Amazon said it delivered to its Prime members faster than ever in the first quarter of 2024.
Its drivers delivered over 2 billion items "the same or next day" in Q1, the company reported.
The e-commerce giant reported quarterly earnings that beat Wall Street's expectations on Tuesday.
If it seems like that Amazon Prime package you ordered showed up on your doorstep sooner than expected, it's probably not just your imagination.
The e-commerce giant announced that it delivered to Prime subscribers at its "fastest speed ever" in its quarterly earnings on Tuesday.
Amazon reported that it delivered more than 2 billion items in a one-day window in the first three months of 2024. If it were to keep that pace, it would top 2023's numbers, which Amazon previously said totaled 7 billion units delivered on the same day or the next day during the yearlong period.
In March, the company said nearly 60% of the items ordered by Prime members in the top 60 US metro areas arrived the same day or the next. Major cities outside of the US, like London, Tokyo, and Toronto, saw three out of four of their items delivered in the same window.
Blake Droesch, a senior analyst at market research firm Emarketer, a sister company to Business Insider, praised Amazon for "strong Q1 growth" in its online store sales.
"Delighting customers with free and fast delivery through Amazon Prime will keep customers coming to the site, increasingly for CPG and other household items, which will continue to attract endemic advertisers," Droesch told BI.
An Amazon Prime subscription costs $14.99 per month or $139 per year, and students receive a discounted rate of $7.49 monthly or $69 per year.
Amazon is also kicking it up a notch in the grocery war being waged by retail titans. Prime members are now being offered free delivery on grocery orders over $35 from stores like Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh, and more.
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao has been sentenced to 4 months in prison.
REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi
Changpeng Zhao, also known as "CZ," has been one of the wealthiest people in crypto.
His rivalry with Sam Bankman-Fried nearly saw Binance save FTX from bankruptcy.
But Binance had its own issues: Zhao has pleaded guilty to anti-money laundering charges, and was sentenced to 4 months in prison.
Sam Bankman-Fried isn't the only crypto king to experience a highly public fall from grace.
Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, was one of the wealthiest people in the industry as founder and CEO of crypto exchange Binance. In November, however, he stepped down from his role and pleaded guilty to charges that Binance violated US anti-money laundering requirements.
With a net worth of $39.7 billion, he's listed as the 38th-richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
But crypto winter has taken a toll across the industry, and Zhao is no exception. His real-time estimated net worth is a far cry from the peak of his personal wealth: His net worth peaked at $95.9 billion earlier in 2023, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows.
Zhao's interest in cryptocurrency began in 2013 when he first learned about Bitcoin, according to a 2018 Forbes report. His career in the up-and-coming digital currency industry started at Blockchain.info, where he served as the head of development.
Zhao founded Binance in 2017 and powered it to become the biggest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. The exchange handles some $76 billion in daily trading volume, Protocol previously reported. In 2021 alone, Binance generated over $20 billion in revenue, according to Bloomberg.
Editor's note: This story was first published in October 2022 and has been updated to reflect recent developments.
Zhao was born in a rural village in Jiangsu province in China in 1977 to a family of teachers.
Nanjing, Suzhou, China.
Fang Daqing/VCG/Getty Images
Zhao, who is Chinese-Canadian, moved to Vancouver in the late 1980s with his family, according to Forbes.
Zhao's father, Shengkai, was a professor who was exiled to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution in China, according to the Maclean's report.
Zhao said in a September blog post that his family had to wait in line outside the Canadian embassy for three days to procure visas. He added that he was "lucky to have been able to leave at that time."
Shengkai immigrated to Canada to pursue a doctorate degree at the University of British Columbia, per Maclean's. After the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, Zhao and his family followed his father and moved to Vancouver.
Zhao said he experienced food rationing growing up in rural China. "You get a ticket to buy meat," Zhao told Fortune in a March interview. Zhao told Maclean's that it wasn't until he moved to Canada that he ever drank fresh milk, because it was so rare to find it in China.
When Zhao moved to Canada, he held a number of part-time jobs, according to the Maclean's report.
McDonald's in Richmond, BC, Canada.
Cheng Feng Chiang/iStock/Getty Images
He started working at McDonald's when he was 14 and worked there for two years, Dewi Mustajab, a spokesperson for Binance, told Business Insider.
Zhao also worked at a Chevron gas station and as a referee for volleyball games in his teens to earn money, per Maclean's.
Zhao said in the blog post that moving to Canada "changed my life forever." He added that he spent his "best years as a teenager" growing up in Vancouver.
Zhao is known to be frugal: He doesn't own cars, yachts, or luxury watches. Instead, he has digital watches like the Apple Watch, and he recently bought a Toyota Velfire van, Mustajab said.
Zhao studied computer science at McGill University in Montreal, the same school where his father worked as a visiting scholar.
McGill University, which Zhao attended.
