Author: openjargon

• Walmart primarily focuses on delivering ultra-low prices, which sometimes means lower quality.
• However, the retailer plans to stock more premium items to attract wealthier shoppers.
• I visited Walmart to see which fancy brands and products it already carries.

There's a reason "Save money" comes before "Live better" in Walmart's well-worn motto.

The Bentonville-based retail giant's primary focus since day one has been to drive down costs and offer rock-bottom prices. Before 2007, its motto was "Always low prices."

The strategy has served it well, even if there are sometimes necessary compromises regarding product quality.

But in recent years, the company has taken steps to shake the characterization of cheapness in favor of value, part of a larger push to attract higher-income shoppers with the sort of products and brands you'd see at Target or Whole Foods.

And now, with the announcement this week of its upscale Bettergoods private label grocery brand, Walmart is leaning more into the second half of its slogan.

Before the new products hit shelves, I visited my local Supercenter to see what premium items the retailer already carries.

Organic produce

Walmart is the biggest grocery retailer in the US, and the category represents 60% of the company's sales. Not only do they carry a full selection of produce, a lot of it is certified organic.

Naked juices

Naked juices can be found at many different stores, but wherever you find them, they aren't cheap. The per-ounce price is almost twice that of regular Tropicana orange juice.

Huge take-and-bake pizzas

Some of Walmart's in-house brands are pretty eye-catching, like these extra large take-and-bake pizzas that have a pound of high-quality toppings.

Rana pastas

There have been stretches where my household will go through a pack or two of Rana a week. The freshness of the pasta enhances an otherwise basic dinner.

Lobster tails

Sam's Choice brand is another private label offering from Walmart, which ranks on par with Costco's popular Kirkland Signature brand.

Cornish hens

Any bird that's not a regular chicken or turkey counts as fancy in my book, since it likely requires some special preparation to get right.

Tazo, Kencko, and boba tea drinks

I haven't tried any of these drinks, but Tazo teas are usually a hit, and the others look appealing.

Newman's Own salad dressing

Opinions may vary on whether Newman's Own counts as "fancy," but the products have a long-standing and well-earned reputation for quality.

Rao's pasta sauces

Next to the Newman's Own pasta sauces are a broad selection of Rao's, which sell like mad at Costco. Rao's recipes are based on one of New York's most beloved restaurants. The sauce brand was acquired by Campbell's last year.

Boom Chicka Pop snacks

After rebranding from Angie's Kettle Corn, Boom Chicka Pop has exploded in popularity in the healthy snack category.

Spindrift, Waterloo, and Bubly seltzers

There was a time when La Croix was the only sparkling water brand with interesting flavors. Now, a variety of brands have entered the market.

A plethora of water enhancers

Water enhancers are another fast-growing product category, and Liquid IV is a popular one also sold at Costco and Target.

Organic kids' drinks

Health-conscious parents on-the-go can also find organic juice and milk in single-serving portions.

A wall of olive oils

I didn't take the time to inspect each offering on the wall of oil, but there was a surprising amount of variety where I would have expected to see maybe two or three choices.

Ben & Jerry's and Van Leeuwen ice creams

Yes, there are fancier ice creams than Ben & Jerry's, but they still rank as premium in my book. As for Van Leeuwen, the brand occasionally makes news for creating really odd flavors, like Ranch, that are sold exclusively at Walmart.

Impossible and Beyond plant-based meats

Meatless Mondays are within reach with plenty of plant-based protein options in the frozen section.

Kerrygold and other premium butters

Like olive oil, a store's butter selection is a chance to shine, and once again, I was surprised to see four upscale butter brands next to the more conventional offerings.

Nutpods and Chobani coffee creamers

Nutpods started as a home-based business before winning Amazon's small business of the year award. The plant-based coffee creamer is now in a wide range of grocery stores across the US.

Chobani and Noosa yogurts

There were several upscale yogurt options, including Chobani and Noosa.

Gerber kid's clothes

As a parent of toddlers, I'd say Walmart does quite well when it comes to children's clothing. This offering from Gerber is made from a special viscose fiber, and Garanimals clothes hold up remarkably well to playground use.

Honest infant supplies

Jessica Alba's Honest makes a point to keep unnecessary chemicals out of its health and beauty products.

A 70-inch 4K TV

Walmart sells a lot of TVs, especially from its in-house tech brand Onn. As flat panel screens become increasingly similar, a 70-inch smart TV for less than $400 stands out.

Rtic coolers

Rtic is right up there with Yeti in the ultra-rugged cooler department. In other words, this is about as cold and tough as it gets.

Quip toothbrushes

From launching as a direct-to-consumer startup almost a decade ago, Quip is now offering its clever toothbrushes at major retailers like Walmart and Target.

Olly vitamins

These fancy gummy vitamins always catch my eye at Target.

Bare Republic mineral sunscreen

Mineral sunscreen for $14 seems straight out of Whole Foods.

Coming soon: Bettergoods

Of course, the big grocery news this week is the Bettergoods brand, which takes a few cues from competitors like Whole Foods, Trader Joes, and Target. Walmart says it has over 300 items arriving this year, with most costing less than $5.

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• Davis Clarke, a risk management advisor at Citizens, has gained quite a following on social media.
• His motivational videos are all about bringing positivity to the everyday routines of office life.
• Clarke says his whole message is about sharing his enthusiasm and uplifting people doing unglamorous, hard work.

