After Bryce Ramsey was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer at 33, she learned another piece of shocking news: She had a genetically high chance of developing it from the very beginning.

Ramsey tested positive for Lynch syndrome, a silent, inherited condition that heightened her lifetime risk of being diagnosed with colorectal cancer by up to 56% for her variant. It also put her at greater risk of developing ovarian, uterine, stomach, pancreatic, and other forms of cancer.

Before she learned she had Lynch, Ramsey urged her relatives to also get screened for colon cancer. Since then, her father, brother, and aunt have all been diagnosed with various stages of colon cancer. Like Ramsey, her aunt also tested positive for Lynch.

"I was the whistleblower," Ramsey, 40, based in Mississippi, told Business Insider. Ramsey now wants her two young sons to test for Lynch once they're in their early 20s, the recommended starting age for her specific Lynch mutation.

Like most genetic testing, Lynch syndrome testing is relatively quick, cheap, and non-invasive. It involves a saliva test, a cheek swab, or a blood test, with the latter having the least room for error.

Still, it hasn't caught on: About 1 in 279 Americans (1.2 million people) are estimated to have Lynch syndrome, including between 3 to 5% colon cancer patients. Yet an estimated 95% of Americans with Lynch syndrome have no idea they have it.

All the while, cases of colon, breast, uterine, and pancreatic cancers are rising in young people, with colon cancer the deadliest cancer for adults under 50. "If you don't know, then you can't get help," Ramsey said, including earlier screenings or preventive measures such as hysterectomies.

"Ignorance is not always bliss."

The 'lowest hanging fruit' for cutting down cancer risk

Some experts view broader Lynch syndrome testing as a way to get more people screened for cancer before symptoms arise — and a way to potentially help entire families better understand their cancer risks.

Like Ramsey, the majority of people diagnosed with Lynch syndrome only get screened after they have cancer. In the US, the CDC's general guidelines recommend that colon and uterine cancer patients have tumors biopsied for Lynch, followed by Lynch syndrome screening for the patient if there are abnormal findings.

Some experts believe the lack of early genetic testing is a huge missed opportunity for reducing cancer risk. One 2021 study found that about 16.4% of 713 early-onset colorectal cancer cases could have been prevented if patients knew either their family history or had been genetically screened, and would have subsequently started getting colonoscopies sooner.

Lynch syndrome testing "has got so much potential, but it's not being utilized," Heather Hampel, a professor at City of Hope in California who specializes in clinical cancer genomics and Lynch syndrome, and a co-author of the study, told Business Insider.

While Lynch syndrome remains unknown to most Americans, some health systems are trying to expand testing to the broader population. Helix, a genetic screening company that first started out as a consumer DNA marketplace, started partnering with 17 health systems in 2021 as part of its "Population Genomics Initiative." The goal has been to introduce broader population-scale genomic programs that include testing for Lynch syndrome.

Dr. Cassie Hajek, the medical director of Helix, told Business Insider that most patients diagnosed with one of these hereditary conditions by Helix were completely taken aback by the news. "They're kind of operating on the assumption that their risk is just as it is in the general population, but in fact, it's significantly elevated," she said. "The whole goal is to identify these patients hiding in plain sight."

By knowing their genetic predispositions for cancer, they can both more easily start earlier cancer screenings and also inform their family members of their potential genetic risks.

Hampel noted that lowering overall cancer rates is complicated. We still don't know why colon cancer cases are rising so rapidly among young people, and lifestyle factors like sedentary routines and diets high in ultra-processed foods are far more difficult to control for.

"If the lowest-hanging fruit is family history and gene testing, and we can't even prevent those," Hampel said, "how are we ever going to prevent things where we need people to make lifestyle or behavioral changes?"

The ripple effects for families

Michelle York was 33 when she first heard of Lynch syndrome.

Up until that point, all she'd known was that her mom's side of the family had a long cancer history. Her great-grandmother died from colon cancer. Her grandfather had stomach and brain cancer. Her great-aunts died from liver, ovarian, and breast cancer, respectively. Her mother's cousin died from pancreatic cancer.

York's mother, a nurse at the time, had come across the term through her work. She tested positive for Lynch, along with York, her two siblings, aunt, uncle, and cousin.

At first, the news caused some anxiety. "Does this mean I'm going to get cancer at a young age?" York, 43 and based in Los Angeles, told Business Insider. "Does this mean every time I don't feel well, I'm going to immediately think I have cancer?"