JHVEPhoto/iStock/Getty Images
Zhao's interest in technology was fueled by a $14,000 286 DOS computer that his father — "a math whiz and programmer" — bought when was Zhao was in his teens, per Maclean's. Before attending McGill, Zhao enrolled in programming classes in high school and started coding when he was just 16 years old, per Bloomberg.
After graduating from university, Zhao worked first on the Tokyo Exchange, and from 2001 to 2005, on Bloomberg's Tradebook, Mustajab said.
In 2005, Zhao quit the corporate life and moved to Shanghai to become a partner at the trading system company Fusion Systems. According to Zhao's LinkedIn page, he left the company in December 2013.
The vast majority of Zhao's multibillion-dollar wealth comes from his controlling stake in Binance Holdings, per Bloomberg.
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao speaks at a Binance fifth anniversary event in Paris, France, July 8, 2022.
Staff/Reuters
While Bloomberg estimates Zhao is worth around $39.7 billion from his majority stake in the cryptocurrency platform, it's not a complete picture of his wealth. Bloomberg said it does not include cryptocurrency directly held by Zhao in his net worth, as the amount is not publicly available.
Zhao has personal cryptocurrency holdings in Bitcoin and Binance Coin, per a September report by Bloomberg. In 2021, Binance had over 90 million users, Bloomberg reported, citing an estimate from Zhao.
Zhao is said to have a considerable amount of wealth from Bitcoin, having bought $1 million worth of the digital currency when it was just $600 a unit, per Maclean's.
Binance declined to confirm Zhao's net worth and the source of his wealth to Business Insider.
But Zhao's journey at Binance has been far from smooth sailing — the company has been embroiled in several controversies.
Binance said in a blog post that in the event of a hack in the future, its validators will decide if the hacked funds will be frozen. The decision would be made through a series of "on-chain governance votes" — the system that manages and implements changes to the blockchain. Binance added they would also consider implementing a "bug bounty reward system," so users are incentivized to report bugs.
"Nearly $570 million were minted and taken by the hacker, $100 million are unrecovered and moved off chain by the hacker. No users or users funds affected," Mustajab said.
Zhao responded to these allegations in a blog post published in September, where he clarified that Binance was never incorporated in China and said it does not "operate like a Chinese company culturally." He added that he is "a Canadian citizen, period."
Binance also garnered controversy for enabling Iran-based users to trade cryptocurrencies on the exchange despite US-imposed sanctions, according to a July report by Reuters. Binance informed traders in Iran to liquidate their accounts in November 2018, but seven traders continued until September 2021 to use the account even after the ban. Binance did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment at the time.
Zhao was known for his rivalry with FTX cofounder Sam Bankman-Fried. In 2022, Binance looked set to rescue SBF's firm from bankruptcy, before backing out of the deal.
It all started with a public spat on November 6, 2022, when Zhao announced on Twitter that Binance would be liquidating its FTT tokens, the cryptocurrency of FTX.
Anthony Scaramucci, who sold 30% of his business to FTX, told Business Insider in January 2023 that Bankman-Fried had been saying "nasty things" about Zhao during a fundraising tour in the Middle East – which may have prompted Binance to sell off its FTT holdings.
In a Twitter post, Bankman-Fried said that Zhao was "trying to go after us with false rumors," and that FTX and its assets "are fine."
It alleged a "willful evasion of federal law" because Binance ignored requirements to register the exchange, and helped customers to evade its "ineffective compliance program."
The CFTC said Binance didn't require customers to provide ID, and "failed to implement basic compliance procedures designed to prevent and detect terrorist financing and money laundering."
The filing shows officers discussing transactions from the Palestinian militant group Hamas. "Like come on. They are here for crime," Lim said in internal communications, per the filing.
Zhao has split his time between Dubai and France. He was previously based in Singapore.
Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.
Marielle Descalsota/Insider
Zhao moved to Dubai in late 2021, where he leases an office to run what Bloomberg described as "a new phase" of Binance. Zhao also owns an apartment and a minivan in the city, the publication reported.
Previously, Zhao lived in Singapore from 2019 to 2021. The city-state spent hundreds of millions of dollars investing in the sector amidst a crackdown on the industry in the US, UK, and China.
In November 2023, Zhao pleaded guilty to anti-money laundering charges and stepped down from his role as CEO of Binance.
Changpeng Zhao steps down from his role as CEO of Binance after he pleaded guilty to anti-money laundering charges.
Part of the fine will go toward settling the lawsuit brought by the CFTC earlier this year, which accused Binance and Zhao of failing to stop illegal trading activity on the crypto exchange.
The crypto exchange is also pleading guilty to related charges, which could potentially put an end to a five-year Department of Justice investigation.
In April 2024, the Justice Department recommended Zhao be sentenced to three years in prison and have to pay a $50 million fine.
CZ, founder of Binance.
Antonio Masiello / Getty
In response, Zhao's attorneys suggested he be sentenced to probation, arguing, "No defendant in a remotely similar [Bank Secrecy Act] case has ever been sentenced to incarceration. Mr. Zhao should not be the first."
