
Data centers aren't new. Before frontier AI model labs, they've supported banks, websites, streaming services, and cloud storage.
Thomas McGoldrick, a managing director at Gensler who has designed data centers for about 20 years, remembers when they were treated as "back-of-house" facilities supporting individual businesses.
"Now, the transfer of data becomes more and more important," he said. "It's become part of our strategic infrastructure."
A Business Insider analysis found that by the end of 2025, more than 1,400 data centers had been built or approved across the US.
Virginia has become a hotbed of data centers, with some facilities being built near residential communities.
Nathan Howard/Getty Images
Some data centers are being developed near homes. A 2024 Virginia study found that 29% of operational data center properties were within 200 feet of residentially zoned land and said neighborhood impacts could increase as suitable land grows scarcer.
Residents have raised issues about constant noise, water use, and pressure on electricity bills.
A March Gallup poll found 71% of US adults opposed building an AI data center in their local area, including 48% who "strongly oppose" one.
The scale of data centers and the opposition around them have pushed architects into a debate over whether design can reduce those burdens or merely camouflage them.
Making gray boxes fit in
Gensler, a San Francisco-based architecture firm, has multiple hyperscaler clients, including Microsoft, and works with developers building for major cloud companies.
McGoldrick said those clients prioritize speed to market, scale, access to power, and buildings that can adapt as computing equipment changes.
"They're all trying to get their product out there as fast as they can to make their business grow as best they can," he said.
Within those constraints, Gensler tries to make data centers more than blank, industrial boxes. One approach, McGoldrick said, is to treat them like an "office building that houses computers."
For one complex, Gensler repurposed an old call center campus into a 1 million-square-foot computing facility.
Gensler designed a Corten-steel data center that blends in with the local environment.
Gensler
The firm used Corten steel to complement the earthy textures of the local landscape and, through efficient planning, added a one-acre public park.
McGoldrick said the firm often starts with a repeatable prototype, then adjusts the materials and layout for each site.
Beyond aesthetics, data centers have faced increased scrutiny from communities for their energy use and noise. McGoldrick said there are limits to what architects can address.
"There are only so many things that we could control in that environment," McGoldrick said. "So we're openly honest about what we are doing and what we're seeing in other communities."
A data center that gives back
Arup, a UK-based architecture and engineering firm, is exploring how the standardized data center box could change when brought into a city.
Rachel Atthis, an Arup director, said the traditionally long, low building may need a smaller footprint and more height, scaling multiple stories. Bringing a data center into town, she said, means architects have to "turn it on its end."
Arup associate director Marco Mugnai said acoustic screens, landscaped buffers, and changes in site topography can address noise issues.
The firm has also imagined data centers that repurpose structures, such as redundant offshore oil rigs, or pair with tomato farms that use their waste heat.
Arup imagines data centers that can contribute to local farming.
Arup
"I suppose it's about giving back," Atthis said. "I think every building in some way should do that."
Some of the ideas require participation from local governments and developers to build supporting infrastructure, such as district heating networks. Security and backup-power requirements also mean some of Arup's more ambitious concepts may remain years away, Atthis said.
Forma's Pink Thermal Baths makes a similar proposition. Rather than a linear system, in which electricity enters and heat is expelled, Brooks, the Forma founding partner, imagines a "circular model" that turns excess heat into a public use.
Forma's "Pink Thermal Baths" imagines an underground data center that heats a public bathhouse above.
Forma
"A successful data center," she said, would operate across "the ecology, the infrastructure, and the culture or civicness."
When design isn't enough
Marina Otero Verzier, an architect and Harvard Graduate School of Design lecturer, has explored another use for server heat.
Her "Computational Compost" project channels heat generated from a computer into a vermicomposting system, where worms and microorganisms thrive, creating fertile compost for a local garden.
Otero cautioned that reusing heat is not a complete solution.
"I don't think it's enough just to reuse the heat, because the heat is already a waste product," she said.
Parks, lower-carbon materials, and shared heating systems can improve data centers, Otero said, but "it's just not enough."
"Computational Compost" proposes a computer that provides heat for fertile soil.
Tabakalera
She proposed challenging the data center blueprint itself, raising questions about whether every type of data must be immediately available, whether it requires round-the-clock operations, and whether companies' competitive demands should determine how community resources are expended.
This could mean designing facilities for different "ecologies of data," she said — hot, cold, private, temporary — rather than defaulting to the same high-security, always-on model. It could also mean starting with what a community needs, rather than reorganizing housing, energy, and other local infrastructure around a data center.
"The needs of OpenAI, Google, Meta are not the needs of the majority of the world," Otero said. "They are the needs of those companies and their owners."
Asia's biggest AI chip winners are tumbling as a once-relentless rally shows signs of cracking.
Bloomberg/Getty Images
Asia's AI chip rally is unraveling as investors balk at sky-high valuations and rising market volatility.
Japan's Kioxia has lost half its value since peaking after a blockbuster AI-fueled stock surge.
