Category: Business

• Trump is just over a month away from formally becoming the GOP's presidential nominee. 
• The former president is facing competing pressures to find his new running mate.
• Trump has a lot to choose from when it comes to either former rivals or MAGA allies.

Former President Donald Trump's search for a running mate is nearing the final stretch.

According to multiple reports, Trump's campaign asked North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, and Sen. JD Vance of Ohio to submit paperwork on their backgrounds. Presidential campaigns often ask vice presidential finalists to cooperate with an extensive vetting process.

According to NBC News, which first reported the vetting news, Trump's choice is down to four names at most: the above trio and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.

Trump previously stoked speculation about his pick by publicly confirming half a dozen names on his list: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Scott, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.

Trump's team also sent Scott, Donalds, Stefanik, and former HUD Secretary Ben Carson requests for information, but ABC News reported that it's not clear if those asks were as extensive as the ones Burgum, Rubio, and Vance received.

What is clear is that Trump will need to make a decision soon. The Republican National Convention kicks off in Milwaukee on July 15.

History shows that the ultimate selection could be surprising, so it's worth considering an even wider pool of potential names.

Here's a look at the names to watch as Trump continues his quest to retake the White House:

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida

Rubio once viewed as the GOP's future, is reportedly gaining attention as a possible pick.

Rubio, like DeSantis, endured significant taunting and attacks when he opposed Trump during the 2016 primaries. But the pair have moved beyond the "Liddle Marco" jabs.

The Florida senator was a key ally during Trump's presidency, though Rubio did not support overturning the 2020 election results. After the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, Rubio delivered an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, arguing that it was "a terrible idea" to continue to raise objections to the results.

Like many on this list, Rubio has given combative answers on whether he would accept the 2024 results.

"'No matter what happens?' No, if it's an unfair election, I think it's going to be contested by each side," Rubio told "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker in late May.

Now a third-term senator, Rubio would also have more experience in federal office than Vice President Kamala Harris did when Biden tapped her to be his running mate.

Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum was virtually unknown nationally before his brief GOP primary run. It's not even clear if his campaign changed that status. Arguably, one of the biggest news days of his campaign was whether he would attend a primary debate after he injured his leg.

But since ending his campaign, Burgum has maintained a ubiquitous presence as a top-level surrogate all over TV. He's now a serious contender to be Trump's running mate.

If he doesn't get picked, Trump has already suggested including Burgum in his potential cabinet.

Burgum also shares the former president's background of parlaying business success into a political career. He sold his software company to Microsoft for $1.1 billion.

Sen. JD Vance of Ohio

Despite having just been elected to the US Senate last year, Vance has repeatedly been floated as a vice-presidential candidate for Trump.

And he's not saying no.

"Certainly if the president asked, I would have to think about it," Vance recently said while stumping for Trump in New Hampshire — though he also said that the "best place for me" is to remain in the US Senate.

A former venture capitalist and the author of the bestselling book "Hillbilly Elegy," Vance was once a "NeverTrumper" and a fierce critic of the former president. But he has since morphed into one of his staunchest acolytes in the Senate, and he's at the vanguard of a movement that seeks to reorient the party more towards the working class.

Vance and some other top VP contenders made it a point to attend Trump's Manhattan criminal trial. Trump later became the first former president to be convicted of a felony.

Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida

Donalds, currently in just his second term, has risen rapidly in Congress. Conservatives opposed to Kevin McCarthy's leadership put the Florida Republican forth as an alternative to the then-longtime House GOP leader. Donalds was later added to the powerful House Steering Committee after he switched his support to McCarthy and McCarthy went on to become speaker.

That wasn't his only major flip. Donalds, who had previously been DeSantis' close ally, endorsed Trump last April, part of a string of Florida Republicans that snubbed their governor to back the former president. Donalds has also been floated as a potential successor to DeSantis, who cannot run for reelection in 2026 due to consecutive term limits.

Donalds was also among the six potential names Ingraham suggested to the former president. Trump responded by saying, "They're all good, they're all solid."

Like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Donalds would also have to deal with potential concerns of sharing the same home state as Trump.

Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York

The chairwoman of the House GOP Conference, Stefanik is the highest-ranking official who is seen as a potential Trump pick.

The New York congresswoman, who ascended to her leadership position on the heels of Liz Cheney's ouster, has notably undergone a sharp shift when it comes to Trump, beginning with the 2019 impeachment hearings.

Trump has reportedly described Stefanik as a "killer" and a potential pick in private, and the congresswoman recently said she "would be honored to serve in any capacity in a Trump administration."

Stefanik has raised her national profile by grilling college presidents over their handling of students who have protested the Israel-Hamas war. The New Yorker has drilled into administrators whom she has accused of being too weak in their response to antisemitism.

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina

The 58-year-old three-term senator endorsed Trump shortly before the New Hampshire primary. The South Carolinian also largely avoided criticizing Trump in a way that may have foreclosed him being on the ticket.

According to Politico, Scott talks with Trump or texts with the former president nearly every week.

Scott previously stoked speculation that he could be picked by telling the Wall Street Journal that he found his and Trump's contrasting styles "to be very complementary."

It's worth noting that while the former president has a growing list of congressional allies, the Senate has repeatedly been an issue for him.

Former HUD Secretary Ben Carson

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson has remained in Trump's good graces. It likely helps that he's one of the few Trump Cabinet veterans to endorse the former president wholeheartedly.

Former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told Sky News Australia in early June that Carson will likely get tapped.

"The one element I think Ben Carson has that none of the other six people on the list have is I don't think Ben Carson wants to be president; I don't think he wants to run for president," Mulvaney said.

Carson is much more conservative than Trump on a key issue: abortion. Carson has previously said he supports a nationwide abortion ban, a position that Trump has strenuously tried to avoid.

Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy

Like some other candidates on this list, Ramaswamy is unlikely to be chosen as Trump's next VP. But that doesn't mean there aren't people out there who would like to see it.

Ramaswamy was perhaps the only candidate in the race who never dared to issue substantive criticisms of Trump, choosing instead to run as a staunch supporter of the former president who would carry that mantle forward.

He dropped out immediately after coming in 4th in Iowa, endorsing Trump and likely securing himself some sort of future position in MAGA world, if not Trump's actual cabinet.

But while Ramaswamy would be popular with some of Trump's most devoted followers, his penchant for conspiracy theorizing would likely be a liability in a general election.

Former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii

Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard was once the most surprising name under Trump's consideration. The former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate may now have her eyes set on a different Cabinet post.

In early June, Gabbard said during an interview that serving as either Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense would be one of the ways she could best serve the country under a possible second Trump administration.

