• Researchers are studying a 44,000-year-old mummified wolf found in the permafrost in Russia.
• The wolf may tell scientists what its lifestyle and diet were like during the Pleistocene era.
• Researchers hope to learn more about ancient bacteria and how the wolf is related to modern animals.

This wolf looks pretty good for its age, considering it's 44,000 years old.

In 2021, residents of Yakutia in eastern Russia found the wolf in thick permafrost — soil that normally remains frozen year-round, but in many places has begun to thaw as average global temperatures rise.

Now, researchers at North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, Russia, are studying the mummified remains to learn more about the animal.

The frozen conditions helped mummify and perfectly preserve the Pleistocene predator. Its teeth and much of its fur are still intact, as are some of its organs.

"It's shocking, actually," Robert Losey, an anthropologist at the University of Alberta who wasn't involved in the research, told Business Insider.

"It's the only complete adult Pleistocene wolf that's ever been found, so that in itself is really remarkable and completely unique," he added.

There's a lot to learn from such a well-preserved ancient animal, including its genetics, lifestyle, diet, and even what kind of ancient bacteria and viruses it had.

"Living bacteria can survive for thousands of years, which are a kind of witnesses of those ancient times," Artemy Goncharov, a researcher at the Institute of Experimental Medicine, said in a translated statement.

The wolf's stomach may hold its last meal and much more

This 44,000-year-old wolf likely belongs to an extinct species and was probably larger than modern wolves, Losey said. Studying the animal's genome will help reveal where it fits into the canine family tree.

After examining one of its teeth, the scientists believe the wolf was an adult male. It probably hunted in a flat, cold environment full of mammoths, wooly rhinoceroses, extinct horses, bison, and reindeer.

Remains of some of those animals might even be left in the wolf's gut. Researchers took samples of its stomach and digestive tract to learn more and are awaiting results.

The researchers may also be able to tease out what functions ancient microbes performed in the wolf's gut, and whether it had parasites, Losey said. If any of the microorganisms are unknown to science, they could play a role in the development of future medicines, the researchers said in the statement.

This discovery is just part of a larger collaboration to study other ancient animals, including fossil hares, a horse, and a bear. The researchers previously studied a wolf head from the Pleistocene era and have another wolf fossil awaiting dissection.

Ancient animals and infectious agents are thawing

As the world's permafrost thaws due to rising global temperatures, more ancient creatures like this are re-emerging. In the Yukon, for example, paleontologists are still fawning over an impeccably preserved baby mammoth discovered in 2022.

Not everything in the permafrost is so harmless, though.

In 2016, thawing in Siberia's Yamal Peninsula released anthrax from a once-frozen reindeer carcass, causing an outbreak that infected 36 people and killed one child.

Researchers fear that other pathogens may slumber in the tundra, with the thaw of a warming world slowly creeping toward them.

Last year, researcher Jean-Michel Claverie announced that he had revived a 48,000-year-old virus they found in the Siberian permafrost. It could still infect single-celled amoebas.

"We view these amoeba-infecting viruses as surrogates for all other possible viruses that might be in permafrost," Claverie told CNN at the time. "We see the traces of many, many, many other viruses. So we know they are there. We don't know for sure that they are still alive."

Any ancient viruses or bacteria in the guts of the Yakutia wolf could help researchers better understand the microbes hiding inside permafrost creatures.

• Specialized camps are too expensive and not local to us.
• I  can't find summer camps with needed accommodations like toileting assistance and 1:1 support.
• I've had bad experiences with childcare facilities, but I still want my child to experience camp. 

My autistic son is almost 6 years old, which I thought would mean he would finally have more options for summer camp. What I didn't foresee was that he wouldn't fit into any of them, despite the fact that he is in an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) at school. The one local program that exists doesn't offer toileting assistance, which he requires.

He needs someone to alert him of his toileting needs, as well as help with clothing. His communication style includes echolalia, meaning he repeats back what he hears as confirmation or as a way of making a point. For example, he might reply "hungry" if you ask if he is hungry, but won't clarify what he wants until you give him options to repeat in confirmation. Another example would be when he sings a potty song instead of directly stating he needs to use the bathroom.

There's no summer camp for him

I understand that having one-on-one support for a summer camp is a lot to ask, but there aren't any alternatives to the standard local offerings. There is no drop-off sensory camp or even an option for me to attend as a helper (he is too old for any that involve parent participation). In the past, I've had bad experiences with childcare facilities that promised this kind of support but were unable to accommodate him.

Those bad experiences led to an official diagnosis and enrollment in an IEP. As part of that program, he's entitled to attend an Extended School Year (ESY), which is one month of half-school days, to continue his progress. In the program, he does activities in short increments and expands his communication skills through different approaches.

ESY isn't the same thing as summer camp, though. ESY is meant to maintain the school year structure, avoiding a fresh start next year. I want him to have the most fun possible during the summer, and I know he would thoroughly enjoy anything involving music, water, or outdoor activities. If the short incremental approach could be used in a movement or music summer program, he would do well.