You don't have to look far on social media to find people who are sick and tired of their office jobs.

But one office worker has gained a following for his unabashedly upbeat and positive content. And his videos aren't anything crazy — they're all about his daily commute, quarterly meetings, spreadsheet certification, and the other mundanities of the 9-to-5 workday.

Davis Clarke, who works at Citizens Bank in Boston, has become something of a social media sensation with his Instagram videos, amassing 700,000 followers over the last few months. His content is overflowing with motivational content, to the point of corniness or even cringe-worthiness.

But Clarke says he's not focused on trying to build his audience.

"I'm not an influencer," he insisted to Business Insider, who met up with Clarke on one of his lunch breaks. If his message of unfailing, everyday positivity resonates with people, it's because they can probably relate to his unremarkable routine.

In one video, he's walking through downtown on a Monday morning, ready to start "hammering spreadsheets and chugging waters." In another, he's in the office on a Friday. "The heavy hitters of America are about to be shaking in their boots," he tells the camera, "seeing that the young people are actually motivated to work."

"Everyone now has to study, they have to work," he told BI. "And so I'm just going in and saying, 'Hey, it's gonna be a good day.'"

In just a few months, the 27-year-old risk management advisor has found himself getting recognized offline. While meeting with BI in Boston, Clarke was approached by several people walking by, including a college student, an Amazon tech worker, and a middle-aged lawyer, who all asked for selfies.

"It's just inspiring. That's it," Ryker Puls, the Amazon employee on vacation from Seattle, said of Clarke's content.

Invariably, Clarke will ask his fans about their day, where they work, and maybe even the name of their dog. After a few minutes of conversation, he'll often urge them to "stay locked in" or "get fired up."

Tom Ranucci, an IT worker and food blogger, met Clarke at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He described Clarke was "full of energy," someone excited to meet anyone and everyone and chat about anything and everything.

"He's the exact same person" in real life, Ranucci told BI.

The two stayed in touch after college thanks in part to their shared interest in running (Clarke's explosive finish at the Boston Marathon last month went viral). Ranucci never expected his friend's social media following to skyrocket the way it did earlier this year — though he wasn't surprised that the message found an audience.

"In my mind, it was only a matter of time," he said.

For his part, Clarke never expected to become a phenomenon. Besides a barely-used Facebook account, his digital footprint was almost nonexistent until a class project his freshman year of college. The assignment? Build a social media account and use it to show the world the values he cared about.

"When I first set out, I truly just wanted to get people confident and fired up to go after their goals. I try to stay true to that vision," he said.

He isn't under any illusions about the nature of his content. Clarke knows there are people out there doing "way more" interesting things than his daily routine.

"I think just showing normal life, and the good side of it, is what gets people going," he said. "And it's interesting because so many people out there are working hard, doing all these same things every day."

His positive outlook doesn't mean everybody loves his content. Some doubt that he, or anyone, can seemingly always be so genuinely enthusiastic. Other commenters just think it's repetitive or annoying.

But Clarke says he's not worried about the hate — and, if anything, he's glad that it's getting more people to engage with his content.

"It just gives me a chance to say, 'Hey, we're going to try to take someone who's negative and make them pause. Let's show them what we're doing, show them why we're doing what we're doing.' Just try to earn their respect."

He added that he thinks some of the comments are good-natured trash talk, rather than people being "genuinely mean."

"Some people say the comments are like a community of their own, so maybe that's good," he said. "People will be creative, they'll come up with funny things like they'll be like 'bad day to be a spreadsheet,' 'bad day to be a whatever.' I don't think I ever came up with that at all. "

Ranucci said he "certainly" thinks that Clarke's content gets people to approach their boring, everyday routine differently, "just because how infectious his energy is."

"It's contagious," he told BI. "It's like a laugh."

"People see that and, you know, it's hard to not to join right in, and take that same love and passion into what they're doing" in their own lives, he added.

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• Some Americans are choosing to retire abroad because of healthcare costs and divisive politics.
• Many of them are moving to Italy, where the cost of living is more affordable.
• They like Italy's dedication to a work-life balance, especially compared to American hustle culture.

Eric and Christina Schwendeman's relationship got serious the day he brought up retirement.

"I have a long-term plan," Eric, 53, recalled telling his now-wife nearly two decades ago. "I want to work as hard as possible and retire to Italy as young as I possibly can."

At the time, the couple lived in Naples, Florida, which is more than 5,000 miles and a 13-hour long-haul flight from Italy.

"He was like, 'That's my goal. If you're on board for that, then let's do this,'" Christina, 40, said.

The Schwendemans began planning for their life outside the United States about 17 years ago, but an increasing number of Americans these days are following their example.

The US State Department estimated that 9 million American citizens lived abroad in 2020, which is a jump from 5 million in 2010.

The US is no longer a desirable place to retire

There used to be a seemingly clear-cut path to retirement in the United States.

People worked until 65, then left the workforce with the help of Social Security and personal savings. That began shifting in the 1980s when Americans gravitated toward defined-contribution plans — like 401(k)s — instead of defined-benefit plans like pensions. This has shifted more responsibility onto employees to determine how much to invest and save.

