Author: openjargon

• Los Angeles voted to invest in street safety after a two-decade high in traffic deaths.
• But the LA firefighters union opposed the policy, arguing it will slow emergency response times.
• Street safety advocates say fire officials' focus on speed is making roads more dangerous.

Los Angeles is the car capital of America. That also means it has some of the most dangerous roads in the country. In 2023, traffic fatalities in the city hit a two-decade high. Of the 337 people who were killed, half were pedestrians. And traffic accidents are a leading cause of death for kids in the city.

Many of the city's residents want to take action to make their streets safer. They're demanding improvements to pedestrian infrastructure, bike lanes, and mass transit.

But firefighters — the very people tasked with keeping them safe — are standing in their way.

In March, LA voted overwhelmingly for a street safety policy that will finally enforce a nearly decade-old mobility plan to make the city's streets safer for non-drivers. The Healthy Streets Los Angeles Ballot Measure will mean hundreds of miles of new bike lanes, 300 miles of improved bus lanes, and updated public transit stations.

But the union that represents LA's firefighters opposed the policy, also known as Measure HLA, and aggressively campaigned against it. They argued that wider sidewalks, protected bike lanes, fewer driving lanes, and other street safety measures will make it harder for their trucks to navigate through traffic, elongating emergency response times. "Vehicles will not be able to pull to the right, and we're stuck behind them," a firefighter said in a video opposing the campaign. The union didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Michael Schneider, founder and CEO of Streets For All, a nonprofit that ran the campaign in favor of Measure HLA, said his group reached out to the firefighters union to talk about the policy before they came out against it but didn't hear back. He noted that LA's fire department, which isn't allowed to engage in politics, signed off on the underlying mobility plan back in 2015. A study of the plan actually found that without the policy, emergency response times would get longer as vehicle traffic increased.

"They're very myopic in how they view public safety," Schneider said of fire officials. "A two-decade-high pedestrian deaths is a public safety crisis, too."

But this battle between fire officials and street safety advocates isn't unique to LA. Fire departments across the country have for decades opposed safer street design. But this battle is increasingly playing out across the country as traffic deaths skyrocket.

The supremacy of fire codes

When private vehicles began to dominate American roads in the 1920s, transportation engineers believed that wider streets were safer, as they give drivers a larger margin for error. But as American cities became more car-centric, traffic accidents skyrocketed and engineers began to understand that the opposite is true: wider roads encourage drivers to go faster, leading to far more accidents, injuries, and deaths.

Studies have found that vehicles traveling more than 20 miles per hour are far more likely to kill people they hit. In fact, a pedestrian is about 70 percent more likely to die if they're hit by a vehicle going 30 mph versus 25 mph, research has found. Streets with driving lanes that are nine or 10 feet wide are significantly safer than those with 12-foot wide lanes, a major Johns Hopkins study found last year. "That is the opposite of the general belief and what has been the foundation for street design and lane-width guidelines," the researchers noted.

These discoveries, however, aren't reflected in the fire codes that govern our streets.

The vast majority of US states follow what's called the International Fire Code, updated every few years by a Texas-based nonprofit called the International Code Council. For decades, the code has called for streets to have at least 20 feet of unobstructed width. With a parking lane and sidewalks, residential streets in the US tend to be around 50 feet wide — far wider than in many other countries. In Osaka, Japan, and Paris, France, for example, the typical residential street is less than 20 feet wide.

Roads that encourage speed are part of the reason the US has far more traffic deaths than its peer countries. At the same time, US traffic fatalities far outnumber deaths from fires — while 40,000 people died on American roads last year, fewer than 3,000 people die annually in the US in residential fires, on average.

The international fire code's name is a bit of a misnomer: it's used virtually nowhere outside the US. And it differs in key ways from fire safety regulations used by other advanced countries. American fire trucks and other firefighting equipment also tend to be much bigger and less able to navigate narrow streets than their equivalents in other countries.

The fire code's dangerous results reflect a failure to understand safety holistically, experts say. "If you become overly specialized and focus only on one problem without considering at all the effect that you might be having on other problems, you can very easily do a lot of harm while trying to do good," said Patrick Siegman, a transportation planner and economist.

A growing battle

Conflict between fire officials and street designers has become increasingly common. In most cases, cities and states bend to the will of their fire departments. Indeed, many in the government are unaware of how dangerous their policies are.

"Unless you've really gotten to know the issue, planners, even transportation engineers, often don't realize the implications of the fire code for street designs and ultimately for traffic safety," Siegman said.

But in some places, road safety advocates are winning out. In Baltimore, an attempt in 2018 to amend the city's fire code to make room for bike lanes erupted in an ugly public fight that included a firefighter assaulting a city planner. But the city's code was ultimately amended.