He loves playing with other kids

He might not be able to follow the rules of a game, but he loves running around trying to participate when neighborhood kids are playing basketball or soccer. Instructions can be a challenge, but he can move along to any song and find so much joy in music. But finding an affordable program that offers the fun of soccer or dance with the type of accessibility he needs seems impossible.

There are a few overnight camps far away from us, but they are designed for older kids and are very expensive. The ones that do exist only offer a 1:1 scenario for a limited number of campers, and the rates are very expensive. On average, the cost ranges from $2,000 to $4,00 for five days. Even if I could afford this option, he can not stay overnight without my assistance.

I asked other parents of his classmates and his teacher for suggestions, but no one had any ideas. I don't have the exact number of neurodivergent kids in the area, but I know that the schools are doing a lot more to support parents during the school year than they did when I was a kid. What I don't understand is why that support doesn't extend to other kid activities locally.

So once again, I will cobble together the most entertaining summer I can manage with the help of the community pool and local library. Hopefully, there will be more options next year.

• Many celebrities had a tough beginning financially. 
• They worked hard to get where they are today and have spoken about their struggles.
• Here we look at 18 celebrities who went from rags to riches.

It's hard not to get jealous of the fabulous lives celebrities lead.

They've got the fame, they've got the looks, and they've got the fortune. They never have to worry about looming rent or bills. Instead, they jet off in private planes to their favorite exotic locations to play on their yachts. 

Despite the millions they may have now, many of the richest celebrities grew up with nothing.

Their rags-to-riches stories prove that with hard work, persistence, talent, and a lot of luck, you really can end up in a better place than where you started. 

Check out these "started from the bottom" stories about 18 of your favorite celebrities.

This article was originally published in March 2017. Amy Daire contributed to a previous version of this story.

Oprah Winfrey is worth billions, but before her big break things were difficult.

The billionaire media mogul had a rougher start than most. She grew up wearing potato sacks because her family couldn't afford clothing, was shuffled between family members living in boarding houses and on rural farms, and had to deal with both sexual abuse and teen pregnancy.

She fled those terrible conditions to move in with her dad in Tennessee, where she became a model student and a popular peer. The rest is history. 

"I know what it means to be poor," she said in a 2013 video clip from "MAKERS." "I know what it feels like to be abandoned. I know what it feels like to not be wanted. I know what it feels like to not be loved … and yet have inside yourself a yearning, a passion, a desire, a hope for something better."

Despite her rocky start, her hopes and dreams turned into reality. Now she's one of the richest people in the world and has everything you could ever dream of owning.

Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio wasn't always rich.

He's been in countless memorable movies, but before he started spending big bucks on yachts and celeb-filled vacations, he was just trying to make sure his parents could make ends meet. 

His family grew up in the rougher parts of East Hollywood, where his mother worked as a secretary and his father sold comic books underground. Neither made much money. 

"Money was always on my mind when I was growing up," he said to Telegraph magazine in an interview in 2016. "So I was always wondering how we were going to afford this and that. Acting seemed to be a shortcut out of the mess."

DiCaprio became a superstar when he starred in "Titanic" in 1997, the highest-grossing movie ever at the time. He finally won a best actor Oscar for "The Revenant" in 2016.

Demi Moore left the trailer park and is now worth millions.

The self-proclaimed "trailer park kid" moved from place to place with her alcoholic parents throughout her entire childhood. She dropped out of school and moved out of the home she said was abusive at 16.

She worked as a debt collector and model before landing a supporting role in 1981's "Choices" and making all the risks worth it. 

"We weren't dirt poor, but we didn't have a lot of money," she explained to The Guardian during an interview in 2007. "I entered this career having no background or connection to acting. I had so little I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking the risk."

Hilary Swank caught her biggest break in "Boys Don't Cry." Almost 25 years later, she's well out of the poverty she grew up in.

Swank also starred in "Million Dollar Baby" and "Freedom Writers," films that surely helped her rise to the big bucks, but before her name was ever in lights she was living in a trailer park just like Moore. When her mother lost her job, the two of them moved to California and lived out of a car. 

The two-time Oscar-winning actor has been very open about her childhood and was even criticized for romanticizing poverty. Her second Academy Award acceptance speech might have contributed to those harsh opinions.  

"I don't know what I did in this life to deserve this. I'm just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream," she said on stage in 2001. "I never thought this would ever happen."

Nicki Minaj always wanted to make enough money to support her mother. She can now.

The rapper and singer has stepped it up from her earlier lifestyle. She grew up in a turbulent home with a drug-addicted father who would sell their things for drug money and set their house on fire with her mom still inside. 

"When I first came to America," she said to Rolling Stone in 2010, "I would go in my room and kneel down at the foot of my bed and pray that god would make me rich so that I could take care of my mother."

She's got more than enough money and power to do that now, thanks in part to the fact that she worked hard and stayed out of trouble herself. 

"At one point you had to sell a few kilos to be considered a credible rapper," she also said in the interview. "But now it's like Drake and I are embracing the fact that we went to school, we love acting, we love theater, and that's OK — and it's especially good for the Black community to know that's OK, that's embraced."

Minaj has paid her wealth forward, too. In 2017, she revealed that she'd been donating money and infrastructure equipment to a rural village in India for years.

