Category: Business

• Tesla doesn't want its suppliers to make all of their stuff in China and Taiwan, per Nikkei Asia.
• Supply chain executives said Tesla wanted to avoid disruptions caused by geopolitical uncertainties.
• Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he didn't ask President Joe Biden to impose tariffs on Chinese EVs.

Tesla has asked its suppliers to start making their parts outside China and Taiwan, Nikkei Asia reported on Thursday.

The EV giant is looking to diversify its supply chain for non-China markets, the outlet reported, citing six supply chain executives familiar with the matter. The company hopes its request can be fulfilled by its suppliers by as early as next year, the outlet reported.

The executives said Tesla wanted to avoid potential supply chain disruptions due to geopolitical uncertainties in the Greater China region.

Tesla isn't the only American automaker looking to expand its supply chains.

"We serve several American automobile makers, and Tesla is the most aggressive in terms of trying to avoid the risks surrounding China and Taiwan," an electronics supplier executive told Nikkei Asia, adding that such a move would be more challenging and expensive.

According to the outlet, General Motors and Ford have raised similar questions to their suppliers, though they did not make an explicit request like Tesla.

Representatives for Tesla, General Motors, and Ford didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.

Tesla's supply chain maneuvers may seem peculiar considering how friendly its CEO, Elon Musk, has been with the Chinese authorities.

The mercurial billionaire made a surprise trip to China last month, where he met Premier Li Qiang, the country's second-highest-ranking politician.

The trip proved fruitful for Musk, as Chinese officials gave their in-principle approval for Tesla to roll out its Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology in the country, per Bloomberg.

On May 7, the state-owned newspaper China Daily reported that officials had also given their partial support to Musk's proposal to implement Tesla's FSD technology in China's taxi services.

And Tesla's Chinese connections don't just end there.

Last month, Musk revealed in an X post that he'd picked the robotaxi's projected August 8 launch date partly because "8/8 is a lucky number in China."

That said, the Tesla chief hasn't been oblivious to the risks of doing business in China.

During an earnings call in January, Musk raised the alarm about the threat posed by Chinese automakers like BYD and Li Auto.

"The Chinese car companies are the most competitive car companies in the world," Musk told investors. "If there are no trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world."

On May 14, the Biden administration said it planned to implement a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs.

"The increase in the tariff rate on electric vehicles will protect these investments and jobs from unfairly priced Chinese imports," the White House said in its statement.

Musk, however, appeared to walk back his remarks in January. On Thursday, Musk said Tesla didn't ask for tariffs to be imposed.

"Tesla competes quite well in the market in China with no tariffs and no deferential support. In general, I'm in favor of no tariffs," Musk said in an interview at the VivaTech conference in Paris.

Musk's shifting rhetoric on China underscores the challenges companies face when navigating the geopolitical headwinds of US-China tensions.

For instance, chip giant Nvidia has been working hard to develop specialized offerings for the Chinese market in order to comply with prevailing US export restrictions.

But even that may be for naught since Chinese officials have asked domestic tech giants like Alibaba and Baidu to buy locally-made AI chips instead, per The Information.

"China is a very important market for the technology industry," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told the Financial Times in May 2023. "If we are deprived of the Chinese market, we don't have a contingency for that. There is no other China, there is only one China."

• Burger King is launching a $5 meal deal before McDonald's similar promotion.
• The Burger King deal includes a sandwich, nuggets, fries, and a drink and will run for several months.
• Fast-food chains are introducing value meals amid inflation and high menu prices.

Burger King is launching its own $5 meal just two weeks after reports of McDonald's introducing a similar deal.

Burger King plans to launch the set, which will include a sandwich, chicken nuggets, fries and a drink, before McDonald's, according to a document seen by Bloomberg. The promotion will also run for longer than one month, unlike McDonald's.

"Regardless of their plans, we are moving full speed ahead with our own plans to launch our own $5 value meal before they do — and run it for several months," Burger King US and Canada president Tom Curtis wrote in a memo seen by Bloomberg.

McDonald's plans to start offering the deal for about a month beginning June 25 at its US restaurants, The Wall Street Journal reported last week. It's unclear exactly when Burger King will launch its promotion.

