Business Insider spoke to interior designers and gardeners to learn which trends are best to add or eliminate from backyards this year.
Here's what they said.
Wabi-Sabi-inspired outdoor spaces are on the rise.
Weathered decor features can make an outdoor space feel cozier.
aztekphoto/Shutterstock
Wabi-Sabi design, which embraces weathered materials, rustic elements, and organic shapes, is in, according to Kelsey Ross, designer, landscape architect, and owner of Garden Party Landscape Design.
"In practice, this can mean opting for natural, unstained cedar fencing that fades from tan to silver over time," she said.
Other opportunities to embrace the trend include choosing weathered brick for your patio and planting trees with a naturally weathered or gnarly shape.
People are embracing cold-plunge tubs in their backyard spaces.
Use of the tubs, typically available at spas and wellness facilities, can help reduce inflammation and improve mental health.
Personalizing a backyard with a fun umbrella is in.
You can add color and personality to your outdoor space.
Ozgur Coskun/Shutterstock
People are adding flair to backyard design by introducing pops of color and creative shapes — and a fun and colorful umbrella is a great way to lean into the trend.
"When clients design their dream outdoor space, they look for individuality. What better way to do that than in their shade solution? " Holmes Holiday told BI. "We see many bold colors and scalloped designs."
Outdoor pergolas are having a major moment.
Pergolas can be built with added shades for sun protection.
aceshot1/Shutterstock
According to Marisa Bettencourt, founder of North + Fair Interior Design, outdoor pergolas are all the rage right now.
"Outdoor pergolas provide additional shade and can help define an area in your yard that's meant for entertaining and mingling," she said.
The outdoor structure, typically made from wood and topped with a slatted roof, can be built in several styles. But Bettencourt said pergolas with retractable shades (for privacy and sun protection) are especially popular.
Edible gardens are top of mind for many this year.
Growing fruits, vegetables, or herbs is a great use of outdoor space.
Joanne Dale/Shutterstock
Lindsey Hyland, expert gardener and founder of Urban Organic Yield, expects to see more edible gardens in backyards this year.
"The idea is to integrate fruits, vegetables, and herbs into landscaping in a way that's not only practical but also aesthetically pleasing," she told BI.
On the other hand, large outdoor kitchens are a fading trend.
Upkeeping an outdoor kitchen takes a lot of work.
brizmaker/Shutterstock
Lara Hermanson, principal and cofounder of Farmscape, told BI that people are moving away from large outdoor kitchens to preserve the natural feeling of a backyard.
"Clients are more interested in reconnecting with nature in their space than having their backyard feel like an extension of their family room," she said.
Artificial turf lawns are out.
Unless you can't grow anything in certain areas, stay away from artificial turf.
"When artificial turf was trending a few years back, people assumed it was a shortcut to a maintenance-free outdoor space," she told BI. "But in reality, it can get blisteringly hot when exposed to direct sun and tends to hold on to pet odors."
The designer recommended using artificial turf as a last resort in deeply shaded areas or where other groundcover solutions are not an option.
Monoculture lawns are on the decline.
Standard lawns with grace and shrubs can actually be bad for native plant species.
Nick Beer/Shutterstock
According to Alice Moszczynski, an interior designer at Planner 5D, monoculture lawns with uniform grass fields are declining in popularity.
"The monoculture lawn trend is falling out of favor due to its high water consumption, chemical dependency, and lack of biodiversity, which can contribute to ecological imbalances," she told BI.
Firepits are becoming a thing of the past.
Firepits can be nice for entertaining at night, but they take up a lot of valuable space.
Avinash.Saini/Shutterstock
Holmes Holiday said most modern firepits are trending out — despite their practicality for evenings outdoors.
"While firepits can create a cozy atmosphere, oversized designs have been left in the past," she told BI. "They dominate smaller outdoor areas, taking away from the overall space."
Industrial-style, minimalist design is out.
Ultra-modern furniture and lots of cement can make a backyard feel cold.