It didn't take long for Justin Bieber to go from a struggling teenager to rich and famous.

The 30-year-old stepped onto the scene in 2009 with his hit "One Time." Just before it was released, he was living in Canada with his single mother, who wasn't exactly making the money that Bieber is used to these days. 

"I remember being poor and being teased by other kids," he said in an interview with Clique TV in 2015. "I remember sitting in restaurants with my mother and she'd make me order water instead of soda. I remember so badly wanting to order a soda. And I also remember that when I got my first big paycheck, I was so glad to be able to use that money to take care of my mother."

Mariah Carey's millions came from loads of hard work.

Before the singer had hits like "Without You," "We Belong Together," and "Touch My Body" she was waiting tables. 

"I moved to Manhattan alone as a teenage girl. It was an exciting time for me, even though I had nothing," she said on her show "Mariah's World." "I lived, like, on a mattress on the floor. I was writing my songs and being a horrible waitress. My demo tape ended up at Sony and they signed it away."

Since then, she's reportedly earned millions off of "All I Want For Christmas Is You" alone.

Jennifer Lopez wasn't always a pop megastar.

There was a time when Jennifer Lopez was just Jenny from the block. She grew up in the Bronx, walking around with holes in her shoes. 

Once she decided to drop out of college and pursue singing, she even became homeless for a while. She told Extra in 2013 that she spent those days couch surfing in dance studios.

"I was like, 'Can I sleep here when everyone goes on home … on the couch?'" she said. "Now that I think back on it, and thinking about being 18 and one of my kids being 18 and doing that, I would've had a heart attack."

Mark Wahlberg's wealth didn't come as easily as some might expect.

Before he broke out as Marky Mark and started getting cast in Hollywood blockbusters, Wahlberg was getting into trouble in Boston. 

The actor came from a broken home and spent his teenage years dealing drugs, feeding his cocaine addiction, and getting into fights. One of those fights landed him in jail for attempted murder. 

"As soon as I began that life of crime, there was always a voice in my head telling me I was going to end up in jail," Wahlberg wrote to a judge in documents obtained by The Daily Beast in 2017. "Three of my brothers had done time. My sister went to prison so many times I lost count. Finally I was there, locked up with the kind of guys I'd always wanted to be like. Now I'd earned my stripes and I was just like them, and I realized it wasn't what I wanted at all. I'd ended up in the worst place I could possibly imagine and I never wanted to go back. First of all, I had to learn to stay on the straight and narrow."

Since then he's turned his life around and is now one of the biggest movie stars in the world.

Jim Carrey made $20 million per film at his peak, but he was actually homeless at an earlier point in his life.

When Carrey was just 12, his father lost his job, leaving the four kids and their stay-at-home mom in quite a tight squeeze.

"My father lost his job when he was 51 and that was the real 'wow,' the kick in the guts," he said to James Lipton on "Inside The Actor's Studio." "We lived in a van for a while, and we worked all together as security guards and janitors."

Carrey worked in a factory after school to help out, but his days of doing dirty work are long gone.

He reportedly made $20 million per movie in the 1990s, and is now recognized around the world as one of the most talented comedians of all time.

Jay Z is hip-hop's first billionaire, but his beginnings were much more humble.

Beyoncé's husband grew up in the projects in Brooklyn, where the hope of becoming a billionaire was just a pipe dream. He spent his high school years selling drugs, something many of his peers were also doing at the time. 

"We were living in a tough situation, but my mother managed; she juggled. Sometimes we'd pay the light bill, sometimes we paid the phone, sometimes the gas went off," he explained to Vanity Fair in an in-depth interview in 2013. "We weren't starving—we were eating, we were okay. But it was things like you didn't want to be embarrassed when you went to school; you didn't want to have dirty sneakers or wear the same clothes over again. And crack was everywhere — it was inescapable."

He ended up walking away from it all to focus solely on music, which he was juggling with dealing at the time.

Leighton Meester has millions, but after hearing her backstory, you'll be even more amazed.

Meester didn't have a lot of experience to go off of for her role as the queen bee on "Gossip Girl." The first few years of her life were far from glamorous.

The actress was born in a prison while her mother was serving time for smuggling drugs. Meester spent her childhood in Florida with her grandmother until her mom got out and the two reunited.

When she was 10, they moved to New York so that Meester could model and then packed up again four years later to head to Los Angeles where she started auditioning for roles and taking acting classes.

"I couldn't relate to kid stuff. 'Jimmy doesn't like me!' Who cares? I was worried we didn't have gas money or food. Those were my concerns," she said in an interview with Marie Claire in 2012.

Chris Pratt lived in a van before he was famous.

Before he was the star of "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Jurassic World" franchises, Pratt was a college dropout who lived out of a van in Hawaii.

Pratt said he was pretty fortunate. As he describes it, he lived a life of low ambition rather than misfortune.

"We just drank and smoked weed and worked minimal hours, 15 to 20 hours per week, just enough to cover gas, food and fishing supplies," he told The Independent in 2014. "You know, it was a charming time."

Sarah Jessica Parker has millions, but she grew up with much, much less.