Her politics have changed drastically since then. In 2022, she announced that she was formerly leaving the Democratic Party. Over time, the four-term former congresswoman became a fixture on Fox News and at political events. According to The Washington Post, Gabbard has also advised the former president and his team about defense policy.

She was also among the six names Ingraham asked Trump about in terms of potential running mates.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia

Greene, the fire-breathing conspiracy-minded congresswoman from Georgia, wouldn't exactly be a tent-expanding choice for the former president.

But that hasn't stopped her from talking up her own prospects.

"It's talked about frequently and I know my name is on a list," Greene told The Guardian in August. "But really my biggest focus right now is serving the district that elected me."

A second-term legislator with no major policy accomplishments, Greene wouldn't bring much to the equation when it comes to policy chops or broadening Trump's appeal. In fact, it could damage the ticket, given her extremely poor polling.

Greene has also alienated top party leaders over her push to oust Speaker Mike Johnson. Trump has repeatedly praised Johnson as he tried to navigate Greene's challenge.

Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama

Britt quickly built her profile before delivering the Republican Party's official response to Biden's State of the Union address.

Britt's response was widely panned, including by some Republicans. NBC's "Saturday Night Live" enlisted Scarlett Johansson to impersonate the freshman senator.

At just 42, Britt could become one of the youngest vice presidents in recent memory. Only Dan Quayle, then a US senator from Indiana, would have been slightly younger. Quayle was 41 when he began his vice presidency under President George H.W. Bush.

Britt has made her age and the fact she is a mother of school-age children a key selling point in her political career.

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas

No one on this list knows Trump like Sanders. As his second White House press secretary, Sanders turned her turn at the podium into a governorship. As Arkansas governor, she's pursued an array of conservative policies.

She has endorsed Trump's campaign, but she has hinted that she wouldn't be interested in returning to the White House as vice president.

"Look, I absolutely love the job I have. I think it's one of the best jobs I could ever ask for, and I am honored to serve as governor, and I hope I get to do it for the next seven years," Sanders previously told CBS News.

Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota

The second-term South Dakota governor was once, perhaps best known nationally for flouting COVID restrictions during the pandemic. That was until Noem decided to include a story in a forthcoming book about her decision to kill the family's 14-month-old dog after she claimed it proved to be untrainable and overly aggressive.

Since then, the consensus is that Noem has greatly damaged her prospects of becoming Trump's running mate.

Before the dog episode, Noem faced concerns after she posted a bizarre infomercial-esque video touting a dental procedure she received in Texas.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida

Trump and his allies spent over a year ruthlessly attacking DeSantis. It was only toward the end of his disappointing primary that the 45-year-old began to return fire.

DeSantis did endorse Trump immediately after dropping out before New Hampshire, but the question remains if either side would want to repair their political alliance.

There appeared to be a brief peace, but that was thrown into after a top Trump campaign official tore into DeSantis. The public attack was in response to a report that DeSantis privately expressed concern that Trump might resort to "identity politics" when selecting his vice president.

Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley

Haley offered a limited endorsement of Trump in late May, ending speculation about who she would vote for in November.

"I will be voting for Trump," Haley said at an event after listing off her disagreements with Biden. She added, "Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me and not assume that they're just going to be with him. And I genuinely hope he does that."

Trump, who previously shot down an earlier report that he was considering Haley to be vice president, said Haley is "going to be on our team in some form."

Toward the end of her primary challenge, Haley repeatedly said she's not interested in being anyone's vice president. She praised Trump when she served as his UN ambassador, but was highly critical of him during the GOP primary.

Biden has also shown greater interest in bringing Haley's voters than Trump.

• The "Full House" townhouse in San Francisco is back on the market, now priced at $6.5 million.
• The show's creator, Jeff Franklin, bought and renovated the property before selling it in 2020.
• Only the home's exterior appeared in the sitcom, but it remains a tourist attraction for fans.

The San Francisco house used as the Tanner residence in the beloved sitcom "Full House" is back on the market for $6.5 million.

The early opening credits of the show — which chronicled the hijinks of three men parenting three sisters over eight seasons from 1987 to 1995 — ended with a shot of the Victorian townhouse at 1709 Broderick Street.

In reality, though, the show filmed all of its interior scenes at a studio in Los Angeles. So the memorable living room and kitchen where countless humorous exchanges took place never actually existed inside the house.

That doesn't stop people from showing up and taking pictures.

The "Full House" fandom is still alive — so much so that the show's creator, Jeff Franklin, paid $4 million for the house in 2016 and planned to renovate the interior into a replica of the TV set and allow fans to visit.

However, those plans fell through and he instead renovated the home. The outside looks the same as it did in the '80s, but the red door has been repainted a more neutral black color. The same can't be said about the inside, which was completely updated with upscale 21st-century finishings and furniture.

Franklin sold the house for $5.35 million in 2020. Four years later, those buyers are now sellers, hoping to offload the four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom townhouse for $6.5 million.

Take a look at the "Full House" house, which remains a pop-culture touchpoint even though it's undergone so many changes.

The "Full House" home made famous by the sitcom listed this week for $6.5 million.

Rachel Swann of The Swann Group listed the four-bedroom home, which last sold in 2020 for $5.35 million.

Jeff Franklin, the show's creator, bought the home in 2016 for $4 million and renovated it before the 2020 sale.

The opening credits of "Full House" actually showed two different neighborhoods.

In the opening credits of the show, the family is seen driving across San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and picnicking by the famous row of "Painted Ladies" — pastel-colored Victorian townhouses — across from Alamo Square.

The house that the Tanners "lived in" during the show — the one used for exterior shots that's for sale — is actually about a mile north of Alamo Square.

The red door is missing, but the home still looks similar to when it was featured on the show.

The exterior of the home looks slightly updated since the show first aired in 1987, but it retains a neutral-colored facade, a big bay window, brick steps, and a door framed by white columns.

It's still a tourist attraction for many fans of "Full House," and many paid pilgrimages and left flowers after star Bob Saget's sudden death in 2022.

Immediately, the inside takes on a very different vibe than the Tanners' living room.

The inside of the home always looked different than it did on the show because all indoor scenes were filmed using a soundstage.

Franklin's original plan after buying the house was to renovate the 3,737-square-foot home to replicate the set of the show, but those plans fell through.

Unsurprisingly, the kitchen looks way more modern than the woodsy kitchen showed on air.

The house was originally built in 1883, but its most recent renovation happened in 2019 by architect Richard Landry.

The bedrooms definitely aren't stuck in the '80s.