"Put simply, the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution has been, for most people, a shift from financial certainty to financial uncertainty," BlackRock CEO Larry Fink wrote in a 2024 letter to investors.

Millions of baby boomers now struggle to cover their cost of living.

An AARP survey in April found that one in five Americans who are 50 or older have no retirement savings, and more than half of respondents were concerned they wouldn't have enough to support themselves if they retired.

So, as retirement in the United States gets bleak, some Americans are looking elsewhere. Specifically, they are looking to Italy, which ranks among the top 20 countries with the most generous retirement systems.

Americans are settling into quaint Italian towns

For the Schwendemans, the opportunity to leave the United States arrived in 2022.

Eric and Christina worked in the automotive industry, which was severely impacted by the pandemic. About 575,000 jobs in the industry were lost by the fall 2021.

"We could see that the automotive industry was going to take a turn around the same time that we were seeing it in the housing industry," Christina said. "We said, 'It's probably a good time for us to leave our jobs and sell our house.'"

They moved to Clavesana, a small town of less than 900 people in Italy's Piedmont region and purchased a home that sits on just under an acre of land. Eric and Christina did not share the exact cost, but said the home was about 150 euros — or $161 — per square foot.

Although moving to Italy was always a dream, the couple said other factors, including the cost of healthcare in America, also played a role.

Micki Dukinfield, 72, echoed that sentiment. Dukinfield and her husband left Minnesota for Vicenza, a city about an hour from Venice, in November 2023. Their home cost about 188,500 euros or about $200,000.

"I knew that as we got older, healthcare would always become an issue," Dukinfield told Business Insider.

According to Fidelity's 2023 Retiree Healthcare Cost Estimate, a single individual can spend an average of $157,000 on medical expenses and healthcare throughout retirement. For couples, that climbs to $315,000.

"In 2022, despite the fact that neither of us had anything terribly wrong with us, we spent over $6,000 on premiums and medical bills," Dukinfield said. "We're like, 'this is insanity.'"

In Vicenza, Dukinfield said she and her husband spend between $1,500 and $1,600 yearly on healthcare costs. The Schwendemans said they pay about $2,800 yearly while in Clavesana.

Dukinfield also said the US political climate played a role in her decision to move to Italy.

The United States is gearing up for presidential elections in November. It's expected to be another tight race between Donald Trump, who is facing ongoing legal troubles, and President Joe Biden, who is struggling to rally the kind of support he had in 2020.

Colin Esaw, 59, felt the repercussions of the political and cultural divisions while living in Florida, especially under Gov. Ron DeSantis, who ran against Trump in the Republican primaries.

Esaw was raised in Ireland before his career led him to Orlando in the fall of 1994. He's remained in the area for 30 years, holding American and British passports. He told BI that he began noticing a change in recent years.

"When I first came to America, I had no plans on living or being here any longer than I needed to be because of a preconceived idea of what American people were like," Esaw said. "When I got here, I couldn't believe how friendly and welcoming Americans were. It absolutely stunned me."

Now, Esaw said the political tension is too much. Adding to that the rising cost of living, he said he felt it was time for a change.

"I don't like to live in a society like that," he said.

So, Esaw is preparing to retire in Scalea, a coastal town in the Calabria region, within the next two years. He's purchased a condo for about 55,000 euros, or $59,000.

A growing online community is helping Americans move to Italy

Patrizia Di Gregorio has witnessed the uptick in people, including Americans, looking to retire in Italy firsthand. Gregorio, 52, is an Italian-American who founded the international social network Expats Living in Rome in 2001.

The network has become an essential tool for people across the globe eyeing a move to Italy. The organization offers resources for those looking to move, including financial guidance and immigration advice.

It also offers a community through Facebook groups like Expats Living in Rome and Expats Living in Italy, where people can ask questions and share updates on their journeys. The Expats Living in Italy group now has more than 107,000 members.

Gregorio told BI she first noticed increased interest from Americans around the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Before COVID, we had a lot of immigration, but after COVID, we can't even keep up," she said. She said that one Facebook group she created had more than 800 requests to join at one point.

Expats said Americans live to work but that in Italy, they work to live

Moving to Italy as an American isn't without challenges.

A series of hurdles must be cleared: securing a visa, finding a property, transporting goods across the Atlantic Ocean, applying for necessities like healthcare, and — of course — navigating a language barrier.

Both the Schwendemans and Dukinfield are working to become fluent in Italian — which can sometimes make everyday tasks more arduous — but said leaving the United States was the right choice. They cited a better quality of life, which is no longer bogged down by America's unforgiving and overarching hustle culture.

"It's the way they approach life," Eric said, referring to Italian culture.

In Clavesana, locals take "pausa," a two-hour break each afternoon, which contrasts with the average lunch break in the United States, which is 36 minutes.

"You stop working," Eric said. "You go have lunch with your family and your friends."

Dukinfield agreed, adding that the slower pace of life and living in a walkable city have been positive changes. Moving to Vicenza has also allowed her to live near her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchild.

"You can walk to the downtown area," Dukinfield said. "We lived in a very nice house on a nice lot in suburbia [in the US], but the only place we could walk to was the Super America or the Speedway, which was three-quarters of a mile away."

The phenomenon Eric described is a popular phrase among US expats: In America, you live to work. In Italy, you work to live.