The "Sex and the City" star's family grew up on Roosevelt Island in New York so that the kids could pick up theater gigs, but Parker and her siblings saw very little of those earnings. Instead of being placed in a trust for her when she was older, it went to the family's bills.

''I remember being poor. There was no great way to hide it," she said while discussing money with "The New York Times" in 2000. "We didn't have electricity sometimes. We didn't have Christmases sometimes, or we didn't have birthdays sometimes, or the bill collectors came, or the phone company would call and say, 'We're shutting your phones off.'"

 

Jane Seymour was "penniless" before taking "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," which changed her life.

Jane Seymour has been everything from a Bond girl to an aggressive cougar in "The Wedding Crashers," but there was a time when she was dead broke. Then "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" came along.

"I was literally penniless, homeless, owing more money than you can imagine without knowing it to two banks and the FDIC," she recalled to Business Insider in 2024. "I had called my agent the day before the shoot of this thing and said, 'Please, I will do anything. I need to put food on the table if I can find one job, for my children.' It's that bad."

Her agent got to work and landed her the role by the next morning. Originally supposed to be just a TV "Movie of the Week," once made into a series "Dr. Quinn" went on to run for six seasons through the 1990s and air in over 100 countries.

Seymour went from homeless to a household name in the '90s.

"People are still watching it everywhere," she told BI. "In fact, I'm now starting to watch it because I was too busy making it to watch it then."

Walton Goggins had only $300 when he first came to Los Angeles; he has a lot more than that now.

Goggins came to LA from Georgia when he was 19. Though he knew he could make it as an actor, he also knew right away it wasn't going to be easy, so he got to work.

"I had $300 in my pocket. I had enough to last a month. And the first morning I was in LA I had a job at a health club," he told BI in 2024.

"I did that until I decided I was going to start my own business, and I started a valet parking company," he continued. "I had that for a couple of years. I sold cowboy boots. I became a personal trainer. But along with all of that I was very fortunate to start working as an actor straight away. But I'm conservative, fiscally speaking, so I continued to keep working side jobs and structured my life in a way that I had a job that allowed me to walk away whenever an opportunity to act came up."

Finally, Goggins was making enough as an actor that he could finally stop doing the side jobs. Since then he's entertained us on TV series like "The Shield," "The Righteous Gemstones," and "Fallout," and movies like "The Hateful Eight."

Jon Hamm went from having only $5 in his pocket at the start of his career to making $250,000 per episode on "Mad Men."

Hamm is another actor who had a rough start.

Things got so bad for the "Fargo" star that in the early days of his career, he had only $5 to his name and owed his landlord nearly a year's rent.

"At a certain point, I had owed my landlord here in LA about seven or eight months' worth of back rent that I somehow talked her into being fine with," Hamm said in an interview as part of The Hollywood Reporter's drama actor Emmy roundtable in 2024. "Like, 'Yeah, I'll get it to you eventually. Of course I'm good for it.'"

Hamm found acclaim as ad man Don Draper in the hit series "Mad Men," which began airing in 2007. By the time its 7 season run was through, he won an Emmy and was earning $250,000 per episode.

Glen Powell almost went broke waiting for his big break to happen with "Top Gun: Maverick."

Good things happen to those who wait, and that's certainly the case with Glen Powell.

After years of trying to make it in the business, he finally landed a role opposite Tom Cruise in "Top Gun: Maverick," the decades-in-the-making sequel to Cruise's 1980s classic, "Top Gun."

The problem was the pandemic. It kept pushing the release date of the movie. And Powell was running out of money.

"I'd never made any significant amount of money on a movie, including 'Top Gun,' and I was depleting a bank account to a point where my accountant was like, 'This pandemic cannot last much longer,'" Powell told The Hollywood Reporter in 2024.

"Tom was already Tom; I was waiting for my life to change," he said.

Then the movie finally came out and made over $1 billion. Powell's life did change. He followed that up with the hit rom-com "Anyone but You" and the upcoming "Twisters."

We're pretty certain Powell is okay with money at the current moment.

• SCOTUS limited federal agencies' regulatory powers with two recent rulings. 
• One legal expert said the high court is clearly "hellbent" on dismantling the administrative state.
• Because of the rulings, the regulation of essentially all major industries will be tougher. 

In two separate rulings over the last 48 hours, the conservative majority of the United States Supreme Court overturned a 40-year-old precedent that has been long attacked by the right — and has stripped out some of the Securities and Exchange Commission's financial-fraud enforcement capabilities.

Justice Elena Kagan, in her dissent to the Friday decision to strike down the legal precedent known as the "Chevron deference," called the Friday ruling "yet another example of the Court's resolve to roll back agency authority, despite congressional direction to the contrary."

Legal experts and regulation advocates told Business Insider they largely agreed, with one law professor saying that the nation's highest court is clearly "hellbent on dismantling the entire regulatory apparatus put in place over the course of the 20th century."

"These rulings make it impossible for the agencies that Congress itself created to respond quickly and efficiently to newly emerging problems," said Robert Hockett, a Cornell University professor of law and finance.

