Author: openjargon

• Austin's cost of living is slightly below the national average, despite a surge in population.
• While housing costs have risen over the last decade, prices have corrected as the city built lots of homes.
• Austin is particularly attractive for new grads with the highest cost-of-living adjusted starting salary.

You might have heard Californians are moving to Texas. Austin, in particular, has become a magnet for Bay Area techies and others seeking a lower cost of living and slower pace of life, among other Texan perks.

The surge of people moving to Austin caused a long stretch of home price and rent growth, but the city has managed to build lots of new housing over the last few years, helping bring costs down significantly. While Austin housing costs are still elevated, home prices fell by 8.4% and rents by 7% over the past year — even as homes grew more expensive in all other major US cities. And even as the city has ballooned in size, it's stayed relatively affordable compared to similar American cities.

While Austin's housing costs are slightly higher than the national average, the city's overall cost of living was about 2% below average in the last quarter of 2023, according to the Council for Community and Economic Research's cost-of-living index. The index is calculated using six categories: housing, utilities, groceries, transportation, healthcare, and miscellaneous goods and services, and is based on the spending habits of "professional and managerial households in the top income quintile."

Goods and services and transportation in Austin are cheaper than the national average, according to data collected by the Council and shared with Business Insider. The cost of living in the Texas capital, overall, is comparable to living in Atlanta, Georgia; Albuquerque, New Mexico; or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Austin is a particularly hospitable place for new college grads: the Austin metro area has the highest cost-of-living adjusted starting salary in the country, Business Insider recently reported. New grads — defined as full-time salaried employees between 20 and 24 years old — earned an average of over $58,000 in cost-of-living-adjusted dollars, compared to less than $28,500 in New York City and just over $49,000 in San Francisco. In Atlanta, new grads earned an adjusted $57,500.

This is likely in part because Austin has become a hub of high-paying tech jobs. Giant companies like Apple, Amazon, and Tesla have expanded their presence in the city in recent years, attracting a slew of well-compensated workers. Austin was among the top cities in the country attracting tech talent between 2022 and 2023, behind New York City.

But homes are still pricey. Despite building housing at the fastest rate in the country, Austin has struggled to build the kind of medium-density, middle-income housing it's in desperate need of. Instead, the city's sprawl is growing as people leave the city proper for the suburbs and surrounding cities. The city has lots of relatively small apartments and expensive single-family homes, but not a lot in between. And as profit margins trend downward for Austin developers, there's even less incentive for them to build more affordable infill housing.

But after years of efforts by pro-housing activists and lawmakers, the policy environment might finally be starting to change. City leaders are poised to approve a series of fixes to encourage the construction of smaller single-family homes and promote density.

"It's just been an amazing sea change when it comes to the conversations happening in City Hall," Greg Anderson, the director of community affairs at Austin Habitat for Humanity, recently told Business Insider.

If local leaders manage to push their pro-housing agenda forward, Austin could become even more affordable — and not just for its young tech workers.

Did you move to Austin for a lower cost of living? Reach out to this reporter at erelman@businessinsider.com.

• Warren Buffett expects Berkshire Hathaway's cash pile to hit more than $200 billion this quarter.
• The investor can't find assets worth buying and seems to see "storm clouds" ahead, Steve Hanke said.
• "Cash is king, and given what Buffett is being paid to hold it, the king is not going hungry," he said.

Warren Buffett is building a cash pile as he probably can't find anything worth buying, and may be bracing for a tempest to hit, says Steve Hanke.

"Buffett has already picked over the US-listed companies and there isn't much left to whet his appetite," the professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University told Business Insider.

Buffett pared Berkshire Hathaway's Apple stake last quarter, fueling a $21 billion rise in his company's pile of cash and Treasury bills to a record $189 billion. He predicted the money mountain would surpass $200 billion by June — roughly double its level two years ago.

The famed investor and Berkshire CEO isn't only in the market for cheap, high-quality stocks — he also wants to make an "elephant-sized acquisition" but years of hunting haven't paid off.

Buffett underscored the dearth of compelling purchases during his company's annual meeting this month: "We haven't seen anything that makes sense, that moves the needle."

Hanke, a former economic advisor to Ronald Reagan, served as the president of Toronto Trust Argentina when it was the world's best-performing market mutual fund in 1995.

He noted that if Buffett wants to buy 5% of a public company's stock, and to deploy at least $10 billion, he's limited to the handful of businesses worth more than $200 billion in which he's not already an investor.

Hanke also underscored that Buffett seeks to bet on companies that are attractively valued and virtually certain to increase their earnings over the next five years.

"My guess is that there are no companies out there that would meet Buffett's size and smell tests," he said.

'Cash is king'

Hanke added that Buffett is unlikely to invest in the S&P 500 either, as the benchmark stock index is incredibly expensive by historical standards: its Shiller PE ratio is in the top 95% of its monthly readings since 1881.

"That looks like a risky bet, particularly since Buffett seems to see economic and geopolitical storm clouds on the horizon," he said.

"So, cash is king, and given what Buffett is being paid to hold it, the king is not going hungry."

Buffett underlined the appeal of cash when stocks are pricey, global growth is depressed, and conflicts are raging overseas during this month's shareholder meeting.

"When I look at the alternative of what's available, in the equity markets, and I look at the composition of what's going on in the world, we find it quite attractive," he said.

Troubling trend

Berkshire's liquid assets are certainly yielding larger returns than in the past, thanks to the Federal Reserve's inflation-busting hikes to interest rates since 2022.

