• Marissa Goldstein and her husband traveled to Vietnam for work in 2016 and decided to move there soon after.
• Now, a mother of two sets of twins, Goldstein says her family of six is happily settled in Ho Chi Minh City.
• The city's low costs and kid-friendly culture make family life easier — though international school fees are high.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Marissa Goldstein, a 40-year-old entrepreneur from the Boston area who lives in Ho Chi Minh City. It has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2016, my husband and I flew to Vietnam with our 1-year-old twins and two bags. We told everyone we'd be back in three months.

Ten years later, we have four kids — two sets of twins — and a life in Ho Chi Minh City that I wouldn't trade. We've taken our kids to about 50 countries and spend summers with our families in Boston, then come back to the chaos of a city we love.

Asia had my heart long before Vietnam

I grew up outside Boston. I studied communications at the University of Maryland, and a trip to Thailand during my junior year abroad was my first taste of Asia. I fell in love.

My husband and I met in high school and married after I graduated. I worked in PR and sales, then got my MBA at Babson College. Around 2015, there was an opportunity to help US companies diversify their supply chains away from China, so we started The Timroon Group, a manufacturing and sourcing company focused on Vietnam.

Being home with two babies overwhelmed me. Even though we had an incredible support system, living with my parents in a six-bedroom house in the suburbs. I quickly realized that staying home wasn't for me.

When traveling, though, I felt unstoppable. We headed to Ho Chi Minh City the day after their first birthday.

Vietnam won me over through my kids

I loved it right away, especially how people treat children. We'd bring the twins to dinners and big brunches, and the staff would take them and play. I felt really safe. Within a month, we had friends from all over the world. Three months turned into 18.

When the twins were 18 months old, we took an overnight train to Sapa in northern Vietnam. Hmong women were selling their textiles, and I decided to start my own travel accessories brand, working with women artisans. On that same trip, we decided to have one more child. Soon after, we found out we were having twins again.

In January 2020, we returned to Boston, where I grew Raffi Nova, my textile accessories brand. But by 2022, my husband's business was picking up, and we had the itch to return to Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh City works for a family of 6

We live about 15 minutes from the city center. There are a lot of foreigners living here, several international schools, and everything is within a 10-minute drive.

There are good doctors and hospitals, Michelin Guide-rated street food, French bakeries, and plenty of activities for the kids, from taekwondo to tennis.

The cost of living is much lower, though school and housing add up. Housing in our area ranges from about $1,500 a month for a smaller apartment to around $10,000 for a villa. We're somewhere in between, in a five-bedroom serviced apartment.

We spend about $1,000 a month on groceries, buying fruit and vegetables at the local market, and spending more on meat and imported food. A latte at a cute, bougie café is about $2, so I treat my friends to coffee without thinking twice.

We have a live-out helper who we pay about $900 a month. She cleans, preps groceries, and helps with the kids. Health insurance for our family runs under $10,000 a year.

I get serious sticker shock when I go home in the summer. I take the kids out for bagels, and it's $100 or more.

Schooling is by far our biggest cost. International school fees in the city range from about $8,000 to $30,000 per child per school year. We're at the higher end, but we strongly believe in a good education.

With fees for four kids, we probably spend about the same as we would in the US, where we wouldn't have to pay for school. But there, we wouldn't eat out or travel as much.

Being far away is hard, but travel makes up for it

Both our big families live in the Boston suburbs.

There's also the weather: hot, hotter, and wet. In rainy season, it pours at school pickup every single day, even when you're sure it won't. The upside is that the kids need only one wardrobe all year.

I see Vietnam is our launchpad to the world.

Last spring, we spent a night in the jungle in Phong Nha, home to Vietnam's largest cave. We've been to Thailand about 20 times. Last February, we rented an RV and drove around New Zealand's South Island. On a trip to Sri Lanka, the kids learned to surf, and we stayed at a homestay in the mountains.

Traveling as six is hard. Most hotels don't allow four children in a room, and we can't fit in a regular car. Our best trips have never been at nice resorts. They're homestays, campsites, and RVs.

That's probably why this life suits us. I never wanted to say, "This is the house we'll live in for the next 50 years." Predictability scares me. I thrive in chaos, and with two sets of twins, there's always plenty of it — I wouldn't have it any other way.

• Binance and Polymarket reported potential security breaches on Thursday.
• Binance is investigating a possible hack, with over a billion in losses potentially at stake.
• Polymarket also temporarily halted trading after a suspected breach.

Two major trading platforms — Binance and Polymarket — were investigating security incidents on Thursday, with the former facing potential losses in the billions. There's no evidence the incidents were related.

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, said it was actively investigating reports of a "potential security issue."

In an update late Thursday, Binance said that its initial investigation suggested that the incident may involve a compromised development operations engineer's laptop. This allowed an attacker to access a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions.

"We have found no evidence of any wallet private key leak," the company added.

Binance said the estimated total impact is about $6.3 billion, and it has worked with its blockchain partners to freeze around $3 billion in assets so far.

