Author: openjargon

• A Tesla Cybertruck owner said his accelerator got stuck on full throttle while he was driving.
• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it's in touch with Tesla over the issue.
• The Cybertruck owner called it a "serious problem" but said he still likes the vehicle.

Federal regulators are looking into a potential safety issue with Tesla's Cybertruck after an owner of the vehicle said in a video that part of his accelerator pedal came loose while he was driving and jammed the accelerator into the full throttle position.

Jose Martinez, who is based in California, posted a video to TikTok on Sunday, saying he experienced a "serious problem" with his Cybertruck and describing what happened. In the video, he said he was driving a couple of days prior when what appeared to be a cover on the accelerator pedal slid forward, effectively wedging itself in a way in which it could not be released.

"It held the accelerator down 100%, at full throttle," he said. "I was lucky enough, had a clear mind, didn't panic. And holding the break down overrides the pedal, so I was able to stop the car. But anytime I'd lift the break it would start accelerating again."

"Somebody that panics, that could be pretty dangerous. Crazy," Martinez added.

The video quickly went viral, apparently attracting the attention of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

In a statement provided to Business Insider, the NHTSA said: "NHTSA is aware of this issue and is in contact with the manufacturer to gather additional information."

NHTSA looking into the issue was first reported by CNBC.

Martinez told BI he still likes his Cybertruck and thinks "it's a great car." He also said he was surprised to see his video get so much attention.

Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Since the first Cybertrucks started rolling out to customers in November, the distinctive vehicles have attracted celebrities and die-hard Tesla fans, but the vehicle's launch hasn't been without hiccups.

Cybertruck owners have raised concerns about other aspects of the car, from door panel gaps to rust spots to handprints. In one of the latest complaints, several owners said that shortly after their Cybertruck was delivered, it began beeping and flashing a red alert that said, "PULL OVER SAFELY Critical steering issue detected."

Still, some Cybertruck owners say they love the vehicle despite some issues.

"I think Tesla gets away with a lot of stuff because the driving experience is that good," Donald Green, a Cybertruck owner in Texas, previously told BI. "Once you start driving Tesla, you never go back."

Have a news tip? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@insider.com.

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• The White House released the tax returns of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
• Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, reported earning $619,976 in 2023.
• They paid $146,629 in federal income tax. Biden made $400,000 from his annual salary.

President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, reported earning $619,976 in adjusted gross income in 2023, according to their newly released tax returns.

The White House released the tax returns of the president and first lady late Monday afternoon, as well as returns for Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.

The vast majority of the Bidens' combined income — $400,000, to be exact— was attributed to President Biden's annual salary, as set by Congress under President Bill Clinton.

As for Jill Biden, she reported earning $85,985 in 2023 through her teaching role at Northern Virginia Community College. She appears to have received a raise: while teaching in 2022, she made $3,650 less. The First Lady also reported $4,155 in additional income from book royalties.

The rest of Biden's earnings came from taxable interest, pensions and annuities, Social Security benefits, and IRA distributions.

In total, the Bidens reported paying $146,629 in federal taxes.

Looking to Biden's second-in-command, Harris, she and her husband reported earning $450,299 and paying $89,071 in federal taxes.

As vice president and president of the Senate, Harris reported earning $218,784 on her return. Emhoff reported making $174,994 in 2023 as a distinguished fellow at Georgetown University's Institute for Technology Law and Policy.

The VP and second gentleman paid $15,167 in California income taxes, and Emhoff paid $11,599 in District of Columbia income taxes.

A tale of two presidents

Though the Biden Administration has uploaded copies of Biden and Harris' tax returns each year they've been in office, the previous president was not nearly as open with his finances.

During former President Donald Trump's presidency, he repeatedly said he wasn't allowed to release his own returns due to an ongoing IRS audit. The House Ways and Means Committee ultimately released several years of his in late 2022, showing Trump lost millions in 4 of the 6 years from 2015 to 2020.

In 2020, The New York Times notably reported that Trump only paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017.

Upon releasing their tax returns, the White House noted this, saying that the release of Biden's taxes reflected "his commitment to being transparent with the American people."

Meanwhile, his son, Hunter Biden, is facing charges of tax evasion. Prosecutors say the president's son avoided paying $1.4 million in taxes while maintaining a lavish lifestyle.

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• Live Nation is expected to be hit with an antitrust lawsuit as soon as next month, The WSJ reported.
• The anticipated suit follows a probe into the concert giant's handling of ticket and venue negotiations.
• Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, has long faced criticism over its ticket fees.

Score one for the Swifties.

The Justice Department could sue Live Nation, the concert giant that owns Ticketmaster, as soon as next month following a probe into its handling of venue and ticket negotiations, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

The company has long faced criticism over its stranglehold on the live event industry, high fees, and practices of forcing venues to sign exclusive long-term contracts, drawing ire from fans and artists alike.