With the lack of wallpaper, posters, and other colorful decorations, this couldn't be one of the girls' rooms.

The home retains a few nods to its place in TV history.

In the backyard garden, there are concrete slabs with handprints and signatures from the original cast.

• Kenya's basic income trial has grown to 20,000 participants in 200 rural villages.
• The program, which began in 2018, provides no-strings-attached cash payments for up to 12 years.
• Researchers found long-term UBI supports economic stability. US leaders are taking note.

Kenya is running one of the world's largest basic income trials.

The country's program has grown to include 20,000 participants in 200 rural villages, and US leaders are taking note. The no-strings-attached cash payment model has been tried over 100 times across America, with participants reporting that basic income allowed them to secure housing, afford food, pay off debt, and support their children.

GiveDirectly — a nonprofit that has helped administer basic income programs around the world — is leading Kenya's pilot, which began in 2018.

Unlike most government assistance, basic income allows individuals and families the freedom to spend money where they need it most, instead of programs like SNAP and Medicaid which have specific spending categories.

Dustin Palmer, US country director for GiveDirectly, said that trusting families with cash is the best method to "help people get on their feet."

"This is a way of thinking about how we support families, children, all sorts of folks in a way that meets them where they are," Palmer previously told Business Insider.

Kenya's program is considered to be universal basic income because families don't have to meet specific income criteria to participate. In guaranteed basic income programs run in the US, participants must have a household income at or below a certain percentage of the federal poverty line. However, about half of Kenya's participants are living below the country's extreme poverty line, per GiveDirectly, which means surviving on less than $33 a month or $400 a year without government assistance.

Participants were sorted into three randomized groups: the first group received $22.50 a month (2,925 KES) for 12 years; the second group received $22.50 a month for two years; and the third group received one $500 lump-sum payment (65,000 KES) at the start of the program. Researchers are also studying a control group of similar villages that did not receive cash.

GiveDirectly plans to survey participants through 2030, when the long-term UBI participants are set to receive their final payment. GiveDirectly researchers are looking to understand the impacts of long vs. short-term UBI support, as families aim to afford basic needs and build sustainable wealth.

Community leaders in the US are noticing the lessons of Kenya's pilot. Michael Tubbs, chair and founder of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, visited Kenya in December 2023. Tubbs' 2019 GBI pilot in Stockton, California, began the wave of cash aid programs in America, and he said Kenya's pilot is a successful model for helping families escape extreme poverty.

"Whether at home or abroad, we need to recognize that dignity is a human right—and a right that poverty directly violates," Tubbs wrote in an essay about the UBI pilot. "But by trusting people to do right by their families and communities — because we know they will — we can ensure that right is secured."

UBI pilot helped families in Kenya meet basic needs and begin building wealth

GiveDirectly's initial report on the Kenya UBI pilot captures participant experiences in their first two years of receiving payments, from 2018 to 2020.

All participants said basic income improved their housing and food security, mental health, and household savings. Participants also reported net growth for village businesses and lessened inequality in their community.

UBI made participants over 6% happier and more satisfied with their lives, per the GiveDirectly report, and lessened household stress by 10% — despite most participants maintaining the same work schedule as they had before the pilot began. Families were also able to buy more nutritious food, invest in more assets, and spend money at local businesses, which likely contributed to an overall 23% increase in average consumption among all participants.

Still, some results vary between specific UBI groups. Families in the lump-sum payment group said they were able to make strong investments, while the families enrolled in the full 12 years of UBI felt more comfortable building savings and taking financial risks.

Families receiving long-term support experienced lower rates of domestic violence and better educational outcomes for their primary school-age children.

For participants enrolled in the two-year group, UBI allowed them to cover basic expenses in the short term, but they weren't able to build savings or lasting wealth.

Kenya's long-term approach to basic income could help more families in America

Although most basic income pilots around the world provide participants with support over a set time period, Kenya's is one of the first to study the impacts of long-term cash aid.

Short-term basic income — which is the most common model used in the US — was the least successful among Kenyan participants, as it didn't allow families to build lasting financial security.

"Policymakers wanting to reduce poverty by creating wealth and independence should rethink using this popular design, as both a long-term UBI and a large lump sum were found to be significantly more transformative," per the results report from GiveDirectly.

With lump sum and long-term basic income, participants were able to both meet their immediate needs and begin building assets and savings for the future. These forms of UBI dramatically improved families' economic outlook, and the researchers said it is the best way to help participants facing extreme poverty.

To be sure, the researchers said more data is needed to fully understand how lump sum or long-term UBI could work in high-income countries. It would be more costly to run longer basic income programs in the US, and it's unclear if the benefits to families would outweigh the costs.

Kenyan participants will complete their next UBI survey in 2025, and the program is set to continue for another six years.

GiveDirectly is trying other basic income programs in Africa. In Kampala, Uganda and Nairobi, Kenya, the nonprofit gave about $1,000 to refugees. And families in Malawi who survived 2023's Cyclone Freddy received a total of $750 over three months beginning in December.

Have you benefited from a guaranteed basic income program? Are you open to sharing how you spent the money? If so, reach out to allisonkelly@businessinsider.com.

• A personality hire is someone who succeeds because of their soft skills.
• AI is thriving on hype (and fear) — and people who are good at creating hype are succeeding.
• Hype men and women and personality hires aren't bad things. In fact, they're necessary.

Of all the world-altering things possible in our new AI era, one decidedly old-fashioned thing is not going anywhere: the personality hire.

A "personality hire" is someone who contributes to a team with soft skills like their dazzling charm. There's a connotation that personality hires might not actually be good at their jobs, that they're just fun to have around the office. But they arguably serve an incredibly important function in the health of an organization.

In the field of AI, it's useful to lightly stretch the definition of "personality hire" to include someone who is really, really good at selling themselves, a product, or simply the idea of AI as this all-powerful entity that will completely change everything about life as we know it, for better or worse (hopefully, for the better if you heed their advice).

They're hype men (or women), you might say. This is because a lot of what's going on with AI right now is hype.

The greatest of all these, of course, is Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. This week, Bloomberg Businessweek reported on Altman's rise within Silicon Valley, starting from founding a mediocre social networking app at age 19 to becoming the head of the most exciting company in tech.

Altman founded Loopt, a pre-smartphone social location app in 2007. He charmed and networked with important tech and venture-capital power players, and was personally tapped to be Paul Graham's successor at Y Combinator at age 29. He was a savvy and successful investor (even still, he has personal investments in more than 400 companies, some of which do business with OpenAI, according to The Wall Street Journal, which has raised some eyebrows about conflict of interest) and convinced deep-pocketed friends Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk (now a frenemy) to fund OpenAI as a nonprofit.