Buffett's company earned $15.6 billion in interest, dividends, and other investment income last year, more than double the $7.5 billion it made in 2021.

Hanke is one of several commentators pointing to Buffett's ballooning cash hoard as a striking and potentially troubling trend for investors.

However, it's worth noting the US stock market and economy have defied crash calls and recession warnings for a few years now.

• OpenAI has unveiled its new GPT4-o tech. People are saying it'll replace tons of jobs.
• ChatGPT was shown teaching a presenter how to complete a linear algebra math problem.
• Experts said people in jobs like teaching or translating are more likely to use these tools than to be replaced by them.

OpenAI unveiled its latest ChatGPT tech on Monday, presenting a new voice mode that can show and detect emotion in a sophisticated, conversational style.

It's called GPT4-o, and it can "see" through real-time cameras. That means it can interact with the user on a personal level not seen before in Big Tech.

A demo of the tech has taken the internet by storm — and it has triggered a reactionary wave of doomsaying over prospects for jobs like teaching, customer service, and translation.

It's easy to see why it's creating such a stir: As demonstrated on Tuesday, the assistant can detect sarcasm and speak with emotion, creating an intelligent persona that's being compared to the advanced Scarlett Johansson-voiced AI of the 2013 film "Her."

But while this version of ChatGPT might appear far more accessible and sophisticated than its competitors, it's unlikely to eliminate professions soon, AI experts told Business Insider.

They also cautioned that most people have been reacting to a tech demo, which can often be highly tailored and might not necessarily reflect the product's true capability.

Even if OpenAI's new ChatGPT is as powerful as advertised, it's more likely roles in these fields will be tweaked while the professions stay intact, they told BI.

What's getting people so riled up about GPT4o?

Clips from Monday's demo make ChatGPT look like a massive leap for artificial intelligence and how we can use it in the real world.

One X user said he might start using it as a personal assistant to make phone calls on his behalf.

OpenAI also showed potential adopters new use cases, such as translation and teaching services.

The company posted a demo video showing a group of OpenAI employees, including chief technology officer Mira Murati, asking the assistant to help with a math problem.

The assistant didn't solve the algebra equation. Instead, it walked presenters through each step of the problem, giving real-time instructions like: "Get all the terms with X on one side and the constants on the other side."

All the while, it responded to feedback and follow-ups whenever the presenters spoke up.

Another clip of OpenAI's demo was posted by a tech journalist who wrote: "RIP translators."

In the clip, ChatGPT appeared to seamlessly translate between Murati, who spoke in Italian, and an OpenAI employee speaking in English.

"When Siri and Alexa were first launched, they did cause concern about job security in similar areas," said Daan van Rossum, the founder of FlexOS, a Singapore-based, work-focused media company. "None of those AIs were even close to human-like. ChatGPT4-o changes all of that. The difference can't be understated."

The new video camera and voice features do wonders for ChatGPT's potential in roles like customer support, van Rossum added.

Companies and industries are already preparing for that AI disruption. In January, for example, language learning app Duolingo axed 10% of its contract roles, saying that generative AI will be used to create more content moving forward.

Why these jobs aren't going to disappear

It's unlikely that ChatGPT's new personal touch will eliminate professions in teaching, translation, and customer support, said Leslie Teo, senior director of AI products at AI Singapore, a National University of Singapore research institute.

That's precisely because these jobs need a personal touch, he said.

"There's something about human empathy," Teo said, highlighting that teachers have gone through the learning process themselves and understand how humans struggle, unlike AI. "Those are very powerful things."

Teo said that people working in teaching, translation, or customer support are more likely to use AI to make their roles easier, rather than be supplanted by technology.

"A good customer service agent exudes empathy and understanding, something that a machine cannot do," he added.

Ben Leong, a computer science professor at the National University of Singapore, said it's too early to draw conclusions from just a demo. He said he foresees interpreters' businesses being majorly disrupted.

"AI is really good for well-defined problems. Translation is a very well-defined problem," he said.

But it's going to be much more difficult for ChatGPT to take over customer support, teaching, or negotiation, Leong said.

"If someone negotiates a bad deal for you, who is responsible? Are you liable? Can AI be your legal representative?" he said.

Simon Lucey, the director of the University of Adelaide's Australian Institute for Machine Learning, said ChatGPT still makes errors when multiplying numbers of three digits or more, even in its later versions.

"So at the moment, it's a helper. At the end of the day, if you want to get something meaningful or do something reliably, you still need to get a human to cast desire over what it's producing," Lucey said.

Some people may lose their jobs in the next few years, Lucey said, but he added that they have reason to stay optimistic.

"In the 1980s, when Microsoft released Excel, people were petrified and said it would put all of these accountants out of a job. We've got more accountants now than in the 1980s," he said.

Teo agreed. "Many roles will be replaced by AI, but that doesn't mean jobs. Our jobs are bundles of roles," he said.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 after a 12-year hiatus, the company was in free fall. It was on the verge of bankruptcy after cycling through a series of chief executives, faced immense competition in the personal-computer market, and desperately needed to find its next big thing. Jobs immediately cut bait on a series of dead-end projects to refocus the company.

The following year, his strategy bore fruit. Jobs unveiled the iMac, and its vibrant plastic shell instantly flew off the shelves and into the annals of iconic design. Then came the iPod in 2001, upending the personal-media-player space and popularizing iTunes. That set the stage for the iPhone in 2007, which shot Apple into the stratosphere and fueled a slew of side businesses, including the App Store, that generated many billions of dollars. By the time Jobs died in 2011, Apple was the most valuable tech company in the world.