Burger King did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Earlier this week, Wendy's also announced its version of a value meal — a $3 set consisting of a breakfast sandwich and a small batch of seasoned potatoes.

The price wars come as fast-food chains look to attract customers who are tightening their belts amid inflationary pressures.

Fast-food prices have stayed high since chains increased their menu prices during the pandemic in response to soaring food and labor costs. In April, fast-food executives told investors in a series of earnings calls that people are cutting back on visits to quick-service restaurants.

Last month, Joshua Kobza, the CEO of Burger King parent Restaurant Brands International, told analysts that diners had become "a bit more sensitive to price."

"Our priority is to continue enhancing our value proposition through our quality food and beverages at attractive price points," Kobza said.

However, some price-sensitive customers have not been pacified.

While the McDonald's $5 meal gives customers about $18 worth of food, based on current prices in some urban areas, people on social media have called the promotion "skimpy" and are upset that it will only last one month.

• Google Flights allow you to search many airlines at once to better build your itinerary.
• Google Flights helps travelers find the cheapest available price for airfares.
• Over 300 airlines, online travel agencies, and aggregators are partnered with Google Flights.

Google Flights is Google's very own flight-searching and booking tool. Launched in 2011, the service allows travelers to more easily find the cheapest route between destinations within any given parameters and enables easy price-tracking.

You can often find cheaper flights on Google Flights than by searching on your own because the software searches and compares across dozens of airlines much faster than an individual can look them up individually and plan an itinerary.

You don't have to actually book through Google Flights to make use of the software, either. You can choose to book directly with an airline after using Google Flights to find the cheapest flight.

But booking through Google Flights can often add convenience to your travel plans and is integrated with a number of other Google products and services — for instance, you can use Google's Gemini AI to make travel plans with Google Flights.

Google Assistant can also bring up the Google Flights dashboard and show you flight prices. And if you book a flight using your Gmail account, your details will automatically get added to your Google Calendar.

As a frequent traveler between the US and Canada, I've used Google Flights to save hundreds of dollars flying back and forth across the border. Results may vary, of course, but here's how you can try it for yourself:

How to use Google Flights and find cheap flights on Google

Finding cheap flights is one of the core purposes of Google Flights. If your travel dates are flexible, you can use the date grid to choose dates with the lowest available price.

1. Select your departure and return dates by clicking on their respective date tiles in the calendar.

2. Click Done and then Search.

Quick tip: Though roundtrip plans are the most common, you can also book one-way tickets by clicking on Round trip and selecting One-way instead.

Once you've found a flight that you want, click on it and select your return flight. Unlike some airlines that only show you one-way costs, the price listed for both flights is the roundtrip cost. You will then be shown a summary of what you selected and be prompted to select what type of fare you want. Click Continue, and you'll be taken to the airline's website to complete the transaction.

If you scroll down a bit, you'll notice the price trends chart indicating whether the price is below average, average, or higher than usual.

How to change currency in Google Flights

Once you have search results visible, you can change your country and currency if necessary.

1. Once you have search results, scroll down to the bottom of the page.
2. Click on the Currency button and select your currency option from the dropdown list.

Quick tip: Currency types are sorted in alphabetical order, meaning that US dollars are near the bottom of the list.

How to track flights on Google Flights

Once you've searched for a flight that you are interested in and have results displayed, you can track prices either for that specific date range or any date by enabling their respective notifications.

What airlines are not on Google Flights?

Though Google partners with over 300 airlines, online travel agencies, and aggregators, Google Flights doesn't track every single airline. Notably, Southwest Airlines in the US isn't tracked, nor are some major Asian airlines like China Eastern, Air China, and Philippine Airlines. 

For other airlines, such as EVA Air and Interjet, only some of their flights are listed on Google Flights.

Quick tip: It's worth noting that not every airline Google Flights consults will appear in every search. In other words, you won't find Air Canada listed flying routine routes between LAX and JFK, but you might find a flight from YVR to LAX serviced by WestJet or Air Canada.

What to know about Google Flights' carbon emissions calculator 

Google has drawn criticism from climate experts, who have said Google Flights downplays the impact flights have on climate change. 

In 2021, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that Google Flights would show associated carbon emissions per seat for each flight so fliers can choose the lowest-carbon options if they wish.