In 2013, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors changed its interpretation of the fire code so that sidewalks, pedestrian islands, and other curbs less than six inches high weren't considered an obstruction to emergency vehicles. It's allowed the city to build wider sidewalks and more protected bike lanes, among other features to boost street safety.

San Francisco's fire department has also adapted to safer streets in another way by buying smaller fire trucks. The California city's so-called "Vision Zero truck" — a reference to the road safety policy — is a bit shorter and skinnier than its older trucks and has a smaller turning radius, which makes it far more capable of traveling down narrow, windy streets.

Not to mention that fire trucks with full fire-fighting capabilities aren't necessary in most instances. Only about 5% of the 1 million calls to fire departments nationally are fire-related, according to the National Fire Protection Association. Instead, firefighters largely respond to medical emergencies, which don't require trucks carrying 500 gallons of water.

"There are other ways to put out fires and respond to emergencies," said Andy Boenau, a transportation engineer and urbanist activist. "Do you need to send the biggest fire truck when someone's choking on a walnut?"

Dan Burden, a veteran transportation planner who served as Florida's first state bicycle and pedestrian coordinator, works with and trains fire officials on road safety issues. He said fire departments can be convinced to support safer street design if they're heavily engaged by planners. "Too often, the fire administrator is brought in too late in the process," he said.

Burden, whose father was a fire chief, believes they can find common ground.

"My dad always said, 'Dan, don't over-build for our needs, build streets for people first, and we'll figure out a way to make things happen,'" Burden said.

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On a mild Tuesday evening in early 2022, some 150 people packed into the VFW hall in Tulsa to hear the Queen of Airbnb make her pitch.

Post-pandemic, with interest rates low and travel once again booming, Airbnb listings had been popping up all over the city. For average investors, the back-of-the-napkin math was irresistible. In Tulsa, you could buy a suburban-style home for less than $75,000 and rent it out for $117 a night. If you booked three-quarters of each month — as hosts were averaging at the time — you could bring in as much as $30,000 a year.

Tulsa had the feel of a rental gold rush. And Dani Widell was the city's self-styled Queen of Airbnb.

A small-time real-estate investor turned Airbnb property manager, Widell claimed to be nearing a total of 100 listings, more than anyone else in Tulsa. Tax returns would later show that Widell Renovations was generating over $1 million in annual bookings. She was a fixture on Facebook, where she doled out advice in short-term-rental groups and offered her services to turn homes into cash machines. She promised to give properties the look of a boutique hotel, handle the guests, and ensure there were fresh sheets and plentiful supplies of toilet paper. Investors could set it and forget it.

Now, after she made her pitch at the VFW hall, attendees clamored around Widell, eager to have her manage their Airbnb rentals. "At the time, the feeling was, if you weren't already in short-term rentals, it was too late," recalled Kathy Portley, the president of the Tulsa Real Estate Investors Association, which sponsored the event.

For Widell, though, it was already too late. Within a year, her Airbnb empire had come crashing down. Hosts weren't receiving their rent. Employees weren't being paid. Creditors came knocking. Her marriage had imploded. The sudden collapse — and the web of accusations that accompanied it — offer a cautionary tale of what comes from putting too much faith in a volatile market, an untested guru, and the promise of easy money. The reign of the Airbnb Queen of Tulsa was over — and her subjects were left to pick up the pieces.

---

Airbnb was one of the great turnaround stories of the pandemic.

In the early months of 2020, as the world shut down, the company lost nearly 80% of its business, laid off 1,900 employees, and watched its valuation slip from $31 billion to $18 billion. Experts mused that the pandemic might have permanently turned travelers off from the idea of home-sharing.

Instead, as lockdowns lifted and remote work became the new normal, Americans displayed an unprecedented itch to travel — assuming it could be done at a safe distance. Many found the space and security they were after in Airbnb. When the company went public at the end of 2020, it was the biggest IPO of the year. On the first day of trading, Airbnb's stock price doubled. As bookings soared, first-time real-estate investors rushed to get in on the action, transforming residential homes into short-term rentals. Before long, 260,000 new Airbnb and Vrbo listings had been added nationwide, according to the analytics firm AirDNA.

Tulsa, a city of 400,000 long known as the "oil capital of the world," looked to be a fertile ground for Airbnb. The city, with its Art Deco downtown and spacious Craftsman bungalows, was already a destination for homebuyers in search of affordability, a lively arts scene, and easy access to outdoor activities. What's more, Tulsa was actively courting remote workers, offering $10,000 to anyone willing to relocate to the city. Savvy investors were making healthy profits buying up homes and flipping them to the sudden influx of out-of-staters.

"I was not sleeping at that time," Emily Burke, an Airbnb manager in Tulsa, said. "I was up at two, three in the morning," taking phone calls and looking over properties.