South Korea is cracking down on speculative trading after AI chip stocks fueled a market frenzy.
Asia's chip makers have been on a monster AI-fueled rally this year.
But after months of relentless gains, some of the region's biggest winners are tumbling as investors question lofty valuations and South Korea moves to rein in speculative trading in one of this year's hottest stock markets.
Nowhere is the reversal more striking than at Japan's Kioxia.
The memory chipmaker was the second-best-performing non-US stock in the MSCI All Country World Investable Market Index in the first half of the year, soaring 631%. Last month, it became Japan's most valuable listed company.
That momentum has unraveled quickly.
Kioxia shares plunged 16% on Friday following an overnight sell-off in US-listed memory stocks. The stock has halved since its June peak, wiping about 30 trillion yen, or roughly $185 billion, off its market value.
The sell-off spread across the region on Friday.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's largest contract chipmaker, fell over 5% despite reporting blockbuster second-quarter earnings on Thursday, with profits surging 77% from a year earlier.
South Korea's market was closed on Friday, but Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have already fallen roughly one-third from their peaks this year. SK Hynix's Nasdaq-listed shares closed 14% lower on Thursday.
The weakness followed South Korea's decision to tighten rules on single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds after weeks of sharp market swings. Regulators said the measures were aimed at cooling excessive speculation.
South Korea had been one of the world's hottest equity markets this year, with the rally fueled in part by heavy retail participation and leveraged bets concentrated in AI-related names.
Top economist and former PIMCO CEO Mohamed El-Erian said South Korean authorities face a delicate balancing act: tackling inflation while heading off excessive financial volatility that could trigger "disorderly deleveraging."
"How this plays out over the coming weeks is worth watching: It's not an easy mix to manage, and the latter, if mismanaged, could have some cross-border spillovers," he wrote on X on Thursday.
Figma's product design VP, Noah Levin, said he expects more from candidates in the AI era.
Figma
Figma's product design VP said there's one key difference in how he hires designers at the company now.
Noah Levin wants potential hires to use AI tools to produce several realistic, interactive prototypes.
But that doesn't mean they can just "AI slop a bunch of prototypes," Levin said.
Figma's design boss said product design candidates need to do more to keep him interested during interviews.
Noah Levin told Business Insider on Thursday that AI tools now allow product designers to create polished, interactive prototypes, and that it's raised the bar for what he expects from potential hires. Levin has been the vice president of product design at the San Francisco-based tech company for more than eight years.
He said that a decade ago, it was hard to find designers who could "produce an idea that really felt like the real product," largely because of their lack of technical know-how. Before AI, it would have taken designers too much effort to produce 10 interactive, working design prototypes, and the effort would not have been worth their time.
"What's changed a lot is that AI has made it possible to prototype your ideas in record time without technical knowledge and detail," Levin said.
So he now expects every job candidate to be able to express their designs in the "highest fidelity possible." Fidelity in user interface and experience refers to the level of detail and accuracy in design prototypes.
Levin said he wants to see design candidates be up to date with the latest AI tools, saying, "We like to see that people have experimented with new tools and that they're not lagging behind in how they work."
That does not mean that they can simply "AI slop a bunch of prototypes" and showcase them in the interview process, he said. The role of a designer — to solve user problems and have good craft — has not changed, so he said he needs to see candidates bring themselves into their work and "not just rely on the default outputs."
In fact, he likes it when his potential hires show him product prototypes that failed and were discarded.
"The first idea you put out, you might get lucky, maybe that was the right one," he said. "But the reality is behind every configuration launch this year that we showed, there were hundreds of discarded ideas, prototypes, and mock-ups. And so I think people don't show that enough."
Before joining the team at Figma, Levin led the UX team at ClassPass and worked as a designer at Google.
Levin's comments come as the emergence of several AI platforms has made it easy for amateurs to design websites and products. Vibe coding platforms like Lovable, Base44, and Emergent are easy to use and deliver polished-looking products in minutes with simple prompts.
Other, more traditional design platforms, like Canva and Wix, have also introduced AI-powered tools to make design more accessible to the masses.
Figma's leadership has said on multiple occasions that AI-generated design will not diminish the value of designers. Figma CEO and cofounder Dylan Field said in June that AI designs can largely be considered "average," and now is a great time for designers to test boundaries and be creative.
He said in October last year that his company's tools won't replace the work of a world-class designer, but will help remove the "drudgery" of the design process.
Louis Fawcett's wife doesn't love the credit card points game like he does, though she does enjoy the perks — when she actually uses them. They make most of their purchases with two elite American Airlines cards to build up loyalty points and status. Whenever it comes time to do something points-related, Fawcett's wife just hands him her phone. "She's a more laid-back person," Fawcett, 53, says.
She'll join him in American's Admirals Club, which she jokingly calls the "poor people's lounge," but she skips out on the "rich people's" Centurion Lounge, which Fawcett can now access thanks to a recently acquired Amex Platinum card. (The reluctance is partly due to the $50 guest fee.) She doesn't always take advantage of the American benefits, either — a few years ago, Fawcett upgraded to first class on a family trip from South Carolina to Hawaii. His wife opted to sit in the main cabin with the kids. "'That's your choice,' I said, 'but don't tell me I'm snooty because I'm in first class when you have to walk past me to go back in the tiny seats,'" he says.
