• 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."

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

• Maria Sentmanat, 55, quit her six-figure job this summer without another job to go to.
• She started Why Not Wild, giving guided tours of the South Florida wilderness.
• She's not making any money and living off her savings, but says the move has saved her mental health.

This as-told-to-essay is based on a conversation with Maria Sentmanat, 55, who is based in Miami, Florida. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I'm a high school dropout who came from a single-parent family. My upbringing was filled with chaos and instability. I never thought I'd end up being the type to earn a six-figure salary, but that's exactly what I ended up doing — and walking away from this year.

On paper, I was definitely successful. I had a $153,000 paycheck managing one of the largest 5K races in the country, a job I'd held for the past five years. I could have made up to $180,000 next year if I had stayed on.

The job was a new opportunity when I really needed one

You could argue it was the culmination of the fitness career I had spent 16 years building, after becoming super overweight following the birth of my daughters. I became a personal trainer and ran my own wellness-focused fitness studio. I'd created something special.

But then the pandemic happened, and I lost everything. I couldn't run my studio anymore, and struggled to build it back up again once the restrictions were lifted.

The founder of this race event was a friend, so when she told me she needed a new race director, it felt like an opportunity life was giving me. I completed all the required certifications and threw myself into this new role, which was both incredibly stressful and rewarding.

But things started to change. I started to dread going to work, and my stomach was always upset. I felt myself going into "fight or flight" mode, with the trauma from my childhood resurfacing, that I just didn't need.

I felt heavy, and my daughters — who are now 25 and 27 — could see it. I would go out into nature to decompress, but I was always thinking, "What am I going to do with this massive thing hanging on the side of my neck?" I got to a state where I just felt numb, even though I was continually asking myself, "What are you going to do? How are you going to keep doing this?"

I quit with no other job lined up

I resigned in August 2026, with no other job to go to, which some people called crazy.

But I had a strong feeling that I needed to find purpose and passion again. I knew that would be through nature. That's where I heal. That's where I can find a place that I feel seen, heard, understood, and held.

So I knew I had to build something that centered on connecting people with nature, so "Why Not Wild" was born. I take people into the wilderness around South Florida, but it's not packages. It's completely personalized. I want to talk to you and find out what you need.

I'll take you hiking through the Everglades, but it's not like, "oh, look at this nice trail". You will have to walk through water, and for some people, that is a big thing to overcome. For people who don't want to hike, I do motorcycle adventures.

I want people to reconnect with an entity we have caused so much destruction to. I want to be the bridge. I'm using my social media platforms to create awareness of what's beautiful out there.

I'm finding purpose again

Financially, I'm OK. I've been super strict about my savings, even while paying $4,700, helping my daughters, and paying my SBA loan from my previous business. I owned a home in Mount Dora that I sold last year too. I could live comfortably for six months, even a year, but then I'd have no savings left.

My ex-husband and I divorced when the girls were young, but we still co-parent very closely. He has a key to my place, comes over to eat several times a week, and we even go on vacation together. Our kids haven't had that typical divorce experience, which we worked hard to be intentional about. He and the girls are happy that I have done this — they have complete faith in me.

I'm not making any money right now, but I wake up excited about every day. What door is going to open? What's going to happen? Even if this doesn't work out, I was brave enough not to get caught up in what was, in effect, a bad marriage. I'll know that I was brave enough to try.

I have lost all that income and future security, but I have gained so much more. I feel better mentally, physically, and spiritually.

• Michael Bowen started his career in church work, which he found unfulfilling and lacking stability.
• Driven by a love for Disney and a desire for change, he decided to make the move to Florida at 44.
• After a hiatus due to personal reasons, he returned to his job as a Disney bus driver this year.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Michael Bowen, a 51-year-old Walt Disney World bus driver and Disney content creator behind the YouTube channel "Incognito Mouse." It has been edited for length and clarity.

Most of my adult life, I worked in the church. I went to university and Bible school to become a minister. I went into this line of work thinking it would make someone else happy, and didn't really think about what would make me happy.

At one point, I ended up working at a smaller church that could not pay a full-time salary, so to support myself, I got a part-time job as a school bus driver.

In 2017, I took a vacation to Florida and visited Disney World. I remember sitting there on the last day of my vacation, in the beautiful, warm sun, by the pool, with palm trees beside me, and dreading going back to the stormy weather in New Jersey.

I felt I had to make some kind of change, or I was going to sentence myself to a miserable life.

I realized I could work as a bus driver for Disney

I first visited Disney World in 2013. I had thought it was strange — a bunch of adults, no kids, going to Disney. Yet, even on that first trip, I thought, man, what could I do to work here? There's no Disney church.

By the second time I went in 2017, I had followed Disney a lot more and saw it wasn't just for children. Now, as a school bus driver, I thought, "Oh, they do have bus drivers, and that is a legitimate career. I could actually do that."

I love Disney, and my ex-wife did, too. As huge Disney fans, we thought, why not go live in the most magical place on Earth and work there?

In 2020, at 44, I first moved to Florida

I was living out of state when I applied to be a bus driver at Disney. It's very difficult to get into it. It took several months to get to the interview, and I needed a Florida driver's license before I could get the offer.

I moved to Florida in January of 2020. After I got my license, I was put on a waiting list until a bus driver position became available. It wasn't until February 15 that I finally got the call to start the role.

For the first time in my life, I had a really stable job with all the benefits that some smaller churches aren't necessarily able to give: paid time off, pensions, retirement, things like that.

In particular, I had health insurance for the first time in a long time, and I was really happy.

I was convinced I was going to drive for Disney for the rest of my life and retire there. But in May 2022, I chose to leave after experiencing a difficult separation and divorce. I remember when I was leaving, I got the offboarding email, and it was the most gut-wrenching feeling that I had ever had.

I moved to Oregon, but I always wanted to move back

I decided to move to Oregon. I drove a city bus and things like that, but I wasn't happy.

During that time, I met another woman, now my wife, who was a big Disney fan like me. I rebranded my YouTube channel from church content to Disney around 2019, and started posting about being a Disney cast member in 2020. We met through the YouTube channel and decided to move to Florida together in 2025.

As before, I had to wait almost a year for a job opening at Disney. In the meantime, I worked for a different company contracted to drive the buses for Universal Studios.

Finally, in April 2026, at 50, I returned to Disney as a bus driver.

It's not seen as the most prestigious job, but I love it

For me, being a Disney bus driver is wonderful, but I feel like it's not the most prestigious job. Often, when people ride the bus, it's seen as just a way to get to the park.

However, it has its special moments. Once, there was a little boy visiting with his parents who, as he was getting on the bus, showed me two little toy buses. His mother told me he loved the buses so much and was so excited to show them to me. Little things like this just make my day, seeing people so excited.

I can enjoy all the magic of Disney and go to the park whenever I want. So it's the best of both worlds.

Walt Disney said, "It's kind of fun to do the impossible." If you'd have told me that I was going to do something like this several years ago, I would have said, " There's no way — it's not possible. I'm too old. I don't have the finances. I don't know what I would do."

But life is too short. If you are not happy or you want to do something else, you have to make it happen.

• I'm 30 years old, but I look young and am often mistaken for being half my age.
• This has made it difficult for me to feel like I'm being taken seriously in professional settings.
• Oftentimes, when I apply for jobs or go to the office, I try to make myself look older.

"Have you just started studying?" a tall, smiling man in a suit asked me.