A week later, Zhao was sentenced to 4 months in prison.
Zhao ended up receiving far less prison time than the DOJ recommended.
David Ryder / Stringer/ Getty Images
Binance will also pay a $4.3 billion fine in federal court, and Zhao has already paid a $50 million fine as part of his plea deal.
Zhao has reportedly kept busy in the months since pleading guilty, eyeing potential opportunities for his next act.
Changpeng Zhao.
REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi
He and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman were texting late last year, two people familiar with the matter told The New York Times.
Zhao separately said he was "looking for opportunities" to invest in data centers for AI, according to the report.
Last week, he said in a court filing that he'd spoken with biotech startups and would "like to help fund small research labs with the aim of curing diseases once and for all." He also tweeted last month that he was working on a digital learning platform called Giggle Academy involving free basic K-12 education that would be gamified.
"No revenue," he said.
He said he was hiring a small team and "looking for teacher(s) who can create digital content."
In 2023, Kristi Campbell moved into South Park Cottages, a micro-home community in Atlanta.
Campbell owns a 628-square-foot home with one bedroom and one bathroom, purchased for $235,000.
Despite the home's small size, she finds it comfortable, and enjoys being part of the village's close-knit community.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kristi Campbell, a 28-year-old business consultant, who moved into micro-home community South Park Cottages in 2023. The essay has been edited for length and clarity.
In 2020, I left New York after living there for seven years, pursuing both my master's and bachelor's degrees, and working as a consultant. The city is all about hustling and bustling, and I realized it wasn't necessarily for me.
When the pandemic hit, I thought it was a great time to move back to East Atlanta and my parents' house where I was raised. The plan was to move out and buy my first home by November 2023. I had even saved up $10,000.
In 2022, my boyfriend sent me a link to South Park Cottages' website, a Black-owned tiny home village. I absolutely fell in love.
The village's homes are newly built with a modern aesthetic. It's also close to the airport and Main Street in downtown Atlanta, where there's a strip of black-owned restaurants and stores.
I put in an offer for a tiny home in November 2022 and officially closed in June 2023. I own a 628 square foot home that I purchased for $235,000 and have a 30-year fixed mortgage with a monthly payment of $2,150.
South Park Cottages afforded me the opportunity to buy my first home sooner than planned — it was the official stamp for adulthood.
It's nice to have a space of my own
When I applied, the community was still being developed (I saw my home's construction framing and trusted the developer). It gave me an opportunity to save up more money.
Before I was even considered for a home at South Park Cottages, I had to be pre-approved for the full loan amount of the home.
I chose South Park Cottages' preferred lender, along with a preferred closing attorney.
The lending process for the tiny home worked like a traditional mortgage, requiring the same paperwork: The lender wanted to see my income and bank statements from the past two years to make sure I had consistent work.
When I was approved, I put down a $17,500 deposit. It covered the builder's fee and an upgraded tech package for my home, which included a smart door lock, a doorbell camera, a smart refrigerator, and Bluetooth speakers.
Campbell proudly holding the keys to her new tiny home.
Courtesy of Kristi Campbell
When I got the keys to my home, I was overwhelmed — in a good way. I was elated to have something that I could create and that was mine.
I have a one bedroom and one bathroom, a patio, a balcony, as well as a multi-use loft space that I turned into an office.
I consider myself to be a maximalist, but when you move into a tiny home, you eventually realize that you actually don't need a lot of things.
I have a storage unit for equipment and other supplies, but I got rid of a lot of clothes, shoes, bags, and furniture.
Despite downsizing, I still think the home is pretty spacious. On my mom's birthday in January, my entire family came over to my house, and we fit about 20 people in here.
The community feels safe and welcoming
South Park Cottages is predominantly Black and millennial, but it's still very diverse.
For a few homeowners here, their tiny home is an investment property, while for others, it's a second vacation home.
A lot of us share similar stories and backgrounds — we're first-time homebuyers, and mostly born and raised in Atlanta, though I think there are two or three people from California. It's exciting to know I can learn from people around me who are going through similar life phases.
One of my favorite things about the village is that it's really community oriented; we're all very tight knit. Neighbors look out for neighbors.
We usually eat on our patios or in front of our homes and wave to each other. There's also communal areas in the village like a garden and a fire pit, where residents regularly have cookouts. And residents celebrate a lot of housewarmings as well.
When you look at the community, it's like something you've never seen before in Atlanta and I love that.
I plan to buy another home in the future
South Park Cottages in more ways than one way changed my life.
When I moved back to Georgia, getting an apartment was never going to be part of the plan; I was determined that my next step had to be homeownership.
But the home prices in Atlanta have increased dramatically over the past few years. When I was first looking for homes in the area, there were hardly any newly built ones that were affordable. The homes that were, weren't modern, and required a lot of work.