Widell placed herself at the center of the boom. A former accountant who graduated from Oklahoma State University, she exuded polish and confidence. In 2017, she graced the cover of Tulsa People magazine, showing off the Brady Heights home she shared with her husband, Will Widell, a federal public defender. They'd bought it after flipping another house up the street, and Widell had spent hundreds of hours "salvaging every bit of the original craftsmanship" while infusing it with "21st-century functionality."

Now, as the Airbnb market accelerated, a rift opened between the couple: Will, who considers himself thrifty and risk-averse, wanted to cash out and retire, while Widell was consumed by the new opportunity to grow their business. "The more difficult the thing was, the more possibility it could fail, that's where she seemed to thrive," Will said. "She wasn't going to be happy if she was doing a project that was not risky." (Widell declined to be interviewed for this story.)

Widell started channeling her house-flipping expertise into managing short-term rentals. For a fee of a few thousand dollars, she would stage an Airbnb unit in tasteful shades of beige, hang some abstract art, and install remote locks. For a 25% cut, she would handle everything from booking reservations to fielding late-night calls from guests who'd been locked out. "To someone just getting into Airbnb," Logan Haskett, one of Widell's early clients, said, "this would be a dream."

The "Queen of Airbnb" label, which started off as Widell's Airbnb account name, helped create an aura of omnipotence. "Maybe she is the Airbnb queen," Burke remembered thinking. "It just seemed like she just must be killing it."

By all appearances, Widell certainly seemed to be thriving. She took business lunches at Mahogany Prime Steakhouse, a leading Tulsa destination. She was a member of the Summit Club — "Downtown Tulsa's Only Private Social Club" — perched atop the Bank of America Center, with its panoramic views of the Arkansas River. She hobnobbed with the local elite and claimed to have more Airbnb listings than anyone else in the city. She cut her hair short and, to her husband's annoyance, swapped out her conservative style for big sunglasses and more "flamboyant" fashions.

Widell, who hadn't had much growing up, also projected an image of benevolence. She made a point of hiring people with criminal records to work in her warehouse, and she talked about buying a church that had just come on the market and turning it into a women's shelter. She was making a mark, one of Widell's early employees, Knikki Nash, recalled Widell saying.

But then investors started asking questions. And soon enough, Widell would be turning on the very people she'd promised a second chance.

---

In May 2022, three months after Widell made her pitch at the VFW, the Airbnb market in Tulsa was at its height. That month, some 50,000 golf fans descended on Tulsa for the PGA Championship, which the city was hosting. Airbnb rentals were fetching as much as $1,000 a night. That May, according to tax returns, Widell Renovations took in $166,000 from Airbnb — its best month of the year.

It wasn't just Tulsa. Across the country, the Airbnb market was saturated. Demand was still surging, but as more and more people listed their homes with the company, the average occupancy rate plunged to 55%. Burke, who was managing 25 properties, sensed the market might be overheating. She decided to hold off on taking any new listings. "Tulsa jumped from like 600 to 1,500 listings in a very short time period," she said. "I just wanted to see how things kind of would shake out."

Widell, in contrast, showed no signs of slowing down — even as the money from Airbnb rentals dried up.

Investors began to complain that Widell was passing along lower earnings than they had expected. When pressed, Widell would blame the drop in revenue on unexpected cleaning costs or say that a guest had suddenly switched to a different rental.

But some investors grew suspicious. Mallory Massey, a local real-estate investor, had handed nine of her properties over to Widell in fall 2021 to list as Airbnbs. The largest, a five-bedroom home, was advertised at $249 per night. Then, Massey began to notice that reservations were mysteriously disappearing from her Airbnb hosting calendar. She started looking at the logs of messages between Widell and prospective renters — and was startled by what she found. Widell was offering "upgrades" to other properties, effectively steering renters away from Massey's units to other Airbnbs she managed, according to a lawsuit Massey filed in 2022. Massey has filed to put a lien on 11 of Widell's properties to recoup her losses in case they are sold.

"I don't trust the words that come out of her mouth," one investor's wife warned. "She tries to hype things up too much."

Another investor, David Brunson, started working with Widell in July 2022. He recalled being impressed by her enthusiasm and her experience. His wife, however, was more skeptical. "I don't trust the words that come out of her mouth," she told him. "She tries to hype things up too much."

But the promise of an easy source of passive income was too good to pass up. Brunson started by listing one of his properties, a two-bedroom home, with Widell. Then one night, he noticed that a three-week booking, totaling $2,200, had disappeared from his hosting calendar. After he and Widell argued over who was to blame for the cancellation, he withdrew his listing with her.

Other investors were also complaining that Widell was shortchanging them. Renee Brummett, who worked with Widell in the early days as head of housekeeping, had risen to serve as her right hand. In 2022, she started getting alarmed calls from investors. "We've had an Airbnb for two months, and Dani hasn't paid us anything," Brummett recalled them saying. "She's keeping our money. Or she says we owe her money."

