• Nadia Carlsten, CEO of Smartbird, spoke on the public company's shift from sneakers to AI.
• When the AI pivot was announced, the company's stock skyrocketed. It has since come back down.
• Carlsten said Smartbird has a different approach to AI infrastructure, focusing on customer needs.

Before Smartbird was powering large language models, it was making shoes.

The CEO of the AI infrastructure company, Nadia Carlsten, spoke about the transition with chief correspondent Ben Bergman on Thursday at Business Insider's The Long Play.

Its roots are the sustainable sneaker company Allbirds, which skyrocketed in the late 2010s. The shoes were particularly popular among the Silicon Valley crowd. Allbirds went public in 2021 before the market turned on many direct-to-consumer businesses. The stock quickly fell, and it sold to American Exchange Group in March for $39 million.

"The short answer is the shoe business wasn't doing that well," Carlsten said.

The company then sold off its footwear business and shed most of its workforce, rebranding as Smartbird. The AI pivot skyrocketed the stock and was briefly up 800%, though it has since come back down. Carlsten, who became CEO in June, said she had never worn those wool shoes.

"The goal of the company was to do something valuable and meaningful. And for me, I knew I wanted to do AI infrastructure," she said.

After looking at the emerging AI infrastructure sector, she believed with the company's transformation, it was the "right place at the right time" for her to join.

In the five months since she took over, Carlsten said the experience can be described in one word: exciting.

"Never in my life thought that I would be the CEO of a former shoe company and managing what is essentially a startup." Since taking on the role, she has focused on building out a new team, scouring new technologies for the company to look into, and producing a new pipeline of customers.

While the stock price has gone down since the initial pivot-induced spike, Carlsten does not regret taking on the challenge. She is betting on the company's long-term potential.

"The stock market is going to do what the stock market does," she said. "What I care about is making sure that we're putting the company on the right path, and that we're able to build it quickly enough and well enough that we have a sustainable business that investors will love. So what happens in the short term? Not that important. What happens in the long term is very important."

When asked why the company decided to reinvent itself in the public eye instead of beginning as a private start-up, Carlsten countered with a question: "Why not?" she said, "It will come back up."

Having to reinvent the company from scratch can be challenging, and the public's presence is clear, she said. Yet, Carlsten said reinvention is inevitable for companies.

"This is a very public reinvention of the company, and people are watching," she said. "I think every company needs to reinvent itself every now and then."

When asked why the company is fully remote, Carlsten said most of the work at Smartbird is done virtually or at data centers, meaning an office would not be of much use.

"We spend a lot of time actually building things, which I actually love. So if my people are sitting in an office, something's wrong," she said.

Working within the emerging AI sector

Carlsten said that although her competitors are building similar AI infrastructure, the way Smartbird is going about it is unique.

"For us, it's about the right infrastructure for the right company at the right time," she said. "Our business model allows us to work more closely with customers, but it also is a lot less capital intensive."

Smartbird is looking to work with companies that have yet to explore implementing AI in their systems, she said. As more companies outside the tech realm look to adopt AI into their businesses, they have the choice to build infrastructure themselves or outsource it, and Smartbird wants to be the one to do it for them, she said.

"We'll do the infrastructure part. We'll let you focus on the actual business," she said.

The most common misconception Carlsten said she has encountered in the business is that it's all about GPUs. She said the company does a lot more than just run GPUs.

"It's really about having a holistic system that a customer can use to do AI," she said.

Another rumbling that's taken over the tech company discourse is whether there's an AI bubble and if it will pop. Carlsten said that depends on how people go about defining the bubble.

Excitement in the sector means funding might be going into companies that may not prosper in the future, but this is something that happens with the arrival of new technologies, she said.

"Every time there is a transformational technology, this happens," she said. "Even if we assume that there is a bubble, that doesn't mean that the technology is not good. It also doesn't mean that the adoption of the technology is going to go away."

Media titan Barry Diller, the chairman of publishing empire IAC, has built and rebuilt his career more than most executives, from network television to Hollywood studios to the earliest internet empires.

As part of Business Insider's The Long Play, Diller talked to Peter Kafka, Business Insider's chief correspondent covering media and technology, about what successful businesses require: good timing, nerve, and the willingness to walk away from what's working.

During this conversation, titled "The Art of the Comeback: A Masterclass on Resilience," Diller shares his perspectives on AI adoption. He also talks about why his MGM Resorts deal fell apart and how he's leveraging legacy print publications like Southern Living to create new revenue streams.

The 84-year-old media and tech exec told Kafka he wants to keep working as long as he can be engaged and useful.

