• When we had our son earlier this year, we decided not to post photos of his face online.
• We want our son to be able to consent to his own online presence, and he can't do that yet.
• It's been the right choice for us, though there are some challenges.

Shortly after my son was born earlier this year, my husband and I began gearing ourselves up for a potentially awkward talk with loved ones. Parents, siblings, and friends had come to meet our first baby, and naturally, they took a lot of photos. And while we knew they were eager to boast about their new grandson, nephew, or cousin, we had decided that we didn't want his face on social media.

Admittedly, it's been challenging at times — both for us, and for our loved ones. Still, we're confident that the benefits outweigh any drawbacks.

It mostly comes down to consent, but there are other considerations, too

We think our son should have a say in his digital footprint, and at this stage of his life, we aren't able to ask him whether he's OK with having an online presence. Until he can let us know how he feels about having private moments shared on social media, we don't feel comfortable making that choice for him. We'll revisit the idea of posting pictures of him once he's able to verbally consent to it.

In her book Sharenthood: Why We Should Think Before We Talk About Our Kids Online, Leah A. Plunkett — a Harvard Law School faculty member who specializes in technology law, digital privacy, and children and family law — detailed how posting photos of your kids online puts them at risk of identity theft, bullying, and harassment. It also begins to build a narrative about them, which detracts from their ability to tell their own story.

Ultimately, we found a compromise, but sometimes there are slip-ups

It felt unrealistic to expect that everyone in our son's life would refrain from posting any photos that he's included in. After all, my husband has a very large family — which means a lot of group get-togethers where numerous photos are taken. We didn't want people to feel that they couldn't share a joyful life moment just because our son happened to be in the picture.

So, we decided to only avoid posting photos where his face — or anything else that could identify him — is visible. (That means we mostly share photos where his back is turned to the camera, or we make sure an emoji has been layered over his face.)

However, there are occasional slip-ups. After a family apple-picking excursion, one family member accidentally uploaded a group photo with our son's face in it to Instagram. We didn't stress too much about it or reprimand our loved one immediately in front of the group — after all, we knew they didn't mean any harm. We just followed up with them privately to gently remind them of our policy.

They felt bad, and took the picture down. These slip-ups have happened a few times since my son was born four months ago, and I'm sure they will continue to happen in the coming years. We can't expect every single person in our lives to remember our rule every time they want to post.

We don't judge other people for sharing their children on social media

To be clear, we don't fault or criticize anyone else who does post photos of their kids online. It's only natural to have the urge to share that adorable picture of your little one learning something new or hitting a milestone. Believe me, I get it.

In fact, I'm not immune to those urges. When we did a professional photo shoot in our home a few weeks after our son was born, I felt pangs of regret that I couldn't share certain pictures online, too.

When I do feel the impulse to share recent photos and videos of my son, I turn to our family and friend group texts instead of social media. Those are the people who are most excited to stay up to date on his life, anyway. Plus, we love getting their reactions over text.

Whenever I doubt my decision, I put myself in my son's shoes.

To be honest, I don't know how I would feel if I grew up and discovered there were hundreds of photos and videos from my childhood on the internet. What if I was embarrassed by something my mom or dad shared? Fortunately, my parents never had to make that decision, because these apps didn't exist during my childhood.

Any time I start to wonder if my husband and I are making the right choice — say, when a family member seems disappointed that they can't post a cute selfie with our son — I think about how our little guy might feel 10, 15, or 20 years from now. Is he likely to be upset that we didn't share more, or relieved and grateful? I feel confident it's the latter, but only time will tell.

• 2025's words of the year reflect a generation frustrated with job prospects, AI, and online culture.
• Platforms have chosen terms like "fatigue," "AI slop," and "rage bait."
• For the first time, Dictionary.com chose a word that is also a number as its Word of the Year.

Everyone is over 2025.

Various platforms and dictionaries released their word of the year in December, and the choices widely reflect a sense of inescapable uncertainty, exhaustion, and skepticism of the tech world.

"There's no denying that 2025 has been a year defined by questions around who we truly are," said Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Languages, "both online and offline."

From early-career job seekers stuck in unemployment, to social media content that never seems to advance the conversation, and workers struggling to keep up with AI, here is a list of words that dictionaries and culture-watchers say encapsulate the zeitgeist of 2025.