Thanks to the recent SCOTUS rulings, the regulation of essentially all major industries, ranging from environmental protection to finance and public health, will be much tougher and could result in a more overburdened court system.

Before Friday's ruling, if the Environmental Protection Agency, for example, identified an oil company practice that unduly risked an oil spill, it would first issue a cease-and-desist letter. The oil company might then claim that the EPA has the facts wrong or lacks the regulatory authority to address the practice, Hockett said.

Then, according to Hockett, the case would be heard by an administrative court. If the oil company disagreed with that administrative judge's ruling, it could appeal and ultimately land in a court — but wouldn't do so if it couldn't point to an obvious error by the administrative law judge, Hockett said.

Now, under the ruling, the case would go right to a federal court.

"No ALJ [Administrative Law Judge]. Straight to federal court. Court with overloaded docket scheduled hearing to the year 2035. Oil spills everywhere and renders North America uninhabitable in the meantime while we wait," Hockett said, offering an extreme example.

"The upshot of this is that all of the country's largest business firms in all of its major industries will go effectively unregulated or de-facto unregulated because Congress and the courts will not be able to keep up with the pace of change in our economy," said Hockett.

The legal expert likened the matter to a "robber baron's dream."

"These two rulings largely amputate the two most important arms that our regulatory agencies use every day in overseeing our industrial economy," Hockett said.

In overturning the Chevron doctrine in a 6-3 decision, the high court has hamstrung federal agencies' regulatory powers.

The doctrine, established in the 1984 Supreme Court case Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council, called for courts to defer to federal agencies' interpretations of ambiguous federal laws and statutes. It has been repeatedly used by the federal government in a wide range of cases.

Chief Justice John Roberts, in his opinion, wrote that the Chevron doctrine "proved to be fundamentally misguided."

"Perhaps most fundamentally, Chevron's presumption is misguided because agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do," Roberts wrote.

The chief justice continued, "Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority."

The overturning of the Chevron precedent and Thursday's SEC v. Jarkesy decision both involve cuts in the regulatory powers of federal agencies, "which means reductions in the power of the executive branch of government and an increase in the power of the judicial branch," said Jonathan Siegel, a professor of law at George Washington University.

As a result, over the long term, Siegel said, "It will be more difficult for the government to enforce many statutes, and therefore, there will be more violations."

"Particularly in terms of businesses, they decide what to do based not only on what's legal and what's illegal, but what is the likelihood that they will actually suffer a penalty if they do something illegal," he said.

Siegel explained that the decision in SEC v. Jarkesy has the "potential to affect innumerable agency proceedings."

Up until Thursday, the SEC had two ways of pursuing fraud cases. It could sue in federal court, or it could bring an "administrative proceeding" in its own in-house court, where it appoints its own judges and the cases have no juries.

Roberts wrote in the decision that the latter method violated the Seventh Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects the right to a jury trial.

"It's certainly the case that the court and some individual justices even more strongly have expressed distaste for the amount of power administrative agencies have, and several decisions that the court has come down within the last few years have the effect of reducing that power and increasing the power of courts," Siegel said.

Rachel Weintraub, the executive director of the regulation advocacy group Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, said that the common thread between the two decisions "is that it is the manifestation of a conservative quest to minimize the role of the federal government."

"The public expects government to do certain things. It expects the government to ensure that roads are safe and toasters don't explode, and that the water coming from our faucet doesn't cause our families harm, and that there are protections in workplaces, and that our marketplaces are fair, and that there will be consequences if entities scam us," Weintraub said.

These factors, said Weintraub, "could be at stake if judges replace agency expertise with their own positions."

Jesse Panuccio, who served as US acting associate attorney general in the Trump administration, was less alarmed by the recent SCOTUS decisions, saying "agencies still have vast delegations of power."

Panuccio told Business Insider he represents private parties who are in lawsuits against the government, and he believes it's important that there are three branches of government "with interdependent functions."

Panuccio said that he supported the decisions and called them "important checks on administrative power."

There is never an "even playing field" between the government and a private party — and having a ruling like this in place is the way to ensure parties are in front of a neutral judge, he said.

"And I think we have gone too far, no matter who the president is, the executive branch wields more power than I think the Constitution really envisions," he said. "And these opinions are important."

• Social-media influencer is a highly sought-after job these days, especially among Gen Zers.
• The first step to becoming an influencer is posting consistently on apps like Instagram and TikTok.
• Creators also say media kits, membership groups, and talent managers have helped grow their brands.

Social media has created many new ways to make money, and over the past few years, it has led millions of people around the world to become influencers.

Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat have opened up doors for individuals who want to switch careers, become full-time creators, or supplement the income from their 9-to-5 jobs.

The most important step to getting started as an influencer is to pick a platform or two and begin posting consistently. While some creators eventually land on a specific content niche, such as fitness, beauty, fashion, or education, others post about many topics.

Creator Ayomi Samaraweera gained hundreds of followers a few weeks after uploading her first TikTok when one of her videos about resigning and applying for new jobs went viral.

"It was a lot of trial and error in the beginning," Samaraweera previously told Business Insider. "I wasn't really thinking about a niche or how my content could be unique. I just posted what I felt like at the moment."