By many accounts, Altman is charismatic, good with people, and even better at getting his way. "Altman's biggest strength is figuring out who can help him the most, then dazzling them," someone who worked with Altman told Bloomberg on the Foundering podcast.

Altman is perhaps the most successful personality hire of all time.

This isn't totally groundbreaking (or even insulting to him). Being a successful CEO or a tech founder requires a certain personality type. This doesn't necessarily mean being fun at cocktail parties: Mark Zuckerberg is a ruthless businessperson but, until recently, seemed to have the charisma of a shingles outbreak. It takes Big Personality Hire Energy to muster the straight-faced ambition to say that you need to raise $7 trillion (yes, trillion) dollars.

Altman's talents as an operator also nearly cost him his job. This past November, when Altman was temporarily fired by the board of OpenAI, it was because some board members found him too smooth an operator and distrusted him. That Altman returned as CEO with a new board speaks to his ability to rally powerful allies like Satya Nadella of Microsoft, although he still has rough waters ahead internally.

And then there's Leopold Aschenbrenner, a newly emerged hypeman of AI doomerism. Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI employee who was reportedly fired for leaking a memo he wrote to the board about safety concerns, published a 165-page manifesto warning about the dangers of unchecked AI. It contains some questionable charts, comparisons to the building of the atomic bomb, and links to a Minecraft video on YouTube.

I don't know if AI will lead to the extinction of the human race or if he's full of smoke. (I sure hope it's not the end of the human race!) Aschenbrenner's warnings have been taken both credulously and skeptically, and I am not in a position to guess how likely it is that we'll soon be in a nuclear war with China over data centers, as he suggests. But there's something about his verbose proclamations that ring to me as hype.

Max Read on Substack has a very astute assessment of the manifesto and how the hyperbole of AI doomerism might be, in some cases, self-serving hype:

What I do know is that the Silicon Valley investor class has become quite contemptuous of Effective Altruism (the school of thought that drove the Future Fund), and highly skeptical and suspicious of the associated focus on existential risk or "x-risk" now that it seems to be a retardant on their ambitions. On the other hand, that same class is quite hawkish on China and bullish on national security businesses and the military-industrial complex. If I were a young and ambitious person whose career so far was largely in "A.I. safety" and other E.A.-associated fields, I might attempt to re-frame my experience and interests as more national-security oriented. And if I were really trying to suck up to reactionary venture capitalists I might also imply that I was unjustly fired over unfair charges of racism by a devious H.R. drone.

While the specifics of this C.V. are credibility-building among Aschenbrenner's target audience (investors and founders in whose companies he'd like to invest, as well as dupes on Twitter who will boost his profile), just as important is the image he fits: Young, prodigious, confident, fast-talking, able to speak fluidly on a range of subjects from geopolitics to epidemiology to chip design. If Aschenbrenner weren't a Zoomer I'd call him a millennial ambition psycho; certainly, he shares with the Ivy League sociopaths of my generation a cloying, manic self-assurance that somehow scans as "genius" to the credulous and the powerful and as "extremely annoying bullshit" to literally anyone else.

And then, tragically, there is the sad tale of the Humane AI Pin. Humane's founders were former Apple employees, incredibly stylish dressers, and produced incredibly cool demo videos that made the product seem amazing. They raised $240 million from investors, including Sam Altman.

When it first started taking preorders, I wrote about how I thought the AI Pin looked awesome and I wanted one — even if I could see how it might be slightly impractical. It was futuristic, fun, and made by really cool and edgy people — the ultimate AI hypesters.

Of course, the AI Pin has been a failure so far. Early reviews were dreadful, sales were far lower than projections, and the company was criticized for launching a half-baked product. This week, they announced a recall on the chargers because there was a danger they could catch on fire. I don't want to laugh (I will not suggest that you just squeeze the AI out of it like Juicero) because I think it's genuinely a huge bummer. I'd love for an ambitious new kind of hardware device to be successful; I'm rooting for that to happen out there in the world because I love cool new gadgets. But this clearly just wasn't it.

At this moment, in June of 2024, everyone knows AI is a "big deal," but most people don't know exactly what that will really mean or look like. This leaves the door wide open for hype purveyors to sell people on its magic and power — or play to their worst fears.

This isn't necessarily bad — hype can be useful just like personality hires in a workplace are useful. And the most beautiful part of all of this? A personality hire is the most human thing — something AI could never replace.

• Precision warfare has been a central tenet of American strategy. 
• But perceptions that precision weapons are effective is a myth, a retired Army officer argues.
• "Accurate strikes do not inherently mean effective," the officer told BI.

America loves smart bombs. Ever since World War II, precision warfare has appealed to what America sees as its strengths: High technology, efficiency and the ability to strike down its enemies with a minimum of harm to innocents.

But that's actually a myth argues Amos Fox, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel. Precision-guided munitions, or PGMs, are no more effective than conventional munitions in limiting collateral damage, and in some cases can make the damage worse.

Fox calls this the "precision paradox." Or, "the incongruence between precision strike theory and the fervent enthusiasm of precision ideologues," he wrote in an essay for the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.

Precision warfare is associated today with guided missiles, but the concept dates back to the 1930s, when the US began to embrace high-altitude daylight bombing by heavy bombers such as the B-17 Flying Fortress. Swayed by Italian airpower theorist Giulio Douhet, American planners were convinced they could cripple an adversary by bombing its factories, without the need for a costly ground war.

This contrasted with Britain's night area-bombing strategy in World War II that targeted entire German cities. Even if factories weren't hit, residential neighborhoods would be destroyed and workers "de-housed," which was expected to collapse the public's morale. In practice, the distinction between precision and area bombardment proved blurry: bombing through cloudy European skies that obscured targets, while under fighter and flak attack and relying on pencil-on-paper navigation plotting and rudimentary bomb sights meant the majority of American bombs failed to hit their target.

PGMs were supposed to solve this problem. Why drop a dozen bombs when a single GPS-guided missile can destroy a bridge or a command post? Fox sees several flaws in modern precision strike theory. For one, "decapitation" strikes intended to defeat an enemy by eliminating its leaders and command posts have not worked. Nor does Fox believe that the precision strike strategy has actually shortened wars.

But most significantly, Fox questions the essence of US precision warfare: the belief that smart bombs spare a need for boots on the ground. "Accurate strikes are not equivalent to effective strikes," he wrote. In other words, a strike can land on the intended area, selected based on intelligence, and yet fail to achieve the goal of, say, killing a militant leader or stopping a factory from making more bombs, hence necessitating follow-on strikes. When PGMs don't accomplish the mission, "then precision-based warfighting requires additional strikes and, likely, a subsequent use of land force activities to offset the shortcomings of precision strikes."