Although I was in a university building, I wasn't there as a student. I was struggling to find a conference room for a work-related meeting — one that, I soon realized, he was also attending. Of course he was.

"Oh, you just look so much younger," he said after he realized we were colleagues. Maybe it was a compliment, but it didn't feel like one to me.

I have countless examples of people perceiving me as half my age, from movie-theater cashiers trying to sell me children's tickets to police officers on the street asking me where my parents are.

There have been several times when I arrived at a youth support group for my job, but the receptionist assumed I was one of the teen clients. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

I'm 30, but between my youthful features and my 5-foot-1 height, I am often told I look like a teenager. Many people consider looking young a dream, and it's even a goal for skincare aficionados.

In reality, though, I believe it's made parts of my life — especially my professional life — considerably more difficult.

I've found it's tough to be taken seriously when you look half your age

I have several years of experience providing peer support for individuals with autism and ADHD; helping develop mental-health programs; and leading projects addressing issues faced by refugees, the LGBTQ+ community, and people with disabilities in several countries.

And yet, because of how I look, I still struggle with confidence and worry about being taken seriously at work.

Often, before I've even had the chance to properly introduce myself when interviewing for a job or meeting new people, I'm concerned my appearance has already shaped how I'm perceived.

Looking like a teen feels like an even bigger obstacle when I'm applying for higher-level and leadership roles, especially because most of the work I do involves peer support or management.

A manager is expected to be wise and knowledgeable — qualities not usually associated with youth. And in my field, a peer supporter is someone who has enough lived experience and training to help others navigate situations they have experienced firsthand.

But would a 70-year-old really take advice from someone who looks like their grandson? I don't know, but I do know that appearance and age aren't the same thing as experience.

I try to look older to be taken more seriously, but I wish I didn't have to

Over time, I've developed little tricks to try to avoid unwanted questions (or surprised reactions) about my age at interviews and at work.

Sometimes I wear platform shoes to appear taller or deliberately choose clothes that make me seem more mature — for example, wearing a plainer dark shirt rather than a colorful one, even though both would be equally appropriate for a meeting.

I also find myself consciously steering conversations with work colleagues toward things people associate with adulthood. I'm more likely to mention politics or current affairs than "The Hunger Games" or "Doctor Who," even on days when I would much prefer to chat about sci-fi than the news.

Sometimes I offer to show my ID as soon as I arrive for a job interview, hoping that "proving" my age will immediately change how potential employers perceive me.

In a perfect world, though, people would be judged in the workplace for their actual skills rather than their appearance and age, real or perceived. Age doesn't automatically come with wisdom, and youthfulness isn't equal to inexperience.

I've known teenage peer-support volunteers who were fantastic at their work, and I've also encountered professionals decades older than me who were far from the best in their field.

For now, though, I'm willing to play the game when I need to. I'll wear platform shoes, put away the "childish" T-shirts, and show my ID — whatever it takes to be taken seriously as a professional adult.

• Talon Krebs earns six figures as a TikTok Shop affiliate, posting up to 30 videos a day.
• He says anyone can get started with just a couple hundred bucks.
• Effective TikTok videos need a strong hook to give people a reason to stop scrolling.

Talon Krebs works full time as a TikTok Shop affiliate, promoting products on the app and earning a commission when shoppers buy through his links.

The gig earned the 23-year-old six figures last year, according to a 1099 form reviewed by Business Insider.

"As far as startup cost, TikTok Shop has to be one of the most profitable business models I've ever seen," he told BI.

Krebs said beginners can get started with a phone, a few products, and an understanding of what makes people stop scrolling. He shares three steps to turn TikTok videos into a source of income.

1. Build an account and meet TikTok Shop's eligibility requirements

Anyone can open a TikTok account, but affiliates need an established following to join TikTok Shop.

TikTok offers multiple routes into its affiliate program, Krebs explained. Its pilot program requires 1,000 followers but limits participants to a handful of posts a week, while the main program, which gives affiliates more flexibility, requires at least 5,000 followers.

Krebs already had about 24,000 followers on a personal account when he got started. He said he built the audience by posting about sports, current events, and other subjects he liked: "I was just posting stuff I was interested in."

2. Start with products you already own or would buy anyway

Krebs said he spent $100 to $200 on a handful of products when he first started. He chose items he needed anyway, like hoodies.

Affiliates can search TikTok's product marketplace for brands and products to promote. Krebs said they don't need a direct relationship with a brand to start making videos, though successful affiliates may eventually negotiate higher commissions or paid content deals.

For someone trying to keep costs close to zero, Krebs recommends looking around the house first. If an item you already own is listed on TikTok Shop, you can create a video about it rather than buying something new specifically to promote.

He also joined Media Labs, a community for affiliates that offered video feedback and weekly calls. He paid the $1,500 fee in six $250 monthly installments, putting his initial outlay — including products and his first community payment — at about $450.

Skip the community, use products you already own, and film with a phone and free editing tools, and Krebs said you could get started for essentially nothing.

3. Make videos that give people a reason to stop scrolling

A TikTok Shop video still has to work as a TikTok video. Krebs said the opening seconds matter most: The hook should get a viewer's attention, identify a pain point, or create enough curiosity to keep them watching.

In one of his most successful videos about a digital business card, he opens with: "Paper business cards are officially a thing of the past." The statement created some controversy, he said, but it got viewers' attention before he explained the product and how he used it as an entrepreneur.

Krebs tries to keep most videos between 30 and 50 seconds, though he said the right length depends on the product. Some products need more explanation, while others can be shown in a 10-second video.

He thinks of each video as a loop: The hook opens it, the middle explains or demonstrates the product, and the call to action closes it. Affiliates can tag a product directly in the video, allowing viewers to tap the orange shopping-cart icon, view the listing, and ultimately make a purchase.

• Edward Tian co-founded GPTZero in college, building it into a success before selling to Superhuman.
• He said he thinks that creating 'artificial scarcity' for the product contributed to its success.
• He said he'd major in the humanities, not computer science, if he went to college today.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Edward Tian, the 26-year-old cofounder of GPTZero, who's based in New York. His words have been edited for length and clarity.

I was never planning to go down the founder path straight out of college. I had a visual investigations fellowship lined up for after graduation and was ready to start a journalism career.

My cofounder Alex and I went to high school together. When ChatGPT came out, he was pursuing his Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Toronto, and I was in my senior year at Princeton. Over winter break, we built an AI detection tool and put it online. The success was almost overnight.

Three years later, we sold our company, GPTZero, to Superhuman, and have stayed on board to work with the team. Superhuman is a very pro-AI company, and I think it was an unexpected move for us as an AI detection company to join them.

We didn't build GPTZero to say there should be no AI on the internet. I think that's the biggest misunderstanding about why we started our company, but my feelings on AI have changed.

I had a different job lined up for after graduation

I studied computer science at Princeton and worked with a professor at the Princeton Natural Language Processing Lab on AI research. I also worked on a few other startup projects in school, but I was always hoping to work in journalism.

While in college, I became very involved in the open-source investigation community. I ended up working on open-source investigative projects with the BBC and Bellingcat, and had a visual investigations fellowship at The New York Times lined up after graduation, which I was excited about but ultimately didn't take.

After ChatGPT came out, I was inspired to investigate where and when AI was being used online. It took about a week over winter break to build the first version of our AI detection tool, and it was released in January 2023.