However, once York and her family started getting routine cancer screenings, including annual colonoscopies, they felt more reassured than afraid, because they knew they could catch cancer early. York's mother had multiple precancerous polyps removed.

"None of us have had cancer yet, but we've had lots of scares," York said. She also wants her kids, ages 17 and 14, to test once they're older.

York's mother triggered something called "cascade testing," in which other family members test for Lynch and can take preventive measures to reduce their cancer risk.

Dr. Sapna Syngal, the director of research at the division of cancer genetics and prevention at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and the founder of its Lynch Syndrome Center, sees cascade testing for Lynch as a "real opportunity" to lower cancer risk, she told Business Insider.

Particularly for young people, if they test positive for Lynch in their 20s and start getting cancer screenings, "there's a really, really good chance that you could prevent that cancer by taking out polyps earlier on," she said.

There are also financial benefits to knowing you have a genetic predisposition to cancer. While insurance coverage for Lynch-related cancer screenings can vary, Hajek said her patients typically have a more "straightforward" experience in getting otherwise expensive screenings like colonoscopies covered. York, for example, said her insurance covered her cancer screenings once she got her Lynch syndrome diagnosis.

Ultimately, Hajek said Lynch syndrome testing can help patients get more precise care than simply knowing they have a family history of cancer. Just as testing positive for Lynch can prompt someone to start cancer screenings sooner, testing negative can also relieve a person of anxiety about being at high risk of early-onset cancer and potentially call for less frequent cancer screenings than if they had Lynch.

York said she's ultimately grateful for finding out and knowing she can catch any early signs of cancer by starting annual screenings such as colonoscopies in her 30s — over a decade before the average-risk recommended screening age of 45. Both Ramsey and York also had hysterectomies and oophorectomies unrelated to cancer, which brought extra relief in also reducing their uterine and ovarian cancer risks to essentially zero.

"I think knowledge is power," York said. "Now, it almost feels comforting because I know that I started doing this young."

Lynch needs its Angelina Jolie

In 2013, Angelina Jolie revealed in a New York Times op-ed that she had tested positive for BRCA1, a gene that increases the risks of breast and ovarian cancer.

Her revelation — and subsequent operations to remove her breasts and ovaries — sparked an international drive to get tested for BRCA1/BRCA2. Years later, a study found that 15 business days after Jolie's op-ed went live, BRCA testing rose 64% in the US.

Over a decade later, researchers and patients are working to make Lynch syndrome screening similarly universal.

Getting every person screened comes with its own obstacles.

Lynch could be added to the list of genetic conditions screened for in newborn heel tests. However, critics of the idea believe it can create years of stress when the person with Lynch isn't recommended to start getting colonoscopies until they're in their early 20s.

Other routes, such as including Lynch syndrome testing when people join the military or go to college, would miss broad swaths of the population.

There's also the question of funding. Helix, for example, doesn't bill patients and instead relies on the participating health systems for financial support. Few hospital systems can afford to prioritize testing for a gene condition that impacts a small portion of the population.

Syngal said one immediate option for getting more people screened for Lynch is to follow York's route: consider getting tested if you have a family history of colon or other relevant cancers.

Since their diagnoses, Ramsey and York have tried to spread the word about Lynch syndrome testing. Ramsey is an official advocate for the non-profit Lynch Syndrome Awareness, while York, a full-time content creator, has shared her story on social media.

"It's scary when you first find out that you have a genetic mutation that predisposes you to cancer," York said. "But at the end of the day, knowing that and taking those precautions could ultimately save your life."

Meta's AI gamble is suddenly looking like a win for Mark Zuckerberg.

That was far from a given. Even the Meta CEO was doubting himself. His company had poured hundreds of billions of dollars into AI investments with largely unproven results.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" he asked his 29-year-old AI chief, Alexandr Wang, at the end of last year, he recalled on a recent episode of the "Cheeky Pint" podcast.

Those risky AI bets — which one analyst compared to throwing spaghetti at the wall — as well as the massive layoffs and reorganization that came with them, are now starting to pay off. Meta beat its AI rivals to the punch with its new AI assistant, Muse, and it finally released a frontier AI model. Although Muse is bleeding cash amid high compute costs, analysts are excited by its moneymaking potential.

Zuckerberg is riding high, too. Sipping a Guinness alongside Wang during a recent podcast interview, the pair extolled Meta's AI prowess.

"You never know when you launch something how it's going to be received," the CEO said. "There's always the case where you get a home run, which in this case it was, right? And it's just like extremely well received right off the bat."