Read more about how Samaraweera became a full-time content creator and got her first brand deal with 2,000 followers

A steady posting cadence has even helped some creators successfully launch companies, like Nadya Okamoto, who founded the period-care brand August in 2021. She first grew her TikTok following rapidly by posting 100 times a day about menstrual hygiene and her experience in reproductive healthcare.

"To me, the TikTok algorithm is like a lottery," she previously told BI. "The more lottery tickets you put in, the more chances you have of winning or, in this case, going viral."

Read more about how 2 Gen-Z entrepreneurs leveraged TikTok to launch and grow a period-care startup

Here's exactly how to become an influencer and start making money:

How many followers you need to be an influencer

Most brands take an influencer's audience size into account when considering them for a paid collaboration. As a result, influencers are categorized based on their follower count.

Nano influencers have only a few thousand followers, under 10,000, but can still partner with many different brands. California-based creator Stacy Kim had only around 4,200 followers on Instagram but landed more than 40 paid partnerships in over a year and a half with companies like Samsung and Clinique.

"My engagement on posts is really high, and I heard that most brands care more about that than the number of followers you have," she previously told BI.

Read more about how the nano influencer pitches sponsorship deals

The next category, micro influencers, are classified as social-media users with between 10,000 to 100,000 followers. For many brands, this is the preferred tier of creators to work with because they have a highly engaged audience but charge a lot less than celebrities or very well-known social-media personalities.

Maesha Shonar, a micro influencer with 24,000 followers on Instagram, previously told BI she had such a highly engaged audience. To stand out to brands, she created a pitch proposal, which outlined two sponsorship options the brand could choose from — each with specific timelines, deliverables, and rates — and case studies of her recent collaborations.

Read more about how the micro influencer gets brand deals

Influencers who have more than 100,000 followers are the next tier, followed by mega-influencers who have multiple millions.

Fashion influencer Nate White has 1.8 million followers on TikTok and earned six figures in 2022 by collaborating with companies like Verizon and Amazon Prime.

"The money's changed my life," he previously told BI. "I've been able to move out from the hood where I'm from … the kids in that neighborhood looked up to me and I miss that, but I did this for me."

Read more about how much the TikToker earns with 1.8 million followers

Meanwhile, YouTube star MrBeast, who has over 280 million subscribers, brought in $223 million in revenue in 2023 through various businesses, including his YouTube channels, sponsorships, and chocolate and snack brand Feastables.

Read more about YouTube star MrBeasts' business empire, which he expects to generate $700 million in 2024

How influencers get paid

After amassing an engaged audience, influencers can start making money directly through their respective app's monetization programs, by creating sponsored content for brands, or through affiliate marketing, among other revenue streams.

Pay can range from a few thousand dollars for an Instagram sponsorship to six figures a year for a full-time creator, such as photographer and videographer Tej Patel, who made $100,000 in 2022 through his photo and video work, sponsorships, and the TikTok Creator Fund, which has since been discontinued.

Brand deals are one of the most popular ways to earn money as an influencer since companies are always looking for talent to help promote their products or services. Some brands have earned a reputation for rolling out more inclusive campaigns by paying creators fairly and allowing more creative control.

Take a look at new data on influencer brand deals in 2024

Platforms also pay creators based on their video views and engagement.

In 2023, some creators earned tens of millions of dollars through TikTok's Creativity Program beta, now dubbed Creator Rewards, which pays influencers for TikToks over 60 seconds.

Read more about how TikTokers can score huge paydays for longer videos

On Snapchat, creators have had success making money from its ad-revenue program. In 2023, Gen-Z creator couple AJ and Grey made $84,000 and $21,000, respectively, from the program. The initiative allows creators with at least 50,000 subscribers on the platform to make money through the ads their followers are shown in between Snap stories.

Affiliate marketing is another popular way to make money after becoming an influencer. This revenue stream allows creators to link to products or services they use, and if a follower buys it through their customized link, they earn a commission.

In 12 months, influencer Janesha Moore made $100,000 just from affiliate links on platforms like Amazon, in addition to partnering with lifestyle and beauty brands. She also highlighted how it's easier for BIPOC creators like her to earn money through affiliate marketing than brand partnerships, where there is often a pay disparity.

"Affiliate marketing is such a powerful tool because everyone has the same percentage they make, so it's really just a matter of the strategies you put into place to make the money work for you," she said.

Read more about how Moore got started with affiliate marketing and made over $100,000 in a year

How to contact brands and get paid for sponsorships

Email is how influencers usually first contact brands about working together. Most influencers who reach out to companies attach a media kit to display the value they would bring to a potential partnership. The document highlights information such as engagement analytics, audience makeups, and previous brand deals.

Read more about how to create a media kit and see examples from influencers

Creator Paulina Perez landed more than 20 paid partnerships in a year with global companies like Skims, Olay, and Sephora, all thanks to the media kit she created. She previously told BI that she's been fortunate to collaborate with so many brands because of her unique niche as a Hispanic creator who also posts videos in Spanish, and many of them have turned into long-term relationships.

"I still work with a lot of the companies that first took a chance on me," she said. "I just charge them more now because my engagement is higher and my audience has grown."