I believe this South Park Cottages has made homeownership more attainable for people like me, and has given me the opportunity to create a space of my own.
Campbell holding a mug.
Courtesy of Kristi Campbell
Right now, I think my tiny home is great for me, but I definitely see it as a stepping stone. I want to live here for another year and a half, and then purchase another home, especially because I plan to get married and have children someday.
I'm going to hold onto this tiny home and pass it onto them. It's amazing knowing that I've invested in something that will benefit me and future generations.
A protester holds up a sign at a protest on Columbia's campus. Demonstrators are demanding the school divest from Israel.
Alex Kent; Getty Images
Protests have rocked Columbia University's campus.
Demonstrators opposing the war in Gaza want the school to divest from Israel.
In 1985, protesters had staged their divestment campaign — and it worked.
The unrest at Columbia University isn't showing signs of slowing down.
Student protests are escalating there and other college campuses over the Israel-Gaza war and schools' investments in Israeli entities, with demonstrators on Tuesday breaking into a Columbia campus building and occupying it.
It's a shockingly familiar scene.
In the 1980s, student protesters at Columbia took over the same building and called for divestment of the Ivy League school's investments over a different cause: South African apartheid.
But while that movement was a success, protesters today may find it harder to push the school into divesting.
Protests over Israel's war in Gaza rage
Student demonstrators are calling for the Ivy League institution to divest from Israel and accuse the Jewish nation of killing civilians in Gaza.
The protesters are specifically demanding the school sell off investments not just from Israeli companies but from those that have ties to Israel, including engineering firms Lockheed Martin and Boeing and tech giants like Alphabet and Amazon, according to NPR.
Students have also called on the school to boycott Israeli universities and institutions, protect pro-Palestinian students and faculty, and make a statement condemning the war in Gaza.
The protesters swarmed the campus and set up tents. Meanwhile, Jewish leaders on campus say some students were targeted with offensive rhetoric as the demonstrations escalated.
The protests, which have lasted nearly two weeks, took another turn on Monday when the school announced it wouldn't cut its investments from Israel and warned protesting students to leave or face suspension.
The deadline came and went, and hours later, demonstrators broke into Hamilton Hall on the campus and barricaded themselves inside early Tuesday morning.
A demonstrator used a hammer to break through a window in Hamilton Hall early Tuesday.
Alex Kent; Getty Images
A coalition group of dozens of organizations called Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which has helped organize the protests, said in a statement that students had renamed the building "Hind's Hall" after a Palestinian girl who was killed in Gaza.
The controversial protest movement has drawn criticism and support from top political and financial figures. The White House said President Joe Biden supported the right to protest peacefully but condemned the takeover of Hamilton Hall.
"Forcibly taking over buildings is not peaceful — it is wrong," a White House spokesperson said.
Student protesters at the 1985 demonstrations at Columbia University.
Barbara Alper; Getty Images
The 1985 protests
The demonstrations are reminiscent of those in 1985, when protesters and civil rights leaders were outraged over the apartheid regime in South Africa.
In 1978, the school's governing body had recommended selectively selling stocks of companies that had holdings in South Africa, according to a New York Times article at the time. Three hundred students had protested outside the meeting, calling for all the stocks to be divested, the Times reported.
The school's 1978 recommendation didn't shut down the protests. In April 1985, the Coalition for a Free South Africa at the school organized a protest at Hamilton Hall, according to the Columbia Spectator.
The small demonstration quickly grew to thousands of supporters, the Spectator reported. Protesters there locked and chained the doors to Hamilton Hall — the same building now occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters — and demanded the school completely divest from South Africa.
The protests lasted on campus for 21 days before the students called the demonstrations off; the announcement came just minutes before a judge ordered the students to allow people access to Hamilton Hall, The New York Times reported.
Months later, Columbia's trustees voted to divest from South Africa completely.
A more fraught situation
On its website, the Columbia University Apartheid Divest group likened itself to the protests from nearly 40 years ago.
"We are a continuation of the Vietnam anti-war movement and the movement to divest from apartheid South Africa," the group wrote.
But despite the similarities between the movements' tactics, the situation in 2024 may make it harder for demonstrators to achieve their goals.
In the 70s and 80s, Columbia's leadership was sympathetic to the divestment cause; students were arguing that the school didn't go far enough.
The pro-Palestinian demonstrators also face a more hostile geopolitical environment.
In the 1980s, apartheid was broadly condemned by the US, and in the months after the protest, President Ronald Reagan signed an executive order preventing loans and technology from being sent to South Africa.
The US relationship with Israel now is far more complicated. The conflict in Gaza was sparked by Hamas' terror attacks in October 2023 that killed hundreds. Israeli authorities said Hamas fighters captured 253 people after the assault across the border.
As of now, 112 of the hostages were returned alive, but dozens are still suspected to be in captivity, Israeli officials say. The Israeli government responded to the attack with an assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Israel is an important ally of the US in the Middle East, and President Joe Biden has emphasized he's a strong supporter of the Jewish state.