And Meta seems to believe in Zuckerberg's leadership more than ever. His latest coup: Convincing the company to issue a new class of shares after he threatened to list his Palo Alto compound and leave California as voters weigh a billionaire tax.

The big question is how long the good vibes will last. Meta is still spending gobs of money on AI without a concrete financial payoff. Some remain skeptical.

"The bill is huge," David Wagner, a portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors, told Business Insider.

"He's won the narrative. He hasn't proven the return yet."

Meta's social reckoning era

Zuckerberg is no stranger to public discourse. He's undertaken multiple personas: the nerdy wunderkind in hoodies, the jacked wife guy, the unapologetically masculine Trump ally.

At the beginning of this year, it looked as if he was headed for a new reckoning, and it wasn't just because of the aptly named sequel to "The Social Network."

Zuckerberg was on trial, taking the stand in a landmark lawsuit that alleged Meta's platforms harmed the mental health of young people. (Meta was found negligent and is appealing.) It was one of three major lawsuits this year that put the company on the defensive against claims that its technology posed safety risks to children.

And there were the more typical Zuckerberg cringe moments, too, like his front-row appearance at a Prada fashion show that raised eyebrows across the internet.

On the inside, employee morale was waning. Though the billionaire CEO had called 2026 "the year of AI," Meta had little momentum, and unpopular decisions — including a program to track employee keystrokes — amplified the discontent.

Also, Meta had one of its largest rounds of layoffs, ever. Meta began trimming staff in March, followed by a huge round in May, when it laid off about 10% of its workforce.

Separately, Meta reshuffled another 7,000 workers as part of an AI-focused reorganization of its tech and product teams. Many engineers were relegated to individual contributor status. Meta later asked some of the employees it had demoted to return to their managerial roles.

The AI push didn't seem to be paying off: In the second quarter of this year, 98% of revenue came from its traditional advertising business — not AI.

Morale was "maybe not the worst it's ever been in 20 years here, but it's probably up there," Meta's chief technology officer, Andrew "Boz" Bosworth, said during an internal call in June.

The groundwork for Meta's comeback

Amid the chaos, Zuckerberg laid the groundwork for a comeback. Wang and Meta's elite AI researchers moved their desks to sit near Zuckerberg.

Starting last year, Zuckerberg and Wang also went on a talent-hiring spree, dangling pay packages worth hundreds of millions of dollars to poach top researchers.

Zuckerberg empowered key lieutenants, including former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, to go ham on any vision they had, including on his pet project, an AI assistant. It all fit into Zuckerberg's longtime playbook of embracing small teams and overseeing reorgs until something works — move fast and break things, as he has infamously put it.

It worked.

Muse, the long-awaited Meta AI agent, became a breakout hit. A week after it launched, it shot to the top of the app store, and has since achieved more than 10 million downloads in North America. The team was stunned to have beaten OpenAI to market, a person familiar with the matter said. OpenAI's rival product, Dots, launched three weeks later.

Meta also threw unprecedented compute and talent at building a series of frontier AI models, called Muse Wonder, that could keep up with those from giants like OpenAI and Anthropic.

On Meta's third-quarter earnings call, Zuckerberg was optimistic that Meta's AI and hardware investments could soon become cash cows, as people shop through Muse and buy more virtual-reality glasses powered by the company's growing AI chops.

Meta, meanwhile, views Zuckerberg as more critical than ever to its long-term fortunes.

Key board members abruptly excused themselves from a dinner with Zuckerberg in September after he told them he was going to sell his Palo Alto estate in response to California's proposed billionaire tax, Meta disclosed in a filing on Wednesday.

Four days later, a special committee returned with a deal that would give Zuckerberg $20 billion in "immediate liquidity" to cover the tax — if it passes — without reducing his controlling stake in Meta. Meta also made plans to ensure that billions in fresh AI fundraising wouldn't dilute Zuckerberg's control.

"Meta's track record of significant value creation for its shareholders is in large part due to his strong leadership, unique and creative vision, and exceptional management abilities," the company said in a press release.

The personal win comes as some of his other problems have blown over. Meta settled a major lawsuit brought by attorneys general across states, Washington, DC, and US territories. As part of the settlement, the company committed to make changes to its apps, such as daily time limits and pausing notifications overnight. The agreement was part of an August settlement, a move that allowed Meta to call out its competitors such as YouTube and TikTok.