We created artificial scarcity to help grow the business

My cofounder Alex and I posted on social media to market the tool so people could try it, but we didn't view it as a business right away. However, it blew up online pretty quickly. After seeing the success, we wanted to double down on the opportunity and turn it into a legitimate site.

One piece of advice I have for founders is that using a waitlist is really helpful for generating hype and excitement. We put the first version of GPTZero on a waitlist because it had reached capacity. So I think that artificial scarcity was also very helpful in the success.

We had a lucky combination of very talented engineers and some traction and buzz, so we started reaching out to VCs. Many of our early VC partners went to my alma mater, and kind of all knew each other. Jack Altman is also an investor, and I remember we had a call where I was in my dorm room, and he was like, "Oh, I recognize that dorm room too."

For founders raising funding for the first time, my advice is not to optimize for the flashiest name or the biggest brand because you think it will attract future talent. Go for where there's familiarity and trust; trust is the most important thing when working with an investor.

We raised around $3.5 million in our first funding round. I stayed at Princeton to finish my senior year and graduate, and we kept growing the business. My cofounder Alex left his Ph.D. program to focus on the business.

It was bittersweet to sell the company

When Shishir, the new CEO of Superhuman, joined in 2025, we spoke with him about his broader platform vision for a suite of products. He thought we could be part of the authenticity suite he wanted to create.

It was bittersweet to think about giving up something that we started from scratch and put so much energy and care into. At the same time, it was a lot easier because the team stayed on. I'm now a director of product at Superhuman.

For company acquisitions, a lot of folks think the three most important things for a great fit are product match, people fit, and economic sense. We had similar people philosophies, and the deal made sense financially. Then, product-wise, we realized we're definitely not against AI use anywhere in education. We just want to make sure there's some authenticity and truth with that usage.

Over the next few years, we're going to take our shot at building a startup within a larger company. I've seen a lot of startup founders go to larger companies and start their moonshots from within.

The bigger mission we have is to take steps to ensure people are being respectful of the person who's on the receiving end of AI generations and productivity now. We want it to be that we're reaping the benefits of AI without making other people deal with more work.

I wouldn't major in computer science anymore

When we first started GPTZero, I think I was actually more pro-AI than I am now. I believe people should know when something is AI-generated, but I wasn't saying not to outsource anything at all.

In the past year, though, I've started to see an over-reliance on AI among people who finished university after ChatGPT was launched, especially with writing. If I went back to college right now, I wouldn't major in computer science. I'd probably major in journalism and get a minor in computer science. I'd get a humanities degree because those are the important skills now.

I've started to see a friction point at work when people can't write or edit, and everything they send reads like AI. Part of what I'm doing now at Superhuman is working on responsible AI usage policies and guidance.

People are allowed to use these tools however they see fit. At the same time, I feel a profound sadness for the internet at large. It's important to make sure we still have human-written content online.

Do you have a story to share about working on a tiny team? If so, please reach out to the reporter at aapplegate@businessinsider.com.

• Microsoft is offering buyouts to about 60,000 employees.
• The offers are individualized to each employee based on their level, location, and tenure.
• Business Insider reviewed offers to show what employees get when they leave the company.

As Microsoft sends out its buyout offers to more than a quarter of its workforce, specific offers reviewed by Business Insider reveal exactly what employees get if they choose to leave the company.

The offers are individualized for each employee based on their level, location, and tenure. Those reviewed by Business Insider confirm that the US buyouts align with the company's US standard severance offers. A Microsoft spokesperson said about 60,000 employees would be eligible for the buyout.

Microsoft uses a levels system to represent seniority, from entry levels starting at 59 to senior levels at 70, or vice president. The company offered buyouts to employees on select teams in the US, Canada, India, and the UK at level 70.

Offers reviewed by Business Insider show employees at internal levels 64 and below were offered one week of base pay per six months of service, and employees at levels 65 to 67 were offered two weeks of base pay per six months of service.

Buyout offers also include continued regular stock vesting and health insurance. The standard stock-vesting severance offer is six or 12 months for levels 67 and below, based on years of service.

Eligible employees 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 Microsoft spokesperson said.

Standard severance is capped at 39 weeks of base pay for levels 67 and below, while the standard severance offer for level 68 includes 12 months of salary.

Earlier this year, Microsoft rolled out a voluntary retirement program for employees. About 7% of Microsoft's US workforce, or about 8,750 people, were eligible at the time. As Business Insider previously reported, Microsoft's voluntary retirement program offer also aligned with the company's standard severance offer, including continued regular stock vesting for six or 12 months, based on years of service.

Earlier this year, another tech giant, Google, offered buyouts to staff in its business unit, Business Insider previously reported.

As more tech companies offer buyouts, some human resources professionals previously told Business Insider that this approach could soften job cuts, and also that when they're made available to workers of all tenures, companies risk losing talent.

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• 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."

• Rick Nott has used AI to save himself a lot of tedious work as a wealth advisor.
• He said new AI products may help other advisors save time too, but they won't replace humans.
• Nott spoke to Business Insider about how he uses the technology to save him time now.

Rick Nott is a senior managing director and private wealth advisor at Santa Monica, California-based Angeles Wealth Management. He spoke to Business Insider about how he uses AI, and why he's excited and afraid when looking at AI-native financial planning platforms. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

When Claude first rolled out its solution for financial advisors, I felt fear and excitement. How complicated will it be? How will it work?

I'm not a software developer, but I have some basic tech skills. LLMs have allowed me to dig into coding, which I'd been avoiding learning because it's a lot of work. I know enough to know what I want, how it should look, and how to check the outputs, and now I can automate more of my process. AI has become the glue between the various systems we use and the different workflows we have.

I've shown some colleagues how I operate. One told me that I basically have another full-time employee's worth of output through the technology, by automating data collection processes and making it easier to analyze my clients' portfolios.

What AI unlocks

I started my career while still in college in the late 2000s doing data reporting work for a wealth firm. Between all of the software advisors use, there's a lot of manual work, typically done in Excel, to connect it together.

Previously, I could only provide balance sheet reporting for clients with more than $100 million because it took so much manual work. Now I can do it with someone with significantly less.

As a family's net worth grows, so does complexity. For many, understanding their overall financial system is their biggest pain point.

Banks and brokerage accounts are the easy part, but trusts, business ownership structures, and private investments, which all report differently and require cash on hand to make capital calls, can take huge amounts of manual work to analyze.

Imagine a wealth advisory business serving 30 families, each holding about 10 private investments. Each investment generates about 10 documents a year, including quarterly reports, capital calls, distribution notices, and tax documents. Each of these 3,000 documents takes a skilled analyst 15 to 30 minutes to analyze and distill into our reports.

That's 750 to 1,500 hours a year, most of it crammed into the few weeks after each quarter closes. With AI, that data is extracted and mapped as it arrives, and one analyst reviews the work instead of a team racing against a deadline.

Our goal is to create a one-page document or report on their phone that's as close to real-time as possible.

There's a lot you can do with all of your data in one place. For example, a two- or three-sentence prompt could expand into a full email to a client, with all relevant and accurate information already populated. You can then personalize that to fit the right tone for your client.

How AI changes the job

AI tools like Claude for financial advisors will be disruptive, and others will gain access to the same connectivity I've built.

I think of it as part of a dynamic that's been going on for years in my industry. Vanguard, ETFs, lower costs, and robo-advisors have all put a squeeze on financial advisors.

But if you believe a lawyer's only job is writing contracts, or a financial advisor's only job is putting together a portfolio, there's a fundamental kind of misunderstanding of what the actual job is.