As rewards credit cards have become more lucrative — not to mention more expensive and complicated — these kinds of inter-relationship divides are increasingly common. Consumers have become amateur point strategists in an attempt to maximize bonuses, accumulate points, and jump on every opportunity to make their premium plastic worth it. Taking full advantage can require spreadsheets and deep dives into the fine print to identify exactly which purchase should go on which card and make sure no rewards-related stone is left unturned.
This has created a new financial dynamic in many households, where one partner effectively becomes the points point person while the other opts out (or opts for a different approach). This mismatch can reveal stark differences in how couples think about money and require some delicate negotiations over how to spend or save.
Fawcett's wife has been the one to bend on his rewards obsession. On a recent trip to the Dominican Republic, she joined him in the lap of first-class luxury, while the kids were left to fight it out with the riffraff in coach.
People tend to seek out partners who are their financial opposites, explains Scott Rick, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Michigan and the author of "Tightwads and Spendthrifts: Navigating the Money Minefield in Real Relationships." Big spenders are attracted to penny-pinchers, money maximizers who want to constantly comparison shop to satisficers who are generally fine with good enough.
"If you encounter someone with your problem, I think it can really be a turnoff, because it just really reminds you of your own stuff," Rick says. "The mismatch, at first, can be really intoxicating and intriguing."
If one partner really wants to maximize points, is it about the points or is it about feeling like you have enough for the future?
Couples wind up with what Rick and other researchers coined a "fatal (fiscal) attraction," a reference to the 1987 film. Once people settle into relationships and real life begins, the exhilaration of a partner's novel approach to money can wear off and the cracks start to show. It's one thing when the free spirit in the equation is spending a bit too much on Amazon when a pair first starts dating, it's another thing when finances are intertwined, and the cheapskate starts worrying that shopping habit could make it hard to keep up on the mortgage.
"The stakes can sort of ratchet up on you," Rick says.
Misalignment on rewards cards isn't nearly as grave as, say, one partner thinking another's spending is a terrible influence on their kids, but it can point to underlying issues or bigger differences.
"A lot of times, these asymmetries or this tension between partners isn't about the money, it's more about what it represents," says Jenny Olson, an assistant marketing professor at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. Perhaps for one person, money represents freedom and fun, and to another, it's more about security and stability. These conflicting goals and values can raise deeper emotional questions. "If one partner really wants to maximize points, is it about the points or is it about feeling like you have enough for the future?" she says.
My Business Insider colleague, Jane Zhang, confesses she's a points fanatic — she's got a notes app cheat sheet on which cards she should use for which purchases. Her husband's not so convinced these gymnastics are worth it. If it were up to him, they'd probably have one card. They've found common ground where they can. He doesn't put up a fuss if she takes a beat to decide which card to use when they're out. She recognizes that it's OK for him not to be rewards-maximizing every little thing. "I just trust that it's worth it, whereas he's like, 'I don't trust that it's worth every inconvenience,'" she says.
Even two points enthusiasts can find themselves at odds — especially when it comes to where loyalty lies. That's the case for Matthew Williams and his husband in San Francisco. Williams, who's originally from Arizona, and his family have long been dedicated to Southwest Airlines, and he's had a card from them for years. His husband is a "big points guy," but also a "United guy." After the pair met in 2018, they were so attached to their respective airlines and rewards setups that they flew separately to the same destinations.
The scheme worked until it didn't: In December 2022, Williams got ensnared in Southwest's operational meltdown on a visit to his parents. He had to sprint across the airport to get their apartment keys to his husband after his Southwest flight was canceled. "After that, I was like, 'This really is not a great system,'" he says. "We ended that after that fiasco."
He still has the Southwest card, but he also got a Chase Sapphire card that's less restrictive, so he can book whatever — including United, which his husband is still sticking with.
When couples find themselves in a bit of a rewards card standoff, they should interrogate the "why," says Megan McCoy, a financial therapist and associate professor at Kansas State University. It might be a personality difference — one person is more detail-oriented, or maybe one side thinks the gamification aspect is fun.
"If someone's anxious, then the partner can have empathy around that anxiety," she says. "If it's from a gamification, I love to win, I want to beat the credit card company, maybe there's other outlets for it."
Get to a point that you can win over someone's heart in the game.
As with many things in a relationship, simply talking can go a long way. Many people assume that any money-related conversations will be negative, so they come into them angry and anxious or put them off until there's a problem.
"Couples expect talking about money to be worse than it is," Olson says.
People don't need to know everything about their partners' financial habits, Rick warns. They don't need to be combing through financial statements to scrutinize each line item and make sure every point and card was used to perfection. It is good to have a sense of the broad strokes, though. "It's more about maintaining this balance between the economics and a functioning relationship," he says.