"Binance will cover all losses," Binance said on X. "As a precaution, all deposits and withdrawals are temporarily suspended while our team conducts security checks, freezes funds, and works with law enforcement."

The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Binance founder and former CEO, Changpeng Zhao, said on X a hack seemed likely.

“User funds are safe! It does look like a hack on Binance,” Zhao wrote in a post on X. “I don't manage Binance anymore, but as a shareholder, I expect all user funds will be fully covered.”

Zhao expressed appreciation to Tether and Circle, issuers of cryptocurrencies traded on Binance, for quickly freezing funds.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said on X the company froze more than $1.5 billion related to the potential Binance hack. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said the company froze over $800 million in connection with the incident and that it was coordinating with law enforcement.

Polymarket also reported a security incident

Also on Thursday, Polymarket, the world's largest prediction market by trading volume, temporarily halted trading after users reported unauthorized withdrawals.

The company said in a statement on X that one of its third-party providers was compromised and that the incident had been referred to law enforcement. It also said trading had resumed by 3 p.m. Eastern time.

A Polymarket spokesperson told Business Insider that the malicious activity occurred in the UK and that the company will reimburse affected users. The company was unable to confirm the amount that may have been stolen.

Polymarket's US exchange was not halted and did not appear to be affected.

A person familiar with the matter attributed the Polymarket hack to a compromised third-party provider called DebugBear, a web performance monitoring platform designed to help businesses optimize website speed. It's unclear exactly how Polymarket uses the platform.

DebugBear did not respond to a request for comment. The company said in an X post on Thursday that it was aware of a security incident and was treating it as a "top priority."

• John Santora took the helm of WeWork in 2024, shortly after it emerged from bankruptcy.
• Two years later, the company is making money.
• At Business Insider's Long Play Event, Santora told Executive Editor Cadie Thompson how he did it.

For WeWork's CEO, Fridays are for sneakers. Sometimes.

At Business Insider's The Long Play event on Thursday, John Santora told Deputy News Chief Cadie Thompson that he rebuilt WeWork in part by establishing a sense of trust and decorum among employees.

In pursuit of that goal, Santora instituted a dress code for employees, but also gave them one day a week to work from home.

"I didn't have the ability to go watch my son play a 3 o'clock baseball game," Santora said, adding, "We have to give our employees that flexibility to do all that."

Santora, formerly the chief operating officer at Cushman & Wakefield, a real estate firm, became WeWork's CEO in 2024 as the once-buzzy office startup emerged from a disastrous Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

Santora had a short time to decide whether to join the faltering company, he recalled. And it wasn't exactly an easy choice.

"I was kind of at that point of, 'Should I retire?'" he said. "My daughter Nancy said, 'Dad, you know we love you, but when you have too much time on your hands, you're a pain in the ass.'"

Since those deeply red days in 2019 when WeWork's valuation plummeted from $47 billion to roughly $8 billion before it was bailed out, the company has stabilized. It posted eight quarters of EBITDA profitability and expects a fourth straight quarter of cash-flow profitability.

In 2025, it reported about $2.3 billion in revenue.

Though it hasn't hit the valuation it once had, the fact that the company could be revived at all is remarkable. WeWork, founded in 2010, rents out office space, spruces it up, and parcels it out to freelancers, startups, and other businesses.

Its first CEO and founder, Adam Neumann, made bold pronouncements that WeWork would "change the world" and "elevate the world's consciousness" by renting out office space to startups.

But after a bungled IPO, it became clear to the new stakeholders that a different type of leader was sorely needed.

As it turned out, Santora was that leader.

Having worked for 47 years at Cushman & Wakefield, Santora had the real estate experience that Neumann lacked, albeit without the magnetism of a Silicon Valley whiz kid.

"From a leadership standpoint, I'm a very structured, disciplined person," he said. "I'm a suit and tie, buttoned-up real estate person."

Santora recalled an early trip to one of the offices, where he discovered employees wearing jeans, pajamas, slippers, and shorts.

"I grabbed my head of HR," he said. "See that? I don't want to see it anymore."

Santora, who at one point described himself as an "old chubby guy from Staten Island," didn't just force employees to wear sports coats to important meetings. In his words, there was some "give and take."

"I don't look at what time they leave, what time they come in," he said of his employees. "As long as they're getting their work done and they're keeping their clients happy."

And Santora allows himself one exception to his suit-and-tie persona.

"Fridays, I'll actually sometimes wear sneakers, depending on what my schedule is," he said.

Ashley Graham is a model and entrepreneur who has spent her career challenging who is seen, heard, and marketed to, transforming that influence into a growing business.

Ten years after her "Sports Illustrated" cover, Graham took the stage at Business Insider's The Long Play to unpack how she has built a personal brand across fashion, beauty, entertainment, and consumer products without losing what's at the core of her identity.

Graham spoke about Lucci, her new venture in the wine business, and her longtime partnership with JCPenney during her interview with Business Insider's executive editor, Leena Rao.

During the conversation, titled "Breaking the Mold," Graham also said that getting lots of rejection early on in her career has made her into a better businessperson.

"If it's not for you, there's another thing for you. And you can't take it personally," Graham told Rao.