Category: Business

• iPod inventor Tony Fadell thinks Apple is on the right track when it comes to AI.
• Fadell said Apple's latest AI offerings are a "solid first effort" that focuses on users.
• The former Apple executive said there was too much hype surrounding what AI could do.

Apple may seem to be trailing flashy AI firms like OpenAI, but iPod inventor Tony Fadell thinks the company's slow but steady approach to the technology is the right one.

"Apple is taking baby steps because right now that is all we can count on to deliver successfully," Fadell wrote on X on Tuesday. "This is a solid first effort by Apple focusing on real benefits to users (ex. Siri)."

Fadell was responding to an article by TechCrunch that praised Apple's "boring and practical" approach toward AI. The iPhone maker unveiled its new AI offerings on Monday during a keynote presentation at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference.

Fadell left Apple back in 2010 but weighed in with his assessment of the AI industry, which he said was being overtaken by investor hype and frenzy.

"Today's AI LLMs are mostly glorified demos for the really interesting applications. They are turning into a commodity because they're overfunded by FOMO-driven VCs who don't truly understand the technology limitations that drive real application requirements," he said.

In fact, Fadell says the AI craze is highly reminiscent of the rush to fund companies working on self-driving cars over a decade ago.

"It was the NEXT big thing. What do we have 10-12 years later? Think about how many years have past for those efforts to be perfected (and they still aren't yet). We haven't even seen a self-driving car business work yet either," he said.

"How many billions were spent on that next big thing before reality set in?! AI is VERY similar," he continued.

Markets were initially skeptical of Apple's AI work, with the company's shares falling by 2% on Monday after the event. But a positive reception from Wall Street analysts sent the stock soaring 7% on Tuesday.

Representatives for Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.

• My father gave me my mother's engagement ring at her funeral.
• I wanted to throw it into her grave. My brother stopped me.
• I still don't like wearing jewelry, but I'm glad I kept this heirloom.

My mother adored jewelry and never understood why I, her only daughter, refused to wear any. I wouldn't get my ears pierced and preferred my wrists, neck, and fingers bare.

We did, however, share an interest in fashion. So, I made it a point to find the perfect black dress, hat, and heels to wear to her funeral. Crying in the June heat, my mascara mixing with tears, I watched mourners shoveling dirt into the grave. Suddenly, my father was by my side, taking my hand like when I was little.

He pressed something into my palm and folded my fingers around it, saying, "You should have this."

My dad wanted me to have my mother's ring

When he let go, I glanced down. I immediately recognized my mother's engagement ring. Lying on its side, the platinum band with its pointy diamond seemed lost. Mom was always proud of it and loved getting compliments. Her wedding band had been stolen years prior in a home burglary.

"Sometimes my fingers swell," she explained. "I'll always regret taking it off."

I stared into the crystal-clear gemstone as if a flower was blooming inside. I was mesmerized.

There was a lull in the shoveling, and it got quiet. I walked to the edge of the open graveside and whispered, "I love you Mom," one last time. As if on cue, I caught the sun's rays dancing off the angular surfaces of the sparkling gem.

I really wanted to throw it into her grave

I stood there just long enough to attract my brother's attention. "Are you alright?" he asked. "Do you want to shovel some soil?"

The urge to throw the ring into my mother's grave grew stronger. It felt like it was burning a hole in my palm — like it wanted to be with her.

"Look what Dad gave me," I showed him. "But it really belongs with Mom."

As my arm pulled back, my brother took hold of my elbow. "You don't want to do that."

"Watch me," I thought as I yanked away. Then I paused and took a deep breath. I didn't want to cause a scene or upset anyone. My arm relaxed as I shook off my childish defiance.

The ring came home with me.

I kept it but wasn't sure what to do with it

Aside from my aversion to wearing jewelry, the ring scared me. The diamond stood out, and it looked valuable, so I put it in a safe deposit box.

Locking up the ring always felt wrong. But there it sat, alone where no one could see it, for years.

One day, during a visit with my father, he mentioned their engagement. His memory was slipping, and Dad forgot I had the ring. He thought it had been stolen, too. "All I have left is this," he said, handing me the original receipt from 1953.