But Biden is facing pressure from progressive and young voters, who blame him for sending weaponry to Israel as the civilian death toll rises by the thousands in Gaza. Biden's administration, in recent months, has pushed the Israeli government to allow more humanitarian aid into the region and take steps to avoid civilian casualties.
Israel's leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, has so far largely brushed off Biden's criticism and promised to launch an offensive into Rafah, a city in Gaza where over 1 million Palestinians are taking refuge. Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas completely.
Meanwhile, cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas have stalled.
So, too, has the prospect of divesting. Columbia president Nemat "Minouche" Shafik said school leaders and students weren't able to negotiate an end to the protest and flatly shot down the immediate divestment demands.
"While the University will not divest from Israel, the University offered to develop an expedited timeline for review of new proposals from the students by theAdvisory Committee for Socially Responsible Investing, the body that considers divestment matters," Shafik wrote on Monday.
Even then, it's unclear how effective divestment would be in changing the school's finances. The Ivy's massive $13.6 billion endowment would be challenging to sort through.
"The economy is so global now that even if a university decided that they were going to instruct their dominant management groups to divest from Israel, it would be almost impossible to disentangle," Nicholas Dirks, former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, told CNN.
Divesting also means another investor would need to purchase those stocks, ultimately reallocating who supports the organizations in question.
But Christopher Marsicano, an assistant professor at North Carolina's Davidson College, told Al Jazeera that divestment drives may be more effective in incentivizing political — not economic — change.
"Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has already mentioned student protests at American universities publicly," Marsicano told the outlet. "It is clear that these protests have captured the attention of the Israeli government and are putting some pressure on stakeholders to support a cease-fire."
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents have interrogated more than 30 ByteDance and TikTok employees traveling to the US from China, according to a report by Forbes.
Employees are being asked a list of dedicated questions, including whether they have ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and what access ByteDance and TikTok have to American user data, Forbes reported, citing anonymous sources close to the matter.
Employees from various teams — many of whom are Chinese — are also being asked by CBP agents about Project Texas, per Forbes, which is TikTok's overarching security plan to wall off American data from China.
They're also being asked about their educations and political connections, according to the outlet.
"CBP is tasked with protecting our nation's borders as well as enforcing numerous laws at our nation's ports of entry on behalf of a variety of other government agencies, including state and local law enforcement," a spokesperson for the agency told Business Insider. "All international travelers attempting to enter the United States, including all US citizens, are subject to examination."
President Biden signed a bill into law last week requiring Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores unless ByteDance divests its US operations within 270 days. TikTok has vowed to fight the legislation in court, citing First Amendment violations.
Forbes noted that the inquiries by border patrol agents is similar to a line of questioning Sen. Tom Cotton posed to TikTok's CEO Shou Zi Chew during a congressional hearing in January. At the time, Chew reminded Cotton multiple times that he is Singaporean.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Billions of pollution-eating bacteria thrive around the roots of Neo P1, the first houseplant bioengineered to reduce indoor air pollution.
Neoplants
Biotech company Neoplants just released the first houseplant grown to reduce indoor air pollution.
This plant, called Neo P1, gets its pollution-eating superpower from genetically engineered bacteria.
Neo P1 can remove 30 times more VOC's, harmful indoor pollutants, than a typical houseplant.
Looking at Neo P1, you'd never know that it was anything but a typical houseplant. But on a microscopic level, this plant is supercharged with billions of pollution-eating bacteria.
This week, the France-based biotech company Neoplants released the first houseplant bioengineered to remove harmful chemicals from indoor air. It targets volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are emitted by the everyday stuff in our homes: gas stoves, paints, even furniture.
NeoP1 looks like an ordinary marble queen pothos plant.
Neoplants
Indoor air can be two to five times (and in extreme cases, up to 100 times) more polluted than outdoor air, according to the American Lung Association. This is, in part, driven by higher levels of VOCs indoors. Long-term exposure to these compounds can cause eye, nose, and throat irritation, headaches and dizziness, even liver damage and cancer.
The best ways to remove VOCs from your home are opening the windows and getting rid of their sources, Glenn Morrison, a University of North Carolina environmental science and engineering professor who studies indoor air pollution, told BI. Some types of mechanical air purifiers can remove them too, but many of them can produce other harmful chemicals like carbon monoxide, ozone, and formaldehyde.
But Neoplants co-founders Patrick Torbey and Lionel Mora weren't satisfied with these options. They argue that opening windows only temporarily reduces indoor pollution to outside levels, and not everyone can easily get rid of VOC sources in their homes. What's more, they believe existing VOC-removing technologies aren't worth their drawbacks.
So, they turned to biology to invent their own solution. The result, Neo P1, is 30 times more effective at removing indoor air pollution than the average houseplant, Torbey and Mora told Business Insider.
"What we care about is putting nature at the center of innovation again," Torbey said.