Chris Hutchins, the creator and host of the "All the Hacks" podcast, tells me he hears "all the time" about rewards card-related relationship conflicts, including in his own household. Like many savvy optimizers, he sometimes opens up credit cards in his wife's name to take advantage of sign-up and referral bonuses. One time, he forgot to keep her in the loop (or she at least says he did), and she was surprised to find out about a new card in her name. "Now, I make sure there's an actual conversation," he says.
Hutchins also notes that disputes can arise not only when accumulating rewards points but also when using them. One person wants to stay at a certain hotel or fly a certain airline to use points, while the other would rather do the thing they want to do, regardless of what their memberships dictate.
"One of the things that points does that is frustrating is that it locks you into thinking that you can only travel in a certain way," he says. The family really wants to go to Hawaii, but they've only got the points to go to Phoenix for free.
Credit card companies have done a very good job of convincing us that racking up points and gaming the system are worth it, and so rewards cards are yet another relationship battlefield. The best way to approach it is for people to communicate— and for the superfan to take responsibility for keeping everything straight. Hutchins also suggests a novel way to convince the skeptics: take them on a lavish, points-paid trip.
"Get to a point that you can win over someone's heart in the game," he says.
Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.
Tech giants like Meta, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are investing billions in new data centers across the US and around the world to power the next generation of AI technologies.
The rapid expansion has also turned AI data centers into a hot-button issue, with critics raising concerns about energy demand, water consumption, and the strain on local infrastructure.
At the same time, the buildout of AI data centers has also created thousands of blue-collar jobs for construction workers and other skilled tradespeople who are helping to bring these massive facilities to life.
Business Insider is reporting on what it's like to build these data centers — and wants to hear from the workers making it happen.
Whether you're a construction worker, engineer, electrician, pipefitter, plumber, ironworker, HVAC technician, welder, or another skilled tradesperson helping build — or who has recently helped build — AI data centers, Business Insider wants to hear from you.
A Ukrainian soldier flies a first-person-view drone in November 2025.
Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Reuters
The FSB said on Monday that Ukraine sneaked drones deep into Russia to bombard two airfields.
The drones were sent in via balloon and larger drones, then transported by trailer, the FSB said.
The Russian intelligence service said it seized 24 AI-enhanced attack drones and two ground stations.
Russian intelligence said on Monday that it stopped two major Ukrainian drone attacks on its airfields, describing a clandestine smuggling operation involving trailers, balloons, and fixed-wing drones.
State media outlet TASS reported that the Federal Security Service, or FSB, said the targets of the Ukrainian operation were the Ukrainka military airfield in the Amur region and the Shagol airfield in Chelyabinsk.
Both airfields are hundreds of miles away from Ukrainian territory; Amur is in the Far East and borders China, while Chelyabinsk is in the Urals.
Per TASS, the FSB said the Ukrainian operation began with fixed-wing drones and balloons dropping off first-person-view attack drones in Bryansk, a region bordering Ukraine.
Russian intelligence said the smaller drones were smuggled deeper into the country via car-towed trailers with false bottoms, loaded with household appliances as a ruse.
The drones were then prepared for attack in garages near the airfields, the FSB added.
The agency told TASS that it seized two ground control stations and 24 first-person-view drones equipped with Western-manufactured "neural control modules," which essentially provide onboard artificial intelligence.
Each attack drone was equipped with 1 kilogram of explosives, and the ground control stations were also "equipped with self-destruct devices continuing 250 grams of explosives each," the FSB said.
TASS reported that the first-person-view drones were equipped with small fragmentation balls on their sides, as well as a mix of incendiary, anti-armor, and high-explosive payloads.
Ukraine's GUR intelligence service and defense ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.
The details reported by Russia echo those of Operation Spiderweb, a shock Ukrainian drone attack last June that saw Kyiv's forces using trucks to smuggle dozens of small drones near four Russian airfields.
The strikes drew global attention for demonstrating the vulnerability of airfields to drone attacks. Ukraine said it destroyed or damaged over 40 warplanes, including Russia's hard-to-replace strategic bombers.
Artificial intelligence has also emerged as a key feature on Ukrainian and Russian war drones. Onboard AI algorithms allow a drone to identify targets and, in some cases, decide to engage them.
When combined with the ability to guide the drone to its target, that AI could essentially form the foundation for a group of drones to operate autonomously as a swarm.
It would also allow the drone to continue attacking while its radio signal to the human operator is jammed.
The FSB referred on Monday to the Ukrainian drones as part of a plan for "swarm drone attacks."
It also said that it confiscated communications devices used by the suspects transporting the drones to contact "Ukrainian handlers."
Ukraine's drone attack last year, Operation Spiderweb, involved several Russian drivers who delivered the uncrewed aircraft to the airfields. Kyiv said the drivers were unaware of the cargo they were carrying.
Marc Bowker said he's paid thousands of dollars in tariff fees but does not expect to receive any refunds.
Marc Bowker
A small-business owner says he doesn't expect to get refunds for the tariff fees he's paid.