Glassdoor: 'Fatigue'

Workers are tired, according to job search platform Glassdoor.

The site that allows workers to post reviews of companies they have worked for or interviewed with coined "fatigue" as its word of the year, after the term saw a 41% spike in mentions across the platform in 2025.

Glassdoor cited how job seekers are growing increasingly frustrated with endless applications that go nowhere, and how emotionally exhausted workers are with the rapid rise of AI.

When Glassdoor asked professionals if they felt like the news cycle was draining their energy at work, 78% said yes. On top of that, job seekers are becoming increasingly frustrated as more "job huggers" hold onto their positions in a low-hire, low-fire job market.

In an ironic admonition, Glassdoor wrote, "Yes, things could be better, but they could also be much worse."

Collins Dictionary: 'Vibe coding'

"Vibe coding," a term coined by Andrej Karpathy, a prominent AI researcher, refers to the use of natural language prompts to instruct AI to write computer code instead of writing it from scratch.

Collins said that its word of the year and its contenders mark a "further shift towards a tech-dominated world."

According to OpenAI's annual enterprise report, code-related queries increased 36% for workers whose primary job is not engineering. Companies like Anthropic also said that its in-house AI, Claude, is now writing 90% of code for its teams.

Oxford Dictionary: 'Rage bait'

If you ever feel so angry over online content that you feel compelled to repost it and give the comment section a piece of your mindyou may have encountered the Oxford Dictionary's word of the year: "rage bait."

Oxford defined the word as "online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement."

According to Oxford's data, the use of "rage bait" has tripled in 2025 compared to the year before, hinting at "a deeper shift in how we talk about attention — both how it is given and how it is sought after."

Cambridge Dictionary: 'Parasocial'

Many people seem unable to quit social media. And that could be largely due to "parasocial" relationships, which Cambridge Dictionary coined as word of the year.

The term refers to one-sided "relationships that people form with celebrities, influencers, and AI chatbots," Cambridge Dictionary wrote.

For example, how fans often feel a deep connection to Taylor Swift's lyrics about heartbreak, to the spontaneity of podcast hosts, and the "emotionally meaningful" and "in some cases troubling" connection between users and AI chatbots.

Business Insider has documented various instances where people become emotionally dependent on an AI model or form long-term relationships with AI girlfriends. The release of AI companions by platforms like Grock, including a flirtatious anime girl, can increase the likelihood of such parasocial relationships.

Macquarie Dictionary: 'AI slop'

The Australian English dictionary chose "AI slop" as its top word of the year, highlighting concern over "low-quality content created by generative AI, often containing errors, and not requested by the user."

The rise of AI-generated content has contributed to longer and more annoying memos at work that don't actually push productivity forward, as well as tricked some news platforms into publishing inaccurate information, such as when the Chicago Sun-Times published an AI-generated summer reading list that matched real authors with books they never wrote.

"While in recent years we've learnt to become search engineers to find meaningful information, we now need to become prompt engineers in order to wade through the AI slop," said the Macquarie Dictionary Committee.

Dictionary.com: '67'

Dictionary.com chose a numeral — the number 67 — as its word of the year, for the first time since the site started naming word of the year in 2010.

The word, pronounced "six seven" instead of "sixty-seven," experienced a dramatic rise in search volume since the summer of 2025 and increased more than sixfold since June, said Dictionary.com.

Described as "meaningless, ubiquitous, and nonsensical," Dictionary.com said it thinks this word means "so-so" or "maybe this, maybe that," which makes some sense if you're rating something a six or seven out of 10.

"If you're a member of Gen Alpha," Dictionary.com added, "maybe you're smirking at the thought of adults once again struggling to make sense of your notoriously slippery slang."

• Harsh Varshney has worked in privacy and Chrome AI security at Google.
• He's cautious about what he shares with AI chatbots to protect himself from cybercriminals.
• He advises using well known AI tools and treating chatbots like a public postcard.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with 31-year-old Harsh Varshney, who works at Google and lives in New York. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

AI has quickly become a silent partner in our daily lives, and I can't imagine life without AI tools.

Day-to-day, they help me with deep research, note-taking, coding, and online searches.

But my job means I'm very aware of the privacy concerns associated with using AI. I've worked at Google since 2023 and spent two years as a software engineer on the privacy team, building infrastructure to protect user data. I then switched to the Chrome AI security team, where I help secure Google Chrome from malicious threats, like hackers and those who use AI agents to conduct phishing campaigns.