As Gotham FC's governor and lead owner, Carolyn Tisch Blodgett is capitalizing on the moment: she's turning a championship soccer club into a breakout New York brand with the reach, relevance, and staying power to lead the next era of sports.

Tisch Blodgett — shared her approach to investing in women's athletics, including leveraging fandoms and AI technologies, as part of Business Insider's The Long Play.

Interviewed by Nathan McAlone, Business Insider's deputy editor covering media and advertising, Tisch Blodgett said that her marketing background has been invaluable for building strategy in the business of sports.

• Carolyn Tisch Blodgett, a co-owner of the New York Giants and Gotham FC, is using AI to cut costs.
• "There's a lot of parts of a sports team that are just expensive to operate," Tisch Blodgett said.
• Tisch Blodgett shared how she's turned around Gotham FC at Business Insider's The Long Play.

New York Giants and Gotham FC co-owner Carolyn Tisch Blodgett is betting on AI to transform women's sports into a major moneymaker.

"If AI can make you more efficient, that totally changes where women's sports can go," Tisch Blodgett said at Business Insider's The Long Play event on Thursday afternoon.

Tisch Blodgett, who's the lead owner of Gotham FC in the National Women's Soccer League, sees AI as a way to reduce the costs of running a sports business without cutting corners.

"There's a lot of parts of a sports team that are just expensive to operate. It's expensive to operate a stadium, it's expensive to operate a ticketing team, expensive to operate a marketing team," Tisch Blodgett said.

Those struggles are heightened for women's sports, which historically haven't gotten the same level of investment as men's sports.

"The revenue was not high enough to really justify building out an entire business team, and the business model just didn't really work," Tisch Blodgett said of women's sports.

Tisch Blodgett made a name for herself by starting sports-focused venture capital firm Next 3, which has invested in Gotham FC, the Los Angeles Golf Club in golf league TGL, Premier Lacrosse League, and lottery ticket site Jackpot.com.

The Gotham FC owner has had a front-row seat to running sports since she was a kid: Her family bought half of the NFL's New York Giants in 1991. The Tisch family runs Loews Corporation, a hotel and insurance conglomerate worth about $22.9 billion.

Under the Tisch's ownership, the Giants have won two Super Bowls. Tisch Blodgett has already matched that title count in the three years she's owned Gotham FC — though building a winner hasn't been easy.

Building a champion by gathering feedback

Tisch Blodgett felt firsthand the challenges that women's sports teams face after taking over Gotham FC in 2023. The New York-based team had talent, as it went on to bring home its first title months later.

But success on the pitch hadn't translated to a winning business. Gotham FC didn't have its own business office when Tisch Blodgett took over, and players shared a practice field with a club team of 16-year-old boys.

While Gotham FC had "a great product on the field," Tisch Blodgett said, "attendance was really low" due to a lack of awareness.

"It was clear that the people that came really liked it, but it was very small," Tisch Blodgett said of Gotham FC's fanbase in 2023.

Tisch Blodgett has since flipped the script. This July, Gotham FC sold out Citi Field in Queens, drawing over 42,000 fans in what she said was the biggest women's sports event ever in New York City.

Gotham FC announced in July that it would call Queens home starting in 2028 — a major upgrade from its current stadium in Harrison, New Jersey, which is difficult to reach from New York City by public transit.

One key to Gotham FC's success has been gathering feedback. Tisch Blodgett, who led marketing for fitness giant Peloton before starting Next 3, said learning from fans "makes the whole business smarter" and has been crucial to the soccer club's growth.

"Fan feedback is incredibly important to me — it's how we run our organization," Tisch Blodgett said. "After every game, we send out a survey to every person that attended, essentially saying, 'Did you like it? Would you recommend it to a friend?'"

Gotham FC's Net Promoter Score — which measures how likely customers are to recommend the brand to a friend — rivals Apple, Tisch Blodgett said.

"It makes every person in the organization understand what we're building towards in a much more efficient way," Tisch Blodgett said.

Cristina Junqueira helped build Brazilian fintech player Nubank into one of the world's largest digital financial services platforms.

Now, as she leads Nu's emerging US business, she is taking on its biggest challenge yet: breaking into America's crowded banking market.

As part of Business Insider's The Long Play, Junqueira sat down with Dan DeFrancesco, executive editor and anchor of Business Insider Today, to share her insights on how to build trust and scale in banking, like leaning into convenience through digital banking products.

During the discussion, called "Building a Global Challenger," Junqueira also talked about her plan to take on incumbents in retail banking.

• Barry Diller isn't ready to slow down.
• The 84-year-old media and tech exec says he wants to keep working as long as he can be engaged and useful.
• Diller says he isn't focused on his legacy. He says it's "boring" to look backward.