Marc Bowker, owner of a comic book shop and online business, said he's paid thousands in tariff fees.
Importers can apply for tariff refunds, but they won't necessarily be passed on to retailers.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Marc Bowker, owner of Alter Ego Comics, a comic book shop in Lima, Ohio, and an accompanying e-commerce business. After the Supreme Court struck down some of President Donald Trump's tariffs in February, refunds are being issued to some importers. This story has been edited for length and clarity.
I keep a spreadsheet of what we've paid in tariff fees, and it's around $16,000 since April 2025. I was just on a two-week vacation and a thought ran through my head: "Why am I doing this? We're never going to get this back."
The tariff refunds are going to the companies that actually paid the import duties directly to the government, or the Importers of Record, so those will be your large manufacturers or importers. Many retailers like myself are ordering from third-party distributors. Because we are not directly importing the products, we can't directly apply for a refund.
I have not gotten answers about whether our suppliers will pass along refunds. Even if they do, it becomes very complicated because we've passed on a percentage of the tariff fees to our customers. So if I do ask for reimbursement, do I then turn around and reimburse them?
I think, unfortunately, everybody's out of luck unless you're one of the biggest companies in the world and have an entire legal force, HR, and finance teams that can do all of this. For the American small business, I really don't see anyone getting reimbursed, let alone passing that on to their customers.
A 'never-ending whack-a-mole of tariffs'
After the Supreme Court decision in February, I was hoping things would go back to the way they were before. Then Trump announced another 10% global tariff fee. The never-ending whack-a-mole of tariffs just seems like death by a thousand paper cuts.
We are still being charged a tariff fee from our primary supplier on every shipment. Our products affected by tariffs include collectible action figures, our largest revenue driver, which we also sell online. Sales of those products are down 50% from their pre-tariff levels.
I think our customers are either buying from companies that can absorb the tariff costs or holding off on purchasing because they don't want to pay the extra fee. It could also be that because the price of other goods has gone up, they are cutting their luxury spending. Buying a $300 action figure is not as important as filling up your gas tank or buying food when prices are up.
Marc Bowker and his family are in front of his store in Lima, Ohio.
Marc Bowker
Fortunately, I have multiple revenue streams. I still have our brick-and-mortar operation, where people spend between $25 and $50 on comics and other products that are not subject to tariffs. I have started thinking, do I need to pull the plug on products impacted by tariffs because it's creating more headaches than it's worth?
There's also a lot of rumbling from fellow retailers that these tariffs could be a Pandora's box for manufacturers and that once they see that they can pass these fees on and raise the prices of their products, they may not go back to the way things were before, even if the tariffs go away.
Small businesses need help
I have been wondering whether trade associations like the National Federation of Independent Business and chambers of commerce — local, state, or national — will work to secure reimbursements for their members. Is anybody fighting for small businesses in America about these tariffs?
In many cases, small businesses are run by solopreneurs or have fewer than 5 or 10 staff members. For our own sanity, we have to focus on what we can control — the four walls of our business — rather than trying to institute change from the outside, which takes time, money, and energy we may not have.
Instead of all of us having to pay attention to the changes in the tariff and refund situation on our own, the organizations that represent small businesses in America should be fighting for us.
Ultimately, it's going to fall to individual small businesses to push back, make those phone calls, and ask questions to figure out what's going on, but I don't expect to get any refunds.
At this point, if things could go back to the way they were pre-April 2025, that would be a win in my book.
Koby Conrad said that San Francisco was "really good for early-career humans."
Caroline Tran/Selina Pan Photography
Koby Conrad moved from San Francisco to Buenos Aires to build a family.
"I love the food, I love the culture, and I love the fact that my rent is 10x cheaper," he told Business Insider.
Conrad founded Sunflower, an AI sobriety companion. He said that he's more "locked in" in Buenos Aires.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Koby Conrad, the 32-year-old founder of Sunflower, an AI companion for sobriety. It's been edited for length and clarity.
I'm originally from Boise, Idaho, and didn't even realize tech was a thing. My little brother convinced me to move to San Francisco when I was 26.
At the time, I had this 2,000-square-foot house, and my mortgage was like $900 a month. In San Francisco, I moved in with nine roommates, where I was paying $1,600 for this tiny little room.
My little brother applied to Y Combinator, which I had never heard of, and he put me down as his cofounder. That's how I got into YC: Quit your job, move to SF, and six weeks later you get in. Classic.
I love San Francisco. It's one of the most gorgeous cities on the face of the planet. You're surrounded by nature, really smart people, and some of the best food.
Being in SF is like peaking over the edge of the universe and seeing what's coming next. That's my biggest fear about not being in San Francisco: the world's going to move, and I'm going to be behind.
The flip side of that is, if you're in SF, you're around a specific type of person all the time. Highly technical humans who work at tech companies is 90% of the circle. I think it's really good for early-career humans.