This can actually result in higher civilian casualties than if conventional weapons had been used in the first place because it requires repeated attacks. "If precision strikes are often accurate, but ineffective, and additional strikes or land operations are required to create the effect intended with the initial precision strikes, then precision strategies do not decrease civilian casualties and collateral damage in conflict zones."

Fox points to the extensive use of American PGMs during the ferocious battles of Raqqa and Mosul in 2016-2017. In trying to root out heavily fortified Islamic State positions dug into civilian neighborhoods, many buildings were destroyed and thousands killed. Israel faces a similar situation today as it hunts Hamas in Gaza.

Thus the paradox: an individual PGM may be more accurate than a dumb bomb. But if a PGM fails to knock out a target — whether due to poor intelligence or the pure chance that reigns on battlefields — more guided weapons have to be launched, thus defeating the whole purpose of precision.

"Accurate strikes do not inherently mean effective," Fox told Business Insider. "Therefore, more strikes are required when a strike does not effectively accomplish its intended purpose. Thus, in the aggregate, if a PGM isn't 100 percent effective, it can often result in similar outcomes to ballistic artillery, or other non-precision munition employment."

Fox doesn't believe that smarter bombs will solve the paradox. "Better PGMs isn't really the problem," he said. "PGMs are currently about as accurate as can be. For that matter, although artillery is an area fire weapon, it is still very accurate."

But what about the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, in which massive amounts of PGMs are being employed? In Ukraine, both sides are using massive numbers of guided weapons, at a rate that is depleting stockpiles and factory capacity, yet neither side has managed to achieve decisive results. Israel carried out strikes in Gaza against 29,000 targets in the first four months of the war, often with guided weapons, but that has failed so far to destroy Hamas.

"The lesson is that Hamas is a land force," said Fox. "The inconvenient truth about war is that it still requires a land force to defeat a land force. Precision warfare, which isn't really a thing, augments a land force in defeating another land force. It doesn't replace it."

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.

• Jay Cadmus was laid off in his 50s after more than two decades at IBM.
• He was unemployed for six months and had to pause his 401(k) and his kid's college savings. 
• Cadmus said he experienced ageism in his search and found younger people got jobs he applied for.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jay Cadmus, a communications advisor, about being laid off at age 55. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I worked for IBM for 23 years in various roles. I started in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I did internal communications, local and regional media relations, and speechwriting for the general manager.

I had roles working on IBM's sponsorship of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta in its software group, technology, and web content. My final job was as the media relations manager for the global technology services division.

I hoped I'd be able to keep working at IBM until I finished my career unless another great opportunity presented itself.

I was laid off in September 2015 when I was 55. I was surprised when my boss told me, but I wasn't shocked. I'd been laid off earlier in my career and always knew it was a possibility.

I had been laid off before — in my 30s

I was laid off at 31, only three months after joining the organization where I was working. I had two kids and a mortgage — I wasn't prepared.

The experience changed my perspective. After that, I viewed every role as a bridge job.

Over the years, I kept my network current, updated my résumé at least twice a year, kept my LinkedIn profile current, and always looked for other opportunities.

So, when I was told I was going to be laid off from IBM in August, I was ready for it. My résumé was already updated, and I started applying for jobs on my way home.

I knew that it would be harder the 2nd time around

Time wasn't on my side. I thought it would take me several months if not longer, to find my next opportunity. I knew being older, there were fewer opportunities because I'm more expensive, and there are fewer roles where the hiring manager is looking for someone with that level of experience.

When I was laid off at 31, I was given two months' notice in October, and by February, I had landed another position. I was younger, cheaper and the job market was probably a bit different.

I had a kid at home and a mortgage

After my 2015 layoff, I looked for freelance consulting work because I needed an income to bridge the gap until I landed a new job. My third child was still living at home, and I had to pay the bills and mortgage.

We had to make some financial adjustments as a family. I thought getting a new job could take as long as a year. We paused our investments in our funds for our kid's college and our retirement.

My wife increased her work hours from part-time to full-time, and because of that, we were both able to enroll in her company's health insurance.

I reached out to a business associate who ran a small marketing firm. He was growing and needed people to work. The next week, I started doing freelance content writing for him. Some weeks, I worked 30 hours on freelance projects; some weeks, it was 12 hours.

It wasn't as much as I had been making, but it was significant. Doing something kept me from worrying about my finances.

I networked to find job opportunities

I treated finding a job like having a job. I applied for 60 jobs, spoke to around 20 recruiters, and got between eight and 12 interviews. I only applied to jobs I knew I had a chance of getting.

Whenever I saw a job I wanted, I found someone at the company who worked in that function on LinkedIn and reached out. That could help slip my résumé to the top of the stack. The human element was important.

My greatest asset was the network I'd built over the years. When I reached out to people, they told me about job opportunities in their networks.

I was very organized. I kept records of every job I applied for, every interaction I had, and every contact I made in my network so I knew when to follow up.

I experienced ageism in my search

There is some bias against older employees. In some interviews, I could see the light go out in their eyes when they realized my age.

There was one job I didn't get where I saw the person they ended up hiring was much younger and had significantly less experience than I did or even than the job had required.

Employers are never going to tell you it's because of your age, but it was in the back of my mind.

I landed a job after 6 months

I heard about a job through a contact in my network. I'd applied for a role at her company and hadn't gotten it. During a chat with her afterward, she said a recruiter had reached out to her the previous week with a role. She didn't want it because she wasn't looking to move but thought I'd be a good fit.

She gave the recruiter my name, and I landed the offer three weeks later, in March 2016. It was such a relief to have a salary and to start saving again for my son's college fund and my 401(k), which I had paused for six months.

The job I landed was tough but interesting. I worked in the company's consulting group on organizational change and management practices. I'm still there. I do all the communications for the company's sales.

I thought I'd retire in 2021, but I haven't yet. Maybe one day, I'll start up my freelance and consultancy work again. I'll always do this work just because I enjoy it and I'm pretty good at it.

If you have been laid off in your 50s or 60s and would like to share your story, email ehopkins@businessinsider.com.

• A self-described "professional" troll posted that their cousin, a juror in Trump's hush money trial, predicted his conviction.
• The Facebook post became the subject of a letter from the judge to prosecutors and Trump's lawyers.
• While it wouldn't be grounds for a new trial, the post may raise questions, a former prosecutor told BI.

About 24 hours before a Manhattan jury made Donald Trump the first-ever former president to become a convicted felon — a person going by the name "Michael Anderson" made a little-noticed Facebook comment.