"People are moving away from cold, hard materials like concrete and steel in favor of warmer, more inviting settings that include a mix of natural elements," the gardener told BI.
This trend also includes a move toward more biodiverse and wild gardens.
Taylor Swift is often photographed leaving her townhouse in the Tribeca neighborhood in New York City.
TheStewartofNY/GC Images via Getty Images
Newly minted billionaire Taylor Swift has collected an impressive real estate portfolio.
One of her properties, a townhouse in NYC, was the recent target of an attempted break-in.
Take a look at the properties she currently owns in Nashville, California, and more.
Taylor Swift will never be out of style — or at least out of homes.
The superstar has built up a real estate portfolio that is worth at least $100 million, according to property records seen by Business Insider. She's used trusts and limited liability companies (LLCs) to buy homes throughout the US.
Swift reached billionaire status last year, and her record-breaking Eras Tour is a big factor in her fortune.
Some of her most recognizable abodes are her multiple apartments in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City and the sprawling Rhode Island mansion where the star hosts her famous friends for summer parties.
In 2009 at age 19, Swift made her first major purchase: a 4,000-square-foot, three-bedroom penthouse in The Adelicia in Nashville, Tennessee for $1.99 million.
The "Speak Now" singer has kept her residence at The Adelicia since the beginning of her stardom.
Google Maps
Not only is The Adelicia close to Nashville's Music Row, but it also has a private garage, heated pool, and fitness center, according to the building's website.
As of 2021, the appraised value of the apartment is over $3.7 million, according to public property records viewed by BI.
Swift told Vulture that she designed the penthouse herself. When she spoke to the publication in 2013, she had a photo on display of Kanye West interrupting her at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Under the photo she reportedly wrote, "Life is full of little interruptions."
Swift reportedly bought the Northumberland Estate in Forest Hills, Tennessee in 2011 for $2.5 million.
It's unclear if Swift still owns the Nashville property.
Art Wager/Getty Images
The estate has an appraised property value of about $3.7 million as of 2021. Although multiple outlets — including The Wall Street Journal — have reported that Swift owns the mansion, BI was unable to confirm her ownership via property records in 2024. (We've reached out to her representatives in an attempt to clarify if she still owns the property.)
The Northumberland Estate is a Greek Revival-style home that was built around 1934. It formerly belonged to Guilford Dudley Jr., who served as the US ambassador to Denmark, WSJ reported.
Swift bought an 11,000-square-foot colonial-style mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island for $17.75 million in 2013.
the pop star is known to celebrate Independence Day at her Rhode Island home.
Jared DiPietro/Getty Images
The home, formerly known as Holiday House, was built in 1904. Swift wrote "the last great american dynasty" on her "folklore" album about the home's former owner, Rebekah Harkness.
She reportedly paid for the home in cash.
"I got the house when I was in my early twenties as a place for my family to congregate and be together," Swift told Entertainment Weekly, saying that she learned about Harkness "as soon as I was being walked through [her former Rhode Island] home."
Swift is known for throwing Fourth of July parties at the house, which is at the highest point of Watch Hill and has views of Little Narragansett Bay. The mansion has eight bedrooms, eight fireplaces, and a pool.
It now has an assessed value of $20,434,100, according to property records.
Swift bought the Beverly Hills mansion known as the Goldwyn Estate in 2015 for $25 million.
Swift's Beverly Hills home is a part of history.
PS3000/Getty Images
The property now has an assessed value of just under $30 million, according to property records.
Swift reportedly bought the estate through an LLC from the Goldwyn family. It belonged to the legendary Hollywood producer who was part of the iconic Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio, and reportedly hosted old Hollywood stars such as Clark Gable and Bette Davis.
The mansion has six bedrooms, a tennis court, a whole apartment for guests, and a swimming pool.
In 2017, the home was granted historic landmark status, WSJ reported.
Swift welcomed herself to New York by buying two penthouse units in Tribeca's Sugar Loaf building in 2014 for $19.95 million.
Swift's Tribeca apartment has been the target of break-in attempts.