According to those familiar with the business, Widell seemed to be shifting her focus away from Airbnb rentals to the house-staging business. She spent lavishly on furniture, filling her warehouse with expensive pieces. "The spending became excessive," Brummett said. "That was just the beginning of the end for her."

Then, in December 2022, staff confronted Widell. They, like the Airbnb hosts she managed, weren't getting paid. Unsatisfied with Widell's response, some quit on the spot. The following day, two employees doorstepped Widell at one of her properties. During the encounter, which was captured by security cameras, she offered a very different spin on why she had hired so many employees with criminal records.

"I can use the legal system to my advantage," Widell crowed. "Do you know how many people work here that don't want to go back to prison or jail? Fuck all of them."

---

As her reign unraveled, the Queen of Airbnb took measures to shore up her floundering business. Widell reached out to Nash, the former employee who had gone to work for a rival Airbnb manager, and offered her an all-encompassing role as operations manager. After checking Widell's Instagram account, Nash agreed.

"Everything looked all right, because Dani was just throwing money around," Nash said. "If you looked at Dani online, she's traveling and she's buying things and she's paying for advertisements. Everything looks on the up and up. It looked like she was trying to make this church thing happen with the women's shelter. It looked like she was trying to get everybody paid."

But when Nash showed up at the warehouse, she was taken aback. Employees were lounging around and smoking marijuana. The master spreadsheet for staging jobs hadn't been updated in weeks, and it was missing names and contact details for clients. Widell's behavior, meanwhile, struck Nash as increasingly erratic. She seemed preoccupied with renewing her vows with her husband, Will, rather than tending to the business. Nash couldn't understand where all the money from short-term rentals had gone, at a time when many Airbnb managers were still reporting strong profits. "I don't see how you're not making good money off Airbnb," she told Widell.

It didn't take long to get an answer. On February 3, Widell's husband filed for divorce.

Over the past six months, Will claimed in his filing, Widell had taken out $500,000 in loans and had racked up $350,000 in credit-card debt, much of it without his knowledge. A few days later, as Nash was staging a three-bedroom ranch home on a quiet street in Tulsa, she got an urgent call from the warehouse: Will was there, carting away documents. Widell had left Tulsa in a brand new Land Rover. As she'd tell Nash, she was "driving off into the sunset."

"There is no more business," Will told Nash when she got him on the phone. "She has squandered every penny."

The marriage had been souring since the previous fall. Widell seemed to be working constantly. "She would tell me, 'I don't need to sleep anymore. I just feel so much energy all the time. I just want to work,'" Will recalled. In January, Will cosigned a $100,000 loan against their property on the condition that Widell start coming home in time for dinner and agree to see a mental-health professional.

Eventually, multiple people would claim that Widell had taken out credit cards in their names and run up bills, some as much as $6,000. Brummet says her boss even took out a card in the name of Brummet's daughter, who had died a year earlier.

Widell "had gotten herself into a lot of trouble," Brummett said. "By December, a lot of owners were very unhappy. By January, there were threats of lawsuits. And by February, she had fled the state."

In the days after Widell left Tulsa, Nash got an urgent message from an Airbnb tenant who had stepped into the February chill to accept a DoorDash order — only to find herself unable to reenter the house. The unit's remote locks, it turned out, had been changed for nonpayment. Widell, it appeared, had taken the money and run.

---

The spectacular downfall of Tulsa's go-to savant for short-term rentals didn't dampen the city's passion for Airbnb. Widell's investors found new property managers. Her employees found other work, in some cases with Widell's old rivals. Today, her "Tulsa Airbnb Group" on Facebook remains active, with some 1,000 members.

But what happened with Widell sounded an alarm. "I don't think it gives the industry a good name," Burke said. "I remember speaking with a contact at the city who said, 'You know, it's unfortunate, because sometimes there's just, like, one or two people that are ruining it for everyone else.'"

Airbnb's cycle of boom and bust has also scared off some "naive, first-time operators," Meagan McCollum, a professor of real-estate finance at the University of Tulsa, said. "You hear stories about people who had a tough time with it, instead of just hearing the success stories when the market was hot. As those stories permeate, that definitely gives people pause."

Experts who watch the national market for short-term rentals now believe that the COVID-era boom was a once-in-a-lifetime event. "We don't expect that short-term rentals will ever see occupancies that high again, barring another pandemic," said Bram Gallagher, an economist at AirDNA, which tracks the performance and pricing of 10 million vacation rentals. Nationally, revenues per listing dropped by 6.6% last year, and the market is settling into a more stable equilibrium — one that won't be as lucrative as the market that emerged during a historic anomaly. But that won't stop people from trying to turn their property into a side hustle.

"It's so interesting, the whole pandemic, you know, what it revealed about human nature," Gallagher said. "I guess it's human nature to sort of capitalize on that."