Then Tim Cook took over.

Cook is a numbers guy, not a design guy. Under his tenure, Apple's share price has soared, and investors have been kept happy with increased share buybacks and a quarterly dividend. But other than the Apple Watch, which was already in the works before Jobs' death, there have been no earth-shattering product launches. Instead, his time as CEO has been defined by squeezing as much as possible out of the successes of the second Jobs era. But after a decade of doing that, iPhone sales are slowing, revenue is down, and the company, again, needs to find its next big thing.

The tech industry is littered with once dominant firms such as IBM and AT&T that lost their innovative edge once they'd grown to a particular size and were usurped by savvy upstarts. Those companies haven't disappeared, but they don't command the power or public image they once did. Silicon Valley's giants, including Google and Meta, are now facing a similar challenge — and Apple is no exception. Cook's strategy of focusing on short-term profit over long-term strategy is casting a shadow over Apple's future.

The iPhone is Apple's cash cow — sales of the smartphone are responsible for more than half the company's revenue. But in 2017, after Apple took over the US market and there were no more Americans to sell iPhones to, sales hit a wall. The phones were good enough that people didn't need to regularly upgrade, and growth in developing markets wasn't delivering as well as the company had expected. The following year, Apple stopped reporting how many phones it sold, focusing instead on revenue: If the company couldn't get more people to buy iPhones, it would start charging more for phones and iPads via premium tiers. That worked for a few years, but in 2022, sales slowed again, and Apple's other products took a hit, too.

In 2023, the company saw four quarters of declining revenue, which rebounded in its fiscal first quarter of this year after strong holiday demand, only to decline again in the second quarter. Apple's own outlook suggests poor iPhone sales will persist, especially as sales in China rapidly decline.

While growth in other parts of the Apple universe — TV+, News+, and iCloud storage, to name a few — was a highlight on the recent earnings report, their continued success is dependent on Apple hardware. To make matters worse, this tidy ecosystem is coming under threat from the US and other governments.

The drawbacks of Cook's divestment from product design and development are now becoming clearer.

As the Justice Department's recent antitrust case against Apple makes clear, the company's success stems in part from its walled garden that makes it difficult for users to switch to Android devices. By ditching their iPhones, users lose their App Store purchases and access to proprietary features such as iMessage. The antitrust case seeks to lower the barrier to switching and remove some of the exclusive benefits of using Apple devices. One focus is on reducing the restrictions on "superapps" such as WeChat that offer many services within the same app regardless of the operating system. If users rely on superapps instead of those included with the device, it's easier for them to move between iOS and Android whenever they want.

In Europe, lawmakers are focused on breaking the monopoly of the App Store by trying to ensure third-party apps and stores can be loaded onto Apple devices. If that happens, it would be devastating for the revenue Apple receives from App Store purchases — up to 30% of each purchase. Both the EU and the US cases would also make some people more likely to switch to a cheaper phone, which would threaten iPhone sales even further. In response, the company plans to vigorously fight the US case and is trying to shape how EU rules apply to its business to weaken their effectiveness.

Back at Apple's showrooms, however, its problems have multiplied.

In his book "After Steve," Tripp Mickle describes how Cook was focused on growing Apple's share price and operational efficiency — with him saving the company money at every turn. He had a firm command of Apple's supply chain and was instrumental in setting up Apple's tax-avoidance mechanisms. After taking over the company, Cook slowly reined in the powerful design team, eventually leading Jobs' ally Jony Ive, the chief design officer, to leave the company in 2019 after years of reducing his time there. The drawbacks of Cook's divestment from product design and development are now becoming clearer.

Already this year, we've seen two major flops from Apple. The first is the Vision Pro headset, a cumbersome and obscenely expensive piece of hardware that users are supposed to wear on their heads for extended periods of time (never mind the potential for nausea or eye strain). Given that virtual-reality headsets have been pegged as the future many times in recent decades before fading back into obscurity, it's hard to believe Apple's current effort will be any different.

At its core, Apple is a hardware company, and Cook has not been able to shepherd another product of market-shattering scale to shelves.

The company's initial goal wasn't to build a headset but to put a computer in a regular pair of glasses. Even though the technical limitations to achieving that vision quickly became clear, people who worked on the project told Bloomberg that internal divisions and indecisiveness by management kept the project in limbo for years, even as the annual burn rate reached $1 billion. Once Cook decided Apple had to release something, it ended up with the Vision Pro — a far cry from the sleek, lightweight glasses he initially dreamed of. Already, surveys have found the devices are being left unused, and flagging demand has caused the company to cut back on production.

Meanwhile, the Apple Car didn't even make it out of the gate. It was born out of the self-driving-vehicle hype of the mid-2010s, and Apple poured $10 billion into its development. But after almost a decade of work, it finally canceled the project in February once it realized the autonomous-driving technology it had been working on simply wouldn't be able to pilot a vehicle without human intervention. The century-old car business, it turned out, was much trickier to navigate than it may have first appeared.

Let's be clear: Apple is far from irrelevant. It still occasionally claims the title of most valuable publicly traded company in the world and even eclipsed a market capitalization of $3 trillion for a time last year. Investors aren't too despondent because Apple has increased its profit margin even as it struggles to grow its revenues. But looking further down the road, its future is far from certain.