Harnessing the power of bacteria
This petri dish was cultured with Neoplants' bioengineered bacteria. But only the pink side was also swabbed with toluene, a VOC. The dots on that side are bacterial colonies, showing that this species can live off of VOCs.
Neoplants
Non-engineered houseplants are equipped with some natural air-purifying power, and some types are more effective than others. But research has shown that it would take hundreds of regular houseplants to purify the air inside a 1,500 square-foot home.
Torbey and Mora wanted to achieve air purification with a single houseplant. To do that, they hacked into the plant's microbiome.
They targeted a strain of bacteria called Pseudomonas putida, which have a particular appetite for three common VOCs: benzene, toluene, and xylene. There are tens of thousands of types of VOCs that can be present in homes, Morrison points out. But Neoplants chose to target these three because they are especially harmful and prevalent in indoor spaces, Mora said.
This species of bacteria can live off VOCs as their sole carbon source, metabolizing them into harmless sugars and amino acids, according to the Neoplants white paper.
What's more, these bacteria naturally occur in the soil around plant roots and form a mutually beneficial relationship with their host plants. If Torbey and Mora could figure out how to supercharge these VOC-eating bacteria, they'd create a natural air-purifying system.
Through directed evolution — the process of reproducing organisms in a lab to enhance a selected trait over time — they created a new version of Pseudomonas putida that is extremely effective at metabolizing VOCs.
"These are like tiny, tiny air purifying machines that build more air purifying machines the more pollution there is," Torbey said.
But keeping these bacteria abundant presented a challenge. Plant microbiomes are difficult to maintain, and their viability declines as soon as you ship that plant to someone, Jennifer Brophy, assistant professor of Bioengineering at Stanford University, told MIT Tech Review.
To solve that problem, Neo P1 comes with "power drops," a solution of their engineered bacteria that can be used to replenish the plant's microbiome once a month and ensure that it's working at its maximum air-purifying capacity, similar to regularly replacing an air purifier's filter.
Limitations
UNC's Morrison thinks that there are other limitations to consider before purchasing Neo P1. "It doesn't really matter how much they modify the plant or modify the bacteria in the soil if they can't get the air into and through it," he said.
Neo P1 is potted in a biodegradable shell that's designed with vents to maximize airflow between the soil and the room, but Morrison argues that the airflow would still be too minimal to make a significant difference in air quality for the average home. "It might actually remove some VOCs, it just doesn't remove very much," he said.
But Torbey and Mora are confident in their product. "We know that phytoremediation (plants-based solution) is not an approach that most in the indoor air quality community believe in," Torbey told BI in a later email in response to Morrison's skepticism. He and his colleagues have built two VOC measurement rooms at their headquarters in Paris, which they will use to study the phytoremediation potential of their system.
"We will be publishing this data as soon as possible to help the world better understand the power of phytoremediation," he added.
Unpacking the Neo P1 system
The Neo P1 system comes with a marble queen pothos potted in a specially designed "shell," and a six-month supply of power drops.
Neoplants
The Neo P1 air purifying system comes with a marble queen pothos plant, popular species of houseplant which serves as the perfect host for their VOC-eating bacteria, Mora said.
Eventually, Mora and Torbey hope to expand Neoplants to include different types of plants, but for now, pothos is the only species available for purchase.
The Neo P1 package includes the biodegradable, vented shell, which also has a built-in self-watering system. "Even people who don't have a green thumb at all can very easily take care of this plant," Mora said.
This $119 package comes with a six-month supply of power drops. When they run out, customers can sign up to auto-replenish them for $39 every three months.
Striving for sustainability
Every part of the Neo P1 air purifying system is manufactured in the US.
Neoplants
For Mora and Torbey, the most exciting aspect of this new product is that it's made entirely in the US. Even the recycled plastic and agricultural waste used to make their self-watering shell comes from the US.
Achieving this proved challenging, Mora said, but he and Torbey wanted to manufacture their product as close to their main customer base as possible. To them, it didn't make sense to ship a product designed to clean the air across the world. And manufacturing Neo P1 in the US helped ensure their product was made responsibly.
"What we tried to do is build a product that is as sustainable as possible. So, you don't need to use any electricity, you don't need to replace filters that have a lot of pollution in them and throw them away," Mora said.
This sustainable model is part of Neoplants overarching goal: to drive progress towards solutions to even bigger environmental issues.
"If we project ourselves in five years from now, not only will we have this product family for indoor spaces that people can put in their homes, but we'll also start hitting some of the first fundamental technical milestones for climate change applications," Mora said.
Auto regulators are investigating Ford's BlueCruise driving assistance system.
David Zalubowski
Federal regulators are investigating Ford's BlueCruise system following two fatal crashes.
The probe comes amid increased scrutiny of automated driving-assistance systems.
Tesla's Autopilot is also under investigation after hundreds of collisions.