Gotham/GC Images via Getty Images
She had the penthouses converted into an 8,309-square-foot duplex, which now has 10 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms.
Swift bought the penthouses from "The Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson through an LLC.
Three years later in 2017, she bought the townhouse next door for $18 million, and in 2018, she purchased yet another apartment in the Sugar Loaf building for $9.75 million. All four of her reported NYC apartments can be linked by LLCs that share the same tax addresses on property records.
Andrew Azoulay, a real-estate agent in Manhattan, told The Wall Street Journal that he advised Swift to buy the townhouse to act as a private garage and to buy the second-floor apartment to connect the garage to her duplex in the Sugar Loaf building.
Her townhouse has been the target of break-in attempts over the years. In January, a man was arrested for trying to gain access to the building while Swift was attending the Kansas City Chiefs game versus the Bills in Buffalo.
New graduates in Austin, Atlanta, and Houston earn the highest cost-of-living-adjusted starting salaries, per Gusto.
New York City attracts the largest share of new grad hires despite offering a smaller adjusted salary.
More Americans are migrating South for better cost-of-living and job opportunities.
Recent college graduates are flocking to New York City for their first jobs,but their degrees may go the furthest in Texas or Georgia.
New data from small business payment platform Gusto reveals new grads in Austin, Atlanta, and Houston have the highest cost-of-living-adjusted starting salaries when factoring in housing and other expenses.
Though New York City accounts for nearly 10% of new grad hires — the largest share of all the major cities — its adjusted starting salary givesa new grad half of what they'd earn in Austin.
The report used real-time data from over 300,000 businesses that use Gusto and defined "new grads" as full-time salaried employees aged 20 to 24.
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Between April 2023 and March 2024, new graduates in Austin earned an average of over $58,000 in cost-of-living-adjusted dollars, given the city's slightly below-average cost of living compared to the national average. New grads in Atlanta earned an adjusted $57,500, while Houston grads earned $56,250.
New York City, comparatively, came in at less than $28,500, well below the next-highest city on the list, Washington, DC, at $40,800. New York City's cost of living is over 125% more than the national average, meaning a salary of over $61,100 gets reduced by over half. Boston and Los Angeles were also at the bottom of the list, given living costs nearly 50% higher than the national average.
While recent graduates were most likely to flock to cities like New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco to start their careers, cost-of-living challenges may eventually push them South, to cities like Austin and Atlanta, where the Gusto report found salaries go the furthest. It's a decision many Americans have made in recent years.
Between July 2022 and 2023, Florida, Texas, and South Carolina were the three fastest-growing states by population in the nation, per the Census Bureau. Over the past year, BI has spoken with several people who've moved to the South — better weather, lower cost of living, and ample job opportunities were among the reasons they said they did so.
The Gusto report also found that new grads are also less likely to be remote workers compared to millennials — 21.5% of those aged 20-24 compared to 29.6% of those 30-39. Many recent grads are choosing to work full-time at the office for additional networking and mentorship opportunities. That tracks how different generations view in-office time: Younger and older workers tend to go into the office, while the workers in the middle — millennials — are pushing the continued remote work boom.
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But even as younger workers may find themselves stuck in cities with a higher cost-of-living, those jobs represent opportunities that have become harder to come by in the last few years.
It comes as higher-wage, white-collar workers see their own brutal job market. Gusto said that hiring was "frantic" in 2021 and 2022, the peak years of the Great Resignation and firms beefing up headcounts; last year, though, hiring fell "sharply." Now, that new grad hiring rate has stabilized — which isn't necessarily all bad news, but simply just shows how trends have changed from the frenzied firms trying to staff up, no matter what it took, to being a bit more measured.
The woman, who, according to a court document, is named Jeniffer Rocha, was delivering food for the UK delivery app Deliveroo in December 2022 when she got into an argument with Stephen Jenkinson, the customer she was delivering pizza to, per the BBC.
Jenkinson told the BBC that Rocha had arrived at the wrong location and that when he went to collect his order, he didn't bring his phone, leading to an argument about his delivery code number.