Apple's share price is down this year, and it's lagging behind the Nasdaq-100 index. Cook was recently jetting around Asia to try to shore up the supply chain with expanded production in India and a new footprint in Indonesia, but it's hard to see those countries becoming major markets for the iPhone. Like in China, most of those consumers are more likely to go for an affordable Android phone with features that are just as good — the iPhone just isn't the status symbol it once was.

Apple is now pivoting, like everyone else, to generative AI. It moved employees from the car project over to artificial intelligence and plans to incorporate AI into releases of its iPhone, iPad, and Mac software. But while AI might drive short-term investor interest, like so many fads in the tech industry — crypto, the metaverse, the mid-2010s AI hype cycle — it's unlikely to be the kind of product that makes a big difference to the bottom line, especially with growing concerns about the cost of generative-AI tools. Plus, what we call AI is not actually a new tool; there's already plenty of AI deployed through Apple's operating systems to check users' spelling or improve their photos.

As Business Insider's correspondent Peter Kafka explained in March, "For years, it has been clear that there is no next iPhone." Now that Apple has failed to deliver a big step forward with the Vision Pro or Apple Car, its retreat into AI suggests it's chasing trends to keep up interest as it struggles to chart a defining next step.

Apple has had a great run over the past decade, and Cook has returned a lot of value to shareholders by persuading consumers to pay more for the company's devices. But at its core, Apple is a hardware company, and Cook has not been able to shepherd another product of market-shattering scale to shelves. It's not clear he ever will.

Paris Marx is a tech writer and host of the Tech Won't Save Us podcast. He also writes the Disconnect newsletter and is the author of "Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation."

• Justin Jordan, a 29-year-old social video creator, shares his experiences transitioning from non-corporate to corporate jobs.
• Jordan points out the dehumanizing treatment in non-corporate jobs.
• He highlights the differences in how employees are treated and says all jobs should treat workers with respect.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Justin Jordan, a 29-year-old social video creator at Homage. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I've worked in a variety of jobs, both non-corporate and corporate. Nobody tells you how once you jump into the corporate space, you realize how stupid certain rules in non-corporate jobs are.

In jobs where I didn't make as much money, I felt like people would use that as an excuse to dehumanize us. As I got older and made more money, I was then treated like I was more deserving of humanity.

But that shouldn't be the case; my paycheck shouldn't determine the amount of humanity I receive.

I've worked a variety of service jobs

In high school and college, I worked as a golf caddy, an ice cream shop employee, and a server at a burger chain.

After graduating from college with a journalism and media communications degree, I worked as a video editor at NBC4 until the second half of 2019.

After that job, I thought I'd be able to become a freelancer, given my videography background, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and there was nothing to shoot or edit.

So I got a job at a shipping company handling packages because I needed health insurance. It was awful and something I wouldn't wish upon anyone.

In January 2023, I finally returned to corporate office life as a social video creator at Homage, a t-shirt company.

Here are the three biggest differences I saw between my non-corporate and corporate jobs:

1. I wasn't treated like an adult in non-corporate jobs

When I was 16, I started working at a local ice cream shop. It was fine, but it was weird to feel like I was constantly being monitored. I was on my feet all day, and I had to ask before using the bathroom. When it was busy, we wouldn't get to take our lunch breaks.

When I joined the shipping company in 2020, it was so weird going back to how I was treated as a teenager in my previous service industry jobs.

We had to ask before using the bathroom because the packages and belt had to keep moving. I mean, I'm a grown adult, and you're treating me like I'm in high school. I have to ask to go to the bathroom — seriously? It felt like asking for snack time.

I understand that logistically it was necessary to get someone to take my spot for a moment, but there are better ways to deal with it; when I became a supervisor, I stepped in to fill my supervisees' spots while they used the bathroom, for example.

Now, in my office job, no one gets mad if I go out and get lunch. If I leave the office midday to work from home the rest of the day, no one's going to bat an eye because we trust each other. I feel more comfortable because no one's watching me like a hawk.

2. In service jobs, I felt like I was expendable

At the ice cream shop, there was always another teen who wanted to work at an ice cream shop.

At the shipping company, it felt like management had the mindset that if we could be somewhere else, we would be there. But since we were here, we had to accept whatever the company wanted to give us because there would always be another package and another willing human body to move that package, so it didn't matter if they were nice to us or not.

But in the corporate world, there's a sense of: "We've picked you for this position, and you're the person that we want to be here. You have a degree and the specialties that we need or want, so you are deserving of this position." And so they give you more of a benefit of the doubt. As long as the work gets done, the company really doesn't care what you do.

Some of my coworkers had no choice but to accept this kind of treatment at the shipping because even though it wasn't the best job in the world, the pay could be livable, at least at the beginning, with the bonuses they offered. I was getting paid $25 an hour, which during those two years was better than nothing.

A lot of employees really needed these jobs to work out but were also viewed as extremely expendable. I worked with felons who had criminal records, for example, and couldn't easily find jobs anywhere else.

When these two dynamics are put together, the company can treat you poorly and doesn't have to treat you any better. They don't have to give you snacks. They don't have to allow you to use the bathroom whenever you want — there's always another person to scoop ice cream, move a package, or serve you a burger.

3. Office jobs are less taxing and less focused on specific tasks

At the shipping company, I just kept my head down to accomplish the specific task of loading and unloading boxes. But now in my corporate job, it's so nice not to have my time dedicated to specific tasks but rather to the ideation around the task, like how to accomplish it and how it went.