The department is prepared to file the antitrust suit alleging Live Nation leveraged is dominance in the market to suppress competition, The Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Ticketmaster holds a whopping 80% of the market for event sales in the country's largest venues, holding exclusive contracts with multiple stadiums and arenas, per the outlet.

Violating antitrust laws can carry both criminal and civil penalties, with criminal penalties capped at 10 years of jail time and $100,000,000 per violation, according to the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.

Representatives for LiveNation and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

The investigation into the company gained steam following massive outrage from fans when the Ticketmaster website crashed during a presale of Taylor Swift's "Eras Tour" event in November 2022.

Swift released a statement shortly after the incident saying she was "pissed off" and described the outage as "excruciating," The New York Times reported at the time.

"It's really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse," The Times reported Swift said. "There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I'm trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward. I'm not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could."

Some Swifties took up the mantle against the company at the time, filing suit against the ticketing giant for violating antitrust laws and "intentionally and purposefully" misleading fans, Billboard reported — prompting a closer look from federal authorities.

The company has denied any wrongdoing.

"Ticketmaster has more competition today than it has ever had, and the deal terms with venues show it has nothing close to monopoly power," a Ticketmaster spokeswoman said in response to the news of the anticipated suit, per the Journal.

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• NASA's Perseverance Mars rover is collecting samples that could be evidence of ancient alien life.
• But NASA's Mars Sample Return mission to bring them to Earth will now cost $11 billion and take two decades.
• NASA is scrapping that plan now and asking companies for a better idea.

NASA bit off more than it could chew when it sent the Perseverance rover to Mars to collect samples.

The $2.4 billion mission landed the rover in Jezero Crater, the site of an ancient lake. It's the ideal spot to search for the fossils of Martian microbes that may have existed when the planet was lush with lakes and rivers.

Perseverance's main mission is to collect samples of the rock and sediment along the lake bed and the crater rim, in hopes of finding a sign that life once thrived on the red planet. The rover has done a fine job — so far it's secured 24 samples — but NASA no longer knows how it's going to bring them to Earth for analysis.

NASA's original design for the retrieval mission, called Mars Sample Return, has fallen apart. The agency is asking companies to step in and propose better ideas.

"We are looking at out-of-the-box possibilities that could return the samples earlier and at a lower cost," Nicola Fox, head of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in a press briefing on Monday. "This is definitely a very ambitious goal. We're going to need to go after some very innovative new possibilities for design, and certainly leave no stone unturned."

NASA's old plan costs $11 billion and takes too long

NASA's original proposal for the Mars Sample Return is "mind-bendingly complicated," David Parker, director of space exploration at the European Space Agency, said in 2021.

The idea was to launch two rockets toward Mars, one carrying a lander and one carrying an orbiter.

The lander would be the largest ever sent to Mars. It would touch down near the stash of samples that Perseverance set up, deploy a rover to fetch the sample tubes, and load them onto a small rocket attached to the lander.

Then the rocket would launch the samples into Mars orbit, where it would eject them toward the orbiter, which would be the largest spacecraft NASA ever sent to Mars.

The orbiter would have to grab the samples, journey back to Earth, and drop the sample vessel on a fiery plummet to our planet's surface, where a team would retrieve them.

The mission plan relied about $4 billion in new technology and a decade of mission design and construction.

But the projected cost has ballooned to $8 to $11 billion since Perseverance touched down at Jezero Crater. Independent reviews have also concluded that instead of one decade to bring the samples to Earth, it would take two.

"The bottom line is that $11 billion is too expensive, and not returning samples until 2040 is unacceptably too long," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in the briefing. "It's the decade of the 2040s that we're going to be landing astronauts on Mars."

At the current price tag, Mars Sample Return would "cannibalize" other NASA missions, Nelson said. So the agency is calling all hands on deck, inside and outside of NASA, to come up with a new plan.

NASA wants companies with 'tried-and-true' technology

Fox said that NASA needs to see short proposals from companies or laboratories by May 17. Then the agency will choose a few of those competitors to further develop their ideas over a 90-day period, with complete proposals on NASA's desk by late fall or early winter.

Some of NASA's most tried-and-true contractors include Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and SpaceX. Startups like Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines are getting their foot in the NASA door through the agency's new moon program.

"What we're hoping is that we will be able to get back to some more traditional tried-and-true architectures," Fox said. "Anything requiring huge leaps in technology usually, from experience, takes a lot of time."

As for the return trip from Mars to Earth, that will be a technological leap no matter what.

"We've never launched from another planet, and that's actually what makes Mars Sample Return such a challenging and interesting mission because it really is the first of a kind," Fox said.

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• YouTube tech reviewer Marques Brownlee gave a scathing review of Humane's new AI pin.
• One Humane staffer conceded the feedback was "honest" and "solid."
• Some X users said Brownlee's review would mark a death knell for the company.