Jenkinson told the outlet that he raised his hand to Rocha's motorcycle helmet, and she then bit his thumb. "She'd taken it clean off," he told the BBC.
Jenkinson, a plumber, previously said that he had been unable to work since then and was financially "ruined." He said that he'd had months of surgery to reconstruct his thumb using part of his big toe and that he had no sensation in it.
In March, Rocha pleaded guilty to one count of grievous bodily harm without intent. She's set to be sentenced on Friday, a spokesperson for Winchester Crown Court confirmed to Business Insider.
A concerning loophole in app safety
When Rocha delivered to Jenkinson, she was working as a substitute for another rider.
Deliveroo classes its riders as "independent contractors," meaning they're self-employed, and because of this, they're able to appoint other people as substitutes. The substitutes can complete deliveries using a rider's account without registering.
This incident highlights the concerns around the potential dangers of substitute drivers, given that it can be hard for delivery companies to verify the identities of these substitutes.
Though Deliveroo riders have to be over 18 with no unspent criminal convictions, it's historically been up to individual riders, not Deliveroo itself, to check that their substitutes meet this criteria.
A Deliveroo spokesperson told BI that the company had "immediately" canceled the account Rocha was using when the "terrible incident" — the attack on Jenkinson — occurred.
But after Rocha appeared in court, the BBC spotted her twice collecting food for delivery on her moped, it reported.
On the second occasion, on April 18, it said that the manager of the takeaway she collected an order from said that she was delivering it for Deliveroo.
The Deliveroo spokesperson said that it had also canceled an alternative account that Rocha was using. It's unclear whether this was her own account or whether she was delivering as a substitute again.
"We take our responsibilities extremely seriously and are committed to preventing misuse of our platform," the spokesperson told BI. "We have strengthened our processes and recently introduced a new registration process and identity verification technology for substitute riders." This includes right-to-work checks rolled out by Deliveroo in April.
Sam Altman isn't sure our AI future requires new hardware.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Getty Images
Sam Altman told MIT Technology Review we may not need hardware to engage with AI in the future.
The OpenAI CEO has been rumored to be developing his own AI device.
Recent AI hardware launches have been met with mixed reviews.
Sam Altman isn't sure our AI future requires new hardware.
Despite a flurry of new devices hitting the market, the OpenAI CEO told MIT Technology Review that we may not need to buy a separate device to engage with AI in the future.
"I don't think it will require a new piece of hardware," he said in Cambridge, where he was attending events hosted by Harvard University and venture capital firm Xfund.
Altman told the outlet that the type of app he envisioned for future AI agents could live in the cloud.
He described the futuristic app as a "super-competent colleague that knows absolutely everything about my whole life, every email, every conversation I've ever had, but doesn't feel like an extension."
Although Altman thinks AI devices are exciting, he told MIT Technology Review that consumer hardware for new technology was "so far" from his expertise.
Last year, The Information reported that Altman was in talks with Jony Ive, the designer of Apple's iPhone, about building a new AI hardware product. According to the report, Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, was also brought into their conversations.
Representatives for OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Inisder, made outside normal working hours.
Recent AI hardware launches have been met with mixed reviews.
Humane's AI Pin was widely criticized — especially by Marques Brownlee, the YouTuber known as MKBHD.
Brownlee didn't mince words in his review of Humane's AI Pin, titling the video: "The Worst Product I've Ever Reviewed… For Now."
While Rabbit's competing R1, a pocket-sized AI device, sold out within 24 hours of its January launch, many have speculated it could just be a smartphone app.
Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, have had to contend with pandemic disruptions and shutdowns, inflation spiking to 40-year highs, and interest rates surging to 2007 levels in recent years — with less time than their predecessors to build up resources to ride out the storms.
Many Zoomers feel that having kids or buying a home is out of reach given the increased expense of everyday living, the brutal cost of childcare, and the painful combination of near-record home prices and much higher mortgage rates. Stocks are also trading close to record highs, depressing long-term returns for new investors.