I'm loving Buenos Aires — and locked in
Leaving a city is like breaking up with an ex. You want someone better after, and you never want to downgrade. I asked, "How do I find a city that is better than SF?"
I had two options: New York or Buenos Aires. I spent a bunch of time in both, but ultimately I decided that I really like Buenos Aires.
The US does a really good job of romanticizing Europe and Asia, but we never think of Latin America. At my old company, Rupa Health, we would do our off-sites in Mexico and Costa Rica. We had a bunch of fun.
My brain really likes learning things. Learning a second language and being in an environment where everything is new is super stimulating for my mind.
I love the food, I love the culture, and I love the fact that my rent is 10x cheaper. In SF, if I'm making $300,000, I'm still stressed about money. Here, you can make $100,000 and think: "Cool, I'm set for the rest of my world."
The problem is that some parts of Latin America are dangerous. I was in Medellín for a bit and almost got kidnapped while walking up to the airplane.
Argentina is one of the safest places in Latin America. Buenos Aires is the safest city across multiple dimensions. There are people walking their kids in strollers. You don't have the earthquake fear. The cops are amazing here and won't shake you down. Argentines are amazingly friendly.
I've been coming in and out of the country every three months. Not being in SF means I travel to it frequently. I am applying for my nomad visa, though.
I'm super happy here. I'm about to have a baby, my girlfriend is here, and we're about to get a gorgeous office space. Technical talent will be in SF and New York, but the go-to-market team will be in Buenos Aires.
I'm super locked in here. When I go to San Francisco, it's like: here's a poker game, here's a founder dinner party, here's an investor event you need to go to. When I'm in Argentina, I have nothing to do but work 24/7. I have a full-time house manager who feeds me and does my laundry to make sure there's nothing I have to do besides work. It's like living under a rock.
There's a reason I moved 10,000 kilometers away. I'm not a very social creature. I'm a nerd who used to play a bunch of "RuneScape" and "World of Warcraft." For me, tech startups are an extension of that.
It's difficult to have kids in San Francisco
It's really hard to be able to have a house or apartment that's big enough to have a baby in San Francisco. You either need a spouse that doesn't work or you need to be able to hire childcare.
As a founder, I have employees who are pregnant, and they're going to have three months of maternity leave. I can't have three months of leave. I'm going to be out of the office for two weeks for the first time in six years; that's my leave.
To do my job and have kids, I have to be able to sleep and take care of them during the day. That's on top of having an extra bedroom. It would cost me half a million dollars to be able to afford that lifestyle in San Francisco.
Some of the most ambitious founders I've met haven't been in SF. Our ambitions should include kids and family. That's the reason most people want to have a $10 million outcome. I want to build massive things, have kids, and leave it all to them. That is a major drive for me.
People give up so much by being in those cities. The opportunity cost is crazy. If you're a founder and want to have a family, you basically have to be already exited.
The Post Modern Times uses work from local artists on its merch.
Dylan Alverson
Dylan Alverson transformed his Minneapolis eatery into a pay-what-you-can restaurant model.
Post Modern Times serves 155 meals daily, 90% of which are served without a donation.
Alverson said business is better now, and donations allow staff to earn at least $25 an hour.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Dylan Alverson, 45, who owns Post Modern Times, a pay-what-you-can restaurant in Minneapolis. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I started working in restaurants when I was 14 in northern Wisconsin.
My parents had moved there from the coaststo live on a self-sustaining property, so I grew up raising food, helping my mom cook, and developing an appreciation for ingredients long before I thought about restaurants as a career.
For years, cooking was what allowed me to travel. I worked everywhere from casual diners to acclaimed restaurants, never thinking I'd eventually own one.
That changed after I worked at a worker-owned restaurant in Minneapolis. Because everyone shared responsibility, I learned every side of the business. I started thinking, "If I ever opened my own place, here's what I'd do differently."
At 24, I moved to Seattle and, with a business partner, scraped together about $12,000 to open a café. I was living in the restaurant's storage room when I found out I was about to become a father.
Eventually, I realized I couldn't run the restaurant and be the kind of parent I wanted to be. I left.
A few years later, while working at a struggling bicycle shop, the owner offered to sell me the business for $1. It was easier to offload it at a loss than try to sell it. I turned it around during the recession, sold it a few years later, and moved back to Minneapolis.
Almost immediately, I stumbled upon the space that would become Modern Times. I signed the lease the same day.
From the beginning, I wanted it to reflect the neighborhood. I wrote all the recipes, sourced local food, turned part of the building into artist studios, and tried to create what people now call a "third place" — somewhere neighbors could gather, not just eat.
Diners at the Post Modern Times restaurant enjoy hot, home-cooked meals at pay-what-you-can prices.
Dylan Alverson
The restaurant grew steadily. By the year before this latest transition, annual sales had reached about $1.3 million.
Then everything changed.
The pandemic, inflation, and rising labor costs completely rewrote the economics of running an independent restaurant. Even though we were busy, I couldn't find a sustainable profit margin. I was working 7 shifts a week, fixing equipment myself, carrying flour up the stairs until I developed hip problems, and sometimes borrowing money to make payroll.