Check out the full 2-page media kit Perez she uses to land brand deals

Many creators also use Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn to direct message influencer marketers at brands who are looking for potential talent. Samaraweera, the creator who scored her first brand deal with 2,000 followers, Instagram DMed software company Fishbowl to land her first paid sponsorship.

"Timing is everything, so keep a lookout for brands who start engaging with your content because it's more than likely they're looking to work with you," she said.

See the email and DM templates influencers have used to reach out to brands

How influencers find jobs and get advice from other creators

Workplace communication platform Slack has surged in popularity in the past few years, so much so that those in the industry have started using the app to vent about their frustrations, land job opportunities, and connect with other creators, brands, and talent managers in the industry, with one labeling it a "gold mine" for opportunities.

"I had an influencer who really wanted to work with a certain brand, and I just asked in the channel and immediately got the contact info for the person in charge," talent manager Lissette Calveiro previously told BI.

Read more about how influencers use Slack to get brand deals

Many creators have also launched their own apps to help influencers get paid fairly by brands, like Christen Nino de Guzman's Clara for Creators and Samaraweera's Canopy for Creators. These apps, which are free to join for users, help creators compare rates and negotiate higher compensation. Nino de Guzman said she launched the app to help show others how easy it was to become an influencer and make money from social media.

"It used to be a typical kind of person, usually a middle-to-high class woman blogger who had access to video equipment and was traveling, but now anyone can be a creator," she said.

How to get a manager or publicist as an influencer

Once an influencer becomes more popular online and amasses a large following, they can choose to hire a talent manager and publicist to grow their brands even more. Talent managers can help creators with anything from starting a new company to negotiating higher rates for campaigns to generating content ideas.

Some talent management firms, like UTA or CAA, focus on representing the most well-known social media stars like Alix Earle. Others, like Kensington Grey and Society18, focus on creators from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds.

Explore BI's database of talent management firms and agencies that work with influencers

Talent managers previously told BI that they often get hired after a creator explodes online or goes viral and the creator feels overwhelmed with the incoming messages and offers to collaborate.

"Reinforcing that there's a reason this happened to them, it's all positive and they're safe and everything's good — that's probably the most time-consuming part of that first couple months of when someone blows up," said Danielle Pistotnik, a talent manager at Select Management Group.

Meanwhile, some influencers choose to hire publicists to help with their image, landing TV appearances or written features in prominent publications, and getting them on the list for exclusive industry events.

Read more about the top PR pros and publicists in the creator economy

• The liquor licenses for Donald Trump's New Jersey golf clubs are all in his eldest son's name.
• That, however, may not be enough to protect the clubs now that Trump is a felon.
• NJ officials now say Trump's criminal record bars him from profiting from liquor licenses.

The liquor licenses for Donald Trump's three New Jersey golf courses are in his eldest son's name, not his own, according to records obtained by Business Insider.

But hiding behind Donald Trump, Jr. isn't enough to protect the elder Trump.

On Friday, state officials said Trump's new felony record bars him from profiting from the licenses.

They announced they will not renew the licenses for Trump National Bedminster and Trump National Golf Club in Colts Neck due to last month's felony hush-money conviction.

The two clubs can continue to serve alcohol pending a July 19 hearing on the two licenses, which expire Sunday.

The liquor license at Trump's third course, Trump National Philadelphia — located 45 minutes outside that city in Pine Hill, New Jersey — was renewed by that borough on June 3, just four days after his guilty verdict on 34 felony business-falsification counts.

That license renewal went through at the last minute, thanks to an apparent happenstance of timing.

Only after sentencing, set for July 11, could any New Jersey official disqualify Trump from holding a liquor license, a spokesperson for the state's attorney general's office explained.

So far, no action has been taken by the state against the Pine Hill license.

New Jersey's AG's office regulates liquor licenses through its Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin announced two weeks ago that all three licenses were under review by his office.

Trump, at that time, brushed off the importance of that review, noting through a spokesman that he is "not the holder of any liquor license in New Jersey, and he is not an officer or director of any entity that holds a liquor license in New Jersey — or anywhere in the United States for that matter."

But on Friday, New Jersey officials found otherwise.

"A review by ABC indicates that Mr. Trump maintains a direct beneficial interest in the three liquor licenses through the receipt of revenues and profits from them, as the sole beneficiary of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust," the AG's spokesperson said.

Crimes of "moral turpitude"

Under state liquor law, a license may be pulled if anyone who either owns — or financially benefits from — the license is convicted of a crime of "moral turpitude."

The licenses for Trump's New Jersey clubs were at risk under both criteria, given his underlying financial interest in the clubs and his new criminal record, experts told Business Insider.

Trump, by his own sworn testimony, is the sole financial beneficiary of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, the umbrella entity that owns all of the Trump Organization, including the three LLCs that hold the clubs' liquor licenses.

Trump was the sole trustee for a few months after leaving the White House, but then hopped back out in July 2021, leaving his eldest son as sole trustee as his criminal and civil investigations reached a climax.