Federal auto regulators are looking into Ford Motor's driver-assistance system following two fatal crashes that the safety agencylinked to the automation technology.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation into Ford's BlueCruise system, according to an agency filing made public Monday.
Both accidents involved a Mustang Mach-E electric vehicle crashing into a stationary car while on a freeway during lightning conditions at night, according to the agency. An initial agency review confirmed that BlueCruise was in use before both collisions.
One person died in a February collision in San Antonio, and two people died in a Philadelphia crash in March, The Associated Press reported.
A spokesperson for Ford told Business Insider the automaker was working with the NHTSA to support the investigation.
The investigation comes as the auto industry ramps up scrutiny of automated driving-assistance systems amid a boom in the new, imperfect technology.
Earlier this month, the NHTSA launched a second probe into Tesla's popular driving assistance software, Autopilot, after several accidents involving the system. The agency is investigating whether Tesla's December recall of 2 million vehicles installed with Autopilot had adequately addressed the safety risks.
Driving assistance systems aren't fully autonomous yet and typically monitor steering, braking, and acceleration on highways, though Ford and other car companies have stressed the importance of driver attention even while the software is in use.
The NHTSA investigation into BlueCruise will determine how well the software does various driving tasks and evaluate its camera-based monitoring system.
Skydance, the film studio owned by David Ellison, is vying to buy Paramount.
Skydance's biggest backer is private equity firm RedBird, a top player in sports and media.
Meet the mastermind behind RedBird, ex-Goldman Sachs partner and Yankees dealmaker Gerry Cardinale.
Paramount's CEO Bob Bakish was ousted on Monday night, putting the entertainment giant one step closer to accepting a merger deal. The would-be buyer, film studio Skydance Media, is owned by David Ellison, son of billionaire Oracle founder Larry.
A key player in the negotiations is private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners. An investor in Skydance since 2020, RedBird is the media company's largest shareholder other than the Ellison family. In the 10 years since its founding, RedBird has emerged as a top dealmaker in sports and entertainment with $10 billion in assets.
Founder and chief executive Gerry Cardinale made his name at Goldman Sachs as the banker to the New York Yankees, the Dallas Cowboys, and the NFL. RedBird, owner of football club AC Milan since 2022, has been on a shopping spree. In February, it bought All3Media, the TV and film production company behind "Fleabag," for £1.15 billion (some $1.4 billion). It attempted to buy the UK newspaper, the Telegraph, before withdrawing on Tuesday.
Skydance and RedBird have been wooing Paramount for months. Paramount's special committee received a revised proposal on Sunday, according to a source close to the negotiations. Under the agreement, Skydance would merge with Paramount, and the combined company would stay public, two sources close to the negotiation said.
David Ellison would be installed as CEO and Jeff Shell, ex-NBCUniversal CEO and current chairman of sports media at RedBird, would report to Ellison as president. The Skydance consortium, including RedBird and smaller shareholder KKR, would inject $3 billion into Paramount with the majority going toward buying back stock and the remainder to paying down debt. The exclusive negotiating period is due to end on May 3. Meanwhile, private equity titan Apollo has reportedly teamed up with Sony for a potential $26 billion offer but has yet to make an official bid.
The deal is typical of Cardinale's playbook. RedBird isn't a typical buyout firm, instead installing new management and leveraging intellectual properties to build larger businesses. Skydance has already successfully co-produced the "Top Gun" reboot with Paramount and holds the rights to produce and finance other Paramount properties, including Transformers.
"I think it's my biggest competitive advantage that I don't get emotionally attached," Cardinale told Business Insider in 2022. "They're all pieces of intellectual property that have a legitimate right to be monetized as long as they balance the fan-social contract at the same time."
(Paramount did not reply to a request for comment in time for publication. At Tuesday's earnings call, executives took no questions and instead played the "Mission: Impossible" theme on a loop.)
Business Insider spoke with 27 of Cardinale's colleagues and peers to learn more about his winning strategy. One of his superpowers, many said, is his relationship savvy. Many of RedBird's business partnerships date back to his Goldman days.
"He had a knack for developing relationships with entrepreneurs, particularly those with more of a maverick style," said Jon Winkelried, the CEO of TPG and the former copresident of Goldman Sachs. "There arse a lot of smart investors who can run the numbers, who can figure out the cash flows, but it is very hard to get high-powered people who have accomplished a lot to want to allocate some of their valuable time to you. People want to spend their time with Gerry."
An American Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner landing in Athens, Greece.
NurPhoto/Getty Images
American Airlines is making cuts to flight schedules on some international and Hawaii routes.
The changes are a result of Boeing 787 Dreamliner delivery delays.
American Airlines will receive just 3 of the 6 Dreamliners it expected Boeing to deliver this year.
American Airlines is reducing service and adjusting flight schedules on roughly a dozen routes due to a shortage of the Boeing 787 Dreamliners needed to operate them, it said Friday.
The changes primarily affect seasonal routes between the mainland US to destinations in Europe, South America, and Hawaii.
