Thirteen years since the last release of Grand Theft Auto, Strauss Zelnick is banking on the franchise to win back longtime fans while capturing an entirely new generation of players.

During Business Insider's The Long Play, Zelnick, the Chairman and CEO of Take-Two Interactive, shared the secrets to keeping a decades-old franchise culturally and commercially dominant.

Sarah E. Needleman, Business Insider's senior leadership and workplace correspondent, interviewed Zelnick about his career in entertainment, his routine for aging well, and his thoughts on AI as a growth strategy.

• Microsoft recently offered voluntary exit packages to some employees. It's the company's second buyout offer this year.
• Some Google workers have said they want buyouts offered before layoffs, and to more employees.
• Buyouts might soften job cuts, though broad offers could also send top talent out the door.

Voluntary buyouts are gaining momentum in Big Tech.

On Monday, Microsoft offered the exit packages to some of its employees for the second time this year, its latest attempt to slim its workforce without layoffs. In April, the company launched its first broad voluntary retirement program, offering packages to thousands of longtime US employees.

Separately, workers at Google pressed the search giant this past summer to make voluntary buyouts a standard first step whenever it plans job cuts — and to extend them to all members of affected teams, regardless of tenure.

Outside tech, Skydance, the company formed by the merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, told employees Monday that it would require five days a week in the office. Employees unwilling to comply might be eligible for a buyout.

The developments are raising broader questions in tech, where many once-scrappy startups are now sprawling corporations — and where repeated rounds of layoffs have eliminated scores of jobs in recent years.

Now that many tech companies have workforces that include employees with decades of service, are buyouts — long part of the workforce-reduction playbook at legacy companies from Boeing to General Motors — a fairer, less painful way to reduce head count than layoffs? And should they remain reserved for veteran employees, as they traditionally have been, or be offered more widely?

"Buyouts are becoming increasingly compelling for older Silicon Valley companies," said Laszlo Bock, a former Google head of human resources who now advises CEOs. "They have more eligible people, and it's a softer message for morale."

A 'more humane' approach

Nearly 100 Google employees rallied in July outside the company's Mountain View headquarters, arguing that the company's past use of selective exit offers should be made a broader, more consistent policy. As part of the event, the union presented a petition signed by more than 4,500 Googlers calling for improved layoff protections.

Voluntary buyouts "provide agency to workers," Emma Jackson, a Google employee of more than 20 years and a leader of the Alphabet Workers Union, previously told Business Insider. Alphabet is Google's parent company.

Jackson said workers nearing retirement might have accepted buyouts in earlier rounds of layoffs at Google, reducing the number of cuts needed. She called the approach "more humane."

Google didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Alphabet said in July that its workforce had grown by nearly 12,000 employees over the prior year, reaching about 199,000 at the end of June.

With Microsoft's latest voluntary buyouts, the company said around 60,000 employees — or more than a quarter of its workforce — will be eligible and that the terms will be similar to its standard severance. They will have until early December to decide whether to take the offer and exit at the end of the year, and there are no plans for another buyout at this time, a spokesperson said.

Microsoft made its voluntary retirement program available to employees whose age and years of service added up to at least 70, meaning some could qualify well before a conventional retirement age.

At 47, retirement wasn't on Marisela Cerda's radar. Yet Cerda, a principal customer experience manager at Microsoft who joined the company after college in 2001, was among those who received an exit offer this past spring.

Although she ultimately decided to stay, Cerda previously told Business Insider that she stuck around as long as she has because of the opportunity to keep learning about emerging technologies and the relationships she has built with colleagues. The offer prompted Cerda to think more urgently about the next phase of her career.

"You move toward what you want more of, versus moving away from things you don't want," she previously said.

Why the calculus may be changing

As Silicon Valley companies grow older alongside their workforces, buyouts may grow more attractive, said Josh Bersin, an HR analyst and consultant. Forcing veteran employees to leave through layoffs "creates a lot of bad blood," he said.

Peter Rahbar, a New York employment attorney and cohost of the "Across the Bar" podcast, said buyouts might not reduce staff as quickly as layoffs, but they don't carry the same "huge" morale costs for those who remain — or for potential future hires.

"How you treat people on the way out is certainly something people look at on the way in," he said.

There are downsides for employers, however. Offering buyouts can make labor reductions less predictable, said Jay Zagorsky, a professor at Boston University's Questrom School of Business. If too few employees accept, a company may still need to make cuts to reach its target.

"With a layoff, there's certainty," he said.

Extending buyout offers to everyone, including those who've logged only a few work anniversaries, also carries drawbacks.