But the following year, scientists noted that Google Flights' carbon flight calculator had been adjusted and now only accounted for the direct CO2 emissions from a flight, excluding all other global-warming effects from flying.

Google has since launched an independent advisory committee to improve its Travel Impact Model, which powers the per-passenger CO2 emissions data on Google Flights.

• Government contracting opportunities are increasing, but entry can be challenging and nuanced.
• BI spoke to recruiters to learn best practices to land work at a government contracting company. 
• Recruiters say candidates should avoid short stints, keep their LinkedIn updated, and network. 

As Americans seek stable work and flexibility with jobs, interest in public sector jobs is growing.

Following industry-wide layoffs, a growing number of graduates are shifting away from pursuing jobs at typical tech companies and doubling down on applications to government roles, according to a Handshake report published in January.

While lower pay in government jobs is sometimes viewed as a drawback of the sector, contracting companies tend to pay better than the federal government, and opportunities in this field are also increasing.

According to a spokesperson for recruiting company The Judge Group, the company has seen a 15% increase in government, aerospace, and defense opportunities in the last year or two.

But the world of government contracting is vast and it can be tricky to break into. While some people bid on their own contracts, there are also opportunities to work as an employee at a company that regularly signs contracts with the government.

While these kinds of companies aren't owned by the government, they have niche requirements and nuances that separate them from other corporate roles. Business Insider talked to three recruiters in the field to learn the best practices for getting a job in the industry.

1. Avoid job hoppiness on your résumé

Matt Grussendorf, a delivery manager at The Judge Group, oversees hiring for aerospace, government, and defense employers — and he said job "hoppiness" is a red flag.

For some roles, it's okay to have one six-month contract after another on your résumé, Grussendorf said. But in certain fields, like aerospace and defense, employers may be looking for longer tenure, he told Business Insider.

While short stints may seem inevitable in the industry, there are ways to avoid positioning them that way. Lauren Irizarry, a senior talent acquisition partner at A2 Federal, said if you do have shorter contracts, there's a way to format your résumé to make it look more consistent.

For example, she said if you've worked as a data scientist for 12 years with eight different contracting companies, you can put "data scientist" at the top of your résumé and list the individual contracts underneath instead of listing eight separate lines with the same role.

2. Make sure your clearances are up to date

Many government contracting roles require clearances, which can vary depending on the role and may also expire over time.

Irizarry said it's often easier to start with a larger company so that they sponsor your clearance. However, Quadesha Bynum, who worked in HR at various government agencies and contracting companies before starting her own company, said it can be difficult to land a government contracting job at a big company when starting out, so smaller firms may be a good place to start.

Whether you have the required clearance or not, it's important to accurately list it, Grussendorf said. Recruiting companies like The Judge Group check candidates' clearance, so applicants should verify their status when they apply for a role.

Additionally, candidates who are unwilling to get their clearance verified or checked can be a red flag.

3. Network, network, network

Irizarry said the government contracting industry is "all about networking." That means joining groups on LinkedIn or other platforms and getting in touch with people in the field.

Grussendorf said if you're breaking into the field out of college, you may have the advantage of attending career fairs and events centered on government contracting, he said.

While college fairs may be more accessible for young candidates, there are other networking opportunities. Clearancejobs.com, the largest platform for people with security clearance has a career fair page with a list of upcoming events to directly meet and speak with employers.

4. Reach out to recruiters directly

Since many government contracting opportunities have specific requirements, it can make a big difference to speak with a recruiter directly to find out what you need to do for that specific job.

An easy way to do so is by making a profile on Clearancejobs.com. The site allows users to browse through thousands of open roles, many of which have contact info for recruiters.

Grussendorf recommends reaching out to recruiters, talent acquisition at staffing agencies, or direct employers and telling them the job and salary range you're looking for to stay on their "candidate hot list."

5. Be open to relocation

There are several government hubs around the country, including in D.C., Seattle, Southern California, Alabama, and Denver, said Grussendorf. Most direct hire opportunities offer relocation packages, but contract or contract-to-hire positions typically don't, he said.