There's a difference between executing someone else's plan — like, I'm just here to move this package — and feeling like I'm responsible for creating a solution that works. The latter makes me feel a lot more invested. It also makes the work feel more meaningful by scratching the itch in the creative side of my brain.

Working non-corporate jobs were also much more taxing on my body. I would have to stand for long periods of time, and my feet and back would hurt every time I got home.

Sometimes I would come home from work and be so exhausted, I couldn't do anything. Even applying for jobs was a huge task because I'd be so tired and everything would hurt.

Nowadays, I have more mental energy to devote to more things. I can focus on my health and things that really matter to me, because I have the time and energy to dedicate to it.

Every job needs to treat workers with respect

When I re-entered the corporate world after my shipping company job, I felt like I was finally treated like a human again, at a job with real benefits and a real living wage that made me feel like an adult. I could finally drink water whenever I wanted to and take a lunch break whenever I wished!

This is how it's supposed to be. It's not that every job in the world has to be nice to you, but they should treat you with some amount of respect or at least treat you like an adult, in a way that a lot of lower-paying jobs don't.

Companies need to pay people better so that workers can earn a living wage and feel like they're valued. I'm much happier now because I'm more financially stable. I'm making more money now, and I have better benefits. At the shipping company, I was making $25 an hour working 30 to 35 hours a week, and at Homage now, I'm making $53,000 a year.

If there's one thing I miss about service jobs, it would be the camaraderie of being in a sucky situation with your coworkers. You don't get that same sense of being "in the dirt" together when you're working a corporate job. Sometimes, there's that sentiment in office jobs, too, but it's a different kind of dirt when you're working these physical labor jobs.

If you made a career pivot and would like to share your story, email Jane Zhang at janezhang@businessinsider.com.

• An RTO mandate influenced 36% of senior-level job seekers in their decision to seek a new role.
• A survey found some workers pulled out of a hiring process for jobs that required office time.
• While some CEOs adjust, it's unclear how long workers might be able to resist heading to the office.

Some work-from-home holdouts aren't giving up.

In a poll, 36% of people seeking senior-level jobs said a return-to-office mandate factored into their decision to look for a new role — even if they had good reason to go back to the office.

One in three also said they'd walked away from a hiring process in the past year because the would-be employer required people to be in the office, according to a recently released survey by research firm Gartner.

The survey, conducted in January among nearly 3,000 job seekers, echoed Gartner research from late 2023 that found one in three execs faced with an RTO mandate planned to ditch their employer because of it. That earlier survey also found that 19% of non-exec workers would likewise quit if forced to pick up their commute again.

The results from both snapshots underscore that while many workers — and even CEOs — appear to have tapped out on the RTO fights, there is still a segment of people unwilling to give up video meetings and at-home lunches.

But now, as the market for white-collar jobs appears to be slowing, it remains unclear how long workers can ghost their cubicles.

'They still would leave'

Caroline Ogawa, a director in the HR practice at Gartner, told Business Insider that the findings showed how even when execs understood why the big boss would want them back in the office, that rationale wasn't necessarily enough.

"They overwhelmingly felt like the organization provided a convincing reason" to return to the office, she said. "But they still would leave if they were asked" to come back.

Ogawa said the findings were also notable because high-up executives are often the people tasked with implementing RTO mandates. However, when it comes to what they want, some still desire autonomy about where they work.

"Often, they're the ones kind of holding the bag for those decisions," she said. But when it comes to their own actions in the job market, "they're behaving like you would expect all candidates to behave."

For many workers, that behavior is wanting to retain the choice they had just a couple of years ago during the Great Resignation and believing they still have the upper hand over employers.

Ogawa previously told BI that while it appears demand for white-collar workers is slipping, many desk workers want to retain agency and call the shots about where and when they do their jobs.

Hybrid is here to stay

Some CEOs appear to be hearing workers. In a recent survey by KMPG US, just 34% of US CEOs of large companies said they expect their people will be back in the office five days a week in the next three years. That's a big drop from a prior survey in 2023, when 62% of CEOs held that expectation.

"Hybrid is likely here to stay," Paul Knopp, chair and CEO at KPMG US, told BI in April.

Not all workers who want to log on from home are doing so. Erik Bernard, a 26-year-old who works in IT in Australia, chose a higher-paying government job over a less lucrative role where he could work from home most days. Yet, he recently told BI that he's not sure he made the right decision.

On the day he gets to work from home — and avoid the hourlong drive to the office — he says he can get more sleep and time at the gym.

"It's about quality of life," he said.

What's at stake with RTO

Gartner's Ogawa said now that we've had a few years of hybrid setups and other work arrangements, it's becoming clearer for companies and workers what the stakes are around RTO pushes.

She said companies will have to ask whether perceived benefits from priorities such as collaboration or innovation will outweigh the risks of potentially losing some workers who are firm about not making the trek to their desks.

For some employers, saying goodbye to the at-home crowd might be acceptable, Ogawa said.

"They might not be looking to retain folks who wouldn't want to come back to the office," she said.

• Gladys Nkengasong, 27, moved to the UK in 2021 for school and stayed on to work as a consultant. 
• Nkengasong said she doesn't enjoy British drinking culture and finds people to be less friendly.
• But she loves how London is livable, walkable, and convenient. Plus, it feels safer than the US. 