AI models use data to generate helpful responses, and we users need to protect our private information so that harmful entities, like cybercriminals and data brokers, can't access it.

Here are four habits I've made that I believe are essential for protecting my data while using AI.

Treat AI like a public postcard

Sometimes, a false sense of intimacy with AI can lead people to share information online that they never would otherwise. AI companies may have employees who work on improving the privacy aspects of their models, but it's not advisable to share credit card details, Social Security numbers, your home address, personal medical history, or other personally identifiable information with AI chatbots.

Depending on the version being used, the information shared with public AI chatbots can be used to train future models and generate responses that are more relevant. This could result in "training leakage," where the model memorizes personal information about one user and later regurgitates it in responses to another. Plus, there's the risk of data breaches, which would expose what you've shared with a chatbot.

I treat AI chatbots like a public postcard. If I wouldn't write a piece of information on a postcard that could be seen by anyone, I wouldn't share it with a public AI tool. I'm not confident about how my data could be used for future training.

Know which 'room' you're in

It's important to identify whether you're using a more public AI tool or an enterprise-grade one.

While it's uncertain how conversations are used for training public AI models, companies can pay for "enterprise" models. Here, models aren't typically meant to train on user conversations, so it's safer for employees to talk about their work and company projects.

Think of it like having a conversation in a crowded coffee shop where you could be overheard, versus a confidential meeting in your office that stays within the room.

There have reportedly been instances where employees have accidentally leaked company data to ChatGPT. If you work on unreleased company projects or are trying to get a patent, you probably don't want to discuss your plans with a non-enterprise-grade chatbot due to the risk of leakage.

I don't discuss projects I'm working on at Google with public chatbots. Instead, I use an enterprise model, even for tasks as small as editing a work email. I'm much more comfortable sharing my information because my conversations aren't used for training, but I still minimize the personal information I share.

Delete your history regularly

AI chatbots usually keep a history of your conversations, but I recommend deleting it on both enterprise and public models regularly to protect your user privacy in the long term. Due to the risk of your account being compromised, it's a good precautionary habit to have, even if you're confident you aren't putting private data into the tools.

Once, I was surprised that an enterprise Gemini chatbot was able to tell me my exact address, even though I didn't remember sharing it. It turned out, I had previously asked it to help me refine an email, which included my address. Because the tool has long-term memory features, enabling it to remember information from previous conversations, it could identify what my address was and retain it.

Sometimes, if I'm searching for things I don't want the chatbot to remember, I'll use a special mode, a bit like incognito mode, where the bots don't store my history or use the information to train models. ChatGPT and Gemini call this the "temporary chat" feature.

Use well-known AI tools

It's better to use AI tools that are well-known and are more likely to have clear privacy frameworks and other guardrails in place.

Other than Google's products, I like to use OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude.

It's also helpful to review the privacy policies of any tools you use. Sometimes, they'll explain more about how your data is used to train the model. In the privacy settings, you can also look for a section with the option to "improve the model for everyone." By making sure that setting is turned off, you're preventing your conversations from being used for training.

AI technology is incredibly powerful, but we must be cautious to ensure our data and identities are safe when we use it.

Do you have a story to share about using AI to help you at work? Contact this reporter at ccheong@businessinsider.com

• Shoppers are loving the Lee Radziwill purse line from Tory Burch.
• The bags cost between $520 and $1,320 each and are made from either leather or suede.
• Many people also love that the purses resemble Hermès Kelly bags for a fraction of the price.

Paige Stansbury grew up shopping at Tory Burch.

Each year, she'd vacation in Texas and shop at Houston's Galleria mall with her family. There, her grandmother always bought her a new pair of the designer's monogrammed ballet flats.

"I never really liked them," Stansbury, 23, admitted to Business Insider. "But my grandma, she gets me into everything. She's a style icon."

So, when Stansbury saw a photo of a Lee Radziwill bag from Tory Burch in 2022, the social-media marketing professional added one in the petite size to her holiday wish list.

It was her grandmother, of course, who bought it for her.

"My grandma said it's the best bag and that I'd be obsessed with it," Stansbury said. "I didn't start wearing it until recently, but she was right."