I had never thought about his feelings. He'd picked that ring out, slid it onto my mother's finger, and proposed. Dad was 30. His career in aerospace just starting. Mom was 22. They met in New York and moved to Los Angeles, where she died of ovarian cancer at 64 — far too young.

Today it sits on my ring finger — sometimes left, sometimes right. I also wear a ruby and diamond gold band. It's another piece of jewelry I never wanted, but my husband gave it to me while we were dating, and it became my wedding ring when we tied the knot.

While I still don't like how they feel on my skin, I love what these jewels symbolize in my life. And I'm certain my mother would be pleased to see me wearing bling that belonged to her finally.

• Elon Musk withdrew his lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, on Tuesday. 
• Musk accused OpenAI of violating its nonprofit mission when he filed the lawsuit in February. 
• But dropping the case doesn't mean that Musk is burying the hatchet with Altman just yet.

Elon Musk might have withdrawn his lawsuit against OpenAI and its cofounders on Tuesday, but he certainly isn't giving up on winning the AI race just yet.

The mercurial billionaire filed a lawsuit against the ChatGPT maker in February, accusing OpenAI of violating its nonprofit mission by partnering with Microsoft. Musk cofounded OpenAI with its current CEO, Sam Altman, but left its board in 2018.

"More on this later," Musk said of the lawsuit's withdrawal early on Wednesday morning.

But the decision to withdraw the case, just a day before a judge was set to consider OpenAI's request to dismiss it, probably isn't a sign of Musk burying the hatchet with Altman.

For one, Musk seemed furious when Apple unveiled its widely anticipated partnership with OpenAI on Monday. Shortly after the announcement, Musk threatened to prohibit Apple devices at his companies.

"If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level, then Apple devices will be banned at my companies," Musk wrote in an X post. "That is an unacceptable security violation."

This is despite Apple's assurances that "privacy protections are built in for users who access ChatGPT." The iPhone maker said in a press release on Tuesday that OpenAI wouldn't be able to track their users' IP addresses or store their requests.

Representatives for Musk and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.

Musk doesn't need the lawsuit to tangle with OpenAI

Stepping back from all the drama, Musk's goal with the OpenAI lawsuit might have had less to do with winning the case and far more to do with publicly dragging Altman and OpenAI.

"These types of lawsuits can air a lot of dirty laundry, and it can be a major distraction that could impact their day-to-day operations," David Hoffman, a contract law expert from the University of Pennsylvania, told BI's Grace Kay in March.

And for what it's worth, Musk seems to have spent the interim period repositioning his companies for the AI age.

Musk has spent the past few months pitching investors on his vision for EV giant Tesla as an "AI or robotics company."

Besides teasing a new robotaxi concept, Musk has also hyped the company's Optimus robots as being "more valuable than everything else combined."

"If you value Tesla as just like an auto company, fundamentally, it's just the wrong framework, and if you ask the wrong question, then the right answer is impossible," Musk said in an earnings call in April.

Then, in late May, Musk revealed that his AI startup xAI raised $6 billion for its Series B funding round, giving it a total valuation of $24 billion. This makes Musk's xAI the second-most valuable AI company behind OpenAI, which is valued at around $80 billion.

With his chess pieces in place, Musk seems ready to take on OpenAI.

Now the ball's in Altman's court. Your move, Sam.

• Russia's war against Ukraine has improved conditions for some poor Russians.
• War-related activities drive economic resilience, with 3.6% GDP growth last year.
• High interest rates and military focus pose risks to Russia's economic stability.

Russia's war against Ukraine has made some poor Russians better off, complicating any calculus over how to end it.

Russia's sanctions-hit economy has appeared resilient even over two years into the war, posting 3.6% GDP growth last year

Reports from Russia suggest the growth is primarily driven by wartime activities that generate demand for military goods and services, subsidies that steady the economy, and sharp policy-making.

"Russian economy is progressively becoming militarised," wrote researchers at the London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research think tank in May.

"Some sectors and some regions have been winners in Russia's new war-oriented economy," they said.