"All platforms should empower parents and support teens by putting the same measures in place, because we know that when teens are restricted on one app, they simply move to another," the company said in a blog post at the time.

Big questions still loom. The day after Meta reported strong earnings and Muse adoption, its stock fell 7% as investors absorbed the scale of the company's hundreds of billions of dollars in future spending commitments.

And the legal troubles keep on coming. This week, a New Mexico jury also ordered Meta to pay a staggering $25 billion over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, a case that Meta plans to appeal.

Whether Zuckerberg's strategy is sustainable or not, the vibe shift has been notable — and may have proven naysayers wrong, at least until the next period of chaos erupts.

"Meta is cool again," Jesse Cohen, an analyst at Investing.com, said in a note. "That's the Muse effect."

Sebastian Stan isn't afraid to make people uncomfortable.

The 44-year-old actor, who earned an Oscar nomination for playing a young Donald Trump in "The Apprentice," watched in 2024 as his movie encountered roadblock after roadblock — a cease-and-desist letter from Trump, struggles landing a distributor, and hesitance from other actors to discuss the film with him in press— in its journey to screen.

But the headache hasn't deterred him from taking risks on projects that challenge the audience.

"It's not even about Trump anymore. We should be able to explore anything and everything that is uncomfortable," Stan told Business Insider. "We can't become so sensitive to the point where we're actually depriving ourselves of elevated thought about anyone or any matter. Certainly not in the hands of fear."

Stan's latest film, "Fjord," delivers on that promise, telling a subversive, provocative story about a conservative Romanian-Norwegian couple whose parenting methods are called into question after they move to a progressive Norwegian town.

For Stan, the film wasn't just an opportunity to play nuanced, thought-provoking material. As a Romanian-American who fled the country as a boy in the late 1980s, working with Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu ("4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days") was also a long-awaited homecoming.

Stan immersed himself fully in the role, sporting a shaved head with a massive bald spot and speaking most of his lines in Romanian. He and Renate Reinsve, who plays his wife, were so locked in during production that they would go out to dinner together, still dressed in the clothes they shot their scenes in that day. Stan said the experience brought him closer to his homeland.

"A lot of people go, 'Great, you want to come back to Romania, and you want to do movies, but you didn't grow up here, you don't know what our experience is. You were lucky you got away,' so I was a little apprehensive," Stan told Business Insider about working with Mungiu's Romanian-heavy crew. "But, honestly, on the last day of this movie, they wrapped the Romanian flag around me, and they were so proud to kind of take me back in a way and welcome me home." 

For the latest interview in Business Insider's Role Play series, Stan talks about his failed "American Idol" audition, where he thinks Bucky Barnes fits in the current MCU, and realizing how "hypocritical" Hollywood is after playing Trump.

On sleeping on the street to audition for 'American Idol' and losing out on 'The O.C.'

Business Insider: What are your recollections of auditioning for "American Idol" back when you were 19?

Sebastian Stan: It was my friend Justin; we both went to Rutgers for the acting program, and he said, "I'm going to New York City to try out for this new show, 'American Idol,'" and he said, "Want to come?" And I was like, "Fuck it, why not."

I remember I had on leather pants; I don't know why I thought that was gonna make a difference. We got there and it was in Times Square, and I see this huge line around the block, and I'm like, "What's going on?" He's like, "No, no, the audition is tomorrow," but it was like 6 p.m., and he tells me we're going to sleep on the street.

So we went to a McDonald's in Times Square, slept barely in this line, and in the morning we got in to these auditions. And what they did was they took five or six of you at a time; they lined you up. I didn't meet any of the judges; it was just some guy. The five of us did 20 seconds of a capella; I think I sang the medley from "Moulin Rouge!," and they were like, "Next." So it didn't work out. 

You start building credits, and then you go on this five-year run of playing the obnoxious jerk roles: "The Covenant," "The Education of Charlie Banks," "Rachel Getting Married," "Hot Tub Time Machine." Was there a point when you were worried about getting typecast as the 2000s-era jerk?

My mindset was, get a job. I was just trying to get a foot in the door. And by the way, I was getting close to a lot of other kinds of roles. At the time, there was that movie "Alpha Dog" — I tried out for that and didn't get it.

But in that era were the "American Pie" movies and "Not Another Teen Movie," which Chris Evans did; they were these movies that had the stereotypical jock asshole guy, and people would always take a look at me and go, "That's the guy." And in "Gossip Girl" I played that, too. But I was just trying to get a start. It wasn't who I felt I truly was. 