She loves her Lee Radziwill so much that she even made a TikTok video praising the purse. The post now has 2.3 million views, and countless comments from people who said they're buying their own.

The latter is just one reason the style is becoming a fashion status symbol for 2026.

A socialite and her namesake bag

Though it's gaining traction now, the Lee Radziwill line from Tory Burch isn't new.

It was actually introduced in 2018 as an homage to its namesake, Lee Radziwill — a socialite, the sister of Jackie Kennedy, and a personal friend of designer Tory Burch.

The line features bags in various colors, sizes, and materials, all of which are square in shape. They also feature top shoulder straps and magnetic buckles across the front. They range in price between $520 and $1,320.

In June, Tory Burch began teasing a suede version of its Lee Radziwill bags on TikTok.

After posting numerous videos throughout the summer, celebrities like Jessica Alba, Mindy Kaling, Ciara, and Emma Roberts carried their own Lee Radziwill bags at New York Fashion Week in September.

One fan said in a TikTok that month that the brand was "relentlessly marketing" the style, which caught her attention. When she went to purchase the bag, though, it was already sold out.

Then, Stansbury's TikTok post about her Lee Radziwill bag went viral in December. In the comment section of her video, shoppers seemed eager to get their hands on the purses.

"Do I need another bag? No. Will I be buying this bag? Clearly, yes!" one person wrote.

"That bag is so chic and exactly what I didn't know I wanted," another person commented.

Some styles have since sold out online, and the brand posted a TikTok video on Monday that described its Lee Radziwill purse as "the bag that broke the internet."

Representatives for Tory Burch did not respond to a request for comment on the bag's popularity and plans for future releases.

Chic and functional

Nicole King, 25, wasn't always a fan of Tory Burch. That changed in 2022 when she got her first Lee Radziwill bag. Now, the full-time content creator has a collection of eight.

"I have this icy-blue suede one, and to this day, it's the prettiest bag I've seen in my life," King told Business Insider. "I always say that if there were ever a fire, that's one of the items I would save."

She's also a big fan of the miniature version of the bag, which she said is more functional than you'd think. When she got her first one, King said, she wore it for four months straight.

"It was my go-to, and I carry a lot of stuff on me," she said. "It's also really easy to throw on. I forget that I'm carrying it."

Then there's Chelsea Clark, a 38-year-old healthcare marketing professional who grew up with Tory Burch accessories.

She told Business Insider that she'd been eyeing Lee Radziwill bags since 2020 and officially bought her own in November.

She chose one in teal for a few reasons. First, she'd had a color analysis done and learned that she's a true winter. The bag matched her color palette. Second, she wanted something unique.

"The size was also a factor," Clark said. "I'm 6 feet tall, and it's hard to find bags that I feel look good on really tall women. Most bags are too small or too large, like a weekender. My Lee Radziwill is the perfect size."

All three agreed that while the bags aren't necessarily cheap, they're worth splurging on.

"Some people have complained about the price, but at least it's not $4,000 for something that will tarnish and break," Stansbury said, adding that "$660 for a bag that will hold is a great price."

Kelly is out, and Tory is in

Let's not ignore the Hermès elephant in the room. Lee Radziwill bags, especially in the petite size, look a bit like Kelly bags from the famous French luxury brand.

They have similar shapes, matching buckle straps (or sangles, as Hermès refers to them), and are of a similar size. For many fans, that's part of the appeal. Why spend months trying to buy a $10,000 bag when you can pay $660 for a similar style from Tory Burch?

Others see things differently. The bags have similarities, sure, and there's no question that Hermès offers a flashier, more luxurious accessory — but some fans prefer Tory Burch's design.

Clark said she particularly likes that the Lee Radziwill bags have flat bottoms with no feet and a variety of pocket options.

"There's a timelessness to the bags," she said. "The style of the Lee Radziwill, you can dress it up, or you can dress it down. I can't tell what timeline this bag is from when I look at it. It always looks modern to me."

And luckily for Tory Burch, it's making the brand cool again.

Clark remembers a conversation with a young colleague in the recent past. She said they described the accessories brand to her as "cheugy," or a cringy, millennial fad.

Thanks to Lee Radziwill bags, members of Gen Z are changing their tune.

"Every time I have it on me, someone compliments the bag," Stansbury said. "It's constant."