But Grussendorf said many employers end up extending the contract or hiring a candidate after they make the commitment to the company. Employers don't want to let strong employees or candidates go if they don't have to.

6. Make sure your LinkedIn is up to date

While some industries are more relaxed about certain standards, government jobs tend to be more traditional. Since many jobs in the sector require background checks and clearances, they may also do more digging than other corporate jobs.

Irizarry said candidates should keep LinkedIn fully professional — that means omitting irrelevant interests or experiences and using headshots from the shoulders up with a plain background.

Irizarry said she looks for information that will grab her attention. For example, if you're a cyber expert or speak multiple languages, list it.

7. Know what you're signing up for

Bynum said it's important to do research on the field before applying. Career fairs, she said, are a great place to do that.

Bynum said candidates should know details like how long the contract lasts and whether there are other positions available. She also said it's important to know what clearances are required for the job and how long that process will take to complete.

• Chinese EV company BYD plans to introduce its bargain hatchback Seagull to Europe in 2025.
• The car's base model sells for less than $10,000 in China.
• Meanwhile, automakers operating in the US are still slow to provide a more affordable EV option. 

As some US drivers pine for more affordable electric vehicle options, America is left to watch the rest of the world get access to some of the cheapest EVs on the market.

Chinese automaker BYD, Tesla's largest rival in China, announced last month that it will bring its affordable electric hatchback, the Seagull, to Europe as soon as 2025, Bloomberg reported.

The Seagull's base model sells for less than $10,000 in China.

While European consumers won't see that same price due to tariffs and local standards, according to Bloomberg, BYD executives have said that the car is expected to sell for less than 20,000 euros or $21,500.

BYD's Seagull already went overseas when it was introduced in smaller EV markets like Mexico, where the car is sold as the Dolphin Mini for about $21,000. And its plans to expand into European territory only increase BYD's position as a dominant global force in the EV auto sector.

Meanwhile, US drivers are becoming increasingly isolated when it comes to access to cheaper alternatives from the Chinese brand.

The chances of BYD coming to America have already been slim to none due to a combination of demand and geopolitical tensions, Business Insider reported in March. The Biden Administration said in February that it would be investigating Chinese automakers out of national security concerns that they are collecting sensitive data from consumers.

But a study on US demand for electric cars from earlier this year by analytics firm GBK collective showed that half of US drivers would consider going electric or hybrid if there were cheaper alternatives, and Biden just further nixed any opportunity for a Chinese company to enter the US market.

The White House announced Thursday that it will be applying a 100% tax on electric vehicles coming from Chinese brands, citing unfair trade practices and threats to US businesses.

This means that US consumers just have to hope that automakers free to operate in America will provide an affordable option under $30,000.

So far, big brands like Tesla or Ford have been slow to deliver.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has for years teased the idea of an under-$30,000 EV.

After Reuters reported in April that Tesla was shifting its focus on robotaxis, analysts said that a cheaper model is more important if the company is looking for a turnaround amid slumping sales. Musk announced in an earnings call in late April that a cheap Tesla is coming.

Days after Musk's assurance, Ford CEO Jim Farley also confirmed in an earnings call that the company is working on EVs that will cost as low as $25,000 to $30,000.

"Increasingly, our bet will be on our new small affordable platform developed by our team on the West Coast," he said.

Spokespeople for BYD, Tesla, and Ford did not respond to a request for comment.

• A former Facebook executive says coding alongside an AI copilot is a "mind meld."
• Aditya Agarwal described the copilot coding experience in a Thursday post on X.
• "The lines between the creator and the tool will blur," he wrote.

A former Facebook director is praising AI's prowess, likening the technology's co-pilot coding ability to a religious experience.

In a Thursday post on X, Aditya Agarwal attempted to describe the feeling of coding alongside a large language model co-pilot.

"It's like someone has jacked up your own abilities by an order of magnitude, while achieving a complete mind meld with what you're trying to do," he wrote.

Agarwal was one of Facebook's first engineers, serving as director of product engineering at the company from 2005 to 2010. He was instrumental in the development of several Facebook staples, including search, news feed, and messenger, according to his LinkedIn.

After leaving Facebook, Agarwal cofounded the collaboration startup Cove and later spent more than six years as chief technology officer at file-sharing and storage startup Dropbox. He's a current partner at South Park Commons, an entrepreneurial firm that funds seed-stage startups.