"I have to say it's pretty much a total dream," Christina said. "Every morning, we wake up and look outside and say, 'I cannot believe we live here.'"

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• Russia's huge cost in invading Ukraine is fallout for not following its own military doctrine.
• Russian commanders have frequently erred on the basics of military operations, a RAND expert said.
• The Russians also lacked the invasion force size necessary to follow their warfighting doctrine.

The US Army's new manual on Russian tactics is an impressive-looking document. It's 280 pages packed with details and diagrams of how Russian soldiers are supposed to fight.

It is also evidence of a major reason why Russian troops have often fought poorly in the Ukraine war: they are not following their own playbook.

"A lot of the basic elements of that doctrine are sound enough that they could form a basis for successful operations," Scott Boston, a Russia military expert for the RAND Corp. think tank, told Business Insider. "But you do have to follow them."

To be clear, the US Army's manual — ATP7-100.1, "Russian Tactics" — specifies that it "is not meant to represent how the Russians are currently fighting in Ukraine." Nonetheless, armies try to fight according to their doctrine, or the fundamental principles that are intended to guide military operations.

For example, when a Russian division or brigade conducts an assault, units are supposed to advance in multiple echelons — or waves — of troops and tanks, tightly synchronized with reconnaissance, flank protection, engineering, artillery and air defense elements. The goal is to hit hard, move fast, breach the defenses and advance deep into the enemy rear. To minimize the resistance they face, assault troops should concentrate into multiple columns to "spread the attacking units in both width and depth to disperse and reduce the effects of nuclear or precision fires," according to the ATP7-100.1 manual.

But when Russia tried to seize Kyiv with a lightning advance in the opening days of the war, armored columns were sent down narrow, congested roads. Bottled up by roadblocks and ambushes, they were decimated by Ukrainian artillery, drones and anti-tank missiles. Nor does the manual describe how the Russian Army is fighting today. Instead of rapid and well-coordinated maneuver with its once-vaunted Aerospace Forces, attacks rely on obliterating Ukrainian defenses with artillery or glide bombs, or swamping them with large numbers of freed convicts and other "disposable infantry."

The cost has been enormous: an estimated 450,000 Russian casualties and 3,000 tanks destroyed. Moscow's best pre-war units have been decimated, and its best tanks and other equipment wrecked.

"Doctrinally sound attacks can still fail," Boston pointed out. "But a lot of their mistakes were failures to follow doctrinal guidance that is there for good reason. Like, have a guard force out in front so your main body doesn't blunder into combat and become decisively engaged. Don't try to send your entire force down too few roads. Don't leave your support troops unprotected. These were pretty basic things."

Assessing current Russian doctrine is difficult. Much of it is derived from the Soviet era of rigidly controlled mass armies. "The commander directs the fight, is responsible for the main elements of the plan, and generally does not expect initiative or flexibility to nearly the same degree from his subordinates, compared with a good US commander," Boston explained.

Yet military reforms enacted after 2008 were supposed to create smaller and more agile Western-style forces. "When that system failed for them in the initial months after February 2022, they reverted to older, more traditional approaches that eventually included much more emphasis on mass," said Boston, a former US Army artillery officer.

However, the problem may not have been Russian doctrine as much as the overall strategy of the Ukraine war. Soviet plans to invade Western Europe were based on fielding millions of Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops supported by huge stockpiles of weapons and supplies. With an initial assault force of just 180,000 soldiers attacking across a 600-mile-wide front against a smaller but still substantial Ukrainian army, Russia couldn't generate the overwhelming mass that its doctrine counted on. Russian leaders also expected — as did many Western experts — that Ukrainian resistance would collapse and the country would be swiftly occupied. Assault units weren't even briefed about the attack until just before the war began.

"It's not impossible to win battles with an inflexible army, but in order to have a reasonable chance of doing so it helps a lot to have a good plan," Boston said. He pointed to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003: commanders hoped that Iraqi forces wouldn't offer strong resistance, but the invasion plan assumed they might. "It would have been irresponsible for the US military to do otherwise. But Russia's plan was that level of irresponsible. Units were directed to move into Ukraine and seize key locations on aggressive timetables and without meaningful warning or time to plan for things to go wrong. Doctrine and training can only do so much when you're sent to do the wrong thing with the wrong tools for the job."

To be fair, some areas of Russian doctrine have proven quite sound, especially on the defense, where Russia stopped Ukraine's counteroffensive last summer. "There are plenty of aspects to their defense that are entirely consistent with their historical practice and doctrine," Boston said. "And in some cases, they've improved on their doctrine such as by increasing the depth and density of minefields."

One question will tantalize historians for years to come: could Russia have seized Kyiv — and probably won the war — in the first days of the invasion? "This is a tricky counterfactual," said Boston. "If Russia had made more adequate preparations, Ukraine could have noticed and reacted differently. But Russia had some substantial advantages that they squandered with the initial plan and with their slow adaptation over time. If Russia had tried a better plan, things would have gone much worse for Ukraine much more quickly."

Ironically, Boston feels maligning Russian military prowess does a disservice to Ukrainian skill. If the Russian military was that bad, then maybe the Ukrainian military wasn't that good? "We underrate how much damage the Ukrainians did against real Russian military capability if we think that that the Russians were all just terrible," Boston said. "I don't think they were terrible. I think they were terribly wrong-footed by their leadership."