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation and emails with Gladys Nkengasong, a 27-year-old consultant who moved to the UK from Atlanta in 2021. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I grew up in a few different places — mainly the Ivory Coast and Atlanta. My parents are diplomats, so we moved around a lot.

I was doing my bachelor's in Atlanta, and then I moved to England to do my master's. I started out in Southampton. Then, in 2022, I moved to London.

I always tell people to move to a different country in their 20s — but don't move to London.

Moving to London can be tough if you're used to American salaries and social life

I've looked into moving to New York. When I saw the rents, I was like, "Oh, this is not feasible."

I live with a roommate, pretty close to central London. I pay about £1,500 (around $1,880) in rent. We have a few amenities, like a gym and a yoga room.

It is affordable, but I think what makes it unaffordable is the salaries. For my first role after my master's, I was making £25,000 (around $26,900). My friend who moved to New York when I moved to London started at $80,000. We had the same degree.

In Atlanta, I was making more working part-time than I was full time in London.

People in London tend to stick with friends they formed in school. My therapist was like, "In London, you will be the person who has to initiate a lot." That's what I found myself doing, but it gets so tiring.

It can get really lonely. You can go out and spend the whole day and not speak to anyone. Whereas, in Atlanta, at the gas station, someone's talking to you. You're at Target, someone's talking to you.

Something that affected my entire London experience so far is that I run into a lot of people who have a lot of negative sentiments about Americans.

If I meet someone and they're like, "Oh, where are you from?" I'm like, "Canada."

Some people love Americans, and then some really don't. But I didn't realize how many people didn't until I moved.

I felt alienated by British drinking culture

In my first job in London, people in the office would always have pub drinks after work. I used to decline a lot.

But then my manager called me into a meeting and was like, 'We just don't feel you're very enthusiastic. It just doesn't feel like you like being around us." I had a strong feeling it was because of this pub drink thing.

I don't drink casually. If I drink, we're celebrating something.

Socially, a lot of people's first instinct is to say, "Hey, let's grab a drink. Let's go out to this bar, let's go to this event," and everyone is drinking. It's just not my cup of tea. I started noticing that it really alienates you in London.

I started going to the pub, and a month later, my manager was like, "We feel like you're part of the family now."

At work at my agency in Atlanta, things weren't really centered around drinking. If we wanted to do something after work, it would be, like, biking. Or we had a communal area in our office and everyone would go have finger foods, chat, or play a game.

There is so much about London I love — even the gray weather

In the US, when I go into a room or a venue, I'm always hyperaware of all the exits and where to go if something goes wrong.

I have been at a house party that got shot up, and there was only one exit, which was the front door. Everyone was going the same way; I got trampled and sprained my ankle. After that, I never went to concerts. I thought it was just because I wasn't really a fan of crowds.

When I got to London, I became a concert person because I didn't have that paranoia — that fear — of gun violence.

I also really like the weather — I love when it gets cold and I need a jacket.

One of my favorite things about London is anytime people from home come over, I'm like, "Let's take a trip." I love that it's close to Europe and I can get a £30 (around $37) flight to the south of France.

A huge plus for me is how livable London is. It's extremely walkable. And despite its size, it's surprisingly convenient. You're always within reach of a convenience store, ethnic grocery shop, or specialty stores like camera shops.

Every neighborhood has its own character, so you're bound to find one that speaks to you.

I want to try other cities, but I think I'm just going to end back up in London. I really love London.

• Paradise Valley, Arizona, is attracting wealthy residents from across the US, especially California.
• The average resident of Paradise Valley is older and wealthier than the rest of the state.
• Nearly everyone in Paradise Valley owns their home, with a median sale price of $3.3 million.

Paradise Valley, Arizona, is among the places attracting millionaires from around the country, including residents of California looking to escape high taxes.

Dubbed the "Beverly Hills of Arizona," Paradise Valley is located in the desert hills northwest of Phoenix and just east of Scottsdale, another city attracting millionaires.

Though it's a relatively small community, Paradise Valley is known for its several high-end resorts, spacious and secluded lots, and natural beauty. Joan Levinson, a luxury real-estate agent in Arizona, previously told Business Insider that Paradise Valley offers residents privacy while still being a quick drive to big-city amenities.

Maricopa County, which includes Paradise Valley and Scottsdale, is Arizona's most populated county. Data shows that several wealthy counties in California, including Santa Clara, Los Angeles, and Orange, are losing residents to Arizona, with many landing in Maricopa County.

Paradise Valley, in particular, has long attracted the rich and famous and for years topped a list of Arizona's wealthiest zip codes. Muhammad Ali, who died in 2016, and Stevie Nicks have lived there along with billionaires like Bennett Dorrance, the Campbell Soup heir, and the late Bruce Halle, the founder of Discount Tire.

The average resident of Paradise Valley is a 54-year-old, college-educated, married white man who makes more than $220,000 a year and owns a home that costs several million dollars, according to Census Bureau and real estate data.

Most Paradise Valley residents own their homes, which are typically worth millions

With an estimated population of 12,658 as of 2020, Paradise Valley's median household income of $221,333 far surpasses that of Arizona and the US generally, which are both around $74,500.

More than seven out of 10 Paradise Valley residents have a bachelor's degree, while 34% have a graduate or professional degree.

The main industries in Paradise Valley are the hospitality and medical trades, but many residents are CEOs, professional athletes, and business owners who work outside the community, according to the Arizona Commerce Authority.

More than 95% of Paradise Valley residents own their homes, compared to just 67% of all Arizona residents.