In his Thursday post, Agarwal said he found it difficult to explain the feeling of coding alongside an AI co-pilot but compared the experience to working with a "demigod" that "amplifies your abilities and anticipates your every move."

"It's a level of all-encompassing synergy that's hard to fathom until you've experienced it firsthand," he wrote.

Several technology companies that are developing artificial intelligence have created copilot tools, which essentially act as AI assistants helping users with various tasks. Microsoft's Copilot tool is one such productivity device that relies on OpenAI's GPT-4.

Agarwal said the tool's power goes beyond simple auto-complete. Relying on a large language model, like GPT-4, an AI copilot is able to "predict your actual intent, presaging what you aim to build," he added.

"Coding is clearly the tip of the spear here, as it's the creative activity we've most clearly plugged into LLMs," Agarwal wrote. "But this is the direction many creative pursuits are headed."

The future of AI assistant tools, Agarwal said, is about "co-creation."

"The lines between the creator and the tool will blur," he added.

Agarwal didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for further comment.

The introduction of AI tools into professional settings has increased anxiety about the future of work in industries across the board. BI's Aki Ito reported last year that the transition for programmers could be especially difficult as coders are inevitably displaced and forced to adapt to a new normal.

But artificial intelligence will also make programmers' jobs easier, allowing them to focus on higher-level tasks, BI previously reported. 

• Victoria Ou and Justin Huang, both 17, won $50,000 for their microplastic filtration device.
• It's the first filtration system to successfully use ultrasound to filter microplastics from water.
• They hope to scale their device for water treatment plants to reduce microplastic pollution worldwide.

Two teenagers from Woodlands, Texas invented a device that could help address one of the most pervasive and challenging forms of pollution on Earth: microplastics.

These microscopic plastic particles show up in the deepest parts of the ocean, at the top of Mount Everest, and are in everything from the dust in your home to your food and water.

By some estimates, we each inhale and ingest a credit card's worth of plastic per week. Then it can end up in our lungs, blood, breastmilk, and testicles.

Victoria Ou and Justin Huang, both 17, hope to prevent that one day with their award-winning device that removes microplastics from water using ultrasonic — or high-frequency — sound waves. Their device is the first to use this method successfully.

Ou and Huang presented their work at last week's Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Los Angeles, where top competitors from science fairs worldwide congregated to share their projects and compete for $9 million in prizes.

The Texas duo received first place in their Google-sponsored category, Earth and Environmental Sciences, and they also snagged the $50,000 prize from the Gordon E. Moore Award for Positive Outcomes for Future Generations.

Though the ultrasonic technique is in its very early stages, the high schoolers hope that one day it could filter the plastic out of your drinking water and from the industrial and wastewater that humans dump into the environment.

"This is the first year we've done this," Huang told Business Insider backstage after receiving their award. "If we could refine this — maybe use more professional equipment, maybe go to a lab instead of testing from our home — we could really improve our device and get it ready for large-scale manufacturing."

While it's unclear how microplastics affect human health, many common chemicals in plastic have been linked to increased risk of cancer, fertility and development issues, and hormone disruption. And we're still a long way from getting rid of microplastics.

The challenge of filtering microplastics

Last fall, while brainstorming ideas for their ISEF project, Ou and Huang visited a water treatment plant. They wanted to find out whether this type of facility already had tools that could remove microplastics from wastewater.

The answer, they discovered, was no. The EPA doesn't regulate microplastics, the employees told Huang and Ou, so they don't remove them from wastewater.

"We knew, from then, to focus on this issue," Huang told BI.

Even if the EPA began regulating these pernicious plastic particles tomorrow, existing removal methods have problems, Huang said.

One solution is to use chemical coagulants, such as aluminum hydroxide, that — when added to water — clump microplastics together into larger, more easily filtered chunks. However, chemical coagulants can also pollute the environment and mess with the PH of purified water. Plus, they're expensive.

There are also some physical filters available, but they clog easily. And biological solutions, like using enzymes to break down plastics, aren't efficient enough to tackle this problem at scale.

"We wanted to find a solution to this because current solutions aren't really effective," Huang said.