Marques Brownlee, the massively influential YouTube tech reviewer whose channel moniker is MKBHD, delivered a scathing review of Humane's new AI Pin Monday, which he titled "The Worst Product I've Ever Reviewed… For Now."

While one Humane employee took the feedback in stride, the video sparked a firestorm on X, with one detractor calling it "almost unethical" for Brownlee to have posted the review given his vast influence and ability to dent an emerging company.

The Humane AI Pin — which Brownlee is hardly the first to critique — is a tiny wearable computer (priced at $700, plus a $24 monthly subscription) that straps to your shirt.

It's intended to complete daily tasks: answer questions, make calls, and take photos, for example. It can even project an interactive screen onto users' palms.

In his review, Brownlee applauded the build and craftsmanship of the device. He said he loved the concept of an AI assistant and respected the Humane team for attempting to create something new.

In practice, though, the device was slow and often returned the wrong answers, Brownlee said, with an inconsistent battery life and poor photo and video quality.

The YouTuber's review garnered strong reactions on X.

Sam Sheffer, Humane's head of new media, called Brownlee's review "honest" and "solid." He added that "feedback is a gift" and said the company would "continue building."

In another viral tweet, however, the user Daniel Vassallo called Brownlee's review "distasteful" and "almost unethical" given his huge following. "With great reach comes great responsibility," Vassallo wrote. "Potentially killing someone else's nascent project reeks of carelessness."

"We disagree on what my job is," Brownlee retorted.

Vassallo told Business Insider he wasn't defending Humane and actually thought the substance of Brownlee's review was "fair and balanced." His main issue was with the title of the video.

"The power to crush a company shouldn't be taken lightly, and that headline is what most people will see," Vassallo told BI.

Others concurred the review had the potential to dent Humane — though they didn't dispute Brownlee's right to post it.

"MKBHD bankrupted a company in 41 seconds," wrote the user Alex Finn. "This clip will be the gravestone for Humane."

Alex Kehr called the review "devastating for the future of Humane," adding, "The most trusted tech reviewer saying it's the worst product he's ever reviewed is going to eviscerate sales."

Neither Brownlee nor Humane immediately responded to requests for comment from BI.

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• Iran appeared to target Israel's Nevatim Airbase with over 350 drones and missiles on Sunday.
• Nevatim houses Israel's F-35I "Adir" stealth fighter jets produced by US company Lockheed-Martin.
• The planes downed a cruise missile in November and aided defenses against Iranian missiles, the IDF said.

Early Sunday morning, Iran fired hundreds of drones, missiles, and rockets at Israel in a retaliatory attack following Israel's strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria.

With military assistance from allies including the US, the UK, Jordan, and France, Israel successfully intercepted around 99% of the incoming projectiles, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The missiles appeared to target Israel's Nevatim Airbase in the Negev desert, which houses its fleet of F-35I stealth fighter jets. The Israeli variant of the US-made Lockheed Martin Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter plane is known as "Adir," meaning "Mighty One" in Hebrew.

Here's a look at the powerful military aircraft.

F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter jets produced by Lockheed Martin are some of the most advanced military aircraft in the world.

The F-35 stores its weapons and fuel internally, and its aligned edges and radar-absorbent coating also help the aircraft evade detection. The planes cost $44,000 per hour to fly, The National Interest reported in January.

They feature advanced stealth and information-processing capabilities and can reach supersonic speeds of Mach 1.6, or 548.8 meters per second.

Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn A. Hewson said in 2018 that the planes "can fly in what we call 'beast mode,' carrying up to 18,000 pounds of internal and external ordnance, in a mix that can include 5,000-pound-class weapons."

In 2016, Israel became the first country other than the US to acquire F-35 fighter jets.

Israel was the first country to select the model through the US Foreign Military Sales process and bought 50 planes, according to Lockheed Martin.

Israel has made significant modifications to the jets.

Israel manufactures its own wings and electronic warfare system for the F-35I. It also developed its own version of the high-tech helmet that displays the plane's airspeed, altitude, targeting information, and other crucial stats directly on the pilot's visor.

The Israeli Air Force named its F-35I variant "Adir," meaning "Mighty One" in Hebrew.

The Israeli Air Force also added a six-pointed Star of David to the design, a Jewish symbol that also appears on the Israeli flag.

In 2018, Israel became the first country to use the F-35I in combat, its air force chief said.

"We are flying the F-35 all over the Middle East and have already attacked twice on two different fronts," then-Israeli Air Force chief Major-General Amikam Norkin said in a speech at a gathering of foreign air force leaders, Reuters reported.

In July 2023, Israel acquired an additional 25 Adir planes in a $3 billion deal.

The deal was financed through the military aid Israel receives from the US, Reuters reported.