I wasn't the only one. Every restaurant owner I talked to was dealing with the same math.
Late last year, after federal immigration raids shook our neighborhood, we started offering free meals with help from a local grant. I noticed something immediately: People who needed food often wouldn't ask for it.
Then Alex Pretti, our neighbor, was killed during an immigration operation. Our community was reeling, and everyone was angry, so we took prices off the menu as part of a tax strike — we weren't charging for meals and therefore weren't generating sales tax.
It was a way to fight back and also provide comfort to our neighborhood, so anyone could get a hot meal if they needed one.
After seeing the spark of hope that change caused, we haven't gone back. People can now pay whatever they can afford. Or nothing at all.
The response surprised me
Supporters donated about half a million dollars over the winter after our story spread online. Four months later, we're still operating without menu prices.
We're serving about 155 meals a day. Around 90% of those meals aren't accompanied by a donation.
We're not trying to maximize profits anymore. We're trying to build a restaurant that's financially sustainable, pays staff a living wage, and ensures anyone in the neighborhood can eat.
Ironically, we're in a better financial position than we were before.
For the first time in years, I've been able to pay myself about $50,000 annually, and we're paying employees $25 an hour, with the goal of reaching $30 an hour.
We're still figuring it out. We've added guidelines to ensure the space remains welcoming for everyone, and we're constantly adjusting how we distribute meals to serve as many people as possible.
I don't pretend this is a finished model, but I do think restaurant owners need to stop pretending everything is fine.
Small business owners carry a lot of shame when things aren't working. I think we need to be more honest with each other. The traditional model isn't working for a lot of independent restaurants anymore.
If we want neighborhood businesses to survive, we have to be willing to imagine something different. And if we figure it out, I don't want to keep it to myself. I'd give the model away. That's the whole point.
Ford's all-important EV pickup truck has donned camouflage during public outings. The sneaky attire includes a QR for a hidden website landing page.
Ford
Ford's EV truck has been wearing camo during public testing.
That outfit had a QR code which brings curious onlookers to a product announcement site.
Ford's truck is the start to the company's next big EV bet.
Ford has been camouflaging its coming $30,000 EV pickup during public testing. Turns out, the going-out attire is intentionally revealing.
Photos and videos of the disguised truck have circulated widely online in recent weeks. And some of Ford's wraps have obscured the truck's body lines with a jumble of dogs, sailboats, soccer balls, heart emojis — and tiny QR codes.
Scanning one sends curious onlookers to an official Ford webpage that declares, "Congrats, You Spotted a Unicorn." There, the automaker shows clearer footage of the pickup undergoing snow testing and moving through production, while inviting visitors to sign up for updates.
"Chances are, you saw something on the road that piqued your interest, and you're here because you're curious," Alan Clarke, Ford's vice president of advanced development projects, says in a video at the top of the site. "This website will be your exclusive insight into our progress."
The camouflage is doing two jobs at once: concealing the big-bet truck's final shape and helping Ford build an audience before it officially pulls back the covers.
An EV recharge
Ford discontinued the all-electric F-150 Lightning after sales never reached the company's 150,000 unit-per-year goal.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
There is plenty riding on the truck underneath.
The so-far unnamed EV (though rumors and patent applications suggest Ford may be resurrecting the Ranchero nameplate) is scheduled to reach customers next year. It's a big reset for the legendary automaker.
Around 2020, Ford had high hopes for its first generation of mass-market EVs, including the F-150 Lightning, a full-size electric pickup that started at mid-$50,000. Ahead of its launch, Ford touted nearly 200,000 reservations and set a goal of eventually building 150,000 electric trucks a year.
Sales peaked in 2024 at 33,510 vehicles, falling far short of Ford's early ambitions. The automaker ended production of the original Lightning in late 2025 and recorded $19.5 billion in charges tied to its broader EV restructuring.
As its initial EV plans faltered, Ford assembled a roughly 350-person California skunkworks team led by Clarke to develop a cheaper and more efficient generation of electric vehicles, called the universal EV platform. The group focused on faster manufacturing, more aerodynamic designs, and dramatically fewer parts.
The camouflaged pickup will be the first test of that strategy. Ford says it can build up to eight different vehicles on the same battery infrastructure.
A tricky EV market with new contenders
Ford's EV comes as it tries to ward off Chinese EV-makers. Other American startups, like the Slate Truck pictured above, are entering the fray as well.
Ben Shimkus/Business Insider
Ford's lower-cost EV push is taking shape as a new crop of challengers reaches the US market.
Slate, a Jeff Bezos-backed startup, told Business Insider that the first units of its $24,950 electric pickup will reach customers this year. Fiat has also brought the sub-$15,000 Topolino to the US, although the tiny EV is closer to a golf cart than a daily driver.
And the greatest threat may be overseas.
BYD became the world's largest seller of battery-electric vehicles last year, reaffirming the pressure Chinese automakers are placing on established car companies. Ford CEO Jim Farley has repeatedly praised Chinese EVs for their technology, affordability, and build quality.