As long as investing involves human judgment, financial advisors will have a job. AI doesn't improve investment decisions or results.

I tell my clients that my role is to be the architect of their financial operating system, and, as with an actual operating system, a centralized source of data is essential.

When you have a big-picture view of what your family's mission is, you can avoid getting distracted by market noise and news. From there, you can go a layer down to make strategic plans and ask if we're moving in the right direction, and what opportunities we may have. Another layer down, we work with a CPA to save money on taxes.

A full picture of a balance sheet makes it possible to actually know what liquidity you have available. Now I can spend more time developing relationships, the thing that runs our business. I get to know anything and everything about the clients I'm working with and those I'd like to work with.

The future of financial advisors and AI

I have a natural excitement around tech, and watching the Anthropic webinar was incredible. My main concern is that it's not a subscription-based plan; it's token-based, which could lead to surprise bills for users who don't yet know how to manage their token usage.

At small RIAs without the expertise, people will be uploading 100-page PDF documents just to ask basic questions, like the ages of kids in a trust. That will rip through tokens.

We priced it out internally, and we would have to pay significantly more for a token-based plan instead of the subscription-based licenses we have now. Maybe eventually everyone will have to pay for tokens that way, and the cost of tokens is going down.

We learn to do things faster and at lower cost, but in this industry, we do that for a particular reason: to spend more time with the people we serve.

The primary way that our clients give us information is still by talking. There's a significant amount of nuance. You may be able to understand something and infer what's really being said. But note-taking software is still wrong all the time. You have to review it.

Money is emotional, and I seriously question whether AI can replace our need to connect with another human being.

Do I see someone sitting across the table from AI on a speakerphone? Probably not.

• Kate McNeil opened All the Tropes, a romance bookstore, six weeks after quitting her job.
• Despite concerns about market saturation, All the Tropes thrives as a niche community destination.
• Passion, perseverance, and local support helped McNeil launch her business.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kate McNeil, a 41-year-old small-business owner based in Atlanta. It's been edited for length and clarity.

The idea to open a romance bookstore started during COVID.

I joined an online group of fellow romantasy readers, looking to connect with other people who also enjoyed my favorite form of escapism. That group had over 2,000 members, and it was difficult to feel a sense of community. Eventually, it broke off into local chapters.

After COVID, I didn't know of any dedicated space for these same readers to meet in Atlanta. That's how I started the journey to opening the first romance bookstore in my neighborhood. In the two years since I opened, more romance bookstores have opened up, including one less than two miles away.

I thought I'd retire from my teaching job

When I launched All the Tropes bookstore, I was working a job I thought I'd retire from. I taught theater at Decatur High School for six years. My students always came first. I didn't want those kids to feel like I wasn't present or that they didn't have my undivided attention, so the bookstore was a back-burner idea for a few years.

I'd get home from rehearsal at 11 p.m., conduct business research until 2 a.m., then get up at 6 a.m. and go to work the next day and teach.

I took my time to gain a full understanding of the market, but there were still challenges

I learned about dealing with publishing companies and book distributors, connected with local artists to showcase their work, and reached out to local authors. One of the biggest challenges was finding a place for the store.

I knew that I wanted to stay on the east side of Atlanta because I lived in Kirkwood and felt very connected to the community.

In 2024, I found a location a four-minute walk from my home, and I knew it was time to make my idea a reality. In May of that year, I quit my teaching job and prepared to open the bookstore by the end of summer on Romance Bookstore Day.

I had 6 weeks to get the store ready for opening day

I received the keys to the bookstore six weeks before the day I planned to open. The timeline I had for opening day came with a lot of risks. I had cashed in my retirement fund, quit my job, and had a large preorder of "Onyx Storm" before there were bookshelves in the store.

There were many times my friends and I didn't leave the store until 4 a.m. A local artist painted the shop; I printed my merchandise at a local shop in Kirkwood; and I created the fabric wall. There were many nights I had doubts that All the Tropes would come to fruition.

I was a mom with two young kids opening a niche business that, to my knowledge, would be the first in the state, but I was prepared. I had my accounts with publishers, and my branding was complete. Perseverance, my husband, my village of friends, and an invested community got me to opening day.

All the Tropes opened August 17, 2024, on Romance Bookstore Day. In the span of a few months, I went from a passionate high school teacher to the owner and operator of a romance bookstore.

An increase in niche romance bookstores in the city concerns me

Even in a city like Atlanta with several thriving independent bookstores, I wonder about the percentage of residents who read for fun and, more specifically, read romance. While becoming a general indie bookstore would allow me to sell so many other things, I still believe All the Tropes can continue to thrive in a niche market, despite oversaturation.

Unlike a large book retailer, All the Tropes is a destination spot people can come from out of town to visit. Our social presence and promotion of local writers and artists also offer something unique to readers.

All the Tropes could pivot to general fiction, but so far, more stores opening has not impacted store traffic or sales.

4 Things helped me turn my business idea into a reality

All the Tropes continues to thrive because of my original vision of creating a community space for romance book lovers to connect. We now have eight active book clubs and continue to see consistent revenue.

Passion, trusting my gut, therapy, and a supportive group of friends are the reason I was able to turn an idea I brainstormed late at night into a successful niche business ready to grow.

We are now ready for a larger space and to expand our three-person team.

Do you have a unique small business story to share? Email the editor, Manseen Logan, at mlogan@businessinsider.com.

• Peter Kenyon, former CEO of Manchester United and Chelsea, said that feedback is constant and immediate in sports.
• Kenyon, now a board advisor for Atlassian Williams' F1 team, said companies can learn from this approach.
• He also said that feedback isn't always top-down in sports, which is important.

Athletes don’t have the luxury of waiting for an annual review to hear how they performed — and that may be a good thing.

The suspense that comes with anticipating a laundry list of critiques can sometimes be worse than the feedback itself. Plus, the older the feedback, the less relevant it may be.

Peter Kenyon, the former CEO of Manchester United and Chelsea, told Business Insider that given the nature of sports schedules, when something goes wrong, it has to be fixed before the next event, which is often just days away.

"It's not 'let's work for three months to solve the problem,'" Kenyon said. "No, let's solve the problem now because we go again tomorrow."

Kenyon, who now serves as a board advisor for Atlassian Williams F1 team, has worked in the sports industry for nearly 30 years, leading major restructurings during that time. He said the industry has taught him the importance of maintaining a continuous and instantaneous feedback loop.

He said that as soon as drivers finish a session on track, they sit down with engineers to get feedback so they can better their chances of qualifying for a race later that day or the next day.

Kenyon, who oversees the Atlassian Williams F1 team’s commercial and marketing functions, said feedback in high-performing sports environments doesn’t only flow from the top down. Employees are also expected to tell one another when something isn’t working.

That expectation shapes the culture across the industry, he said. It also shows up in the way athletes expect new teammates to meet the same high bar they set themselves.

It's an industry standard off the field too, though. At Manchester United, Kenyon said the receptionist would call out players who failed to greet her when they walked in — a directness that made her valuable.

"The power of that is incredible," Kenyon said about the former employee.

Frequent and candid feedback doesn’t equate to a bullying culture, though, the sports executive said. Kenyon said managing people and delivering performance reviews is difficult, but the best coaches know when to push athletes — and when to build them up.

"It's continual change," Kenyon said. "It's continual strive-for-performance gains."