In November 2023, Israel's F-35I Adir fighter jets took down a missile fired by an Iran-backed group in Yemen, according to the IDF.

It was the first known intercept of a cruise missile by an F-35 plane.

The Israeli Air Force released footage of the encounter on X, writing in Hebrew that its personnel are "preoccupied at every moment with planning and managing the defense response and are prepared for any threat in any area."

Iran appeared to target the Nevatim air base, which houses Israel's fleet of F-35I jets, during an unprecedented attack on Sunday morning.

Out of the over 350 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and UAVs, or unmanned aerial vehicles, launched at Israel by Iran and its proxies in Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon, around 99% were intercepted by Israel and its allies. The IDF released photos showing minor damage near a runway at the Nevatim Airbase and to a road in Hermon caused by the few projectiles that landed.

The Nevatim Airbase remained operational throughout the attack, with the Adir fighter jets aiding the defensive mission.

The Nevatim base sustained minor damage but remained operational throughout the attack, IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a statement.

"Iran thought it would be able to paralyze the base and thus damage our air capabilities, but it failed," Hagari said.

The ongoing war in Gaza has prompted new scrutiny of US military aid to Israel.

The October 7 terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas killed around 1,200 Israelis and captured over 240. Around 129 hostages remain in Gaza, though it is unknown how many are still alive.

Israel's counteroffensive airstrikes and military actions in Gaza have resulted in over 33,000 Palestinian fatalities, including around 14,500 children, according to figures provided to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza. The IDF reports that 13,000 of these fatalities were Hamas militants.

According to the UNRWA, over 1.7 million Gazans have been displaced and 1.1 million are at risk of "catastrophic levels of food insecurity."

The devastating human toll of the war in Gaza with US-funded planes like the F-35I has prompted new scrutiny of US aid to Israel, with some lawmakers in Congress raising the possibility of conditioning military and economic aid.

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• A key former Facebook exec has reignited discussion of Oculus founder Palmer Luckey's 2016 firing.
• Former Oculus CTO and ex-Meta VR exec John Carmack said on X that he regrets not defending Luckey.
• The posts caused Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth and Luckey himself to weigh in on the discussion.

John Carmack, a key player in Meta's venture into virtual reality, is coming to the defense of Oculus founder Palmer Luckey — about eight years after the tech giant fired him amid scrutiny surrounding Luckey's political donations in 2016.

And Carmack's comments then sparked some seemingly defensive responses from Facebook owner Meta's current CTO and then from Luckey himself.

In a series of X posts on Saturday, Carmack expressed his regret about "not doing more to support and defend" Luckey, who was ousted from Facebook in 2016 after the company received backlash over his donations to an anti-Hillary Clinton political group.

"We were in different states and divisions, and I was largely out of the political loop, but when I became aware of the situation I should have made a clear and open statement of opposition to the witch hunt," Carmack wrote.

According to Carmack, things could've gone differently if Luckey had a "unified front of Oculus founders behind him." Carmack and Luckey joined Facebook after it acquired Oculus, the VR company founded by Luckey in 2012, for $2 billion in 2014.

Although he conceded that he couldn't confirm that the firing had anything to do with Luckey's political ties, Carmack cited "hysterical internal employee pressure" as the reason he believed it happened, and said that "politics were openly present" at Facebook.

Luckey's ouster happened in 2016, the year of the Hillary Clinton-Donald Trump presidential election. He had hit headlines for donating $10,000 to an anti-Clinton political group, stoking anger among some members of the tech community during the heated election.

Upon his exit, Luckey negotiated a payout of at least $100 million from the company, according to The Wall Street Journal. He and his lawyer reportedly argued that Meta violated a California law by firing Luckey. Since then, he's gone on to work on defense startup Anduril, which he founded in 2017.

The comments from Carmack — who left his position at Meta in 2022 and who has been openly critical of its VR efforts — then caught the attention of current Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth, who first joined the company during its early days nearly 20 years ago.

"The culture has changed a lot since you left (internal discussions have to be work focused)," Bosworth replied on X. He went on to say that he had "absolutely no idea" about Palmer's politics now or then but "defended him publicly inside the company when people were agitating around them."

But that appeared to draw the attention — and ire — of Luckey himself.

"Great story to tell now that I have dragged myself back to relevance, but you aren't credible," he replied to Bosworth.

"You publicly told everyone my departure had nothing to do with politics, which is absolutely insane and obviously contradicted by reams of internal communications. It is like saying the sky is green."

"Don't try to play the apolitical hero here," Luckey said to Bosworth.

"Not claiming to be apolitical," Bosworth replied. "I certainly have my own politics probably different than yours, but internally at the time I certainly was clear I thought no employment consequences should come from someone's political beliefs." Meta previously told WSJ that Palmer's departure was "unequivocally" not due to his political views.

But Luckey, who Forbes has declared a billionaire, wasn't soothed by that.