According to the CEPR researchers, production in war-related industries increased by 60% from the fall of 2022 to the spring of 2024. Manufacturing output from other sectors remained flat over the same period.

Some of Russia's poorest regions are benefiting from a redistribution of wealth.

"The war has offered many people upward social mobility that was not available in the preceding decades of Russia's reintegration into the global economy," the CEPR researchers wrote, referencing the fall of the Soviet Union.

Higher pay than even the oil industry

Households in regions where military recruitment is up have recorded higher deposits since the war started, according to a separate Bank of Finland report published in January. The research showed bank deposits grew about 30% from August 2022 to August 2023 in poor regions where more men were joining the war — outpacing 20% growth in other regions.

Increased wealth could make it difficult for the Kremlin to scale back the war in Ukraine, since that would also mean a slowdown in military-related production, an economist told Radio Free Europe on Tuesday.

Soldiers from poor regions who are now on the frontlines might struggle with a decline in income because there are few opportunities should they return home, economist Andrei Yakovlev at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, told the media outlet.

Higher pay comes with risks.

The UK Ministry of Defense estimated in May that half a million Russian soldiers had likely been killed or wounded since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

This, alongside a brain drain, is contributing to a manpower crunch in Russia — prompting the military to pay more than the lucrative oil and gas industries.

The Russian army offers contract soldiers a nationwide sign-on bonus of 195,000 rubles, or about $2,200, while salaries start at 210,000 rubles per month. In comparison, workers in Russia's relatively high-paying oil and gas sector took home about 125,200 rubles in monthly nominal salary in the first two months of the year, according to Bloomberg's calculations.

Russia's economic report shows that the country is increasingly caught in a web of challenges due to the war and its impact on the economy.

While Russia's top central banker Elvira Nabiullina and her team have managed to steady the economy so far, there are cracks emerging.

Earlier this month, Herman Gref, the CEO of Sberbank — Russia's largest bank by asset value — said the country's economy is "definitely and strongly overheated." Nabiullina herself warned in December the country's economy was at risk of overheating.

Last week, Igor Sechin, the CEO of Russian oil giant Rosneft complained that high interest rates — put in place to tamp inflation — are making financing hard for businesses.

• Céline Dion says that the symptoms of her stiff-person syndrome can be easily triggered.
• The "My Heart Will Go On" singer opened up about her condition during an interview with Today's Hoda Kotb.
• Dion also shared that she had been experiencing symptoms even as far back as 2008.

Céline Dion says the symptoms of her stiff-person syndrome can be easily triggered by almost anything, including laughter.

In an interview with Hoda Kotb, that aired on NBC on Tuesday, Dion opened up about the realities of living with the medical condition.

"Anything can trigger me to have something. Too much work, not enough work. If I sit all daylong, I'll be wobbly. Walking wobbly," Dion told Kotb. She said that if she asks her therapist to push her too much, it can cause problems. "I can have a condition and go into a crisis," she said.

The singer elaborated on the other triggers that can cause muscle spasms.

"Happiness, sound, a touch unexpected. So I don't really want to think so much about this, but I have to be aware of it," Dion said.

During a segment of the NBC interview, Irene Taylor Brodsky — the director of her upcoming documentary "I Am: Celine Dion" — joined the duo to talk about her experience witnessing one of Dion's medical attacks firsthand.

"It was very quick. She was giggling, and 5 seconds later, we were in a totally different stratosphere," Taylor said. "She had a cramp in her foot, and I thought, 'That doesn't look right.'"

Within minutes, Dion could not speak because her body muscles stiffened.

"It was the most extraordinary and extraordinarily uncomfortable moment in my life. As a filmmaker, but also as a mother, as a fellow human, because I didn't know what was happening," Brodsky said. "We were this close, and her body was enduring something that was unimaginable, and I wasn't sure if she was aware of it, and I wasn't sure if she was going to survive it."

Dion recovered after her team administered medication, per the interview.

The "My Heart Will Go On" singer first announced that she had been diagnosed with stiff-person syndrome in December 2022.