"People whom you would prefer to stay might leave," and they could go to a competitor, said Bock, the former Google executive.

The risk is especially concerning for companies with what he calls "spiky talent," where a small number of employees create disproportionate value.

For workers who receive a buyout offer, Rahbar, the employment attorney, said they should understand how accepting it would affect their retirement benefits, stock awards, deferred compensation, and healthcare coverage. Depending on a company's plans, employees who retire may continue vesting in certain benefits or retain those they have already earned, he said.

Buyout packages also tend to be more generous than the severance offers, Rahbar added, and there's an emotional difference between choosing to leave and being told to go.

"People are feeling good about leaving on their own terms," he said. "With a layoff, they're clearly not."

Have a tip? Contact Sarah Needleman via email at sneedleman@businessinsider.com or Signal at saraheneedleman.13. Contact Tim Paradis via email at tparadis@businessinsider.com or Signal at tparadis.70. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

An earlier version of this story appeared on July 27, 2026.

• Anthropic's IPO filing offers a look at a workplace where Claude does much of the coding.
• The company said it grew from 940 employees to 5,300 in less than two years.
• "Low ego" is a cultural ideal, and keeping top AI talent is a key challenge.

Anthropic is rapidly growing head count, concerned about retaining top talent, and trying to build a "low-ego" culture.

Those are among the workplace insights in the Claude maker's IPO filing released Monday.

The more than 200,000-word document reveals what it takes to thrive as an employee — or an "Ant," as staffers are called — and why the company is so focused on retaining its top talent.

Here's a look at three workplace themes in Anthropic's S-1:

Head count is booming, but could be higher without Claude

Anthropic said its workforce grew from about 940 employees at the end of 2024 to about 5,300 as of late September.

The more than fivefold spike in head count in less than two years is notable on its own. Yet, without Claude, it could have grown more. Anthropic said the tool is helping its staffers take on work that would traditionally have required much larger teams — something many tech companies are looking to do to become more nimble.

Most Anthropic employees work in research, engineering, and product development. The company said its strategy is to use Claude to grow the business "without growing head count linearly, resulting in extraordinary contributions per employee."

One place where that's evident is in software engineering. The company said these workers increasingly direct and review Claude's output rather than write code line by line. Claude wrote more than 90% of the contributions to the company's codebase in September, while average daily code contributions per engineer in the third quarter were more than 45 times their average daily level in 2024, Anthropic said.

Recruiter Martha Heller said it's little surprise to see Anthropic talking up its use of Claude. "Of course they're going to eat their own dog food," she said. In any case, Heller said, the company still needs people to provide oversight of AI's activities.

Yet the gap between staffing levels and output could grow, said Aaron Cleavinger, an executive recruiting partner at Flatiron Search Partners.

"Head count is becoming a less meaningful measure of organizational capability," he said. Cleavinger said it's not yet clear what the new measure will be, though Anthropic's approach suggests companies might put greater emphasis on workers' productivity and business impact.

It describes retention as paramount

Despite having significantly upped its employee count, Anthropic said it's highly dependent on its senior leaders and key technical team members. The company warned that their departure could disrupt operations and slow innovation.

While that's true for any employer, Anthropic faces additional challenges. It's a fast-growing startup in a booming industry, where few people have the right technical skills — and those who do are being heavily courted by competitors.

Winning the war for talent is half the battle. Anthropic is also part of an industry where some workers have quit and issued dire public warnings about the dangers of increasingly powerful AI.

For example, safety researcher Jacob Coxon resigned from Anthropic last month, saying the company and his former employer, OpenAI, were moving too quickly toward increasingly powerful AI without a sufficient plan to control it.

"That's not garden-variety turnover," said Liane Davey, an advisor on team effectiveness to executives at companies such as Amazon and Google.

If employees determine that their work poses an existential threat, no bonus can simply erase moral qualms, Davey added.

In its S-1, Anthropic said many key technical workers are motivated by its mission and by the chance to tackle specific AI problems. However, if their beliefs change, or another organization seems more aligned with their personal beliefs or professional goals, "we may face increased difficulty retaining such personnel," Anthropic said.

The company's internal data suggests that, at least for now, turnover isn't a significant problem. It said it experienced only about 1% "regrettable attrition" in a 12-month period ending on September 30.

However, Anthropic may have a thinner pipeline of junior technical talent to elevate. The company said in a recently released internal report that it has been hiring for a "smaller share of junior technical positions" as AI agents have been deployed across the firm to write code, fix bugs, and handle other tasks.