"I am down to throw it all out there. We can make everything public and let people judge for themselves. Just say the word," he replied on X.

"I'm not the one with anything to lose so I don't think that's my call to make," responded Bosworth.

Watch this space.

Business Insider reached out to representatives of Bosworth, Carmack, and Luckey but didn't receive an immediate response.

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• Hyatt is expanding one of its family-friendly all-inclusive resorts with an adults-only section.
• The expanded property is set to use modular, tiny home-sized units as hotel rooms.
• The 52 units are scheduled to open in June at Hyatt's Dreams Curaçao resort in the Caribbean.

Tiny homes have been popping up everywhere, from backyards in California to entire neighborhoods in Florida.

Soon, they'll be dropped onto the sunny and sandy beaches of tourist-beloved Curaçao in the Caribbean — not as housing, but as hotel rooms.

Hyatt is expanding its all-inclusive Dreams resort on the Caribbean island. But instead of building another typical highrise hotel, the hospitality giant is taking a page out of the glamping resort playbook with plans to deploy 52 tiny home-sized modular units as hotel rooms, set to open in June.

Hyatt operates about 30 Dreams properties throughout Europe and North and South America.

All of the Dreams properties are all-inclusive and family-friendly.

But not for long: The Curaçao property's upcoming 52 units are set to be located in a new adult-only section called Il Mare.

Travelers have been scrambling to book all-inclusive resorts. Hyatt has been taking notes.

In late February, the hotel giant reported an 11% surge in bookings for Apple Leisure Group's all-inclusive resorts in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same time last year. Hyatt acquired Apple Leisure Group and its properties — which includes Zoëtry, another resort in Curaçao — in late 2021.

To meet this demand, Hyatt launched its 10th all-inclusive brand, Hyatt Vivid, in April with an adult-only resort in Cancún, Mexico.

Two months after Vivid’s launch, the hotel giant says it’ll begin welcoming adults to the new Il Mare section of its all-inclusive Dreams Curaçao resort.

Compared to traditional hotel rooms, these futuristic units provide travelers extra privacy.

No more shared walls. And no more opening a hotel room door to a hallway shared with other guests: The upcoming tiny home-like modular units would instead open onto the beach.

The property’s traditional accommodations range from 350 square feet to 715 square feet.

The beachfront fiberglass dwellings would fall on the smaller end at either 377 square feet or 436 square feet, depending on the room category.

Both sizes would still be able to fit a king bed, a dual vanity bathroom, and a furnished terrace for guests to soak in the beach views.

The adult-only expansion is also set to outfit the resort with an additional infinity pool, bar, and Mediterranean restaurant, all exclusive to guests who’ve booked the modular dwellings.

Travelers would still have access to the rest of Dreams' family-friendly resort, which includes three complimentary eateries, three à la carte restaurants, three pools, four bars, and activities like tennis and kayaks.

Hyatt already has a stronghold on the island: Its all-inclusive Sunscape and Zoëtry brands also have resorts on Curaçao.

On the first weekend of September, rates for one night and two guests at Zoëtry Curaçao — a 10-minute walk from Dreams — come in at about $580. A 20-minute drive away, Sunscape hovers close to $290.

Dreams' traditional hotel rooms fall in the middle at about $350 for the same night and party size. However, its upcoming oceanfront modular cabins would start at more than $1,060, according to a recent search of its website.

(Competitor Hilton also has two all-inclusive waterfront properties in Curaçao starting at $430 for the same weekend.)

The 52 tiny homes would mark Hyatt’s first deployment of modular units at an all-inclusive resort.

But it's not a new concept.

Startups like European Nokken and New York-based Moliving sell high-end modular "tiny home" hotel rooms. The latter plans to launch its own modular resort about two hours outside New York City.

The property, known as Hurley House, is slated to open this year, although it's already been delayed by two years.

But for the most part, hotel giants like Hyatt, Hilton, and Marriott have yet to cash in on the factory-made, tiny dwelling boom.

Dreams Curaçao's modular expansion could be a litmus test of how well these unique dwellings perform on the mainstream, all-inclusive stage. Who knows, maybe tiny homes could become the hottest beachfront vacation accommodation someday.

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• Successful people across industries are known for waking up early.
• They also practice other healthy habits like exercise and meditation.
• Apple CEO Tim Cook wakes up between 4 and 5 a.m. and starts his day by answering emails.

There are two types of people in the world: those who welcome the morning sunshine and those who try to snooze it into oblivion.

People like Issa Rae and Tim Cook belong to the former category, crafting tailored morning routines that begin while their peers are still dreaming.

Some of the benefits of waking up early include higher levels of energy and mental clarity, a higher likeliness to succeed, and, for women, a decreased risk of developing mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, Business Insider reported in 2019.

But the most successful people's healthy habits don't stop with their early alarms; some common recurring themes in their routines include meditation and regular exercise, both of which are beneficial to the mind and body.