But things might not be as bad for Gen Z as they seem. A recent Federal Reserve working paper found that the median 25-year-old in the US earns a real household income of more than $40,000 after taxes and government transfers. That's a higher average sum than any of the past six generations earned at that age.
Moreover, a Redfin study last year found that 30% of 25-year-olds owned their home in 2022, compared to 28% of millennials and 27% of Gen X at that age. Baby boomers came out on top with 32% ownership.
Members of Gen Z are projected to spend more on housing costs like rent, mortgages, insurance, and utilities after inflation between the ages of 22 and 30 than millennials did, a recent RentCafe analysis found.
Yet Gen Z's typically higher earnings mean they'll only spend an estimated 30% of their income on housing compared to 36% for millennials.
It's a similar story if you include college loans. On average, under-25s spent 43% of their after-tax income on housing and education (including interest payments on student debt) in 2022 — less than what the typical under-25 paid between 1989 and 2019, per The Economist.
Success may be short-lived
It's worth digging into why Gen Z is doing well financially. They may be better educated and qualified than previous generations. They've also enjoyed above-average wage growth and high employment levels in recent years, reflecting in part the labor shortages caused by the pandemic, the pay increases and bonuses offered by desperate employers, and historically low unemployment overall.
Stimulus payments, temporary and permanent relief from student-loan repayments, and saving on rent by living with family during lockdowns also helped the generation amass cash for down payments and other expenses.
The latter trend has continued with the Fed paper finding that more than 30% of Gen Zeds aged 24 live in the homes of their parents or their spouse's parents, versus about 15% of boomers when they were that age.
Gen Z's relatively high homeownership rate might also be less impressive than it seems. Young people tend to buy smaller, cheaper houses, as they're usually more flexible regarding how many rooms they need and where they're located if they don't have kids or a commute.
Rock-bottom mortgage rates before 2022 undoubtedly helped too, and now they've risen sharply it'll be far tougher for younger members of the cohort to afford their own place.
The automaker has reportedly pulled back on plans to roll out a revolutionary new manufacturing method for its electric cars, per Reuters. A move that casts further doubt on Elon Musk's low-cost EV ambitions.
Tesla had been developing a new "gigacasting" method that would allow it to use enormous presses to cast the underbody of an EV in a single piece to simplify manufacturing and cut costs in the long term.
However, sources told Reuters that the company had backed away from the plans and decided to stick to the method of casting that it used to build the Model Y and the Cybertruck, with the underbody made in three separate pieces.
Musk has been hinting at plans to build a $25,000 electric vehicle for years. In December, he told automotive expert Sandy Munro that plans for an affordable Tesla were "quite advanced."
"The revolution in manufacturing that will be represented by that car will blow people's minds," Musk said. "It is not like any car production line that anyone's ever seen."
However, reports earlier this month suggested that the billionaire had abandoned plans to build a cheaper model in favor of a Tesla robotaxi.
While sales of EVs continue to rise in the US, hitting record levels last year, EVs remain more expensive on average than their combustion counterparts — something that has proved an issue for many consumers.
That has made the race to build an affordable mass-market electric car the crucial next frontier for automotive companies, with Ford also pursuing its own cheap EV plans.
It's especially important for Tesla, which has come under pressure from Chinese manufacturers abroad, such as BYD, which offer cheaper models.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella meets Indonesian President Joko Widodo in Jakarta.
Vico/AP
Microsoft plans to invest $1.7 billion in cloud and AI infrastructure in Indonesia.
CEO Satya Nadella visited Indonesia this week The investment is the largest in Microsoft's 29-year history in the country.
Apple's Tim Cook also appears to be eyeing the country as a potential manufacturing base.
Microsoft is the latest tech giant to eye up Indonesia as a new business hub.
This week the company said it would invest $1.7 billion over the next four years in cloud and AI infrastructure in Indonesia.
"This new generation of AI is reshaping how people live and work everywhere, including in Indonesia," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on Tuesday. "The investments we are announcing today — spanning digital infrastructure, skilling, and support for developers — will help Indonesia thrive in this new era."