"We're making these adjustments now to ensure we're able to re-accommodate customers on affected flights," an American Airlines spokesperson told Business Insider.
Here's the full list of cuts and reductions:
New York (JFK) – Rome (FCO) will go from two daily flights to a single daily flight effective Aug. 5.
New York (JFK) – Athens (ATH) seasonal route will suspend operations earlier than planned on September 3rd.
New York (JFK) – Barcelona (BCN) will suspend service on September 3 and resume operations in the summer of 2025.
New York (JFK) – Buenos Aires (EZE) will be reduced to one daily flight on October 27.
Philadelphia (PHL) – Venice (VCE) seasonal route will suspend operations earlier than planned on October 5.
Chicago (ORD) – Paris (CDG) will suspend service on September 3 and resume operations in the summer of 2025.
Dallas (DFW) – Kona (KOA) seasonal route will not operate this winter.
Dallas (DFW) – Dublin (DUB) will suspend service on October 26 and resume operations in the summer of 2025.
Dallas (DFW) – Rome (FCO) will suspend service on October 26 and resume operations summer of 2025.
Miami (MIA) – Montevideo (MVD) seasonal route resumption is delayed until November 18.
Miami (MIA) – Rio de Janeiro (GIG) will reduce to 10 weekly flights for the winter season except between December 16, 2024 – January 6, 2025.
Phoenix (PHX) – Honolulu (HNL)/Kahului (OGG) flight will operate with a smaller Airbus A321neo instead of the Dreamliner except between November 16 – December 2. American said it will operate a second daily flight using the A321neo starting in mid-December.
Instead, the airline expects an increased utilization of its regional fleet will be able to offset much of the disruption created by Boeing's delivery delays, CFO Devon May told analysts last week.
Boeing has struggled to deliver the 787 over the past couple of years due to various reasons ranging from parts shortages to quality control issues that halted aircraft deliveries for 15 months. The 737MAX family has been equally troubled of late with continuing production quality issues following the mid-flight failure of a plug-door on a newly delivered Alaska Airlines 737 MAX9 in January.
Boeing's production struggles have forced several of the company's other major customers to take similar action.
Beyond the schedule cuts, American announced it will launch daily flights between Philadelphia and Barcelona in January 2025, along with increased service frequency on select routes to Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo.
In 1935, a car radio was cutting-edge technology. But people are still using it today.
Daily Herald Archive/SSPL/Getty Images
Just like TV, radio is a pre-internet medium. But its usage hasn't collapsed like TV has.
For people listening to free, ad-supported audio, radio remains dominant, according to Nielsen.
But the younger you get, the less likely you are to listen to radio, even compared to other free options.
Radio is an old-timey medium that made sense when there was no other way to listen to things. But it makes no sense in the age of Spotify and podcasts and listening to what you want, when you want to listen to it.
Right?
Well, not exactly. At least not according to a new survey from Nielsen, which argues that lots of people still listen to radio.
Specifically, Nielsen says that radio accounts for nearly 70% of all listening time to "ad-supported audio" for adults in the US, with the remainder cut up between podcasts, streaming audio, and satellite radio.
Nielsen
Not surprisingly, those numbers are weighted toward oldsters (that would be 35 and up, for the purpose of this survey) who are likely to remember a time when radio was the only way to listen to audio.
But radio is still strong for a younger demo. Nielsen says it accounts for 45% of ad-supported listening for 18 to 34-year-olds:
Nielsen
If you're surprised by this, that may be because you spend a lot of time on the internet (thank you!) and/or because you don't spend that much time driving. Because cars, for lots of people, still equal radio: Edison Research says 70% of people who've been in a car in the last month are primarily listening to radio.
But, also — if you've been reading this closely (thank you!) — you will have also noticed that those Nielsen numbers only reference "ad-supported audio," which means it's not measuring all listening. Spotify, for instance, says it has 64 million premium subscribers in North America who pay to listen to on-demand, ad-free music. And they don't show up in this Nielsen survey. The same goes for Apple's Music subscribers, etc.
So what happens when you look at the way audio habits for all kinds of listening pan out?
Nielsen's data here isn't as granular as I would have liked, but they were able to give me some sense. TL;DR: Radio usage, it turns out, isn't nearly as dominant. But it's still on top: Nielsen says it accounts for 37% of all listening time, followed by streaming audio (19%), podcasts (11%), and Sirius XM (8%). (The remaining 25% is split every other way you can consume audio — stuff you own yourself, stuff you listen to on YouTube, etc.)
So where does all of this lead us?
On the one hand, it suggests that, unlike cable TV, young/youngish people haven't entirely abandoned radio. Chalk it up, most likely, to the fact that it's both free and, in many cases, still easier to listen to in a car than something delivered over the internet.
It also suggests that gravity is real, water is wet, and that just like you think, the more choices you have — and the more choices you are exposed to — the less likely you are to pick radio. Just like you thought.