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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• Debra Crockett decided to retire early eight years ago and moved from the US to Turkey.
• Her Social Security checks are enough to cover her basic monthly expenses given the strength of the US dollar.
• She said moving abroad was the best financial decision she made for her retirement.

Eight years ago, Debra Crockett decided it was time for a change.

She and her then-husband were doing well in the US. They were earning decent wages, owned a home, and had a couple of cars, but after working her whole life — most recently as a director of retail sales — she decided she was ready to see the world.

To make that happen, Crockett retired a few years ahead of schedule, collected early Social Security, and sold her house, cars, and most of her other valuable belongings. Using the housesitting platform Trusted Housesitters, Crockett could live in local homes in her desired travel destinations without having to pay for housing.

When her 90-day visa expired in Europe, Crockett set her sights on Turkey, and she's been there ever since.

"I live here for next to nothing," Crockett told Business Insider.

BI reviewed documents verifying Crockett's expenses. When converted to US dollars, her rent is $463 a month, her electric bills are $25 a month, her water bill is just over $1 a month, and her internet is just over $11 a month.

Even with the nearly $200 it takes to renew her residency in Turkey each year, her Social Security check is $2,929 a month, verified by BI, which is more than enough to cover her basic expenses.

"It's ridiculous to think that you have to have millions or hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank to survive. I live totally on my Social Security," she said. "I have other funds, but I use those mainly for traveling expenses. I don't have any bills. I paid everything off when I left the US, and I keep a daily report of everything I spend."

By keeping daily notes of her expenses, Crockett can easily detect if she goes over her budget one month, allowing her to adjust her spending for the next month. She also said that one of her biggest expenses in the US was her healthcare — something that she has found is also much more affordable in Turkey.

Crockett is among many Americans who became expats over the past few years, moving from the US to a location abroad with the hopes of living a better, cheaper life. Older Americans, in particular, are benefitting from more affordable bills as the US faces a looming retirement crisis, and many boomers feel like they do not have sufficient savings to retire on time — or at all.

Of course, moving abroad has its challenges, requiring funds to travel and the ability to leave friends and relatives behind. But Crockett said it was important to her that she didn't spend the entire second half of her life working, and it's allowed her to make the most out of her retirement.

"We work all our lives from high-powered jobs to blue-collar jobs. It really doesn't matter. We all work hard and we get maybe a few years of retirement," Crockett said. "That just doesn't seem like it's worth it. So if you can, just sell it all. It's only things, and you can replace it with beautiful memories in the future."

'I'm living a great life on limited expenditures'

Crockett rents her apartment to allow her the freedom to get up and move if she choose, but for now she plans to remain in Turkey. Notably, the Turkish economy is struggling — in March, the country hiked interest rates to 50% to fight "higher than expected" inflation that has burdened Turkish citizens.

American expats don't feel the same financial pressures, though, because the Turkish Lira has weakened against the US dollar, allowing American cash to go much further.

"I'm living a great life on limited expenditures," Crockett said.

"There is a huge expat community here, so there's never a language issue at all," she continued. "You can go down to the beach and just sit with a glass of wine and look at the beautiful scenery, or you can be more adventuresome. There's walking groups, there's jogging groups, there's knitting groups, there's yoga, there's something for everyone here."

BI has previously spoken to retirees in the US who are facing severe financial strains. One 63-year-old said that she doesn't see her Social Security keeping her afloat due to the lingering impacts of the pandemic, which caused her to lose her job and run through her savings.

"I know so many people my age that just don't know what they're going to do," she said. "Other countries take care of their older people, and we should be able to do it, too."

Crockett said that living in Turkey has given her so much financial relief that she doesn't see money being an issue for her as long as she remains abroad. She contributes to the community financially through donations as often as she can, and she said she's grateful for the welcoming atmosphere that greeted her upon her arrival.

"It's eye-opening," she said. "It's an amazing, fulfilling experience to wake up in a country where you know absolutely no one, and you have to rely on your skills of communication, intuition, your skills of just being able to survive. And it's so fulfilling and so rewarding."

Are you living abroad? Did moving improve your quality of life or do you want to return to the US? Share your story with this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.

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• The AI frenzy has shades of dot-com mania but with one big, dangerous difference.
• Professor Erik Gordon noted internet startups had far fewer investors than Big Tech does now.
• Companies like Nvidia are huge and make money, but if they do crash there'll be sweeping fallout.

The AI boom resembles the dot-com bubble — but there's one big difference that makes this craze far more dangerous, says one expert.

The princely valuations of companies like Nvidia reflect investors' excitement about artificial intelligence. They're betting it will supercharge productivity, power transformative products and services, and radically change the global economy.

It was a similar story in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when people lost their minds over the internet's potential to reshape every aspect of their lives.

The internet was revolutionary and AI will be too, Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, told Business Insider.

"Both themes are right. But that doesn't mean companies with valuations based on those themes were or are good investments," he said.

"Many dot-com companies that drove the internet change went broke doing it. Many AI companies driving as big a change will go broke or lose half their value."

Put another way, even if AI is the next big thing, the valuations of AI companies may still be out of whack, and trailblazers in the space might still crash and burn.