Corporate workers may not compete in live-streamed competitions, but they face their own high-pressure sprints in a rapidly changing workplace. Some employers are even adapting traditional performance review processes to prioritize continuous feedback and reward top performers.

• Nikita Chernetskii moved to New York City from rural Moldova when he was 18.
• He joined the Army and worked as a combat medic, which gave him a sense of purpose.
• He was worried about affording med school and starting a family.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Nikita Chernetskii, a medical school student at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I've wanted to be a doctor since I was a little boy. In Moldova, where I was born and raised, you apply to medical school right after finishing high school. As I was applying for medical schools, my parents won the green card lottery, giving our family the chance to come to the US.

Suddenly, I had a huge choice in front of me. Do I take the chance to go to the US, or keep pursuing my dream? I'd always been raised on the idea that the American dream was alive and well. I was also young and naive: I thought I could just apply to medical school once I got there.

I'll never forget landing at JFK in August with my parents and sister, who was in fourth grade at the time. I'd never seen a building taller than nine stories, and suddenly I was looking at the Manhattan skyline. It was surreal. I can still remember the smell as we left the airport, of hot asphalt and summer in the city.

I felt like I was in limbo, seeing my friends chase their dreams

Living in the US was a shock, to put it mildly. New York was so, so different from the rural area of Moldova where we'd lived. I'd gone to an English-speaking high school, but it was set up according to old Soviet standards. Once I was in the US, I realized that I'd been taught English for people who would never speak English: my grammar was excellent, but my vocabulary was very limited.

I knew life wouldn't wait for my dreams. My dad and I started working as porters, making about $500 a week. Part of the job was taking out the trash to the dumpster, but I was pretty happy doing that. The pay was more than I would ever make in Moldova.

I realized that going to med school in the US wasn't realistic. I didn't have the money and didn't understand how college worked here. That sent me into a period of limbo. I would work and save money just to go visit friends in Moldova. I saw them moving toward their goals, while my life stayed the same. Psychologically, it wasn't the greatest time for me.

Joining the military reaffirmed my desire to be a paramedic

On one of those trips home, a friend suggested I join the military. Within a month, I was marching in basic training. My poor English meant I couldn't always understand the directions. I just ran where the other recruits ran, and hoped it was right.

I scored well enough on my aptitude test to become a medic. The work was so fulfilling to me, and helped me cope with the rushed decision to join the military in what was still a foreign country to me.

I was deployed in Germany when the pandemic hit. I'd work 24-hour shifts, sleep for four hours, and get back to it. That's when others started telling me I should become a doctor. I realized that desire was still burning inside me, and I wouldn't be able to sleep well if I didn't at least try.

I leaned on every connection I had to help get into med school

I used the GI bill to pay for college. While I was there, I was accepted into the New York University internship program that pairs aspiring doctors with faculty. I worked with a trauma surgeon at Bellevue Hospital and knew I wanted to spend my life doing what he did.

When it came time for me to apply to medical schools, I knew I needed to be at NYU. I shook all the trees I could. I had no shame and asked anyone for help. The whole process was so stressful that it was almost a blur to me.

The idea of taking on half a million dollars in debt for medical school was frightening. I think I would have done it, but it would have meant delaying other goals, like having children with my wife.

This year, when I was accepted to NYU's Grossman School of Medicine's three-year, tuition-free medical program, it was surreal. When I dreamed of practicing medicine as a boy, I thought I'd be making $300 a month doing old Soviet techniques. Now, I'm learning cutting-edge science that feels like it's plucked from a sci-fi movie. I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life, and I'm well on my way to my American dream.

• Nvidia's sales and marketing leadership is changing as its sales pitch evolves.
• Veterans are retiring, opening the door to internal succession and outside hires.
• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's daughter Madison is also gaining influence.

Nvidia's sales and marketing organizations are seeing a changing of the guard as the AI boom reshapes demands on leadership.

Veterans at Nvidia are retiring, opening the door for longtime employees. And CEO Jensen Huang is tapping talent from outside the company — and outside the chip industry — to meet new challenges.

Nvidia's sales pitch has evolved. It has already convinced companies to choose its chips. To keep growing, it has to convince more businesses to adopt AI. These customers care less about hardware specifications than how Nvidia's AI can be put to work.

Leadership changes are most visible in sales and marketing, said former vice president of corporate marketing Greg Estes, while other areas of the company, such as finance, legal, operations, and software and hardware engineering, have remained relatively stable.

In marketing, Nvidia tapped Google Cloud executive Alison Wagonfeld to become its first chief marketing officer earlier this year, while Microsoft veteran Nick Parker became its new sales chief in August. Neither comes from the chip industry, though both bring years of experience helping businesses adopt software and cloud services.

At the same time, Huang's daughter Madison has gained influence beyond her formal marketing role, two former employees said.

Huang regularly reshapes Nvidia as the business evolves, said Scott Baker, a sales VP who retired in July after 26 years.

"It's truly a battleship spinning on a dime, and everyone gets aligned," he said.

Nvidia did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

A 'deep bench' of younger Nvidia talent

Retirees this year include former sales EVP Jay Puri, VP of enterprise marketing Laura Fay, SVP of enterprise business Shanker Trivedi, and sales VP Kevin Connors.

Fay said Huang doesn't want to lose longtime executives, many of whom he personally recruited. But as they move on, the next generation is getting a chance.

Before leaving in April after 17 years, Trivedi made mentorship part of his mission. He was ready to pass the baton after years of grueling travel and seven-day workweeks.

"Time stops for nobody," the 69-year-old said.

Trivedi said Nvidia has a "deep bench" of younger sales and marketing talent who know its culture, market, and partners inside out, including Raj Mirpuri in AI cloud infrastructure, Kimberly Powell in healthcare, and Kari Briski in AI software.

When he retired, the company divided Trivedi's responsibilities among multiple leaders. As Nvidia's revenue soared during the AI boom, his job had ultimately become too big for one person.

"Better to flatten the structure and gain velocity," he said.

Another Huang is gaining influence

One insider bringing an unconventional background to Nvidia's marketing ranks is Jensen Huang's daughter, Madison Huang.

Madison formerly worked at French luxury conglomerate LVMH in hospitality marketing before joining Nvidia as an MBA intern in 2020. She has quickly ascended to senior director of product marketing for physical AI.

One former employee said Madison's experience working on luxury brands brought a fresh perspective to a marketing team traditionally staffed by semiconductor veterans.

Job titles can be fluid at Nvidia, and a second former employee said Madison's remit extends beyond physical AI marketing. They said she exerts authority across multiple parts of the company and directs teams at all levels on strategy and business decisions.

Madison is also among a small circle of executives known to travel with her father. And their close relationship gives her the ability to anticipate his needs during high-level meetings and appearances, the first former employee said.

"She 'speaks Jensen' very well," the former employee said, "so he doesn't have to explain himself to her."

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at gweiss@businessinsider.com or Signal at @geoffweiss.25. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Matthew Kelson, now 43, grew up in Michigan and opened his first cinema in his 20s.
• He went on to work for Netflix in Los Angeles before getting transferred to Japan in 2020.
• After leaving his job at Netflix in 2024, he renovated a kindergarten and founded a cinema in Japan.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Matthew Kelson, now 43, who was transferred by Netflix from Los Angeles to Tokyo and is now the founder of CineYama, an independent cinema in Uenohara, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. His words have been edited for length and clarity.