Anthropic is betting on a "low-ego" workforce

Anthropic touts a "low-ego" or "ego-light" culture, meaning all employees are expected to prioritize what's best for the company over personal status, credit, or seniority. It uses similar language on its website in a section describing its values.

In the S-1, the company went further, saying the arrangement allows for an "unusually short" distance between a research insight and a released product. Anthropic also said a shared purpose, paired with low ego, translates directly into less organizational friction and greater impact per employee.

"Our teams operate in a truth-seeking environment where the best argument wins, not the loudest voice or the most senior title," Anthropic said.

Jamie Shapiro, an organizational psychologist and CEO coach, said that logic makes sense because good ideas can come from anyone within an organization, especially those who directly interact with customers.

"An organization that has idea meritocracy is going to get the best ideas," she said.

However, as Anthropic grows, the more challenging task will be ensuring its hiring, recognition, promotion, and accountability systems reinforce its ideals — rather than allowing exceptions that undermine them.

"The bigger the organization, the harder it is to make sure everyone is living and breathing the culture it wants," said Shapiro. "Culture is defined by the worst behaviors you allow."

• The great bidet takeover has reached the workplace.
• White-collar workers are bartering with their bosses and weighing job offers over bidet access.
• "It's the superior way to live," one said.

Seungmin Hong felt he had two options: Stay at Tesla or have a clean tush.

After finishing an engineering internship at the automotive giant last year, the University of Waterloo student was weighing whether to stick around or accept a job offer from much smaller Simbe Robotics.

During Hong's final interview at Simbe's San Francisco office, he asked to use the restroom, and there it was: a glistening, inviting bidet.

"That cemented in my mind: 'Yeah, this company actually cares about their employees,'" said Hong, who grew up with a bidet in the bathroom of his childhood home. He took the job.

Move over espresso machines, ping-pong tables, and nap pods. For workers like Hong, the humble bidet is the ultimate job perk.

In recent years, the hygiene-friendly fixtures have gone from novelty to must-have for many US households. Toto, one of the biggest manufacturers in the space, said cumulative global sales of its Washlet bidets surpassed 70 million units last year, up from 50 million in 2019. High-profile fans include Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani, actor Janelle James, and New York mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Now, some devotees are pushing to make bidets a standard in offices. Once you get used to one at home, they say, going bidet-less at work is a pain in the rear.

Michael Fiore used to sometimes get about halfway through his commute, then turn around and drive back home just so he could use the bidet in his bathroom. About a year ago, he had an epiphany: Why not install a bidet at work, too?

So he did.

"It's been a total game changer," said Fiore, president of Smith's Gardentown, a retail garden center in Wichita Falls, Texas. "It's the superior way to live."

There's just one wrinkle. Employees who were accustomed to using the restrooms available to shoppers have started coming to what Fiore jokingly calls the "executive" bathroom, which is reserved for staff. It houses one bidet-equipped toilet, meaning he now often has to wait to use it himself.

"Word has spread," he said.

Persuading the boss

This past summer, Cynthia Howard asked her boss to install a bidet in the single-seat restroom she shares with about a dozen of her colleagues. The fulfillment specialist at Swifthouse, a logistics company outside Philadelphia, argued it would reduce toilet paper costs, cut employees' restroom time, and improve morale.

Swifthouse's founder and CEO, Dave Harriger, said the proposal persuaded him to order a $60 bidet attachment that same day. He said he's pleased that Howard and other employees like it, though he's not a convert himself.

"I used it once. I yelped and don't know if I'll use it again," he said. "It's cold water on your butt."

Pricier bidet models that sell for thousands of dollars apiece offer warm-water sprays, air dryers, deodorizers, and even Bluetooth speakers.

Not every worker is comfortable asking their boss to install the devices in the office. To help those folks out, Jonathan Brown, a data scientist in Orange County, California, launched buttstuff.work earlier this year. The site lets employees register their interest in having bidets at work without directly approaching management.

Brown said he has long wondered why Silicon Valley workplaces offer perks like beer taps and catered lunches but not bidets. He plans to share the data his site collects with bidet manufacturers to help them find potential customers. So far, Brown said, about a dozen people, mostly from small businesses and universities, have signed up. His only promotion has been a post on Reddit.

"People don't love talking about bathroom stuff at work," said Brown.

The bidet goes to work

Bidet makers say interest has surged since what Bill Strang, president of corporate strategy at Toto, called "the great toilet paper panic of 2020," when pandemic shortages sent Americans searching for alternatives.

Strang and Justin Allen, CEO of Tushy, another bidet maker, said workplaces are a relatively small but growing part of the bidet business. Installing the devices in office restrooms can be challenging, as some require plumbing modifications, code compliance, and a nearby electrical outlet.