"Research has found that meditation can reduce stress and anxiety, improve focus and concentration, and increase feelings of calm and relaxation," wrote Business Insider's Rebecca Cairns.

Of course, there's no one-size-fits-all method to hacking a perfect morning routine — especially with specific career demands, commute times, childcare needs, etc. — but if you're looking for a little motivation to make a change, here are 15 successful early risers you can draw inspiration from.

Apple CEO Tim Cook wakes up between 4 and 5 a.m. to read emails from customers.

Cook was featured as a guest on a 2023 episode of the podcast "Dua Lipa: At Your Service," and he revealed he likes to wake up between 4 and 5 a.m. to respond to emails.

"I read emails from a lot of customers and employees, and the customers are telling me things that they love about us or things that they want changed about us. Employees are giving me ideas. But it's a way to stay grounded in terms of what the community is feeling, and I love it," he said.

The rest of his morning involves strength training, getting ready for work, coffee, and a light breakfast.

Issa Rae wakes up at 4 a.m. to work out.

"Insecure" creator, "Barbie" president, and Sienna Naturals cofounder Issa Rae has a lot on her plate.

In a 2024 interview with Glamour, Rae was asked about her favorite way to take a moment for herself. "It's in the early morning," she said. "Honestly, I get up at four and that is my workout time."

"And then literally after that time, I sit with coffee and a journal and just sit with my thoughts," Rae added.

Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel gets up around 5 a.m. for "Evan Time."

The 33-year-old described his motivation for waking up early in an interview that appeared in Entrepreneur's Handbook in 2018.

"I get up really early, because that's the only time that's 'Evan Time' for me, when people aren't really awake yet. I get a couple hours between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. to do whatever I wanna do," he said.

Snap told Business Insider in 2024 that after Spiegel wakes up, he takes 30 minutes to check the app and his email and drink a double espresso. After that, he'll do a 45-minute workout at the gym or do Kriya meditation before showering, reading the news, and having breakfast with his family around 7 a.m.

Spiegel shares three kids with wife Miranda Kerr and helps co-parent Kerr's child from her previous marriage to Orlando Bloom.

Multi-hyphenate Shonda Rhimes wakes up at 5:30 a.m. to start writing.

The mind behind hit series like "Grey's Anatomy," "Scandal," and "Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story" collaborated with MasterClass in 2016 to teach writing for television.

In episode 11, "Writing a Script: Effective Habits," Rhimes said, "I used to think that there was like a special magic golden hour in which I wrote better than any other time. But that keeps changing, so I no longer think that's true."

At the time, she said her schedule involved waking up at 5 a.m. to get a lot of writing done, then focusing on writing again in the office around the middle of the day.

Despite her early wake-up time, Rhimes is an advocate for work-life balance, telling Fast Company in 2017, "I do not answer phone calls or emails after 7 p.m. I do not work on weekends … I mean, I write. I just don't answer phone calls or emails."

Tennis star and new mom Naomi Osaka wakes up between 5 and 7 a.m.

In a February 2024 interview with The Cut, Osaka said, "I wake anywhere between 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. depending on the day. I try to start with a five-minute meditation, if I can squeeze it in with the baby."

The four-time Grand Slam singles champion welcomed her first child, a daughter named Shai, with her partner Cordae in 2023.

Michael B. Jordan told Vanity Fair he wakes up naturally at 5 a.m.

"I hit the snooze button all the time. My body is a natural alarm clock. Whether I like it or not, I get up around 5 o'clock in the morning but then I go back to sleep depending on what I have to do; it's like a second sleep, it's like a really really good sleep," Jordan said in a 2018 episode of the Vanity Fair series "In a Day."

When he's actually ready to get up, Jordan said he gets out of bed on the right foot — literally. He always ensures his right foot is the first to touch the ground.

Then, he'll meditate while he showers, have breakfast, and work out.

Mark Wahlberg follows an intense morning routine that starts at 3:30 a.m.

In October 2023, Wahlberg told Today.com he wakes up at 3:30 a.m. to work out. Later, it takes him multiple trips upstairs to convince his kids to get out of bed.

"I've been going like, 3:30 wake up, 4 o'clock in the gym, kind of finish that, get my reading and my prayer time done, and then start the process of waking them up, which usually ends up taking — I'm up and down the stairs at least three times to get the teenagers up and I get them off to school, and then I usually start the rest of my day," he said.

He has four children with his wife, Rhea Durham: Grace, 14, Brendan, 15, Michael, 18, and Ella, 20.

Pinterest's CMO Andréa Mallard wakes up at 5 a.m. to work out and meditate.

In 2022, the Pinterest CMO told Business Insider's Robin Madell that she goes to bed at 9 p.m. so she can start her days at 5 a.m.