As for Widell, she has failed to appear in court multiple times — or even explain what happened. In February and again in March, she showed up at the building where her husband and Brummett lived, and, according to Brummett, harassed them with a gun. Both have obtained restraining orders against her.

Those who believed in Widell, meanwhile, wound up paying a steep price for their faith in her. Nash, who said Widell owes her $8,200 in back pay, narrowly avoided being evicted from her home. "I felt sad about it," Nash said. "I made it through a hard time, so I guess I'll have to figure it out some other way."

Nash has picked up some work managing Airbnbs for other companies, but it wasn't enough to pay the bills. She was evicted by her landlord for falling behind on rent and moved out of her apartment with her 16-year-old son and her 7-year-old grandson. The only living arrangement they could find was in midtown — a 16-minute drive from where the kids went to school.

It was a two-bedroom Airbnb.

---

Dan Latu is a reporter on Business Insider's Real Estate team.

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• The government signed four million new contracts in 2023 and there are many ways to enter the field.
• Some large companies regularly sign contracts with the government and many roles require clearances.
• You can also bid on your own contracts and make deals directly with the government. 

The US is the nation's largest employer, according to the Department of Labor — and it needs a lot of goods and services. From supplying employees with basic needs like toilet paper to renovating government buildings or supplying weapons to the military.

The government can't do everything itself, so it hires contractors to help out. This lets the government tackle specific jobs and projects quickly without all the steps of regular government hiring and bureaucratic obstacles.

The White House has said that the US government signs 4 million new contracts and orders each year.

While pay is sometimes considered a drawback of public sector work, government contracting opportunities can offer better pay than federal roles, while still providing stability and other perks like flexible scheduling.

Even though the industry is vast and the pathway to enter isn't always clear, there's a lot of opportunity in the field. The federal government awarded about $765 billion in contracts in 2023, according to government market intelligence platform HigherGov.

To help make sense of the complex field, BI spoke to recruiters and individual contractors about how the system works and best practices to enter the field. We broke it down below to demystify the process.

You can work for a larger government contracting company

There are a wide range of large government contracting companies that the government regularly makes deals with.

Defense contractors are a good example of some of the biggest players in the space who secure massive government contracts regularly, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman. These are public companies that also sign contracts with the government.

There are also smaller to midsize companies that help serve the government's needs directly, such as helping with development and policy work in other countries.

Opportunities in tech and data are especially in demand. The Judge Group, a recruiting agency, told BI it has seen a 15% increase in opportunities in government aerospace and defense positions over the last couple of years.

Many government contractor roles require some level of clearance, which costs money and can take time to attain. Some of the larger companies may sponsor your clearance, though, so it can be a good place to secure a first job, according to Lauren Irizarry, a senior talent acquisition partner at A2 Federal.

Many companies favor those who have worked in the military or at a government agency previously, but you can still get a job without that background if you have the skills and clearances needed.

You can find many of these opportunities on Clearancejobs.com, a platform for jobs with security clearance. Even if you don't have a clearance, the site has thousands of jobs listed, contact info for recruiters, and a career fair page with upcoming events to meet employers.

If you're breaking into the field, you may want to browse through positions you're interested in and see what kind of clearance they require before applying.

While these opportunities are sometimes difficult to find, once you have experience under your belt it's easier to find work.

John Breth, 40, worked in government contracting roles for 12 years before starting his own contracting company. He said the perk to working for a large company is there are often other contracts that you can transition to when you finish the project you're working on.

You can establish your own contracting business

If you're interested in selling services to the government, you can start by registering your entity or getting a unique entity ID at Sam.Gov. To get a sense of available opportunities, you can search for different needs or supplies in "contract opportunities," which lists notices from federal contracting offices.

Once you find an opportunity, the next step is to bid on the contract. This involves submitting a proposal that outlines how you plan to meet the government's needs.

If awarded the contract, you have to meet specific requirements set by the government, which may involve getting clearances or certifications.

Kevin Jennings has been in the business for 15 years. He started out providing the government with commodities like toner ink, pencils, office furniture, and medical supplies. Once he got his foot in the door, he moved to construction.

"I could make as much money as I wanted to make or as little as I wanted to make," Jennings said. "I could find projects that fit what I wanted to do at the time."

He said he chose government contracting over private sector work because the government is consistent and pays on time.

The US Small Business Administration also has a small business program that reserves 23% of prime government contracts for small businesses. This may give some business owners an advantage in selling goods and services over other industries.

While some people manage the whole process themselves, others work solely in the bidding process. There are many different roles and nuances within the field, and you can go to sba.gov to learn more and receive free training online.

There's value in understanding the industry

The US government has client-contractor relationships like many other industries, but with government contracting, the client is the government. This brings unique requirements to the deals and complexities of getting paid.

You can explore help topics on Sam.gov or browse through different posts on FindRFP to find out more information about the industry at large.