According to a blog post from Microsoft, the investment will help the government achieve its Golden Indonesia 2045 Vision, which focuses on various aspects of development, including economic, cultural, and political.
Microsoft cited a growing demand for cloud computing services in Indonesia as part of the reason for its investment.
According to research from consulting company Kearney, AI could add up to $366 billion to Indonesia's GDP and nearly $1 trillion to Southeast Asia's GDP by 2030.
Apple CEO Tim Cook also appears to be eyeing Indonesia — the world's fourth most populous nation with about 280 million people.
Last month, he met with Indonesian President Joko Widodo in Jakarta. Later, Cook said Apple would "look at" manufacturing in the country as it looks to reduce its reliance on China.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.
The Indonesian president suggested that Microsoft base its new data centers on Bali or the country's new capital city, Nusantara, Reuters reported.
Indonesia is building the capital at a cost of some $35 billion because Jakarta is partially sinking due to overextraction of groundwater and rising sea levels.
Satya Nadella with Thailand's Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin in Bangkok on Wednesday.
AP
Nadella also made stops in Malaysia and Thailand on a tour of Southeast Asia this week. Microsoft will invest in AI infrastructure in Thailand and build an Azure data center there.
Ukrainian servicemen fire an artillery in the direction of Siversk, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine on April 01, 2024.
Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu via Getty Images
An American veteran who fought in Ukraine said the US "kind of forgot what it means to actually fight a war."
He said US training has long been heavily focused on fighting insurgents in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
He said his own training wouldn't have prepared him for a war like Ukraine.
An American veteran who fought in Ukraine said the US military spent so long focused on fighting insurgents that it forgot "what it means to actually fight a war."
"We have neglected a lot of the training" on "how to fight and survive in a peer-on-peer adversary war," the veteran, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Business Insider.
He said that "in the US military, we mostly have been focusing on a guerilla war" and battling insurgents, with places with Iraq and Afghanistan in mind. The US military invested decades, billions of dollars, and thousands of lives into fights in these places.
The former soldierspoke about how his training with the US military a number of years ago compared to what he saw in Ukraine, where he started fighting when Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022 and left last December.
He said he fought in Iraq as a contractor after leaving the US military, and in Ukraine, he fought in hotspots like Kharkiv and Bakhmut. He served as his unit's combat medic, treating comrades when they were injured in the fight.
An aerial view of the city of Bakhmut totally destroyed from heavy battles in September 2023.
Libkos/Getty Images
"We've gotten so used to the idea of just fighting guerilla wars and fucking fighting terrorists and everything else that we kind of forgot what it means to actually fight a war," he said.
The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan were real wars that came at a severe cost in human lives, but the war in Ukraine is industrial warfare at levels of destruction like the world has not seen in a long time.
With the focus on the wars in the Middle East during much of this century, the US and some of its NATO allies in Europe allowed the skills needed for this kind of conflict to atrophy.
The veteran said that when he went through training, he never got any real training for peer-on-peer conflict. "A little bit of talking about it and just a little bit of training, but nothing to the point that would have prepared me for the war in Ukraine," he recalled.
He said that he has seen a lot of Western soldiers struggle in Ukraineas "they already have a set idea about how things should be and everything, and it's just not that way out in Ukraine."
He said that US soldiers are used to fighting at an equipment and manpower advantage, but against Russia in Ukraine, "a lot of time I've fought at a disadvantage compared to the enemy."
In the US military, he explained, "I believe that a lot of the training that we have is tailored more to fighting in a guerilla warfare nowadays than it is to actually fighting a near-peer adversary like it would be with Russia or China." He said that it is an issue that many NATO members face.
Another American veteran in Ukraine told BI this month that he had similar concerns. He said that his friends still in the US Army ask him for tips on how to fight with drones or in trenches, as they aren't getting training that fully reflects what is happening in Ukraine.
A Ukrainian serviceman walks in a trench at a position near the frontline town of Bakhmut, Ukraine, in May 2023.