Her morning routine consists of 45 minutes of intense cardio, then listening to a five-minute meditation while in the shower. Mallard then makes a breakfast smoothie, which she drinks around 6:30 a.m. while preparing for her workday.

This includes checking emails and reviewing and taking notes on pre-read materials, giving her at least two hours of uninterrupted work before she pauses to help get her three kids ready for school at 8 a.m.

"I'm definitely at my most creative or innovative in the very early morning hours, well before anyone wakes up. If a work challenge needs lateral thinking or requires serious creative muscle or a tough decision, it's the first thing I'll tackle in the morning," she said, as reported by Madell.

Disney CEO Bob Iger wakes up at 4:15 a.m. to enjoy some quiet time.

In his MasterClass on business strategy and leadership, the Disney CEO revealed his methods for using his time effectively.

"I happen to believe that in every day you need to have some quiet time to think, where you're not really being bombarded by external forces," Iger said.

Part of his quiet time comes from working out, which he does after waking up at 4:15 a.m., Business Insider reported in 2018.

"The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is work out. And I work out in solitude, typically in a darkened room, listening to music," he told his MasterClass.

"It's my most creative time in many ways. I also make sure that I don't look at any email before I work out. Because if I do so, that tends to distract me and, at times, can be really mood changing in nature. And I need that time to be kind of cleansed of too many external forces or influences so that I can really have clarity of thought," Iger added.

He said he usually arrives at the office between 6:30 and 6:45 a.m., which gives him time to ease into the day.

Emmy-winning comedian, actor, and screenwriter Quinta Brunson usually wakes up at 5 a.m.

In a 2023 episode of Elle magazine's series "Waking Up With…," "Abbott Elementary" creator and star Quinta Brunson shared that although she was waking up at 8 a.m. for the video, she wakes up at 5 a.m. a lot.

The first thing she does in the morning is wash her face with water, a washcloth, and makeup remover wipes before moving on to skincare products.

Nike CEO John Donahoe, who wakes up at 5:45 a.m., trains four mornings a week.

A self-described "creature of habit," the Nike CEO told The Wall Street Journal in 2021 that he wakes up every weekday morning at 5:45 a.m.

"The first thing I do is drink 33 ounces of water and two cups of coffee, and then I stretch using the Hyperice Hypervolt. I meditate for 10 minutes and then I have a Nike personal trainer — his name's JC Cook. I work out from 7 to 8, four mornings a week with him," Donahoe said.

To keep up with the early wake-up time, he said he tries to get "seven-plus" hours of sleep per night. "Sometimes that's unrealistic, so I target getting 70 hours every 10 days," he said.

Gymshark founder and CEO Ben Francis wakes up between 5:30 and 5:45 a.m. every day.

In a 2022 interview with Business Insider's Kiera Fields, Francis said he likes to simplify his mornings by doing the same thing every day.

This includes waking up between 5:30 and 5:45 a.m., much to the dismay of his wife, he said.

He starts his mornings with breakfast and time with his dogs before getting ready and heading to the office, where he works five days a week.

Olabisi Boyle, the senior vice president of product planning and mobility strategy at Hyundai Motor North America, wakes up at 5 a.m.

"I start work between 7:15 and 7:30 a.m. but wake up at 5 a.m. to give myself time to breathe," said Boyle in an interview with Business Insider's Lola Christine Alao in 2023.

Boyle said she likes to start her mornings by checking on yearlong goals and progress. "Everything I do ties into these initiatives, so it's important to start my mornings by breaking down what needs to be done in order to achieve our goals," she said.

Anna Wintour, Vogue editor in chief and global chief content officer of Condé Nast, starts her days between 4 and 5 a.m. to read the news.

The media legend gave a MasterClass on creativity and leadership in 2019, telling viewers in episode two, "Getting the Work Done: Anna's Management Tips," that she has "a pretty consistent structure" for her day.

"I wake up early, between 4 and 5:30 a.m. I read both the British and American papers online, so I know what's happening. I often play tennis. I eat breakfast consisting of Starbucks," she said.

Her motivation for waking early is to get ahead of the day's tasks before they "creep up on you," she said, MasterClass wrote.

Bumble founder and former CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd's schedule can require waking up at 5:15 a.m.

"Most of my days are unpredictable and start at different times, so I try my best to keep up with a stable morning routine. I sleep with the drapes open to rise with the sun," Wolfe Herd told Entrepreneur in 2017. "I think that's a healthy thing to do because even if you don't like to wake up early, your body does adjust," she added.

Wolfe Herd gave The New York Times a glimpse into her "unpredictable" days in 2019. Throughout the week, her mornings included everything from a 5:30 a.m. call with her London-based Bumble founding partner Andrey Andreev to homemade celery juice and Chinese takeout for breakfast and a monthly directors' meeting.

After becoming a mother to two boys, Wolfe Herd told Time magazine in 2023 that she likes to operate one hour at a time.