Japan isn't new to me. In middle school, I spent two weeks living with a host family as part of an exchange program. I returned a couple of times as an adult.

I was working at Netflix in Los Angeles when the company relocated me to Japan in 2020. I was based in Tokyo for two years before moving to Uenohara, a small town about an hour and a half by train from Tokyo. I still spent time in the capital for occasional meetings and traveled extensively across Asia for screenings. Otherwise, I worked remotely from home. After a company restructuring, I left Netflix in 2024.

I wanted to stay in Japan. My daughter was six months old when my wife and I moved, and my son was born three years later. We thought it was a great place for them to grow up. I started thinking about how I could utilize my expertise in cinema and give back to the community.

While scouting for locations, I came across an abandoned kindergarten. In 2024, I started plans to turn the old school into a cinema. And in December, I got my permanent residency in Japan through the highly skilled professional fast-track program. A year later, I formed my company and spent another year renovating before opening a cinema in March.

Building my career in film

I spent most of my childhood in Michigan, in the Detroit area. My father was a professor of international business. He traveled for work often. It got me curious about the world around me.

At 23, I came across the Detroit Film Center and took a filmmaking course. A year later, I became a teacher and worked as a projectionist there. Through that, I started working at an independent art theater in the Detroit suburbs. I started as an usher, then became the theater manager.

Within the two years of working there, I fell in love with the film world. At 25, I renovated an old school's auditorium into a theater in Michigan using my savings. The theater ran for two years, but after disputes with the landlord, it closed.

I was looking for a fresh start, so in 2011, I moved to Los Angeles. At first, I knocked on the doors of all the film distributors I'd worked with until I met some people at an independent film distribution company. I joined as an intern and worked my way up. I landed a job on Netflix's creative team two years later.

The journey to opening a cinema in Japan

Getting the permit to renovate the abandoned kindergarten was a long process. I had to negotiate with officials at city hall and the residents about how I'd use the building, establish the company, deal with fire and health regulations, and construction in a language I don't speak fluently.

I learned that pushing harder is not necessarily what gets things done in Japan. It was about patience, building trust, and showing people that I was serious and that the project wasn't going to disappear in six months.

There were days when I wondered why I had chosen to make my life so difficult. But every milestone, from getting the building, the inspection, installing the projector, and finally opening the doors, made me more determined.

When the cinema first opened, the elderly residents seemed cautious. After a preview, they told me they were impressed to see the place cleaned up and put back into use. It's important for me to have screenings that kids and families can come to and enjoy the space.

Tickets cost 1,500 Japanese yen, or about $9.50. We offer a discount to seniors and residents. I stick with showing content that is harder to find elsewhere, so that it gives viewers a perspective on other ways of life and culture.

It's mostly family-run. I manage the operations, and my wife helps out sometimes. My kids stamp the tickets when they're around.

Living up to the challenge

Opening the theater in the US was different from doing it in Japan. I was in my 20s, had little money, and was just figuring things out in Detroit. The one in Japan came after 15 years of working in film distribution, creative production, and international screenings.

It's been exciting living over here, having the cinema, and meeting people from all over the world. While life in the US would've been much easier, I like the challenges in Japan. That's why I was at Netflix for so long, because it wasn't an easy job either. I learned life in hard mode.

• In his 40s, Jonathan Yang decided he wanted to get hot — and stopped feeling ashamed to say it.
• His paycheck funded hair transplants, a nose job, and GLP-1s, which he continued post-layoff.
• As his body changed, he said he felt more confident and also noticed that people treated him better.

This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Jonathan Yang, who was laid off from Meta in late 2024 after more than three years on the office design team. The 43-year-old shares how his job, cosmetic procedures, and weight loss shaped his confidence. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.

At Meta, I worked really hard. I had golden handcuffs. I did not prioritize my health. You go to Meta, and they call it the "Facebook 15." Well, it was probably more than 15 pounds because of all the food that's available and all the stress. So, I just really let myself go. I put in everything I could to keep the job.

One upside was that having a bigger paycheck allowed me to start exploring things that I'd always wanted to do — emotionally, physically, aesthetically. I could finally afford a $10,000 hair transplant.

I also got a nose job. I've also had another hair transplant. Looking good and feeling good, to me, are fundamentally tied together. That's for me, and not everybody needs that. A lot of people out there are very successful being their own person and not letting that get to them. I'm not that strong.

I just wanted to get hot

Doing these things started to change how I felt about myself. It started to take away some of the shame that I had around getting aesthetic treatments. Because, as a man, it's seen as superfluous, and it's frowned upon. Before that, I had done a lot of soul-searching, therapy, and all kinds of things.

I hired a trainer, and I felt good, but the change wasn't happening fast enough. Then GLP-1s came out. I'd been waiting for something like that. I finally got on them, and then the weight started to come off, and I just started to blossom.

Once I started seeing the results, I just wanted to get hot. I wanted, at 43, to finally feel confident enough to say that out loud without having any kind of qualms about it. I think working out is a segue for people to think about improving their lives emotionally — to talk about those things — and fitness is an acceptable way for men to kind of go into that.

At work, I would get up onstage and be much more confident. Before that, it wasn't a conscious thing where I knew why I was so meek. When I look back, I would be nervous. I wouldn't smile. On GLP-1s, I started to really change and show up differently at work, and I was getting promotions. I just felt like I had more command because I lost the weight. My coworkers and managers all treated me better.

Now I'm on a lower dose of GLP-1s. I have to pay for it myself now that I'm self-employed. That's not something I'm going to stop.

People look at me differently

After my layoff, my weight was something I could control. I had to build a new routine. My body needed it, too. I had sciatica, and I had all this nerve pain. It really was like my body broke. I had never felt something like that.

I became hyper-focused on wellness, keeping fit, and eating well. Losing weight gave me the confidence to share my story. It allowed me to shed any insecurity or cringe. We say that a lot, but it was like I'm at this point now where I've only got one life to live. I know what it tastes like now.

After all the changes I made, people looked at me differently. A thing that people don't really talk about is how, on the surface, it really is about looks. I would walk into a situation with this naive sense of, "Oh, they're not looking at my weight."

As soon as I started looking more conventionally attractive, I noticed that was the first thing people would comment on. I would meet people, and they would say, "Well, you obviously go to the gym a lot," or "Oh, look at those arms!" I was like, "Wow! We live in this world where we're told, 'Aesthetics don't really matter. People look at your character.' Unfortunately, it's not true. I wish it were.

Do you have a story about how your appearance has affected your work or career? Contact this reporter at tparadis@businessinsider.com.

• Danielle Fewings, founder of Get Clear Beauty, has invested in cosmetic treatments since she was 27.
• Fewings' journey with aesthetic procedures began with a breast reduction and includes Botox and filler.
• Her $150,000 investment in herself has supported both personal confidence and professional success.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Danielle Fewings, a 40-year-old entrepreneur from New York City. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I started my career in digital marketing and ran my own agency from 2020 until 2025, when I sold it. I'm now the founder of Get Clear Beauty, an aesthetic treatment marketplace, which I started in 2026.

I've always felt like there was something missing from my appearance, as if someone much more confident was buried beneath it all. I got my first procedure done in 2013 and have had many since.

I don't regret any of them.

I'm the most treatment‑forward person in almost every room I'm in

In my broader New York circle, routine maintenance is completely normal. People are getting Botox and lip filler, and a few have had breast augmentations. Most are dipping in rather than going all in.