The median sale price for a home in Paradise Valley is $3.3 million, according to Redfin and Realtor.com. That's seven times greater than the statewide median sale price of $444,100. Over 82% of homes in Paradise Valley are worth a million dollars or more.

For the few Paradise Valley residents who don't own their home, the median gross rent was more than $3,500.

Residents of the Phoenix suburb also tend to be older than the state of Arizona and the larger US, which both have a median age of around 38.9.

Paradise Valley residents are also slightly more likely to be male than female, unlike Arizona at large or the US, which both have more women than men.

More than 82% of residents were white as of 2020, while nearly 8% were Asian.

• Google Ads was initially launched as Google AdWords, then renamed and revamped in recent years.
• Google has offered paid advertising on its search engine and other platforms since the year 2000.
• Google Ads uses a "pay per click" model where you pay a fee to Google when users click on your ads.

Google Ads is Google's advertising platform that businesses, brands, influencers, nonprofits, and anyone else willing to shell out some cash can use to place advertisements on various corners of the world wide web. 

Google Ads can pop up at the top of search results or in social media feeds, be displayed on websites embedded among webpage content, or run before or during YouTube videos.

The type of ad that internet users see, the frequency with which the ad is served, and the quality of the placement of a given Google Ad all depend on the advertiser's spend and the online behavior of the people who end up seeing it. This confluence helps make Google Ads a good investment for the advertiser and — often, anyway — a relevant experience for the people who see and may click on the ads. 

Launched as Google AdWords in 2000, the platform's name switched to Google Ads in 2018 and it's diversified in many ways in recent years.

Google Ads: The price and the potential

"Why is Google Ads so expensive?" is one of the most common questions associated with Google Ads. The simple answer is because it's effective and popular.

With so many different businesses, brands, and individuals vying for visibility on Google, the higher-ranking search terms get more and more expensive.

The average cost per click is around $3. In some cases, for search terms with very little competition, you may pay mere pennies for each ad click. Other ads may cost their creators $50 or more for every single click.

That's a lot of money for someone clicking on an image, video, or text ad that will lead them to your site, feed, or product — but it's no guarantee they'll take further action that will be profitable to you. 

But remember, you don't pay anything until that click happens. you'll never be hit with a surprise expense that's beyond your budget because you set a maximum spend for each ad. Plus, you know that every time you do pay for your Google ad, it's because someone took the exact action you hoped for.

So, to address another common question, "Is Google Ads free?" the answer is a resounding no. Unlike Google Business Profile, the free service to let business owners control how their business appears in Google search results, Google Ads will cost you.

Is Google Ads worth it, given the potentially high cost per click? If used well, absolutely yes.

Different types of Google Ads serve different purposes

There are five primary types of Google Ads: Search ads, which appear above and among the organic search results; video ads, which run before or during YouTube videos; Google Display Ads, which are embedded among the content of websites; Google Shopping Ads, which pop up with images, brief text, and pricing info when someone searches for a specific product or product category; and Google app ads, which are app-related and show up in the Google Play store, among search results, and on YouTube and other sites.

Google also offers more specialized ad campaigns, such as Performance Max, which comes with AI optimization to help your ads perform as well as possible. In February 2024, the company announced that the Google Gemini AI model will be incorporated into Performance Max to help advertisers build more effective campaigns.

The incorporation of AI into Google Ads has sparked concerns within Google and the advertising industry that automation will replace workers. Late in 2023, numerous media outlets reported that Google Ads would undergo a restructuring, to include layoffs.

Google's layoffs also affected Waze, the company's traffic and navigation app, in 2023 when its advertising system merged with Google Ads technology.

How to make money with Google ads

All Google ads offer advertisers the ability to tailor the ad to users. Said action can be a purchase, a subscription, a share, and more. 

The targeting comes in the form of selecting user traits like age, location, and interest.

Of course, the ad type you choose should be well-reasoned: if you're selling gardening tools, a search or shopping ad probably makes the most sense. But if you're trying to spread awareness of a new VR video game, then an ad on YouTube is a savvy idea.

The care with which you choose terms in a Google ad will help the advertisement perform well, although it's more expensive when you place high-ranking terms in your ad. That's because Google's algorithms deem advertisements with well-chosen and well-used keywords — words that read organically rather than stuffed in — as more relevant and will serve such ads more often and more prominently.

So, choose your words carefully, pick your ad type thoughtfully, set your budget realistically, and then prepare to edit and adapt your advertising strategy as the clicks roll in or don't. Google Ads is worth the money, but only if you also put in the effort.

• Mark Zuckerberg eliminates nonessential choices by doing things like wearing the same outfit daily.
• The Meta CEO's daily schedule includes jiujitsu and MMA training and one bad habit that many share.
• The first thing Zuckerberg does when he wakes up each morning at 8 is check his phone.

Between steering Meta through a "year of efficiency," trying to popularize Threads, and engaging in a "will they, won't they" with Elon Musk regarding an MMA cage-fight challenge, Mark Zuckerberg has had a lot on his plate over the last year.

While the Facebook founder dedicates many hours to work, he still spends time traveling, tucking his kids in at night, and even bulking up through his pandemic-era hobbies of jiujitsu and mixed martial arts.

Zuckerberg, who turned 40 years old on May 14th, also famously saves time and brainpower by nixing nonessential choices. Most notably, he wears the same outfit nearly every day.