He may have run Paramount, built the Fox television network, and just pulled a buyout offer for MGM Resorts, but media and tech executive Barry Diller says he's not done yet.

He has a "motor inside" that just won't stop, Diller said Thursday at Business Insider's The Long Play in New York.

"I'm still curious," he told Peter Kafka, BI's chief correspondent. "If I can be engaged and hopefully be useful, then OK."

"At some point, someone will tell me in some masterful way, either it's over or, in another way, it will be over," he said, alluding to the final bow. "I will either pay attention, or not, and they will drag me out to the heap."

Diller's desire to keep leading companies means staying on top of major technological changes, such as AI.

"I am, at any point, ready to change my mind based on events of that moment," he said. "I don't think whatever the past process is should educate that," he said.

At People Inc., Diller has overseen multiple strategy shifts. The company is evolving from print to a digital business, and like other publishers, it's had to adjust to significant Google traffic declines.

On Thursday, People Inc. laid off 195 workers, according to a memo from its CEO, Neil Vogel, which Business Insider viewed. The company cut workers from its "print and legacy web businesses," while adding hundreds of staffers in other business areas that it hopes to grow, the memo said.

Diller told Kafka that People's layoffs were a sign that its print business was in a "steady kind of decline," and that it was shifting its workforce to focus on new business priorities.

Diller's time isn't solely focused on business: He's also worked on various public-interest projects, such as developing New York's High Line and Little Island alongside his wife, Diane von Fürstenberg.

On Thursday, he teased a coming project for Los Angeles, too, but wouldn't reveal details.

Despite taking joy in seeing satisfied attendees at Little Island on the Hudson River, Diller said he's not focused on his public legacy.

"I don't do legacy," he told Kafka. "If you say legacy, it kind of means all you're doing is looking backward, and that's just boring to me."

• Nubank's US CEO joined Business Insider's The Long Play to discuss the bank's expansion into the US.
• The company looks to simplify banking with a digital-first fintech approach.
• US CEO Cristina Junqueira focuses on building trust through credit options and brand building.

Nubank is the largest digital bank in Latin America — now it's turning its eyes towards the US.

Cristina Junqueira, the co-founder and US CEO of Nubank, sat down with Dan DeFrancesco, executive editor and anchor of Business Insider Today, at Business Insider's The Long Play, to talk about the digital bank's expansion on Thursday.

How it began

Since its founding in 2013, the fintech bank has pushed for financial inclusivity in Latin America by providing access to banking and financial services through its mobile app. Headquartered in Junqueira's home country of Brazil, the simple, low-cost, and digital-first approach discarded the need for physical banks, which are at times harder to reach in parts of Latin America — a key part of its success in the region.

It all started with a purple credit card with no fees.

"We had this vision that data, design, technology, completely transforms people's relationship with money," she said.

Junqueira previously worked as an executive at Itaú Unibanco, the largest private-sector financial giant in the region, also headquartered in Brazil and now a direct competitor of Nubank. Today, it is the largest company in Brazil based on primary banking relationships, and two-thirds of the country's adult population are customers, she said.

Entering the US market

The digital bank is set to expand into the US after opening a branch in September, operating under the name Nu. This comes after expansion into Mexico and Colombia in 2021.

"We always saw the thesis as a global one," she said. "Everywhere in the world, people want more convenience. People want more transparency. People want simpler experiences managing their finances. People still get like paralyzed by complexity through their financial lives."

Entering America's crowded banking sector is a risk — but for Junqueira, entering no country goes without risk.

"The US is a very hard market, but I haven't found easy ones either," she said. "Building a bank is hard everywhere, so you might as well go for the biggest payout."

In the US, she said getting a bank account is still "surprisingly hard" and normally requires you to go to a physical branch, while Nu offers an easier alternative to that, she said. Foreign digital-first banks have tried to bring their platforms to the US before and failed. German fintech N26 and UK fintech Monzo both tried to expand their businesses to the US, and ultimately withdrew from the market.

The American consumer is unique, which is why Junqueira aims to take a different approach than her competitors to earn trust and scale the platform. She said most other companies started with debit cards, while Nubank is the first to start with credit cards.

Starting people out with a debit card "requires you to build a lot of trust with those customers because you're asking them to deposit their money with you," she said. "In our case, all the countries that we started, we started with credit. This is a very different relationship because you're the one trusting the consumers," she said.

Some Latin American immigrants who already live in the US are responding positively to Nu as it enters the market.

"I've been positively surprised not only by the amount of people, sure, but Brazilians, Mexicans, and others are here and have been waiting for this," she said.