I'm honestly the most treatment-forward person in almost every room I'm in. In any given conversation, I'm the one who's had the most work done, which is a little wild when I think about it.

For most of the people I know, the max is Botox. Routine maintenance is common around me, but no one I'm close to has done anywhere near as much as I have.

My first major decision was my breast reduction at 27

I wore a 32G and desperately wanted them smaller. I call this my gateway surgery because it was honestly a very easy recovery, so I had this ease as the template, which gave me the confidence to keep pursuing additional treatments.

It made me more willing to put myself out there, both in dating and especially in showing up online to create content for my business, which matters enormously when you're building something. It shifted how I approach relationships, too, both friendships and romantic ones.

When you feel confident inside and out, you see yourself as more valuable, recognize your worth, and become more selective about who you let into your life. As I've felt better about myself, I've been more intentional about the relationships I keep close, and I see a direct correlation between the two.

I've never made decisions due to outside pressure

My choices have always been personal. I've never done any of this for another person or because of outside pressure. It has always been about putting my best self forward, and if that takes some tweaks and some money, I'm willing to do it.

I'm a very confident person — I just haven't accepted every imperfection. My upper blepharoplasty is a good example: most people would say I didn't need it, and they would be right, because no one needs any of these things. I wanted it. My eyelids felt heavy, and I chose to change that.

I'm fully committed to antiaging and the maintenance it requires. I go to my quarterly Botox appointments and my annual lip filler appointments, and I'll be ready for a facelift when that time comes. The idea that aging gracefully means avoiding treatments is absurd; aging gracefully is doing whatever feels good to you as an individual.

The cost breakdown

Because my first breast surgery was a reduction, I paid $6,000 out of pocket, and my insurance covered the rest. I had a full-body makeover in the Dominican Republic, which included a tummy tuck, skin tightening, and two further breast surgeries after major weight loss, costing around $12,000. I've also had liposuction, scar revision, an upper blepharoplasty, Sculptra and filler, a Morpheus8 treatment on my legs, tattoo removal, lip blushing, microblading and shading, Invisalign, and teeth whitening. These procedures have cost about $50,000 in total.

The maintenance I keep up with regularly includes manicures and pedicures, which I have gotten every two weeks for the past 10 years; lash extensions, which I have gotten every three weeks for about 15 years; Botox; more filler; peels and lasers; tanning; and haircuts. The recurring maintenance has cost about $105,000 over time.

What struck me is that the one-time procedures come to about $50,000, but the quiet, recurring maintenance is over $100,000. The costs nobody tracks are the ones that add up the most. That is exactly why I built Get Clear Beauty.

Each procedure served a purpose

My whole philosophy has been doing high-maintenance things to stay low-maintenance. The lashes, manicures and pedicures, lip blushing, and microblading are all upkeep that let me feel put-together with minimal effort, and because of them, I barely wear makeup, so some of that cost is a trade-off.

The bigger procedures came from real changes in my body. My weight has gone up and down for years, and that has driven a lot of it. The Morpheus8 on my legs was for skin laxity, because I'm not ready for a leg lift and probably don't need one. I've had three breast surgeries total.

I'd never do CoolSculpting, and I'd never have a nose job. I don't think CoolSculpting is cost-effective, and I've grown to love my nose.

My appearance impacts confidence, and confidence impacts business

When you're on 15 Zooms a week and constantly recording content to win business, looking and feeling your best matters.

Appearance affects business outcomes, but for me, it works through confidence. When I feel good about how I'm showing up, I represent my company more powerfully and carry my knowledge into the room in a way that lands.

I love how I look. 10 years ago, I never thought looking this way was achievable, and it's the result of a GLP-1 medication, surgeries, and really taking my appearance by the horns. I'm in a genuinely happy place with it.

• There are clear parallels between the AI boom and the dot-com bubble, tech investor Paul Wick says.
• But solid demand, strong earnings, and less mania make for a "healthier" backdrop, Wick said.
• Seligman's chief investor brushed off Michael Burry's worries but flagged some trends to watch.

The AI boom has shades of the dot-com bubble, but fears of an imminent crash and mass unemployment are overblown, a veteran tech investor says.

At the turn of this century, there was an explosion in dot-com startups being formed, and a huge infrastructure buildout with telecoms "aggressively" spending on wired and wireless networks, Paul Wick told Business Insider in an interview this week.

The chief investor of Seligman Investments — a group within Columbia Threadneedle Investments that manages over $40 billion of assets and comprises a hedge fund, a mutual fund, and a venture capital arm — said there were clear parallels between that period and the current boom in AI startups and data-center spending. He also noted that energy prices and interest rates jumped then as they've done this year.

But Wick noted there isn't the same IPO frenzy now, or the same "frenetic environment" where stocks soar fivefold or tenfold in a day. He also said that by late 2000, a slowdown in IT spending was being forecasted for 2001, whereas enterprise spending on AI remains strong and recent tech earnings have been robust.

Simply put, the situation seems "healthier" now than in 2000, he said.

Business Insider asked Wick about Michael Burry's warnings this year around AI. "The Big Short" investor has called out aggressive accounting, circular financing, hidden debt, and overinvestment in depreciating assets like microchips as reasons to be skeptical that the boom has legs.

Wick said that Burry, known for predicting and profiting from the collapse of the mid-2000s housing bubble, has been "early or downright wrong on many other things."

Burry has previously defended his track record, citing his correct predictions and sharing charts showing the timing of his market calls.

As for concerns about Nvidia's efforts to grow the AI ecosystem by investing in data center developers and software companies, Wick emphasized that the chipmaker is "extraordinarily profitable."

He cast doubt on whether Nvidia should spend its spare cash only on buybacks, rather than bolstering its customers, especially as several of the industry's biggest players are working to develop their own AI chips to reduce their reliance on Nvidia.

But he also flagged some industry trends to watch, including enterprise clients opting to use older models or build their own, and token pricing coming under pressure as users embrace open-source models, raising questions over the size of the market opportunity for the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic.

Navigating a new world

Wick weighed in on how a young person can get ahead in the AI era.

"It used to be that a degree in computer science was a ticket to success," he said.

A better option today might be to learn a trade, as there's "booming demand" for workers such as electricians and HVAC technicians, and they can make an "incredibly good living" without having to go to a four-year college, Wick said.

He also took aim at the "doom-and-gloom notion that AI is going to eviscerate demand" for human labor. He described that worry as a "little premature" as nobody knows for sure how AI will affect entry-level roles in the future, unemployment is yet to soar, and there's always inertia when it comes to businesses and consumers changing their behavior.

• This post originally appeared in the BI Today newsletter.
• You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

Leaning out

It was day two of my stay-at-home PTO. This is the time off that isn't for traveling or relaxing, but — as I told my group chat — to be a housewife.

And over three days, I was productive: I decluttered a closet, replaced a broken appliance, and even enjoyed a Pilates class at 11 a.m. Not only did I accomplish goals that had gotten dusty on my to-do list, but I also noticed other positive benefits. I listened more to my children and felt more present.

As an executive, I immediately wanted to repeat this: three days at the start of every quarter to simply be a housewife.

It's just one solution for what so many millennial women and mothers are trying to figure out as they climb the corporate ladder. While some are experimenting with balance, like me, others are simply leaning out altogether.

Business Insider's Julia Pugachevsky spoke to women in corporate America who, instead of continuing to aspire to the highest rungs of their organizations, became skeptical that they'd have the flexibility needed to do it all. So, they're leaning out.