Allen sees the demand firsthand. The bidets in Tushy's shared office restroom in Brooklyn, New York, are a draw for employees of neighboring companies, he said, adding that a FedEx driver regularly stops by during his route to use the facilities.

Cushy tech companies have long dotted their stalls with bidets. Business Insider spoke with workers who spotted them years ago at some Google and Microsoft offices. Now, with awareness and interest spreading, some workplace observers say what was once a nice-to-have perk could become a competitive advantage for employers well beyond Silicon Valley.

A recruiting tool

Robert Hatta, an executive recruiter and talent consultant in Columbus, Ohio, thinks employers pushing return-to-office mandates would have a much easier time attracting and retaining talent by investing in the fixtures.

In a LinkedIn post that drew nearly 150 comments last year, Hatta argued that flimsy toilet paper and a lack of privacy can make office life less appealing. His prescription? Sound-insulated, well-ventilated stalls, preferably equipped with bidets.

"It's about respecting people's dignity," Hatta told Business Insider. Going to the bathroom "is an important part of the workday."

The state of a workplace's facilities can reveal a lot about its culture, said Lou Downe, director of the School of Good Services, a UK-based provider of leadership training. Details such as free menstrual products, well-maintained soap dispensers, and bidets can offer clues about how much thought an employer puts into its workers' comfort, they said.

Hong, the bidet-loving Tesla alum, has since left Simbe to build his own startup, Simantic. While the company goes through Y Combinator, he and his cofounder are shacking up in an Airbnb. No modifications are allowed, so no bidets.

Once Simantic raises its seed round, Hong said he and his cofounder plan to rent some office space. He knows what their first purchase will be.

• Meta is offering CEO Mark Zuckerberg a $20 billion stock deal to keep him close to its headquarters.
• The move speaks to a common belief that the best work happens when everyone is together in person.
• Research suggests companies with far-flung CEOs pay a price for that distance.

Meta wants more than rank-and-file employees at the office. It wants CEO Mark Zuckerberg there, too — even if that comes at a hefty price.

The tech giant's board said in a securities filing Wednesday that it would create a new class of non-voting stock in part to keep Zuckerberg in control and give him a financial incentive to continue living near its headquarters. It described his presence at the office as "critically important" to its future success. Meta has required employees to come in at least three days a week since 2023.

Zuckerberg previously told the board he was considering moving in response to a proposed California billionaire tax. The stock deal would give the CEO $20 billion in "immediate liquidity" to cover the tax by selling stock without losing control of Meta, the filing said.

That arrangement carries particular weight at Meta, where Zuckerberg is leading the company's AI push. It also speaks to a common belief that has driven return-to-office mandates: The best work happens when people — including senior leaders — are physically together.

Staying local

Cole Rubin, cofounder of sports technology company FanFeed, said CEOs and other execs are sending a message to employees by physically working alongside them.

"You're not going to question why you're working long hours if you actually can see the leader doing the same," Rubin told Business Insider.

Having bosses in the office can also help a company move faster when unexpected opportunities arise, he said. Employees can walk into a leader's office, get an immediate answer, and act before the moment passes.

"It's not the scheduled calls where the magic happens," Rubin said. "When you have the decision-maker there, it gives people a lot of freedom to be able to feel heard."

A leader's presence is especially important during crises, said Bill George, former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, a medical-technology company. Being together lets executives quickly assess what has happened, gauge employees' reactions, and decide on a course of action.

"We've got to really feel what's going on emotionally, and we actually physically have to discuss it," he said.

George also noted that RTO demands placed on workers can ring hollow if the CEO doesn't follow them. "You've got to be there if your employees are there," he said.

Long-distance tradeoffs

Meta wouldn't have been the first company with a long-distance CEO if Zuckerberg had opted to leave the Golden State.

Brian Niccol was living in California when he was named CEO of Seattle-based Starbucks in 2024. The coffee chain had agreed as part of his hiring package not to require him to relocate. Later, it built a 4,624-square-foot satellite office five minutes from his home so he could work alongside colleagues, Business Insider first reported. Niccol has since purchased a property in Seattle.

Companies with long-distance CEOs don't perform as well on average as those with leaders on-site, according to a 2025 study by Boston College and Arizona State. They also have lower valuations and worse insider reviews, the findings show.

Meta's decision to woo Zuckerberg to stay in California was made by a special committee on its board, which said it was informed by challenges the company faced when he couldn't be physically present with management during the pandemic.

The committee said it didn't want Meta "to face similar challenges going forward."