"Thank you for all your hard against the MAGA crazies!" he wrote in a comment on an unrelated post on the official page of the New York State Unified Court System.

"My cousin is a juror on Trumps criminal case and they're going to convict him tomorrow according to her. Thank you 🙏 New York courts!!!! ❤️"

In a Friday afternoon letter, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over the trial, alerted prosecutors and Trump's defense lawyers about the comment.

"Today, the Court became aware of a comment that was posted on the Unified Court System's public Facebook page and which I now bring to your attention," Merchan wrote.

But it's far from clear that the comment is genuine.

Anderson — if that is his real name — claims to be a troll.

Business Insider located the Facebook comment, which was timestamped 4:39 p.m. on May 29, a day before the jury verdict. It was made in response to an unrelated Facebook post about a program from the New York state court system to promote diversity.

"Now we are married ❤️ 😁," he posted in response to another Facebook comment, which criticized his purported cousin.

On his Facebook page, Anderson describes himself as "Transabled & a professional shit poster." His profile picture is an image claiming his account is restricted. His cover photo broadcasts the slogan: "Facebook: Wasting peoples lives since 2004."

Few posts are publicly visible on Anderson's page. Visible ones appear to be food videos and comedic Reels, a product from Facebook owner Meta that seeks to emulate TikTok videos.

"As appropriate, the Court informed the parties once it learned of this online content," Al Baker, a spokesperson for the New York State Unified Court System, told Business Insider, declining to comment further on the incident.

Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles, as well as representatives for the Manhattan District Attorney's office, did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Anderson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent through Facebook, but in a public post added to his profile shortly after BI reached out, he wrote, "Take it easy, I'm a professional shitposter," along with a laughing emoji and the Wikipedia definition of shitposting.

While it remains unclear how significant the Facebook post will become during the proceedings leading up to Trump's sentencing, it could complicate things.

Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, told BI that the social post, though apparently trolling, could raise questions about whether outside influences managed to find their way into the jury deliberation room, which is one of the few times the defense could use jury deliberations as grounds to appeal for a new trial.

However, he said, the burden for a new trial is high and would require the defense to show an outside influence prejudiced the jury enough that the outcome may have been different without exposure to it.

"A stray comment on social media is not enough for a new trial," Rahmani said. "But if the defense can get a declaration from a juror that they discussed the case with family members, then Judge Merchan would hold an evidentiary hearing to examine the juror to determine whether the improper influence and prejudice took place.  I don't think a statement from the family member is enough if it's not supported by a juror affidavit."

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Rumors of a pair of Sonos-branded headphones have been swirling for nearly as long as the company has been a household name. After all, Sonos sells many popular wireless speakers and soundbars, so why not add a pair of headphones to the mix?

Following years of speculation, Sonos' long-awaited headphones have arrived. They're called the Sonos Ace ($449), and they perform great for a pair of flagship Bluetooth headphones. But the keyword there is Bluetooth. Many fans hoped the brand's first headphones would work like its portable Roam and Move speakers, which use Bluetooth on the go but also support WiFi to stream music at home and group with other Sonos audio gear. However, WiFi streaming on the Ace turned out to be wishful thinking.

Don't get us wrong, the Ace still stack up well against the best over-ear headphones from Bose, Sony, and Apple. But they don't do a lot to stand out from the pack. The biggest difference, on paper anyway, is the Ace's ability to pair with a Sonos Arc soundbar for private listening, but we could not get this feature to work with our setup. We also ran into an issue with some faint signal noise with transparency mode engaged.

Still, despite some hiccups, it's no small feat that Sonos' first headphones offer performance that rivals many top competitors. Even with their quirks, the Ace's mix of great sound, fantastic noise-canceling, and an incredibly comfy fit results in a formidable pair of high-end Bluetooth headphones.

The Ace headphones are well-designed and easy to use

Apart from the issues we encountered with the headphones' TV Swap feature (more on that below), the Ace's setup experience is as slick and smooth as you'd expect from a brand of Sonos' pedigree.

Opening the box reveals a fuzzy gray case made from 75% recycled plastic bottles. Unzip it, and you'll find a minimalist pair of matte headphones in black or Soft White wrapped around a bean-shaped pouch. Designed to harbor the Ace's dual USB-C cables for wired playback and charging, the pouch attaches via a strong magnet at the case's center, efficiently utilizing the space. The whole layout feels equally aimed at style and substance.

The headphones themselves borrow aesthetic touches from rivals like the Bose QuietComfort Ultra and Apple AirPods Max but with a Sonos twist, bearing the same elegantly stripped-down design cues found across all Sonos products. From the Ace's sleek rounded ear cups and laser-etched logo to their steel arms and cushy, vegan-leather pads, this is a familiar package that still manages to strike its own chord.

On the right ear cup are dual control buttons, including a multi-function "content key" for playback and volume via a mix of taps and slides. There's also an adjacent key to swap between noise canceling and transparency modes. The two keys are easily distinguishable by touch for error-free control in nearly any setting. On the left cup is the power/pairing key and a USB-C input for charging and wired playback. 

Downloading the Sonos app helps you quickly pair the headphones to your mobile device and add them to your list of Sonos devices where you can monitor status and battery life. Tapping the Settings icon lets you adjust features like bass and treble, head tracking for spatial audio effects, and multi-point audio to pair the headphones to a second device like a laptop or tablet.

The flexible band and fluffy pads give the Ace an edge in comfort

Comfort is always subjective, but we can say without hesitation that the Ace are the most comfortable noise-canceling headphones we've encountered, beating out favorites like Bose's QuietComfort Ultra and the Sony WH-1000XM5. After a week of wearing the Ace nearly all day, every day, we rarely experienced an inkling of discomfort.

Frankly, we're not sure how Sonos did it. At 313 grams, the Ace are lighter than Apple's AirPods Max, but still outweigh both Bose and Sony's top models by a good 60 grams. You can definitely feel the heft as you swing your head around, but somehow between their ultra-soft pads and taut yet judicious clamping force, they manage to pull off the proverbial headphone trick of nearly disappearing on your head over time.

The fit is also quite stable, staying put even on light hikes and other semi-rigorous activities. Without an IP certification for water resistance, we wouldn't recommend the Ace for sweaty jogs or gym regimens, but they're excellent companions for nearly any other task.

The sound is rich, smooth, and detailed

The Ace offer a smooth and mellow sound signature. They have a penchant for digging up lush and vivid instrumental timbres, all spread across a deep and expansive soundstage. The overall performance stacks up well with some of the best-sounding headphones in their class.