Junqueira also pointed to emerging AI technology and how it could impact the company and the banking sector. She said the company is "heavily leveraging AI," integrating it in credit underwriting, customer support, and product development.

Brazil's presidential election on Sunday made headlines as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva unexpectedly won a runoff against Flávio Bolsonaro, who fled the country to the US after he was under investigation for alleged corruption and money laundering. When asked about how she reacted to the big market sell-off in response, Junqueira said volatility is part of operating in a country like Brazil, but having 13 years of experience in the country has helped them learn they are going to run the company for the long run.

"We got to focus on the fundamentals, and the reality is, last quarter we turned over a billion dollars in net income," she said. "Markets don't like surprises, right? But we manage our business regardless of what happens."

Building a brand

The founder said one of the hardest things Nu will have to do in the US is build a brand that connects with users on an "emotional" level. Junqueira's dream scenario, five years from now, is to find evidence of that connection in the US.

One of the ways Nubank is attempting to spread its brand is through a recently signed deal with the Mercedes F1 team. Junqueira pointed to fans' passion for specific teams, as they follow the championship around the world, which was part of why they wanted to take part.

"We got a lot of visibility out of that, and we're working with them on brand activations," she said. "We're producing very interesting activations for consumers that help us amplify the branding fast, and that really help us bring this partnership to life."

Another huge part of the digital bank's brand is gender equality. In 2021, Nubank set a goal for 50% of Nubank's leadership to be women by 2025. Junqueira said today that the company's workforce is over 45% women, with many in leadership positions. In the four countries where they operate, all top leaders are women. Junqueira said the biggest challenge of being an executive while raising a family is not having the flexibility to juggle the demands of both roles.

"The reality is, as hard as we have to work, I think the hardest part is not having enough flexibility," she said. "It has been wonderful for us to have that type of opportunity, for us to really be able to tap into this part of the workforce that often struggles to have this type of career opportunity."

Correction — October 29, 2026: An earlier version of this article misstated Junqueira's title; she is the co-founder and CEO of US Nubank. The article also has been updated to note that the top leaders in the four countries where Nubank operates are women.

• Barry Diller says he tried to buy all of MGM because real-world experiences like a trip to Las Vegas are a strong hedge against AI.
• He said the deal fell apart because he didn't want to take on debt or raise money from third parties.
• Diller spoke to Chief Correspondent Peter Kafka at Business Insider's The Long Play.

Media mogul Barry Diller thinks businesses that operate in the real world have a strong protective moat against AI.

That was the inspiration for his company People Inc.'s June bid for MGM Resorts International's casino and hotel business, which he called "forever assets."

As some consumers turn to AI chatbots to complete tasks like buying plane tickets or managing subscriptions, digital-only businesses could get boxed out. That creates real risks for internet brands like Expedia Inc., where Diller is an investor and board member. It's less of a problem for companies whose businesses exist in the real world, he said.

Nothing is going to replace Las Vegas, Diller said — and no one's going to buy another one. Gaming is only part of the equation, he said.

"No disintermediation is coming between a person who wants to go to a place, and that place," he said, speaking to BI's Chief Correspondent Peter Kafka at Business Insider's The Long Play event in New York on Thursday.

People Inc. first took a 27% stake in MGM in 2020. The company, which operates magazines such as Food & Wine, People, and Southern Living, later offered to buy the Las Vegas brand outright in June but withdrew its bid in September.

Diller said the deal fell apart after he became uncomfortable with the proposed structure, which involved taking on debt and asking third parties for money.

MGM later offered to buy People Inc. instead, but told investors on Wednesday that it had shelved the plan. Diller said it was "highly unlikely" that MGM was interested in People's magazine assets, but rather it had hoped to buy back People's MGM shares.

People remains MGM's largest investor, though it has agreed not to buy more than a 29.9% stake in the company and to vote with MGM's board in connection with a change-of-control transaction.

People, which, beyond its magazine portfolio, also owns stakes in The Daily Beast and the car-rental company Turo, laid off 195 workers on Thursday, per a memo from CEO Neil Vogel, which Business Insider viewed. The vast majority of impacted staffers worked on its "print and legacy web businesses," the memo said. The company has "added 320 new employees so far in 2026," it said.

Diller told Kafka that the layoffs were a sign of a healthy company that has a profitable print business in a "steady kind of decline."

"We've been transferring out people in these legacy businesses and transferring in people to do the new work," he said.

Diller is a longtime media operator. He served as chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures in the 1970s and 80s, before joining Fox Inc. and helping to start Fox Broadcasting with Rupert Murdoch in the mid-1980s. He then worked at QVC before serving as CEO of IAC and taking on roles at Expedia Group. He is on the board of directors at MGM.