"I try to do the drive to preschool with no calls so I can pay attention to him," she said of her oldest son, Bobby. "And then the minute I drop him off, literally as I'm giving him a hug out the door, I have to dial into something. But I've structured it so that that call on the way home is totally sequenced perfectly to get back to my computer to then pick up another two things on Zoom."

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• The days of rapid tank and infantry advances deep into an enemy's territory may be over.
• The US Army must be prepared more for fights that resemble WWI, an Army veteran argues.
• Any advancing force must move with a defensive bubble against enemy firepower, he argued.

Modern weapons have become so accurate and lethal that soon armies will not be able to maneuver rapidly on the battlefield.

Instead, they will trudge forward under the protection of defensive "bubbles" designed to stop drones and missiles. According to this vision, swift battlefield maneuvers will be replaced by grinding wars of attrition where victory goes to the side that has the most firepower as well as the most resources to replace losses.

It's a grim vision of warfare that has more in common with the slaughter of the First World War than the mechanized blitzkriegs of World War II and Desert Storm, where infantry and armor backed by airpower seized vast territory. But it's a future the West must prepare for, warns Alex Vershinin, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel, in an essay for Britain's Royal United Services Institute think tank.

The Ukraine war has demonstrated that — at least for now — firepower dominates maneuver. Russian and Ukrainian have painfully learned that with surveillance and attack drones constantly overhead, emerging from cover is dangerous and slow. Long-range guided missiles and shells can decimate armored columns that dare to thrust through minefields and layered defenses covered by artillery and airpower. Instead of sweeping offensives, the Ukraine war has become a largely static conflict where immense preparations are made for attacks that might gain an obscure village or a few square miles of territory before the attacker halts to dig in and regroup.

"It is easier to mass fires than forces," Vershinin said in the RUSI analysis. "Deep maneuver, which requires the massing of combat power, is no longer possible because any massed force will be destroyed by indirect fires before it can achieve success in depth. Instead, a ground offensive requires a tight protective bubble to ward off enemy strike systems."

"Shallow attacks along the forward line of troops are most likely to be successful at an acceptable cost ratio; attempts at deep penetration will be exposed to massed fires the moment they exit the protection of the defensive bubble," said Vershinin.

This moving shield would consist of layers of defense systems, including air defense against drones and missiles, as well as electronic warfare to jam those drones and missiles by flooding their control frequencies with electronic noise. But this protection comes at the cost of rapid maneuver. That bubble must be carefully set up to provide interlocking coverage against multiple types of threats, and move in lockstep with the column.

"Moving numerous interdependent systems is highly complicated and unlikely to be successful," Vershinin said.

Coordinating all these different weapons and jammers also requires skilled staff work that even advanced armies may lack. "Integration of these overlapping assets requires centralized planning and exceptionally well-trained staff officers, capable of integrating multiple capabilities on the fly," said Vershinin. "It takes years to train such officers, and even combat experience does not generate such skills in a short time."

As an example, Vershinin cites a hypothetical advance by a platoon of 30 soldiers. This would require multiple jammers to disrupt enemy drones, guided rockets, and communication systems. Engineers will have to clear a path through any minefields, and the infantry will have to coordinate with friendly artillery and drones. Failure to do this could be catastrophic: Russia is now firing 10,000 artillery shells per day, and this year it has already dropped 3,500 big GPS-guided glide bombs that have devastated Ukrainian positions.

"All these systems need to work as an integrated team just to support 30 men in several vehicles attacking another 30 men or less," Vershinin said. The preparations needed for a brigade- or division-sized attack — the kind that are needed to achieve decisive victories on the battlefield — can only be imagined.

All of this raises a deeper problem, especially for the West. Without maneuver, war becomes a battle of attrition, like the First World War, or siege warfare as with the Union and Confederate armies in front of Richmond in 1864. These kinds of wars are fought over years and cause slaughter on a massive scale.

"The West is not prepared for this kind of war," Vershinin said. "To most Western experts, attritional strategy is counterintuitive. Historically, the West preferred the short 'winner takes all' clash of professional armies."

To some extent, all wars are attritional: what ultimately destroyed the Third Reich wasn't a few defeats like Stalingrad and Normandy, but the cumulative losses from six years of relentless fighting. However, sustaining a war of attrition requires an emphasis on production, mobilizing resources for the long haul, and the ability to continuously replace losses. Victory goes to the side that can wear down the enemy while maintaining its own strength.

"The military conduct of war is driven by overall political strategic objectives, military realities and economic limitations," said Vershinin. "Combat operations are shallow and focus on destroying enemy resources, not on gaining terrain."

One question is whether the Western public will tolerate this mode of warfare. Vladimir Putin and his generals may not lose any sleep over suffering nearly 500,000 casualties in two years. But the average American or European may feel differently.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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