So, Ou and Huang — who have been friends since elementary school and connected over their shared interest in the environment — set out to invent their own environmentally friendly, inexpensive, and efficient solution.

How it works

Huang and Ou's device is remarkably small, about the size of a pen. It's essentially a long tube with two stations of electric transducers that use ultrasound to act as a two-step filter.

As water flows through the device, the ultrasound waves generate pressure, which pushes microplastics back while allowing the water to continue flowing forward, Ou explained. What comes out the other end is clean, microplastic-free water.

The two teens tested their device on three common types of microplastics: polyurethane, polystyrene, and polyethylene. In a single pass, their device can remove between 84% and 94% of microplastics in water, according to a press release.

Future work

Ou and Huang believe their technology could be used in wastewater treatment plants, industrial textile plants, sewage treatment plants, and rural water sources. On a smaller scale, it could filter microplastics in laundry machines and even fish tanks.

But first, there's more work to be done. "To reach that stage, I think we need a lot more processing," Ou said. "This is a pretty new approach. We only found one study that was trying to use ultrasound to predict the flow of particles in water, but it didn't completely filter them out yet."

Huang agrees. "I hope we just are able to be able to scale this up, but first we have to refine it because this technology is still at its infancy," he said.

Their $50,000 prize could help them get there. In the meantime, though, they're enjoying the moment.

"We were just happy being able to go to ISEF. Originally, we weren't expecting too much, but getting first place and the top award is much more than we ever expected," Ou said.

"This is something that I've been dreaming of my whole life, so I'm still pinching myself trying to figure out if this is real or not," Huang said.

• Tech titans like Elon Musk and Tim Cook run some of the world's biggest companies.
• In so doing, they've employed some outright strange management practices.
• From banning PowerPoints to having 50 direct reports, here are tech leaders' most unconventional management habits.

They're some of the best-known CEOs in the world. But while we may know more about their flashy real estate buys and jet-setting habits, we don't have as good a glimpse into how they run their companies behind closed doors.

Here are some of the most notable management quirks from tech's biggest names:

• Paradise Valley, Arizona, is attracting wealthy residents from across the US, especially California.
• The average resident of Paradise Valley is older and wealthier than the rest of the state.
• Nearly everyone in Paradise Valley owns their home, with a median sale price of $3.3 million.

Paradise Valley, Arizona, is among the places attracting millionaires from around the country, including residents of California looking to escape high taxes.

Dubbed the "Beverly Hills of Arizona," Paradise Valley is located in the desert hills northwest of Phoenix and just east of Scottsdale, another city attracting millionaires.

Though it's a relatively small community, Paradise Valley is known for its several high-end resorts, spacious and secluded lots, and natural beauty. Joan Levinson, a luxury real-estate agent in Arizona, previously told Business Insider that Paradise Valley offers residents privacy while still being a quick drive to big-city amenities.

Maricopa County, which includes Paradise Valley and Scottsdale, is Arizona's most populated county. Data shows that several wealthy counties in California, including Santa Clara, Los Angeles, and Orange, are losing residents to Arizona, with many landing in Maricopa County.

Paradise Valley, in particular, has long attracted the rich and famous and for years topped a list of Arizona's wealthiest zip codes. Muhammad Ali, who died in 2016, and Stevie Nicks have lived there along with billionaires like Bennett Dorrance, the Campbell Soup heir, and the late Bruce Halle, the founder of Discount Tire.

The average resident of Paradise Valley is a 54-year-old, college-educated, married white man who makes more than $220,000 a year and owns a home that costs several million dollars, according to Census Bureau and real estate data.

Most Paradise Valley residents own their homes, which are typically worth millions

With an estimated population of 12,658 as of 2020, Paradise Valley's median household income of $221,333 far surpasses that of Arizona and the US generally, which are both around $74,500.

More than seven out of 10 Paradise Valley residents have a bachelor's degree, while 34% have a graduate or professional degree.

The main industries in Paradise Valley are the hospitality and medical trades, but many residents are CEOs, professional athletes, and business owners who work outside the community, according to the Arizona Commerce Authority.

More than 95% of Paradise Valley residents own their homes, compared to just 67% of all Arizona residents.