Nvidia has been one of the biggest winners from the frenzy. The chip maker's revenues soared 126% to about $61 billion last financial year, fueling a near-600% rise in net income to about $30 billion.

Growth-hungry investors have driven Nvidia's stock price up six-fold since the end of 2022, catapulting its market value from below $400 billion to some $2.2 trillion.

Deeper pockets, more pain

Gordon, who teaches entrepreneurship and researches many aspects of financial markets and technology, underscored one big difference between the dot-com and AI manias.

While the internet's pioneers were mostly small startups, the leaders of the AI space include established, profitable titans like Microsoft and Alphabet.

"They can lose billions of dollars and not go broke," Gordon said.

But the flip side is dot-com upstarts didn't have massive shareholder bases so when they crumpled, "only brave or foolish investors were hurt."

In contrast, the Big Tech names dominating AI make up a huge chunk of the US stock market's value, and are mainstays of pension funds and retirement portfolios.

"The giant AI pioneers won't go broke, but if AI losses drive their stock prices down, lots of investors will suffer," Gordon said.

He's previously drawn a line between the dot-com bubble and the tech-stock boom.

"This isn't a fake-companies bubble, it's an order-of-magnitude overvaluation bubble," the academic told BI in early 2022.

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• Surrenne, a luxury wellness and longevity club, has just opened in London's Knightsbridge.  
• The four-floor subterranean space features a gold-leaf ceiling, a snow shower,  and the UK's only Tracy Anderson studio.
• You can apply to be a member for $12,500 a year. If that's not in your budget, here's a visual tour through the elite space. 

In April a new luxury wellness and longevity club sprung up in London's affluent neighbourhood of Knightsbridge.

Though, sprung up may not be the right choice of word.

Surrenne is a four-floor, 2,000-square-meter gym and spa built underneath The Emory and Berkeley luxury hotels near Hyde Park, right in the heart of one of London's most expensive and exclusive districts.

The space has been designed by Inge Theron, creative director at the Maybourne Hotel group and founder of FaceGym. From temperature to smell to color, she's made every detail of Surrenne almost too perfectly tasteful.

But there's science behind her choices: psychologists were consulted about the colors and lights of each room to enhance the ambiance. Meanwhile, the sound systems have been enhanced with AI to ensure you never hear the same song twice during your stay.

The serene elegance of Surrene is so calming that it's easy to forget you're in the depths of London. Only the subtle waft of what smelled like sewage in a few corners of the club acted as a brief reminder during my visit — a teething issue the staff were covering up with candles.

Besides the beautiful decor, Surrenne has gathered together an all-star line-up of the best health, fitness, and beauty gurus.

"We have curated a group of world-famous thought leaders at a level never seen before in the UK, the people pushing every level of human performance, whether that be through science, diagnostics or fitness," creative director Theron told Business Insider.

Products from Dr. Lara Devgan and Stella McCartney are on offer, as is Theron's own brand FaceGym; nutritionist Rose Ferguson was consulted on the café menu, and Dr. Mark Mikhail from 3 Peaks Health is the club's in-house medical consultant.

And then there's Tracy Anderson.

The celebrity-favoured fitness icon has secured an entire floor at Surrenne for her first-ever studio in the UK — the only other in Europe being in Madrid.

Membership to all of this beauty and expertise will set you back $12,550 a year after the $6,250 joining fee. The club is free to use for guests staying above ground at The Emory or The Berkeley hotels.

However, membership numbers are initially limited to 100 and Theron is looking to fill the club with a like-minded community eager to enhance every aspect of their health and well-being.

She's already selected a few taste-makers to get the community going.

"It's a relatively small number of people who have the same interests, they perhaps travel a lot for work and pleasure but really want that feeling of belonging to the best club in London right now and having their health & fitness journey mapped out for them — all under one roof," said Theron.

If you're unlikely or unable to make the cut, here's a look at what you get as a member of Surrenne.

On the first floor, guests are welcomed to Surrenne by a cafe with a menu curated by nutritionist Rose Ferguson

Books and supplements are on offer for guests while they enjoy a menu curated by model-turned-nutritionist Rose Ferguson.

Green juices and expensive salads are on offer, but as Inge Theron told BI, Surrenne is for those who are serious about their health but may also like to "indulge in a glass of champagne with their friends around the pool."

Next to the cafe, an automatic door filled with water and bubbles slides open to the pool and steam rooms.

A gold-leaf ceiling covers the 22-meter pool, which also enjoys the club's only source of natural light.

Underwater speakers enable members to listen to podcasts of music as they swim.

At the end of the room, guests can use the pink-quartz-lined sauna and steam room. There's also a snow shower, which is exactly what it sounds like — a small space with a shower head out of which it snows, intended as a more gentle approach to cryotherapy.

"You may find other great wellbeing companies or amazing spas but I believe Surrenne is the first of its kind to deliver on both human and space design at this level," said Theron.

The second floor of the wellness retreat features a traditional gym space and yoga studio.

The gym was kitted out with the latest equipment from Technogym and Peloton for members to use with the support of on-hand personal trainers.

The gym equipment trolley could be wheeled to hotel guests' room for those seeking a more private training experience. During the summer months it will be wheeled out to Hyde Park for outside gym sessions.

Next door was a yoga studio big enough for six guests at a time and fitted with a screen covering an entire wall. The hydrogen water tap offered yogis different levels of alkaline or acidic water.