REUTERS/Yevhenii Zavhorodnii
Questions about Western training
Multiple NATO countries have trained Ukrainian soldiers, but the veteran said that some of the Ukrainians he fights with described some of that training as irrelevant or inadequate.
The veteran said that some Ukrainian soldiers who were trained in the UK told him that when they asked how to get through Russia's vast minefields, they were told to just go around them.
But the problem is that Ukraine says that some of Russia's minefields stretch for miles, making such a strategy all but impossible. Furthermore, open areas that are not mined may already be targeted by artillery or other battlefield threats.
He described some of the training that Ukrainians have gotten as making sense on paper, but it "doesn't work [in Ukraine] because it's not the same type of warfare."
A sapper of the State Emergency Service carries an anti-tank mine as he inspects an area for mines and unexploded shells in Ukraine's Kharkiv region in March 2023.
REUTERS/Viacheslav Ratynskyi
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has repeatedly led to questions about Western training. Some Ukrainian soldiers trained abroad said the training they received was not suited to the kind of fighting needed for this war.
Many Ukrainian units used NATO training and tactics when Ukraine launched its counteroffensive last summer, but some of the approaches, such as an overemphasis on maneuver warfare without air support in the face of dense minefields and other daunting barriers, ultimately failed. The Ukrainians then changed their tactics after experiencing serious losses in a switch praised by some war analysts, but it wasn't enough.
Another US Army veteran who has been fighting and training soldiers in Ukraine told BI last year that Ukraine's forces would have been worse off if they had followed US battlefield doctrine.
He said the Ukrainians were actually better at understanding some aspects of modern fighting than the US, though they have also made costly mistakes at times in their execution, but such can be the nature of any war.
A different type of war
The veteran said that a lot of foreign fighters have come to Ukraine expecting the same advantages they have had in previous conflicts and that many have been killed as a result of having the "wrong mindset."
One previously told Business Insider that the relentless fighting in Ukraine often means that, unlike in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is no break or chance to relax. It's a kind of fighting that takes a severe toll, both mentally and physically, on a soldier.
He said that in many places where he fought in Ukraine, "there is nowhere that is safe," while when he was in Afghanistan and Iraq, if you were half a mile behind the front line, "you could stand outside and have a barbecue, a sandwich, and drink."
Ukraine is fighting in conditions very different from what the US and its NATO allies have fought through in recent decades. And while there is renewed interest in readying for a near-peer or even peer-level fight against an adversary like China or Russia, rebuilding the skills for great power conflict isn't something that happens overnight.
Lessons from the Cold War and World Wars have to be relearned, and some modern developments demand learning new ways of war from scratch.
Ukrainian soldiers fire a M101 howitzer towards Russian positions at the frontline, near Avdiivka, in Ukraine's Donetsk region in March 2024
AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky
The war has often devolvedinto a grinding fight that features trench warfare and both sides relying on decades-old equipment.
It's a comparison the veteran made, too. He said that fighting to clear Russian trenches made him feel like he was "fighting World War I." The overwhelming role of artillery speaks to that as well.
Ukraine has largely been praised for its ability to fight back against Russia, which has a much larger military, and many experts say Ukraine has a lot it can teach the West about fighting Russia.
The veteran said that "I believe that the Ukrainians could teach some things to the Western militaries, to NATO, just because we haven't fought a conventional war in fucking forever."
Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy is stepping down, the fitness company announced on Thursday.
It also said that it was laying off 400 workers, or 15% of its total workforce.
After reaching new highs during the pandemic, the company has recalled products, laid off workers, and seen sales and its stock tank.
Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy is stepping down, the fitness company announced on Thursday.
It also said that it was laying off 400 workers, or 15% of its total workforce.
Peloton said that the layoffs were part of comprehensive restructuring efforts, including reducing its retail showroom footprint and rethinking the company's international approach.
McCarthy replaced John Foley as Peloton CEO and president in February 2022.
Peloton, one of the darlings of the pandemic, boomed in business during waves of lockdown. But since then, the company has recalled products, laid off thousands of workers, and seen sales and its stock tank.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.