During the NBC interview, she shared that she had been experiencing symptoms of the condition even as far back as 2008, but chose to power through it so she could continue to tour and perform for her fans.

Stiff-person syndrome is a rare, progressive neurological disorder that can cause symptoms such as muscle stiffness and spasms.

According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, those with stiff-person syndrome can also experience a greater sensitivity to noise, touch, and emotional distress — all of which can set off muscle spasms.

It is a very rare disease that affects one in a million, according to one estimate, per National Organization for Rare Disorders.

There is no cure for stiff-person syndrome, but there are ways for patients to manage their condition, including through medication and therapy.

In April, Dion told Vogue France that she goes to therapy five days a week and trains "like an athlete" as part of her treatment plan.

"The way I see it, I have two choices. Either I train like an athlete and work super hard, or I switch off and it's over, I stay at home, listen to my songs, stand in front of my mirror and sing to myself," Dion said.

During the NBC interview, the singer also told Kotb that she was determined to return to the stage.

"I'm going to go back onstage, even if I have to crawl, even if I have to talk with my hands. I will. I will," she tells Hoda. "I am Céline Dion, because today my voice will be heard for the first time, not just because I have to, or because I need to. It's because I want to. And I miss it," Dion said.

The NBC interview can be streamed on Peacock.

"I Am: Celine Dion" premieres June 25 on Prime Video.

• James Cameron said the rescue operation for the OceanGate submersible victims morphed into something "crazy."
• "We all knew they were dead," Cameron told "60 Minutes Australia" in an interview that aired on Sunday.
• The Titanic expert added that the rescue then turned into a "beautiful media circus." 

A year on from the OceanGate implosion, filmmaker and Titanic expert James Cameron called the rescue operation "crazy" — because people involved in the rescue likely already knew that the victims were all dead.

In an interview with "60 Minutes Australia" released on Sunday, Cameron commented on the sprawling four-day rescue operation that followed the submersible's disappearance on June 18.

"We all knew they were dead. We'd already hoisted a glass, a toast to our fallen comrades, on Monday night," he said in the interview.

He added that he thought the Coast Guard followed a rescue procedure that was "unnecessarily torturous" for the families — because the authorities had already been informed of an "implosion event" near the Titanic wreck site.

Cameron said he had received news of the implosion from a naval source on Monday morning and had written it down on a stationary pad in his hotel.

"I literally wrote that on the pad the moment I heard from my naval source, a very reliable source, that they had heard an event and triangulated it to the site," Cameron said.

The note he showed to the interviewer read: "9:25 confirmed implosion."

But Cameron said the catastrophe made for a "beautiful media circus."

"It just transformed into this crazy thing," he added. "Everybody running around with their hair on fire, when we knew right where the sub was. Nobody could admit that they didn't have the means to go down and look. So they were running all over the surface, and the entire world waiting with bated breath."

The US Coast Guard and OceanGate announced on June 22 that debris found on the sea bed confirmed that the submersible had imploded and that the five men on board were dead.

The victims were British billionaire Hamish Harding, British-Pakistani multimillionaire Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman, former French navy diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.

The titanium and carbon fiber submersible set off on June 18 to explore the wreckage of the RMS Titanic, nearly 13,000 feet underwater. It went off the radar less than two hours after the dive started.

Cameron, who has visited the Titanic wreck 33 times, has vocally criticized OceanGate, the company behind the ill-fated submersible.

He said that he had warned the company officials that the Titan vessel could lead to "catastrophic failure" and that it was "only a matter of time" before something would go wrong.

He had also said that the company lacked "rigor and discipline" and that new regulation was needed in deep-sea exploration.

Cameron's representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular working hours.

• Spotify is launching an extra-premium subscription for better audio and playlist tools.
• The new tier will cost users at least $5 more monthly, with pricing varying by base plan.
• Spotify faces competition from Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Tidal.

Spotify is planning to launch a more expensive premium subscription later this year for users who want extra-good sound quality, a person familiar with the plan told Bloomberg.

Users will be charged at least $5 more every month for a plan that allows better audio and new playlist organization tools.