If you research a specific sector, you'll have a better sense of the industry-specific requirements, pay scales, and other distinctions that add layers of complexity to the career path. Once you understand the landscape better, you'll be able to recognize which jobs you qualify for and define your path forward.

Are you a government contractor with an interesting story to share? Reach out to the reporter from a non-work device and email at aaltchek@businessinsider.com.

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• Amazon's packaging has been getting more efficient in recent years, thanks to AI.
• The e-commerce giant built an AI model that interprets pictures and text to choose the best shipping materials.
• The tool is key in helping the company cut out 2 million tons of plastic and cardboard since 2015.

While most of the tech world is focused on shiny new generative AI tools, Amazon has been chipping away at an ongoing challenge posed by modern consumerism: the proliferation of shipping materials.

For several years now, the e-commerce giant has been developing what it describes as a "multimodal AI model" called the Package Decision Engine.

The PDE's job is to do a smarter job of selecting the right box, bag, or wrapper for each of the millions of unique items sold through the company's warehouses.

Amazon's earlier packing strategy — chosen by humans and less intelligent computers — was frequently a source of confusion for customers and ridicule toward the company. Frequent Amazon shoppers have almost certainly received a shipment with a single small item in a comically large box.

Now, instead of humans doing physical tests, the company says products are sent through a computer vision tunnel that gathers dimensions and particular features (like whether it has fragile parts or already resides in a box).

Those images are then matched with a natural language processing of text-based description of the product, plus other quantitative data to match the item with its ideal shipping solution.

While there are some unexpected reasons for why larger packaging is in fact a smart choice, Amazon says it is committed to reducing the amount of cardboard it uses as part of its sustainability pledges.

It makes business sense too: when sending billions of parcels, taking even a little bit from each one can add up to some staggeringly large numbers.

The company estimates using correctly sized boxes, switching to softer mailers, or skipping packaging altogether now saves 60,000 tons of cardboard per year in North America alone.

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• Benedetto Vigna has been Ferrari's CEO since 2021, overseeing the company's transition to EVs.
• His background is in tech, with previous experience as an executive at a semiconductor company.
• Vigna likes the nimbleness of tech startups and removed layers of bureaucracy at Ferrari, per WSJ.

Ferrari's CEO would prefer if the company moved fast like its cars.

Since he assumed his chief executive role in 2021, Benedetto Vigna introduced changes to Ferrari so the more than 80-year-old company could move with the speed of a tech startup as it ventured into the competitive space of electric vehicles.

To do so, Vigna stripped away layers of bureaucracy, creating a flatter hierarchy inside the company, The Wall Street Journal reported — a move other CEOs have been exploring to improve a company's performance or ability to innovate.

Previously, there were six levels of employees between the CEO and test drivers, for example. Now, there are three.

"When the environmental condition is changing at high speed, you need to have a team that is able to adapt at high speed," Vigna told the Journal.

Vigna's leadership approach stems from his long background in tech, according to the outlet.

A trained physicist, Vigna previously spent about 25 years at STMicroelectronics, a semiconductor company, where he started as an engineer and later became an executive, according to a press release from Ferrari.

At Ferrari, Vigna saw what he called a high "bureaucratic mass index," where employees were too far removed from the CEO, the Journal reported.

Vigna has previously expressed his desire for Ferrari to work faster and with less corporate bloat.

In a 2023 interview with Bloomberg, Vigna said he believed that companies work more efficiently through smaller teams.

"In a big team you feel like a number," he told Bloomberg. "In a small team, you are a person that's contributing one way or another. Also, the speed of learning from mistakes is much faster."

So far, Wall Street has responded well to Vigna's arrival.

According to the Journal, the company stock price has nearly doubled since Vigna took control of the company.

Ferrari also plans to roll out its first electric car by the end of 2025.

A spokesperson for Ferrari did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent during the weekend.

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• Donald Trump said on Truth Social that absentee and early votes are "good options" for Republicans.
• The reversal comes after years of Trump sowing doubt in the voting system, arguing it's rife with fraud.
• The new stance, while unlikely to stick, won't reverse the damage he's done, a political scientist told BI.

Donald Trump has inexplicably flip-flopped from his years of previous remarks disparaging the voting system and is now supporting absentee and early voting.

"Absentee voting, early voting, and election day voting are all good options," the former president wrote on Truth Social on Friday afternoon. "Republicans must make a plan, register, and vote!"

Representatives for Trump responded to a request for comment from Business Insider, saying his Friday statement "speaks for itself," and declined to answer further questions.

The latest remarks split decisively from the rhetoric Trump has espoused over the better part of the last decade, in which he has repeatedly claimed the voting system is rigged and rife with fraud. The former president has even backed lawsuits trying to end the practice of mail-in voting in seven states.

While "vote-by-mail" and "absentee voting" are phrases often used interchangeably, there are minor differences in the procedures for each system. Most states that allow absentee voting require voters to request a ballot ahead of the election, with some requiring a reason they will be unable to vote in person on election day, while states with vote-by-mail systems proactively mail out ballots to registered voters.