When Ford unveiled its Universal EV Platform in 2025, Farley framed the project as a response to competitors attacking the industry from several directions.
"We knew that the Chinese would be the major player for us globally, companies like BYD, new startups from around the world," he said in 2025. "Big technology has their ambition in the auto space. They're all coming for us, legacy automotive companies."
The 6-foot-5, 25-year-oldNorwegian striker has gained over 11 million followers on Instagram since Sunday, when he scored twice to secure Norway's victory against Brazil in the World Cup. While many of his new followers are clearly there for the football, others may well be there for the fashion and his quirky posts.
Haaland regularly posts his outfits on Instagram — $1,800 Loewe Tracksuit jackets, black Chanel cashmere beanies (selling on resale websites for over $1,200), and a constant flow of rare Hermès bags. And he's gained the attention of fashion editors for his style on and off the pitch, whether that's matching the hair ties on his blond man bun or being photographed at runway shows.
His star power is so great that Norway's national football jerseys have sold out ahead of the England vs Norway match on Saturday, the Norwegian Football Association told the BBC, and are now being resold on websites like StockX for over $400.
Brands are taking note.
"His brand value is already spiking during the tournament and is very likely to accelerate further after the World Cup," Scott Kerr, founder of luxury consultancy firm Silvertone Consulting, told Business Insider.
Fashion brands are starting to reap the rewards of Haaland's high visibility.
Kknekki, an Oslo-based hair tie brand that launched a limited-edition collection with Haaland to coincide with the World Cup, said the collection sold out within weeks of launch.
Haaland had worn Kknekki hair ties for several years before becoming an investor in the brand's parent company, Bon Dep, in 2024. The size of his stake has not been disclosed.
"The collaboration was a natural extension of a relationship that has developed over several years," a spokesperson for Bon Dep said. "The collection was intentionally produced as a highly limited edition and saw exceptional demand from launch," they added.
Bon Dep credits Haaland with boosting global awareness for the Kknekki brand.
When Kknekki posted a reel of the Haaland collaboration on Instagram, the account gained 4,000 new followers in a single day, according to the social media analytics website Social Blade.
While its core audience has traditionally been women and girls, Erling's long-standing use of hair ties has played a big role in attracting male customers to the brand, the spokesperson said.
"He's landing in a moment where menswear is getting more comfortable with 'traditionally feminine' luxury objects, and he's basically become a walking case study for that shift," Blanca Zugaza Escribano, a fashion and luxury strategy consultant at Metyis, told Business Insider.
Anja, a soccer fan from Germany, told Business Insider that she bought the Haaland-branded hair ties after seeing them on his Instagram.
"I've liked Haaland as a person and as a footballer since 2020," Anja said. "I'd seen it on his Instagram channel and ordered it straight away, as I have long hair too and wanted to give it a go."
A pack of 8 of these limited-edition hair ties costs £21 ($30). They have started to pop up on resale websites, with some sold on AliExpress for $90, though it's unclear whether these are genuine.
Haaland sometimes lets his hair loose during matches, a look that has become a favorite among soccer fans online.
Richard Sellers/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images
Swapping sports bags for Birkins
Off the pitch, Haaland has a love for luxury, especially the Hermès Haut à Courroies (HAC) travel bags.
He has been spotted on numerous occasions with different versions of these bags in tow. This includes the black Multipocket HAC 50, which costs about $80,000 on luxury resale website Wardrobe by Rebecca, and the Evercalf Toile Cargo HAC 40, which costs about $75,000 on Vestiaire Collective.
He arrived on the Norwegian national team jet to Greensboro, North Carolina, for training camp at the start of the World Cup, carrying the rare Hermès HAC Birkin 50 "Endless Road," which costs $45,000 at the luxury resale store Madison Avenue Couture.
Haaland pictured with a Hermès HAC Birkin 50 "Endless Road" bag when getting off the plane for training camp in June.
David Jensen/Getty Images
Searches for "Hermès HAC 50" were virtually zero in the US until June, when it became a breakout query on Google Search.
Kerr said Haaland's appeal comes from the contrast between his ruthless competitiveness on the field and his playful, low-ego personality off it — a quality that aligns with Hermès.
"Hermès has been known to lean into playfulness and quiet humor, even though the overall brand carries a very serious aura of craftsmanship and restraint," Kerr said.
A spokesperson for Hermes declined to comment on whether Haaland has invested or collaborated with the brand.
Shoe-wise, he often sports white Nike Air Force Ones and Jordans, as well as high-end shoes like the $1,125 black Hermès Chypre sandal.
He has also been spotted with Louis Vuitton bags and Goyard suitcases.
"I think a number of brands can benefit from aligning with Haaland. It all depends which of his archetypes these brands want to lean into," Kerr said.
"The explosive performance hero type? The goofy, meme-friendly jester type? The Nordic understated loyal everyman type? Or the stylish new lux masculine type? He has mastered them all," he added.