The Ace do exhibit a darker tonal color than you'll find in rivals like the spritely Bose QuietComfort Ultra. But this doesn't affect the Ace's talent for exposing fine details. Horns are breathy and full. Strings are smooth and lush. Acoustic guitars ring with a golden sheen. The ability to precisely place all these instruments in the mix may be the Ace's most impressive sonic feature, allowing you to explore each instrument independently or simply sit back and let them wash over you.

There's some sparkle in the treble for pristine clarity in high-flying percussion and loads of definition in instruments like buzzy synths and distorted electric guitars. At the other end, bass is full and punchy without being overwhelming. Unlike many headphones we test, the bass is fairly balanced by default, though we still dropped it down a notch or two in the EQ settings to clear up space in the soundstage. We also turned off the Loudness setting, which tended to make things sound a bit boomy.

On occasion, we wished for a bit more presence and clarity in vocals and dialogue, particularly when listening to podcasts, but we never struggled to hear minute details like vocal fry or room echos, allowing us to notice sounds we'd missed in previous listens. Hardwiring the Ace via a USB-C-to-3.5mm cable offers even better definition, including support for lossless audio at up to 16-bit/48Hz resolution. 

The Ace supports head tracking for stereo content, which keeps the sound anchored when you turn your head to mimic the effect of listening to speakers positioned in a fixed location. This is also supported with Dolby Atmos 3D audio when synced with an Arc soundbar, but we couldn't get that feature to work. However, with stereo content, head tracking works similarly to rivals, effectively simulating a home theater environment.

Noise-canceling and transparency modes are phenomenal, aside from one hiccup

The Ace's incredible noise canceling is a triumph worth celebrating. This is top-tier cancellation that stacks up with some of the best pairs available, seeming to suck the air out of the world and plant you in an isolation chamber of solace.

We tested the feature indoors with studio speakers playing sound effects as well as outdoors on hikes and dog walks, where it was most impressive. Tapping the button can almost extinguish the world, from city din to chirping birds. Even traffic-laden streets glide into a soft whisper.

In head-to-head tests, only Bose's mighty QuietComfort Ultra outpowered them, reducing sounds like keystrokes and drone effects to an even lower murmur. Even so, the Ace's ability to offer such stark silence without a modicum of added white noise makes them a contender for one of the best noise-canceling headphones you can buy.

The Ace also have an excellent transparency mode that's designed to let in environmental sounds to keep you aware. This mode is vividly clear and natural. It's so good that we were able to wear them virtually all day without skipping a beat, similar to Apple's latest AirPods. Though we weren't able to test the Ace directly against the AirPods Max, based on previous listening, we're confident you won't find a more natural-sounding transparency mode on the market.

However, there is one notable caveat to our praise. With this mode engaged, we occasionally heard mild connection noise in the right earcup. Sonos sent us two models to test and this issue was present on both. It's not enough to be a nuisance in most scenarios (it's audible only when connecting for a call or between songs in a quiet room), but it's still disappointing from headphones this pricey.

That said, it's not uncommon for debut products to arrive with a few bugs, so this could be ironed out with firmware.

The Ace's lack of WiFi streaming is disappointing, and we couldn't get TV Swap to work

The Ace have many top features you'd expect from flagship noise-canceling headphones, like multi-point pairing, sensors to pause audio when you take them off, and various other settings from within the Sonos app. Their battery life of up to 30 hours per charge is highly competitive, and we could use them all day for multiple days without the need to charge.

However, the Ace's inability to group with other Sonos speakers to stream music and other audio sources over WiFi is something of a letdown, even if it would have been unique among their peers. It's not particularly surprising at this price — we would have expected another $100 or so added in to get seamless support for both WiFi and Bluetooth — but it does put the Ace in a somewhat siloed position within the Sonos ecosystem.

The consolation prize for the Sonos faithful is the ability to wirelessly switch audio between the Ace headphones and a Sonos Arc soundbar (and eventually the Beam and Ray). This is handled via a TV Swap button in the Sonos app, currently for iOS users only. This means you can hear movies and TV shows privately through the headphones without disturbing others. And this mode supports Dolby Atmos, so you can get a surround sound effect through the headphones. But even with an iPhone and a new Sonos Arc soundbar on hand, no matter how many times we tried, we couldn't get either pair of Ace headphones Sonos sent us to sync with the Arc.

Sonos' support team told us "You've encountered a rare bug that our team is aware of and working to address in a future release." The headphones use a 5GHz connection for this feature (despite their lack of full WiFi support), so it's possible our network played a part. But the fact that we could easily group the Arc with a Sonos Era 100 and Era 300 speaker for multi-room playback made the issue all the more curious (and frustrating).

We expect a firmware update to address this — this is Sonos, after all — and we'll update this review with any changes as we continue to test.

Should you buy the Sonos Ace?

The Sonos Ace's many talents, from their fabulous noise canceling and transparency modes to their comfortable fit and sweet sound, instantly put them in the conversation with other top wireless headphones on the market. From that perspective, they're worth considering for those with an ample budget.

That said, their lack of full WiFi compatibility with the Sonos ecosystem may disappoint some ardent Sonos fans, not to mention the troubles we encountered, like their mild connection buzz and refusal to sync with the Arc soundbar over our network. 

We still recommend putting the Sonos Ace on your shortlist — they're just too damn comfortable and well-armed not to be — but we'll wait until Sonos addresses the issues we encountered before giving them our full seal of approval.

• Marine geophysicists just published the widest survey of the Cascadia Subduction Zone to date.
• The Cascadia Subduction Zone is a fault located off the Pacific Coast shoreline, from Northern California to British Columbia. 
• It's can produce "giant" earthquakes, and the researchers identified the most dangerous part of it.

Hidden off the US Western shore, beneath the Pacific Ocean, is the Cascadia Subduction Zone. This fault is capable of generating earthquakes larger than magnitude 8 that can be felt hundreds of miles away, and a recent study has pinpointed the most dangerous segment along its 700-mile-long stretch.

The results will help scientists assess earthquake and tsunami risk for this region, including one particularly vulnerable state: Washington.

"This has been a subduction zone that's been under-studied with the kinds of tools that we have available now," geophysicist Suzanne Carbotte, a Bruce Heezen Lamont research professor at Columbia University, told Business Insider.

Armed with state-of-the-art technology that can probe deep beneath the ocean floor and create images, Carbotte and her team produced the first comprehensive survey of Cascadia's complex, below-ground composition. They published their work today in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances.

The researchers discovered that Cascadia is broken up into at least four segments, which had been suggested by previous studies but never confirmed, Carbotte said.