Only eight states allow all elections to be conducted entirely by vote-by-mail systems. Both absentee and vote-by-mail systems allow voters to mail their ballots through the US Post Office.

Trump has previously targeted "mail-in ballots," claiming their widespread use in 2020 would lead to "the most RIGGED Election in our nations history," The Los Angeles Times reported.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, in his effort to prove Trump attempted to illegally overturn the 2020 election results, has pointed to social media posts as far back as 2012 — in which Trump claimed without evidence that voting machines switched ballots cast for candidate Mitt Romney to votes for then-candidate Barack Obama — as proof Trump has intentionally "sowed mistrust in the results of the presidential election" for years.

Nicholas Grossman, an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois, told Business Insider it's unlikely Trump will maintain his newfound position supporting absentee and early voting. He added that the Truth Social post sounds like a statement a GOP official or campaign staffer would encourage Trump to post to drum up enthusiasm for the coming election.

CNN reported that ranking Republicans have recently embraced early and mail-in voting — and Trump may be following suit in an attempt to have the strongest turnout during this year's election.

But even if Trump suddenly had a change of heart, Grossman said, it would be too late to reverse the damage he has done by sowing doubt in the electoral system. Trump's most stringent supporters, Grossman noted, aren't likely to suddenly have faith in our electoral procedures just because Trump changed his messaging on the topic a few months ahead of the election.

"Because the conspiracy theories have flourished in part from Trump, but also from a whole lot of media for the last decade or so, that damage is, to some extent, permanent," Grossman told Business Insider. "And even despite this latest statement, he's still casting doubt on the election in general. That's been his rhetoric for years at this point — trying to undermine democracy and especially undermine American's faith in the democratic system."

"If Trump loses, he's going to lie about it like he did in 2020. And if he wins, he will probably still lie about it — like he did in 2016 when he claimed millions of people voted illegally in California, and claiming he actually won California," Grossman added, "Even winning the election, he couldn't help himself with lying like that, so I expect that he will again."

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• The AI revolution has sparked fears that machines will replace human workers.
• But former OpenAI exec Zack Kass told BI that human qualities will become even more essential.
• And he offered one simple way to set yourself apart: Be likable.

Workers are worried about competing with machines for jobs as the AI revolution takes off.

But in a world where AI can code, write, and analyze data proficiently, what makes us "human" matters maybe more than ever, Zack Kass, a former exec at OpenAI, told Business Insider.

That means leaning into areas where humans still outpace AI — like critical thinking.

In the coming years, it'll be more important that we "hire lawyers not for how fast they are, but for how well they understand a problem really uniquely," Kass said.

He said it'll also be critical to embrace what makes you likable, someone with whom other humans ultimately want to work.

"AI is going to commoditize most of our knowledge and many of our skills," Kass later wrote by email. So our "immutable human qualities" like "courage, vision, wisdom, empathy" will become more important.

Those qualities could also set you apart as AI takes over tasks for workers at all levels. Studies have already shown that AI is bound to be an equalizer in the workplace. So, Kass says, workers should emphasize their personal qualities.

"Why would anyone hire 'assholes' in a world where everyone is smart," he said with a laugh.

A workforce made up of likable people can also boost a company's bottom line. People with work friends are not only more likely to stay in their jobs, but they're also more productive, engaged, happier, and healthier.

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• Lawyers for Pink, often stylized P!nk, filed legal action against Pharrell Williams on Thursday.
• The Notice of Opposition was filed against Williams' attempt to trademark "P.Inc."
• The notice said the resemblance between "P!nk" and "P.Inc" would "cause confusion."

Pink has taken legal action against Pharrell Williams to stop his attempt to trademark the term "P.Inc."

Pink, 44, filed the Notice of Opposition against Williams through her company, Lefty Paw Print, on Thursday. Williams, 51, is represented by his company, PW IP Holdings.

Documents included in the Notice of Opposition show that Lefty Paw Print owns several trademarks for Pink. The first trademark application was filed in 1999 and registered in 2001. Lefty Paw Print wrote that Pink "has spent substantial time, effort and money promoting the goods and services" under the trademarks.

Lefty Paw Print wrote that Williams filed a trademark application for "P.Inc" in May 2023.

"Applicant's P.INC Mark is similar to the PINK Marks in sight, sound, meaning, and commercial impression," the document read.

The company added that Williams is "likely to market and promote its goods through the same channels of trade and to the same consumers" as Pink.

The Notice of Opposition said that the resemblance between Pink — sometimes stylized "P!nk" — and "P.Inc" would confuse consumers.

"Such registration would be a source of damage and injury to Opposer," the document said, referring to Pink and Lefty Paw Print.