The median sale price for a home in Paradise Valley is $3.3 million, according to Redfin and Realtor.com. That's seven times greater than the statewide median sale price of $444,100. Over 82% of homes in Paradise Valley are worth a million dollars or more.

For the few Paradise Valley residents who don't own their home, the median gross rent was more than $3,500.

Residents of the Phoenix suburb also tend to be older than the state of Arizona and the larger US, which both have a median age of around 38.9.

Paradise Valley residents are also slightly more likely to be male than female, unlike Arizona at large or the US, which both have more women than men.

More than 82% of residents were white as of 2020, while nearly 8% were Asian.

• USS Bataan is about to undergo a major overhaul to carry F-35B Lightning II stealth fighters.
• The flight deck will be completely revamped for vertical takeoff, giving the Bataan a major air combat capability. 
• The Bataan will be "the most advanced amphibious warship in the Navy," a senior officer said.

USS Bataan just finished a lengthy deployment in Middle Eastern waters that took it into the ongoing Red Sea fight, but it'll soon be headed to the shipyard for a major overhaul.

The amphibious assault ship, currently docked in New York City for Fleet Week 2024, will undergo work to carry F-35B Lightning II fighter jets. The upgrade will be "game-changer" for the capabilities and future operations of the ship, a senior officer said.

Envisioned as an option to project US power in a more distributed force, namely across the Pacific, the lightning carrier doesn't carry as many fighters as an aircraft carrier like the USS Gerald R. Ford — at most 20 compared to more than 50 — but it's less expensive than building an entirely new aircraft carrier and flexes a better versatility thanks to its other capabilities.

Such a conversion process, though, will keep the Bataan in the shipyard for more than 600 days. "We have to completely revamp the flight deck," Capt. Trace Head, the ship's executive officer, told Business Insider this week, explaining that "the electrical demand is different from any aircraft that we have on board."

"As we transition from the Harrier to the F-35 on these ships, there's certain maintenance things that have to be done, and that's all planned and programmed," Marine Forces Command leader Lt. Gen. Brian Cavanaugh said.

Perhaps the largest rework will involve making sure that the Bataan can withstand the F-35B's unique vertical takeoff process, which produces intense heat that can damage the flight deck. The B variant of the F-35 is designed for short takeoffs and vertical landings, eliminating the need for catapult launch systems like those on US Navy Nimitz- and Ford-class aircraft carriers.

The upgrade will allow the Bataan to bring a limited force of fifth-generation F-35s into a fight while also maintaining key amphibious assault capabilities. These ships are smaller and more versatile in their missions.

Once the Bataan is effectively set up to carry F-35s, "the capability that we will bring, especially from an air-to-air standpoint with the F-35s, will be incredibly advanced," Head said. "It's something that will be a game-changer."

The idea of a lightning carrier has roots in the "Harrier carrier" concept, which the Bataan notably employed in Iraq in 2003. Experts have debated how useful a lightning carrier would be in a conflict against a great power, such as China, but certain US allies, such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea, are moving full-steam ahead with similar concepts. Those programs are in various stages.

One major benefit of a lightning carrier is the F-35B's array of sensors, which allow the jet to act as a battlefield hub and relay information to friendly forces across a wide area.

The transition to the F-35 fighter jets from the older Harrier jump jets could change which missions the Bataan goes out on and potentially for how long.

The big-deck amphib was in the Red Sea this past fall, deterring threats and projecting US power in the area as the US and its partners engaged with Houthi forces in the area. At that time, the Bataan didn't bring as much applicable combat power to the fight.

"There's absolutely no question about" whether the F-35 would've completely changed how the Bataan entered that conflict, Head said. "We might still be there if we had F-35s on board."

Cavanaugh noted that the F-35 upgrade will be a "significant jump" from other aircraft, presenting new capabilities and challenges for the force. "As we get increased technologies" and incorporate them, he said, "it's a stronger deterrent all across the globe."

It remains to be seen where the Bataan will go once it returns to the force, suspected to be around May 2026. But for Head, thinking about what the ship, with its new capabilities, will bring to the force is an exciting prospect.

"The next deployment, we will be the most advanced amphibious warship in the Navy coming out of the shipyard," he said.