I remember I tried out for "The O.C." and got very close. "Star Trek," didn't get that. "Green Lantern," "John Carter," "The Lone Ranger" — so I was going out for big stuff; I just wasn't getting it.

On why he believes Bucky Barnes needs to stay grounded and the 'education' Marvel gave him

Looking back, do you think your career could have went down a different path if being cast as Bucky Barnes didn't hit the way it did?

What's funny is you go to acting school, and you're being taught the craft, but then there's the learning that you do on set — having the experience of being on set with a camera, learning the lenses, what everyone does. So in some ways, Marvel was a real education in moviemaking and acting. It also allowed me to go back over and over and have some consistency in my life, which I didn't have. I grew up in that period. I got more focused. And it freed me.

The role, which I thought was complex, this character is very different now than when we started out. That character had PTSD, had gone through things; there was a lot to play there. So that box was checked.

Looking outside of that, it became: what were the things I could do that were so far away from that? I don't know if I would have pursued those things as aggressively if I didn't have this lane where I was getting to play more of the straight man.

Are there tweaks you've done to the Bucky character over the years that you're surprised fans haven't caught on to yet?

We've tried, and I make an emphasis on we because it's not just me. I have had to adjust to Marvel changing and evolving and becoming a bigger world. The Captain America franchise, when we started, they were very grounded. "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is kind of a suspense thriller; "Civil War" had more personalities, but at the heart it was serious, so this character, at its core, is a very serious character.

Maybe people would argue differently, but things have gone more into an expansive, integrative place of how does everybody fit in, and I think humor is a big part of making that happen. We have, and I have, tried to adapt to those things. So the question then became, What's funny about this guy? What is there to play? Some of it has been explored, but not entirely.

It's trying different things. At this moment in time, the character adopted this sort of Clint Eastwood, crusty old man humor. Dry —been there, done that, Why are we fucking doing this again — that kind of thing. I don't know if the character will stay there, but it's not a character who can suddenly go big.

On realizing Hollywood is 'hypocritical' after playing Trump and collaborating with great directors

Going to acting school is one aspect of building a career, and you mentioned another is learning what it's like working on sets. But yet another is understanding the Hollywood game. What was the biggest thing you learned about Hollywood after playing Donald Trump in "The Apprentice"?

Um [Laughs.] It's quite hypocritical in a lot of ways. Everybody has good intentions, I think, about saying the right things, but they don't always do the right thing. I'm not saying it's gaslighting, but there's something to it, because there's often times you end up asking yourself if you're the one that's crazy.

There are many times — and I'm not saying it was just related to "The Apprentice" or Trump — there are other things even now where I've been in rooms and talking to people who will say things in private that they will never say publicly.

As it pertains to that movie, that was the experience, which was everybody loved the movie that I talked to; everybody wanted to support it, but yet nobody wanted to step up to the plate.

Now here we are today, where the trailer for the Elon Musk documentary is struggling to be shown online, so now this kind of thing is pretty normalized. Can you imagine that happening ten to 20 years ago?

Back in 2018, I spoke to you for "Destroyer." At that time, you hadn't landed lead roles yet. I asked what you were looking for when that happens, and you said, "Down the line I want to be remembered for being part of specific works and visions of directors rather than a group of characters."

Is that still your mindset? Because with roles like Jeff Gillooly in "I Tonya," Tommy Lee in "Pam & Tommy," Edward in "A Different Man," you are building an incredible stable of memorable characters. 

It's crazy to hear that quote. Back then, I think that was where I was starting to go because I had come off of "I, Tonya" and I'd learned the value of having a good director and how it influences your work and the performance. Karyn Kusama, who did "Destroyer," was someone I really respected.

And also, before that, you mentioned "Rachel Getting Married" — my whole plan back then was to just get one scene or a little part in a big director's movie. So that was Jonathan Demme. "The Martian," I got to work with Ridley Scott. I took those parts because this is a director's medium. 

Since then, I've tried to stick to that, and these performances you've mentioned, to some extent, they've worked because of those collaborations where you need to have the captain of the ship. You need to have those directors who know how to communicate. I've found myself better when I am in trusted hands, when it's someone that I really allow myself to let go with.

Because if you can't trust a director, what happens is you start to be worried about what's happening on the other side of the camera, and you're then not involved in the experience of the role you're playing. I think that shows when that happens. 

This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.

"Fjord" is in theaters now.