Here's a look at the typical daily routine of Zuckerberg, based on what he's said in prior interviews:

After waking up about 8 a.m., the Meta CEO immediately checks Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp on his phone, before he even puts in his contacts.

The social-media session typically lasts only a few minutes but can take longer depending on current events, Zuckerberg said in a Facebook Live Q&A.

"The first thing I do is look at my phone. I look at Facebook to see what's going on in the world," he said. "It's a pretty sad situation, to be honest. I have contacts, and I can't see very well. And before I put my contacts in, I often look to see what is going on Facebook."

Zuckerberg acknowledged that checking his phone first thing in the morning was a bad habit.

"You get like a million messages of stuff that come in, and it's usually not good. People reserve the good stuff to tell me in person," he told Joe Rogan in 2022. "It's almost like you wake up and you're punched in the stomach." He added: "Now I need to go reset myself and be able to be productive and not be stressed out about this."

Once he's gotten his morning updates, it's time to work out. Zuckerberg used to go for a workout at least three times a week, often running. Now he stays away from running and instead does jiujitsu and MMA.

"I used to run a lot, but the problem with running is you can think a lot," he told Rogan in 2022.

Instead, he started asking himself: "What's a thing that's both super engaging physically but also intellectually, where you can't afford to focus on something else? MMA is the perfect thing because if you stop paying attention for one second, you're going to end up on the bottom."

In June 2023, he said on Lex Fridman's podcast that he did three or four jiu jitsu and MMA sessions weekly, in addition to strength and conditioning work and mobility training.

It's unclear what Zuckerberg eats for breakfast, but he recently said that as part of his training, he aimed for 4,000 calories a day.

In July 2023, Zuckerberg told McDonald's on Threads that he wanted "20 nuggets, a quarter pounder, large fries, Oreo McFlurry, apple pie, and maybe some cheeseburgers for later?"

Zuckerberg famously wears the same thing almost every day, with a "work uniform" consisting of jeans, sneakers, and a gray T-shirt.

Zuckerberg sticks with the same outfit to reduce the brainpower spent on making minor decisions.

When asked about his wardrobe in 2014, he told an audience: "I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community."

He has, however, shown off a new twist on his famous t-shirt attire after hours, recently rocking a chain necklace while watching an MMA fight.

Zuckerberg said in 2015 that he put in 50 to 60 hours a week at Facebook but thought about the social-media platform constantly.

"I spend most of my time thinking about how to connect the world and serve our community better, but a lot of that time isn't in our office or meeting with people or doing what you'd call real work," he told CNN in 2015.

"I take a lot of time just to read and think about things by myself," he added. "If you count the time I'm in the office, it's probably no more than 50 to 60 hours a week. But if you count all the time I'm focused on our mission, that's basically my whole life."

Zuckerberg has preferences for meetings at work.

"I actually like trying to have a rule," he told Forbes. "For every hour of meeting that I have, the team sends out the pre-reads in advance. I want to have at least an hour to read the materials and think about it. And then I want to have at least an hour to follow up with different people after the meeting."

As for his approach to work, colleagues have likened Zuckerberg's undivided attention to the Eye of Sauron.

Sauron, the chief antagonist in the "Lord of the Rings" series, is shown in some films as a flaming, disembodied eye, interpreted as a metaphor for evil, ever looming over Middle-earth.

"They're like, 'You have this unending amount of energy to go work on something. And if you point that at any given team, you will just burn them,'" Zuckerberg told Tim Ferriss in 2022.

"I just think the engagement that you get of having, like, an immediate feedback loop around thinking about something and then getting to go talk to the people who are working on this is so much better than going and scheduling a meeting that you'll have three weeks later," he said.

Zuckerberg has various interests outside work.

He's tried to learn Mandarin Chinese, he challenged himself in 2015 to read a new book every two weeks, and he's hit the water on an electric surfboard, meme-worthy amounts of sunscreen included.

Zuckerberg has also added cattle farming to his list of hobbies as of late.

In January, he said he'd started raising cattle on his Hawaii ranch.

"My goal is to create some of the highest quality beef in the world," he wrote on Instagram. "The cattle are wagyu and angus, and they'll grow up eating macadamia meal and drinking beer that we grow and produce here on the ranch."

Zuckerberg's daily schedule tends to vary more when he travels. He's been known to hit the road to meet with world leaders.

He's met with figures including Pope Francis in Rome in 2016, French President Emmanuel Macron in 2018, and former US president Donald Trump in 2019.

Zuckerberg also spends time with his family.

He married his longtime girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, in 2012. Zuckerberg and Chan share three daughters, Maxima, August, and Aurelia.

Zuckerberg has a nightly routine with his children.

"Sometimes they will read books together. Sometimes they'll code together," Chan said of Zuckerberg's bedtime routine with the kids. "Mark has been doing that with August since she turned 3."

Zuckerberg told Fridman in 2022 about a "goodnight things" routine with his daughters.

"I basically go through with Max and Augie: 'What are the things that are most important in life?'" he said.

He points out their health, friends and family, and having something they're looking forward to.

Chan told Forbes that her husband also sang a Jewish prayer, Mi Shebeirach, to his kids and always tucked them in, unless he had a board meeting or was traveling. She added that his work dinners took place after the girls went to sleep.

Zuckerberg sleeps more than most of his fellow tech CEOs.

"I don't stay up super late at night," he told Forbes, adding that he aimed for eight hours of sleep a night and used an Oura ring to track his rest.

Áine Cain and Taylor Nicole Rogers contributed to an earlier version of this story.