The option will be offered as an upgrade and will not affect existing subscription plans. The new tier's pricing will vary depending on each user's base plan but will average out to about 40% more than the current price, according to the person.

Spotify did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request to confirm the news, sent outside standard working hours.

Among the new features is access to high-fidelity audio, which Spotify first announced in 2021 but has repeatedly delayed. The streamer is competing with Amazon Music Unlimited, Apple Music, and Block-owned Tidal for the attention of those who prioritize sound quality. All of those platforms are priced similarly to Spotify's current individual plan and offer high-fidelity, or "lossless," audio already.

Users who pay for the new tier will also be able to instantly generate custom playlists for certain activities and times of the year. Spotify will learn the user's preferences and, eventually, create customized playlists without prompting, Bloomberg reported.

The company raised its prices for US subscriptions by up to $3 earlier this month.

It was Spotify's second time adjusting prices in a year as it faces competition from other music streaming platforms. Big Tech is also competing for ears: YouTube is courting podcast listeners, and Amazon's Audible and Spotify are squaring off in audiobooks.

But Spotify is faring well among these challenges. It reported record profitability last quarter and its stock is up 64% this year.

• Recent aviation accidents have claimed the lives of Iran's president and Malawi's vice president. 
• But Russia says Vladimir Putin is safe if he travels on their "very reliable" domestic aircraft.
• Russian flight safety incidents have more than doubled in the past year, per JACDEC.

A Russian official says the country's leader, Vladimir Putin, won't get caught in a plane crash if he travels on domestic aircraft, state news agency TASS reported on Tuesday.

"The Russian president uses domestic aircraft. These are very reliable vehicles," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists.

Peskov was speaking at a press briefing when he was asked about the recent aviation accidents that claimed the lives of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Malawi's Vice President Saulos Chilima.

Raisi was flying over northwestern Iran when his helicopter crashed on May 19. Iran's foreign minister, the governor of Iran's East Azerbaijan province, and other officials were also on board the helicopter. No one survived the deadly incident.

Chilima, meanwhile, was killed in a plane crash along with nine other passengers on Tuesday. Malawi's President Lazarus Chakwera said Chilima's plane was found "completely destroyed" near a hill in northern Malawi.

However, Peskov said such incidents were unlikely to occur with Russian aircraft, given what he said were Russia's rigorous safety standards.

"All machinery in our country that transports citizens is also maintained at the proper level. There are very strict standards in this regard, which are, of course, observed," Peskov said.

"We have monitoring agencies," he continued. "The system works."

To be sure, Russia doesn't exactly have the best record when it comes to flight safety.

In February, the Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre (JACDEC) revealed that Russian flight safety incidents have more than doubled in the past year, going from 37 cases in 2022 to 81 in 2023.

The Russian aviation industry's flight safety problems are in large part due to crippling economic sanctions the West imposed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Such restrictions have made it difficult for Russia's airlines to maintain their aircraft since they can't buy new planes or parts.

In fact, the number of flight safety incidents in Russia might be much higher, says JACDEC founder and CEO Jan-Arwed Richter.

"These numbers only reflect cases that became public. There is still a dark figure of unreported incidents," Richter told The Telegraph in February.

• Ikea was facing soaring employee turnover rates coming out of the pandemic.
• Executives at the Swedish furniture company set about trying to keep employees happy enough to stay.
• The company bumped wages, offered more flexibility, and simplified workflows, according to Bloomberg. 

Ikea tackled sky-high employee turnover rates by increasing wages, offering more flexibility, and simplifying staff workflow — seemingly simple changes that have made a world of difference for the Swedish furniture retailer, according to a recent Bloomberg report.

Every time an Ikea employee left the furniture magnate, the company lost $5,000 or more, according to the outlet. Amid a worsening wave of workers quitting in recent years, Ikea executives set about trying to keep workers happy and employed.

Retail has always had higher quit rates than many other industries due to difficult working conditions, unpredictable scheduling, and low pay. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing inflation have only exacerbated the problem in recent years. 