Still, Trump testified at his New York civil fraud trial in October that he remained the "sole beneficiary" of the trust and its assets. That means as his liquor licenses prosper, so prospers Trump, in contrast with everyone else at Trump Org, who is just on salary.

Trump's apparent failings in the moral-turpitude department also put him at risk.

"Felony convictions are universally considered crimes of moral turpitude," said Peter M. Rhodes, partner at the Haddonfield, New Jersey-based firm Cahill, Wilinski, Rhodes & Joyce.

Given his felony conviction, "If the license is owned by a trust whose sole beneficiary is Donald Trump, then that, in my opinion, violates the ABC laws," said Rhodes, whose firm has served for 50 years as counsel to the New Jersey Licensed Beverage Association.

Trump's three New Jersey licenses are owned by LLCs, and Trump's namesake son is the president and license signatory for each one, according to records reviewed by BI.

The last time Trump almost lost all three of his New Jersey licenses was in 2021.

That year, Trump was allowed to keep the licenses after more than five years fighting state officials following a club-goer's 2015 fatal drunken driving crash.

State officials said a golfer at the Colts Neck club was overserved by one of the club's roving, liquor-serving golf carts. The golfer flipped his Mini-Cooper while driving home, in a crash that ejected and killed his own father.

Trump's three Jersey golf courses ultimately kept their licenses under a deal struck with Platkin's predecessor, former Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal, who left office shortly after approving the settlement.

The Colts Neck course agreed to only serve alcohol indoors, to provide service training to employees, and to pay a $400,000 fine.

The final $100,000 installment on that fine is due in October, records reviewed by BI showed.

The arrangement was uncommon, said former New Jersey Assistant Attorney General William Fay, now an attorney specializing in liquor license regulatory law.

Over-serving patrons who then cause roadway fatalities carries a presumptive penalty of license revocation, Fay noted after the settlement.

"Given that Trump's New Jersey Golf Course generated a revenue of roughly 25 million in 2020 alone, this settlement appears to be 'pennies on this dollar' given the tragedy that occurred," he wrote.

Donald Trump, Jr. did not immediately return a call requesting comment. The law firm that handles Trump's New Jersey liquor licenses did not respond to phone calls and emails requesting comment.

• The Supreme Court ruled Friday that a statute used against the January 6 attackers was applied too broadly.
• It was great news for Trump, legal experts told BI.
• The DOJ noted the decision would most impact "a narrow band" of January 6 cases.

The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the obstruction statute used to prosecute the January 6, 2021, defendants was employed too broadly by the Department of Justice.

The obstruction charge doesn't apply to anyone who breached the Capital, SCOTUS said.

Rather, to meet obstruction, "the Government must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects…or other things used in the proceeding," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court's decision.

Legal experts told Business Insider the decision was great news for Trump and could result in resentencing for certain January 6 defendants.

But it's far from a sweeping victory. That's because Trump and the majority of the January 6, 2021, attackers were charged with more than just obstruction.

The Department of Justice noted in response to the SCOTUS ruling that it would "most significantly impact a narrow band of cases."

Of the 1,427 people charged in the Capitol attack, the DOJ said 52 were convicted on just the obstruction charge in question — 27 of whom are currently incarcerated, the DOJ said.

'A huge windfall for Donald Trump'

The SCOTUS decision "may be a huge windfall for Donald Trump," Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson told Business Insider. But the case against him "has not disappeared," given his other charges.

As for other January 6 defendants, "we are in store for resentencings" — though not necessarily retrials, she said. Given that most defendants were charged with multiple offenses, "the government might just take what they already have."

Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani concurred the SCOTUS ruling "is great news for Trump."

"Smith will likely dismiss the obstruction of an official proceeding charges against Trump to avoid the possibility of dismissal and guaranteed delays in the case," Rahmani told BI in an email. "Litigating the obstruction of a proceeding issue unnecessarily is high risk with little reward."

Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor who said he represented the first Oath Keeper to breach the Capital, told BI that the ruling is "not a total victory or defeat for either side — but I'd rather be on the defendant's side than the government's."

'There's a lot of fuel behind that conservative fire right now'

Another legal expert told BI the SCOTUS ruling actually benefits the prosecution against Trump, and argued the indictment will hold up.

That's because Trump's fake elector scheme involved submitting fraudulent documents to Congress to stop the certification of the election, New York attorney Richard Hermer-Fried said.

"Trump's actions to stop the certification of the election goes beyond provoking a mob of his supporters to force their way into the Capitol threatening political violence, and, in fact, is a complex scheme involving the manipulation of documents," Hermer-Fried told BI in an email.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will rule on its most consequential January 6 decision: whether Trump, as president, is immune from prosecution.

Given today's fortuitous decision, legal experts surmised the court could rule in his favor.

"The court says it's not playing politics, but the politics are that these decisions are helping Donald Trump," Levenson said. "So I don't think that the court will hesitate to reach a ruling on Monday that helps Donald Trump."

While conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett dissented from today's decision, Syracuse law professor William Banks told Business Insider that the decision shows "the conservative majority is lining up."

Chevron and other SCOTUS decisions coming down this week "suggests there's a lot of fuel behind that conservative fire right now," Banks said.