The changing rooms at Surrenne provide guests with everything they might need.

Lockers are fitted with Alice Temperley-designed silk robes, Dyson hair straighteners are available, and a valet service allows guests to leave all their sweaty clothes behind when they leave — next time they return a set of clean clothes will be sitting in their locker.

On joining members will also get a welcome pack with toiletries and Alo-branded gymwear.

On the third floor down, a reception space and retail zone welcome visitors to a floor of treatment rooms and longevity services.

Seven treatment rooms are available for guests at Surrenne, including a couples' room, a hammam, an ashiatsu massage room, and a therapeutic infrared sauna.

Theron told BI that technology-based treatments were an absolute must-have when designing the club.

"LED, RF, EMS, Oxygen, Vitamin Infusions, Ultrasound, non-invasive but really what the clients are looking for now," the creative director said.

The treatment beds have silk sheets — to avoid creases after you've had a facial, of course — and hand-blown glass "artists' palettes" for brushing treatments onto the body.

The walls of treatment rooms are handpainted in soft tones of orange to represent the sunrise and sunset and increase serenity.

Guests get four body treatments or facials included in their annual membership as well as a full-body medical consultation.

The longevity suite features a hyperbaric chamber and Dr. Mark's office — where medical consultations and blood tests take place.

"The idea is that having a GP offering on-site, with an open door policy will in the log run help our members with knowledge of their own bodies and promote preventative care, so that you don't have to get to the GP," Theron told BI.

"Our medical practitioners are not a replacement for your own GP – but a more convenient way to be on top of your own health and wellbeing."

Finally, the fourth floor of Surrenne is dedicated to fitness pioneer Tracy Anderson.

Members get access to the UK-exclusive Tracy Anderson studio at Surrenne, though only 12 times a year. If they want more regular classes, they'll come at an additional cost of $50 a class. Hotel guests pay around $65 per class.

The room itself is heated to 75 degrees Fahrenheit, a little cooler than a hot yoga class. With bouncy floors and resistance bands hanging from the ceiling, it's easy to see why so many obsess over the Anderson "method."

"I believe so much in this. I've been doing it for 10 years," said Kelly, one of the enthusiastic Anderson-coached instructors at Surrenne.

But while pop music plays and guests come to sweat it out for 50-minute classes, like all things at Surrenne, the club's members must take it seriously.

"We don't talk during the method," said Kelly earnestly. "It's a mind-body connection"

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• Warren Buffett made several jokes about his age during Saturday's annual shareholder meeting.
• Buffett will be turning 94 this year and has already made plans for a successor.
• "I shouldn't be taking on any four-year employment contracts," Buffett joked, per CNBC.

Warren Buffett is very aware that he won't be at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway forever.

The 93-year-old Berkshire Hathaway Chairman took the stage on Saturday at the company's annual shareholder meeting to reflect on how the company should operate when he no longer calls the shots.

Buffett, who took over the investment company in 1965, has long expressed the desire to keep making decisions at Berkshire Hathaway for as long as he can — he said during the meeting that "anybody that wants to retire at 65 would be disqualified from being CEO of Berkshire."

But the multi-billionaire acknowledged, humorously at times, that he does have his limits.

Buffett expressed thoughts about how the company will move forward without him — though the nonagenarian said he felt "fine" at his age.

"I know a little bit about actuarial tables and I would say this: I shouldn't be taking on any four-year employment contracts like several people are doing in this world," Buffett said, per CNBC.

Buffett said that Greg Abel, his hand-picked successor and former CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, would take control of investing decisions when he passed.

"I would leave the capital allocation to Greg and he understands businesses extremely well," Buffett said during the meeting's Q&A portion, per CNBC. "If you understand businesses, you'll understand common stocks."

Beyond his own mortality, Buffett also reflected on the death of his longtime business partner and friend, Charlie Munger, who died in November of last year. During Saturday's presentation, the chairman accidentally referred to Abel, his new right-hand man, as Munger.

Abel took it in stride, calling it a "great honor" to be mistaken for Munger.

Buffett also discussed his decision to slash the company's stake in Apple, aired his concerns about AI and deepfakes, and articulated his hope to keep going long enough for next year's shareholders meeting.

"I not only hope you come next year, but I hope I come next year," Buffett said in his sign-off.

Representatives for Buffett did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

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• Tesla tested its Full Self-Driving in San Francisco's Sunset District, The Information reported.
• An ex-Tesla employee told the outlet that the car often hesitated to make a left turn in the area.
• These are some of the roads in the neighborhood Tesla could have had to deal with.

Tesla's driver-assistance feature had a difficult time dealing with left turns in a large San Francisco neighborhood, prompting the company to deploy dozens of test drivers to try to fix the issue earlier this year, a former Tesla employee told The Information.

One of Elon Musk's major promises — autonomous taxis — hinges on Tesla's ability to improve its Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology, a driver-assistance feature that can change lanes, enter and exit highway ramps, recognize traffic lights and signs, and self-park under driver supervision.

FSD differs from the company's Autopilot feature, which is essentially an advanced cruise control mode that can also auto-steer within clearly marked lanes, according to Tesla's website.