By 2022, Ikea was losing about 62,000 workers each year for various reasons — nearly one-third of its workforce, Bloomberg reported. The mounting conflict between the company and a coalition of unions had also left morale low across many of Ikea's 473 stores worldwide, according to the outlet. 

Jon Abrahamsson Ring, chief executive of Inter Ikea Group — the overhead entity in charge of Ikea's product design and supply chain — told Bloomberg that retention was a high priority when he stepped into the CEO role in September 2020. Turnover rates were hovering above 30% in stores across the US, UK, and Canada, while employees in India regularly left the company after having children because of lackluster benefits, he told the outlet. 

In trying to fix its quitting problem, Ikea went full-steam ahead in addressing the most important issues to workers, Ring told the outlet, including better pay, more flexibility for employees, and integrating new technologies to make employees' jobs easier. 

It paid off: Ikea's global quit rate fell from 22.4% in August 2022 to 17.5% in April 2024, Bloomberg reported. In the US alone, voluntary turnover dropped from about a third of employees in 2022 to about a fourth one year later, according to the outlet.

Prioritizing employee wants and needs is a key way to make people stay, Business Insider previously reported. A recent study also found that companies offering robust childcare benefits see increased employee productivity and positive returns on investment. 

Ikea's fixes, while major, aren't perfect. Turnover at Ikea stores in Japan is up due to a tight labor market, while labor disputes in France have kept quit rates high, Bloomberg reported. 

But the still-rising rates of attrition in the retail sector suggest Ikea has begun to make real change on the turnover front.

• Apple has entered the AI race and struck a deal with hotshot startup OpenAI.
• But Apple is promising users they'll have the power to opt out of ChatGPT integration.
• An AI analyst said that control could go a long way in assuaging AI-wary Apple customers. 

Apple has officially entered the AI wars, announcing a series of coming artificial intelligence features, including an anticipated collaboration with OpenAI that could magnify mounting privacy concerns within the tech sector.

At the Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, the company introduced Apple Intelligence, an in-house suite of AI services coming to devices this fall. While Apple's branded AI was the focal point of Monday's keynote, the company also announced a highly-anticipated partnership with OpenAI, albeit somewhat unceremoniously.

Starting later this year, Apple users will have free access to OpenAI's ChatGPT model without having to create an account. ChatGPT will be integrated with Apple's new and improved Siri feature, allowing the AI model to scour the internet and quickly answer user questions.

Apple noted that the ChatGPT integration will be optional for users. Customers can opt out of OpenAI's presence on their devices, which could go a long way in assuaging AI-wary users about privacy concerns.

"I think it's brilliant," said Maribel Lopez, an AI analyst and founder of research and strategy consulting firm Lopez Research. "Because I do think we're going to get to a point where people are not willing to make that tradeoff."

Apple's assurances come amid growing concerns over OpenAI's commitment to safety. A group of current and former employees went public earlier this month in a New York Times report with worries over the company's financial motivations and approach to creating responsible AI.

OpenAI trains ChatGPT on user interactions and information. Generative AI trained in this way could eventually correctly guess sensitive information about a person based on what they type online, Business Insider previously reported.

"Some people are OK with that, and some people aren't," Lopez said. "But if you provide a platform and say there's no way to opt out of it, that could be difficult."

The opt-out ability on Apple devices offers customers a modicum of control amid the coming freight train of AI, Lopez added.

Apple is notably taking a safety-first approach to adopting AI. The company said Monday that it did not use customers' private or personal data to train the foundation models that will power Apple Intelligence. Instead, the Apple model was trained on licensed data and publicly available information. The system will also be operated via Private Cloud Compute, an infrastructure designed to handle large AI requests privately.

Meanwhile, much of the marketing for Apple Intelligence already appears to be focused on safety and privacy protection, with advertisements boasting a "brand-new standard for privacy in AI." 

Apple's apparent commitment to privacy, as well as its need to protect its strong brand, could explain why the company was late to the AI game, Lopez said.

"Everybody says they're behind, but I think they took a lot of time trying to work through these things," she said. "Because maybe Sam Altman doesn't get sued. But Apple sure as heck does."