It's what Trisha Daab, who had spent 20 years in corporate leadership roles, did. She took a year off. "I had no idea how tired I was until I stopped working," she said.

During that time, Daab volunteered at a food bank, tap danced, traveled, and spent more time with her children. She eventually decided she couldn't go back to the status quo. "Stepping away helped me realize my priorities had shifted," the 47-year-old said.

Former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg, who coined the term "Lean In" to encourage women to pursue corporate leadership even when family obligations felt like another hurdle, told Business Insider that she understands why women are leaning out.

"This is not the women who are saying, 'I don't want to do it,'" Sandberg, 57, said. "It's the women saying, 'I don't want to do it because I'm not wanted, I'm not getting the same opportunities and the same support, and I face an unfair burden at home.'"

Sandberg said it's a shame because women leaders often advocate for policies that benefit women, such as egg freezing, lactation rooms, and competitive parental leave options.

"I just hope that enough women want those senior leadership roles," she added, "that we get the environment for women that they deserve."

• The job market is rough right now; many would-be entry-level workers are still on the hunt.
• A new Twitch show hopes to help answer labor market questions and offer job seekers advice.
• So far, they've advised callers on everything from salaries to highlighting unique experience.

When Hans Romine finished his architecture degree in 2025, the 24-year-old began looking for work. After about 50 job applications yielded a single interview appointment, he started feeling despondent.

That's when a friend told him about a new show called 877UNMPLYD.

The show is on Twitch, a streaming platform favored by gamers and fans, but has an unlikely host: Jeremy Zimmer, the former CEO of United Talent Agency, along with digital-savvy producer Rachel Braun. The show offers career advice, discusses labor market news, and fields live call-ins from people looking for work.

When Romine called in, he mentioned he'd spent a few months as a recreation supervisor, building morale at an isolated research station in Antarctica. Zimmer and Braun found that the most interesting part of his whole story, and told him to play it up in applications and interviews.

Romine took their advice, and when he went in for that interview, he highlighted his experiences out on the tundra. After he landed the job, he called back in to let the hosts know.

That's the kind of win Zimmer and Braun hope to replicate. Over their first season, the duo hosted 12 episodes, with one episode filmed live on the streets of New York garnering over 54,000 views.

The show is a small experiment in career guidance at a moment when the entry-level job market is getting harder to navigate — especially in New York City. A new report from Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit business advocacy group, found that the number of entry-level jobs has shrunk disproportionately among professions highly exposed to AI; entry-level postings in design, media, and writing fell by 40.6%.

Nationally, employment in white-collar industries has fallen, even as output has gone up — indicating that AI might be effectively replacing entry-level white-collar work.

That dearth of entry-level opportunities is part of what spawned the show, a partnership between TikTok savant Adam Faze and the economic mobility nonprofit Schultz Family Foundation. Judith Dubin, the head of content at the foundation, said that they'd drilled down on investments in career navigation after recognizing how difficult it is to be graduating from high school or college into the current labor market.

"The current job marketplace is so disrupted with the advent of AI," Dubin said. "It's just an additional barrier for young people."

In August, Zimmer and Braun set up a desk on a plaza at Baruch College, with a sign that said "Ask a CEO," and fielded questions from students. One student asked for advice on how to negotiate salary expectations, especially in the interview process. Braun said that not all advice-seekers are new grads: One Gen X marketer called in after being laid off, feeling pushed out of the tech industry.

Going into the show, Zimmer focused on what it must feel like when getting a job is no longer as simple as putting your head down, working hard, and expecting things to work out.

"That age-old mantra doesn't feel as relevant today," Zimmer said. He's been struck by the contrast between callers who are hyper-focused on what they want, eschewing any concern about why that can't happen, and those who are baffled that they've applied for hundreds of jobs and haven't gotten any interviews. He's found both the naivety and the determination of the callers exciting.

Braun, the show's other host and a producer, said that AI emerged as a major theme throughout their first season — both the opportunities it presented and the way that it was shaking up the entry-level job hunt.

Romine, who landed a job, hopes that employers can once again understand the value of having fresh talent on their teams. But as the labor market continues its entry-level contraction, getting a leg up — even if it's through advice on a Twitch show — is ever more important.

"In the meantime, students and graduates need to really figure out how to work the current system and make themselves stand out in such an intense market," Romine said.

• Jen Eaves' mother is 79 and lost more than $3,000 to online scams.
• Eaves now monitors her mother's finances and says that was a hard conversation.
• Digital caregiving is an important part of supporting aging parents, she says.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jen Eaves, Digital Caregiving & Elder Fraud Advocate at Aura. It has been edited for length and clarity.

It's an odd shift in dynamic when you start caring for the people who always cared for you. My mother is 79, and lives with my brother, who handles most of her day-to-day physical care. I'm the one who handles the administrative side of care, like scheduling doctor appointments and keeping her safe online.

About six years ago, my mom had a stroke, and while she recovered fairly well, she wasn't the same cognitively as she had been before. Around that time, I began noticing her falling for scams online.

Once, she ordered a cure for diabetes, which she has. The product was supposedly being sold by a famous TV doctor. When she showed me the video ad, I could see it was badly done AI, with the supposed doctor's lips not matching his words.

There have been other scams and pitfalls, too: online orders that never arrive, or even a legitimate credit card that my mom opened without realizing what she was doing. All in all, she's lost about $3,000 to scams, though I've been able to recover most of it through her bank.

I've realized that I need to take a more proactive approach to digital caregiving to protect my mom's finances. Here's what I'm doing.

Approaching from a place of help and dignity

After my brother and I had taken my mom's keys away, her phone became her connection to the world. I wanted to respect that. While some people have to restrict their older parents' access to phones, that didn't feel right in my case.

It was critical to me that my mom kept her dignity and as much independence as possible. At the same time, I saw there was an emotional side to falling for a scam: she would feel frustrated and confused when it happened, and I wanted to spare her those negative emotions.

I never want my mom to feel like I'm parenting her. Instead, I pointed out the patterns I was seeing and emphasized I'm here to help if she's willing to let me be involved. The choice, ultimately, is hers. This would be a lot harder if she wasn't willing.

Talk about scams

My mom wasn't particularly tech savvy, even before her stroke. I've had to educate her about what scams look like. When she shared the famous doctor video, I pointed out the aspects that seemed AI-generated to me. I remind her that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I emphasize that urgency is a big sign of a scam. The bank, I tell her, is never going to call you.

Once, she had a scam caller claiming to be Apple support. They asked for her Apple ID and password, which would have given them access to pretty much everything she has online.

Because of our conversations, my mom hesitated. She patched me into the call and asked the scammer to explain the situation to me. I was very proud that she recognized the scam and knew to ask me for help.

I monitor my mom's accounts

I worked in cybersecurity at Aura, which offers a lot of great products for keeping kids safe online. But my experience with my mom made me realize we were missing a whole vulnerable population: older adults.

I helped develop Trusted Family Access, which allows family members like me to see alerts from their loved ones' accounts, with permission. This gives me peace of mind that I can catch any issues quickly. It's also made other aspects of caregiving easier, like handling medical appointments, because I have access to all my mom's information in one place.

When my mom was scammed, it felt like I was a victim too. I spent hours calling her bank and credit cards to get her money back. If she were to lose her savings, it would impact the whole family. I'm grateful we've found a solution that empowers both of us to keep her finances safe.