The EV maker has encountered various technical and legal issues with the FSD system as it races to meet Musk's ever-shifting deadlines — the CEO announced on X last month that he plans to unveil Tesla's robotaxi in August.

A former employee told The Information that one such technical problem Tesla recently encountered was driving its vehicles in San Francisco's Sunset District, a neighborhood bordered by Golden Gate Park to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

As The Information noted in its report, some of Sunset's roads have dedicated lanes for public transportation — although that's not unique to the neighborhood.

Here's the city's Municipal Railway (MUNI) light rail bisecting Judah Street in the Sunset:

This fixture of Sunset's streets also comes with turn restrictions. Drivers are forbidden in some intersections from making left turns, U-turns, and rights on red.

One major road that borders the north of Sunset, Lincoln Way, is divided by barriers or narrow medians. Drivers have intermittent opportunities on the road to make left turns — some protected and others unprotected — while other parts of Lincoln Way restrict drivers from making any left turns at all.

It's unclear if other aspects of Sunset's grid trip up Tesla's FSD more than other San Francisco neighborhoods. A Tesla spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Tesla's team, however, found that drivers in the Sunset often had to intervene with the vehicle's FSD by taking control of the wheel, a former Tesla employee told The Information.

To address the problem, Tesla deployed dozens of test drivers and had engineers focus on providing software updates that could improve the FSD experience in the neighborhood, the source said.

The report didn't state whether those efforts vastly improved the feature in the area.

Tesla still dominates in San Francisco

San Francisco as a whole — with its dense population, restricted and one-way streets, as well as a vast artery of public transportation — can be a tricky city for novice drivers to navigate.

Another street that was once notoriously difficult for Tesla's FSD to work in was Lombard Street, a steep and windy road northwest of San Francisco. In 2021, one YouTuber, Tesla Raj, recorded himself constantly intervening with the system as the car veered toward the road's edges. The video also showed that the FSD system would, at one point, hallucinate objects around the street, quickly blinking images of a car or human figure on the screen.

John Bernal, a former Tesla employee who worked with the Autopilot team, told The Washington Post in 2023 that Tesla engineers coded invisible barriers into FSD specifically for Lombard Street instead of making broader changes to the software.

Still, the city is teeming with Teslas. Data from S&P Global Mobility showed that the brand made up nearly one-fourth of all new-car registrations in the city in March 2023.

A Business Insider reporter was immediately able to flag down a Tesla driver who was stopped at an intersection in the Sunset.

The driver said she enjoyed her first Tesla Model X so much that she purchased the second Tesla she was driving four months ago. When asked about using the FSD feature in the Sunset, she told BI that she had "no problems" with it.

"I like it," the driver told BI.

Next to a cheaper Tesla model, FSD remains a key part of the EV maker's valuation since Musk has promised for years to deliver fully autonomous cabs.

The CEO once said in 2022 that achieving self-driving technology is "really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money or worth basically zero."

Yet, seven years after FSD's release in late 2016, Tesla has yet to receive any regulatory approval to test autonomous cabs on public roads, and the term Full Self-Driving remains a bit of a misnomer since it requires an operator's supervision at all times.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) accused the company in 2022 of false advertisement by using the term and claiming that the technology is autonomous in ads despite FSD's limitations. Tesla argued in defense that the DMV is violating its free speech rights and that the complaint has no legal standing because regulators took too long to make the allegations, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Tesla also still faces several lawsuits that blame the company's Autopilot, a less-advanced driver assistance technology, for fatal collisions.

In April, the company settled a lawsuit from the family of Walter Huang, who died in 2018 after his Tesla crashed into a concrete barrier while the vehicle was in Autopilot.

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• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described the ultimate AI app to the MIT Technology Review.
• He envisions a 'super-competent colleague,' a major upgrade from ChatGPT, which he called "dumb."
• Altman's vision is that AI will take on real-world tasks — not just function as a chatbot.

In Sam Altman's vision of the future, AI is a little intimidating.

"What you really want," the OpenAI CEO told the MIT Technology Review, is a "super-competent colleague that knows absolutely everything about my whole life, every email, every conversation I've ever had, but doesn't feel like an extension."

And they're self-starters that don't need constant direction. They'll tackle some tasks, presumably simpler ones, instantly, Altman said. They'll make a first pass at more complex tasks, and come back to the user if they have questions.

The bottom line is that Altman wants AI to function as more than just a chatbot. It should help people accomplish things in the real world, he said.

That would be a massive step up from what OpenAI offers right now.

Altman reportedly referred to ChatGPT as "incredibly dumb" even though workers are already using it to accelerate their workflows, develop code, write emails, and more. So, there's no telling how much more productive we'll get once Altman's magical model colleague hits the market.

Altman didn't specify when this tool will be available and how advanced AI must be to support it. The company's other offerings, like the video generator, Sora, and image generator, DALL-E, still require considerable guidance to complete tasks. They also aren't designed to perceive information from the environment and use it to achieve specific goals.

But OpenAI's forthcoming language model, GPT-5, might be a step in that direction.

A source who's seen it previously told BI it was "materially better" than existing models. The source also said that OpenAI is developing a service where users could call an AI agent to perform tasks autonomously.

Sources have said GPT-5 might be out mid-year. Altman, however, isn't saying much.

"Yes," he simply told reporters this week at an event in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was asked when OpenAI would release GPT-5.

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