Representatives for Pink and Williams did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Pink's notice isn't the only trademark battle Williams is facing right now.

Williams' longtime collaborator, Chad Hugo, accused him of seeking sole control of The Neptunes' trademarks, according to Variety. Hugo's lawyers said Williams' trademark attempt violates an agreement between him and Hugo to split everything equally.

"Throughout their over 30-year history, [Hugo] and Williams agreed to, and in fact, have divided all assets," Hugo's attorney wrote in the legal action. "By ignoring and excluding [Hugo] from any and all applications filed by the applicant for the mark 'The Neptunes,' applicant has committed fraud in securing the trademarks and acted in bad faith."

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• The House passed a bill to provide military aid to Israel and humanitarian aid for Gaza.
• It's part of a larger package that includes Ukraine aid and is likely to pass the Senate next week.
• Dozens of progressive Democrats — and some hard-right Republicans — voted against it.

The House of Representatives on Saturday passed a bill that includes more than $14 billion in military aid to Israel and more than $9 billion in humanitarian aid, much of which will go to Gaza.

The bill passed by a 366-58 margin, but dozens of progressive Democrats — and a cohort hard-right Republicans — voted against it.

Under an unconventional plan from House Speaker Mike Johnson, the bill will be sent to the Senate as part of a package that includes aid for Ukraine and Taiwan and a third bill that forces a sale of TikTok and allows the United States to confiscate Russian assets. Lawmakers voted individually on each component.

The combined bill closely mirrors a $95.3 billion national security bill passed by the Senate in February. Three senators voted against that package over the Israel aid.

President Joe Biden has pledged to sign the bill into law after it passes the Senate in the coming days, a move that could anger those on the progressive left who have called for him to take a different approach to Israel's war in Gaza, where over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed.

It's not the first time in recent months that Democrats have voted en masse against Israel aid. They've become more comfortable doing so amid the devastation in Gaza.

In November, all but 12 of them voted against a bill that would have paired Israel aid with cuts to the Internal Revenue Service, a non-starter for Democrats. And in February, just 46 Democrats voted for an Israel aid bill that didn't include those cuts, with Democrats largely taking the position that they wanted to see Ukraine aid paired with Israel aid.

14 House Republicans voted against the latter Israel aid bill in February, with many citing the cost of the aid.

But Saturday's vote was different — this bill is all but certain to be signed into law, and the significant number of Democrats who voted against Israel aid shows how quickly the issue has shifted in recent months.

"To give the Netanyahu government more offensive weapons at this stage is to condone the utter destruction of Gaza we've seen over the last seven months and risks fueling a deadly regional war," said Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont, a progressive Jewish Democrat, in a statement ahead of her vote. "The United States cannot continue to support the extreme offensive that has caused unimaginable suffering to the Palestinian people."

This story will be updated with a list of lawmakers who voted against the bill when it becomes available via the House Clerk.

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• The House passed a more than $60 billion bill that provides more military aid to Ukraine.
• It's part of a larger foreign aid package that's likely to pass the Senate and be signed into law.
• 112 Republicans voted it against — the most ever, and a majority of the GOP conference.

The House of Representatives on Saturday passed a more than $60 billion bill to provide military and economic aid to Ukraine.

A solid majority of Republicans voted against the bill, which passed by a 311-112 margin. 101 Republicans voted for it, and one Republican voted "present."

The Ukraine aid bill came to the floor after months of delay and despite staunch opposition from the hard right, including a threat from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to call a vote to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson if he allowed such a vote.

Under Johnson's unconventional plan, the Ukraine bill will be sent to the Senate as part of a package that includes aid for Israel and Taiwan and a third bill that forces a sale of TikTok and allows the United States to confiscate Russian assets. Each component received its own vote in the House on Saturday.

The bill is widely expected to pass the Senate in the coming days, as it generally mirrors a $95.3 billion national security bill passed by the upper chamber in February. President Joe Biden has pledged to sign it into law.

Saturday's vote marked the first time the House had approved billions of dollars in Ukraine aid since December 2022, when Democrats still controlled the chamber.

In the two years since Russia's invasion, opposition to aiding Ukraine has grown from a fringe position to a majority view among House GOP lawmakers. Many argue the money should be spent domestically or that policy changes at the US-Mexico border should take precedence.

The new infusion of aid comes at a make-or-break moment for Ukraine, which has faced ammo shortages and insufficient air defenses.

As a result of his move, Johnson could face a vote on his ouster in the coming weeks. The GOP speaker, however, has grown more willing to confront the threat from the right, and Democrats have suggested that they're willing to protect him from an ouster effort if he allowed a vote on Ukraine aid.

"If I operated out of fear of a motion to vacate, I would never be able to do my job," Johnson told reporters this week. "History judges us for what we do. This is a critical time right now."

This story will be updated with a list of House Republicans who voted against the bill when it becomes available via the House Clerk.

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