The picture "before our study was a smooth surface with no obvious relationship to this segmentation," Carbotte said. "But that smooth surface was based on very, very sparse data. And in places, no data."

This new picture provides a much more accurate view of Cascadia's complexity, and of the risk it poses to the US West Coast.

How the Cascadia Subduction Zone causes earthquakes

Cascadia is essentially the border between two tectonic plates: the massive North American continent, and the smaller Juan de Fuca plate.

The Juan de Fuca plate is gradually sliding (or subducting) eastward beneath the North American plate, which creates a megathrust fault: a place where tectonic plates move against each other in a dangerous way.

The stress that's driving the Juan de Fuca plate under North America is continuous, Carbotte explained, but the plate's movement is not. Sometimes, it gets stuck.

When locking up like this, the plates can only absorb stress for so long before they finally rupture, triggering an earthquake, she said.

This is what scientists think happened about 300 years ago when the zone ruptured offshore and the resulting earthquake formed a massive tsunami that slammed into the coast of Japan.

While Cascadia hasn't produced a great earthquake since 1700, it's only a matter of time.

Scientists can't predict earthquakes but they can get a better idea of risk by understanding the fault's complex structure deep below ground.

Carbotte and her team have moved the needle significantly on that front.

Zeroing in on risk

Carbotte and her team found lots of variability in the megathrust's structure, which likely means that the hazard varies at different locations along the fault, said Janet Watt, research geophysicist at US Geological Survey Santa Cruz who was not involved in the study.

"It's not a one-size-fits-all answer, but it gives us an appreciation for that complexity," Watt, speaking about Carbotte's results, told BI.

Additionally, understanding that Cascadia is broken up into segments is key to assessing earthquake hazard, Watt said. That's because this segmentation means that the megathrust could rupture in pieces, rather than all at once. This could impact the size of future earthquakes, because shorter ruptures trigger smaller quakes.

What's more, the unique characteristics of each of these segments means each one poses a different level of risk. Another key finding from Carbotte's study is that one of Cascadia's segments is probably more likely to produce a great earthquake than the others.

This particularly dangerous segment essentially spans the coast of Washington, running from the northern Oregon border to southern British Columbia. It's flatter and smoother than the other segments, meaning it could trigger the largest earthquakes, Carbotte told BI in an email.

Plus, this segment likely extends further into the US than the others, which is bad news for the state of Washington. If this segment ruptured, Washington's coastal communities could face the most extreme shaking, although the quake would extend far beyond state borders, Carbotte wrote.

Knowing that could help this state prepare for the worst-case scenario. "I think this is an example of a study that will lead to action in the future in terms of building resiliency along the coastline. And it'll be exciting to see where the science takes us," Watt said.

Carbotte's research emerges in the context of many other studies that are currently working to bring our picture of Cascadia into sharper focus.

"This is one particular study of a larger community effort that is going on to [understand] the system, and then communicate what that means to communities on the coastline and inland, and how we can actually turn science into action," Watt said.

• A Washington DC developer was forced to build a skinny home — six feet wide at its narrowest point.
• Zoning laws made it hard to build any bigger on the 0.02-acre property, the listing agent said.
• The narrow home listed for $799,900 in July 2023, but the price just dropped further to $570,265.

A real-estate developer in Washington, DC, had a small canvas to build a modern home.

Now there's a 10-foot-wide, one-bedroom skinny home on what used to be a driveway.

It's for sale for $570,265 — an almost 29% price reduction from the $799,900 it was asking when it first hit the market in July 2023.

Jennifer Young, the home's listing agent with Keller Williams Chantilly Ventures, said zoning laws changed shortly after developer Nady Samnang purchased the 0.02-acre property, so they had to either scrap the idea of building a home or tighten their floor plan.

"It literally came down to sometimes a centimeter of getting the exact measurements right to both comply with DC zoning and build a really nice home that was functional," Young told Business Insider.

Samnang, a contractor bought it in 2021 for $200,000, according to the Zillow listing.

Samnang, tasked with figuring out how to build a narrow home on a driveway in between two alleys, told The Washington Post that the design went through many iterations and took nearly seven months to get approved by the city's permit office.

"I wanted to quit so many times," he told the Post.

The skinny house has drawn interest from people across the country.

"It's one of the most-viewed homes on Zillow that I've ever seen in my career," Young said. "We do have quite a bit of looky-loos, but we have a lot of first-time buyers looking and investors — people that want to Airbnb it or rent it to college kids."

Nady Samnang and his brother Dean purchased the 700-square-foot lot at the beginning of 2021 with plans to build a four-story home.

According to Zillow, they purchased the lot for $200,000.

Originally, they were going to build a four-story house at double the width, but DC zoning restrictions changed shortly after he bought the land.

"They changed zoning right after he bought it so they were kind of screwed and they either were going to scrap a deal or try to build a tiny home," Young said.

Construction was difficult with such a narrow space and the materials had to be brought in by hand.

"All the materials had to be brought in by hand versus pulling a truck up to the site because it is a very condensed area," Young said. "There's a road, but big work trucks can't come through and it's a very tight space to work in."

Although the house is 6 feet wide at its narrowest point, it still has several amenities that you'd find in any modern home.

It even has a fenced patio big enough for an intimate seating area.

Bringing materials in was not the only challenge. Samnang also had to get creative when finding space for basics inside.

Samnang told the Post that the powder room under the stairs was an "extreme challenge" because of a DC code that requires toilets and sinks to be at least 15 inches apart. He had to opt for a skinny sink to fit.

Lucky for the future buyer, the skinny home comes fully furnished.

No need to haul in a bed upstairs or search for a couch that fits — those items come with the home.

"They just went pretty modern and they chose all the right finishes that are popular now," Young said. "They had to do something that made it as luxury and contemporary and high end as they could within these restrictions."

It was first listed on Zillow for $799,900, making it $1,333 per square foot.

It's 45 feet long and 10 feet across at its widest point.

The price has since dropped to as low as $570,265 in May.

"It's definitely hard to price," Young said. "There's not one single comparable because everything around it is condos and it's not comparable to condos.

The Zillow listing has nearly 50,000 views and over 900 saves — numbers that Young says are rare for the area.

"It's probably the most-viewed DC listing in years right now," Young said.

Investors have taken an interest in using the house as a rental unit for students or as an Airbnb.

Young said it doesn't have any condo or homeowner association fees, which could be enticing for someone looking to rent it out.

Young said that people are drawn to its spectacle but there are plenty of interested buyers as well.

"It's a very popular building," she said. "I think half the people are 'looky-loos,' and half are very interested."