• Zohran Mamdani is set to earn a $258,750 annual salary as New York City mayor.
• That's a big jump from the $142,000 annual salary he earns as a state assemblyman.
• He's also set to live rent-free in a mansion overlooking the East River.

Zohran Mamdani is about to get a massive raise — and some swanky new accommodations.

Mamdani is set to earn a $258,750 annual salary as New York City mayor, a more than 80% increase from the $142,000 annual salary that he earns as a state assemblyman.

He's also set to move into Gracie Mansion, the official mayoral residence, where he will not have to pay rent.

In a statement released this week, Mamdani said the decision to move into Gracie Mansion "came down to our family's safety and the importance of dedicating all of my focus on enacting the affordability agenda New Yorkers voted for."

Mamdani will take office on January 1, 2026.

Forbes has estimated that the state assemblyman's net worth is about $200,000. He currently lives in a rent-stabilized apartment in Astoria and has said that his monthly rent is $2,300.

How Mamdani's salary measures up

On the one hand, Mamdani's hefty new salary shouldn't be a huge surprise: The demands and responsibilities of managing a city of more than 8 million people are far greater than representing roughly 140,000 people in Queens.

And it's not the highest mayoral salary out there: The mayor of San Francisco earns a salary of more than $380,000, while the mayor of Los Angeles earns just over $300,000.

Still, it's far more than the $174,000 annual salary earned by most rank-and-file US senators and House members.

It's also more than the $223,500 annual salary that House Speaker Mike Johnson earns, or the $246,400 annual salaries of President Donald Trump's cabinet secretaries.

Mike Bloomberg, a billionaire, notably declined to accept the full salary during his tenure as mayor from 2002 to 2013, choosing instead to accept a $1 salary.

A new home on the Upper East Side

Almost every New York City mayor has lived at some point in Gracie Mansion, a two-story home on the Upper East Side overlooking the East River.

The one exception: Bloomberg, who opted to live in his own mansion a few blocks away on East 79th Street.

The former mayor even said that his successors shouldn't live in the mansion, but that advice apparently went unheeded: Mayor Bill de Blasio moved into the house in 2014, and Mayor Eric Adams also opted to live there.

The mayor also receives security protection from the New York City Police Department and has access to benefits available to other city employees, including health insurance.

In his statement on his impending move out of Astoria, Mamdani said that he and his wife Rama would "miss much about our home in Astoria," including "cooking dinner side by side in our kitchen, sharing a sleepy elevator ride with our neighbors in the evening, hearing music and laughter vibrate through the walls of the apartment."

"I will be a mayor for the line cooks on Steinway, for the children swinging at Dutch Kills Playground, for the bus riders waiting for the Q101," Mamdani said. "While I may no longer live in Astoria, Astoria will always live inside me and the work I do."

• IMD's new Global Family Office Report says heirs are reshaping offices and driving a talent crunch.
• Demand for CIOs, ESG experts, and tech specialists is rising across family offices, the report says.
• IMD researchers say family offices face tightening talent markets as NextGen priorities grow.

The next generation of leaders wants their family offices to look different from those run by their parents — and that shift is driving fierce competition for a new class of talent.

A new report from IMD's Global Family Business Center and the Family Business Network, based on 186 survey responses and 65 interviews with family principals across six continents in the first two quarters of this year, found that family offices are rapidly evolving as younger heirs step into leadership roles.

The report said younger family members increasingly prioritize impact investing, sustainability, technological innovation, and diversity and inclusion — particularly in the advisors and specialists they choose to hire.

As a result, they seek advisors who can navigate these areas — and job listings have surged for individuals with these skills, including alternative investment analysts, ESG specialists, and chief information officers who can modernize systems and streamline operations.

But the supply of qualified candidates "has not kept pace," the report warned.

Family offices require a blend of hard technical skills and softer traits — trustworthiness, discretion, emotional intelligence, and the ability to work inside complex family systems — that's rare even in top-tier finance.

This "changing of the guard," the report said, has created an acute scarcity of talent and a "highly competitive market for top-tier professionals."

Talent squeeze intensifies

Family offices are multiplying rapidly, with Deloitte estimating a 31% increase from 2019 to late 2024, as founders cash out and heirs prepare for a historic wealth transfer, according to the IMD's report.

"By and large, we can see that there just isn't enough talent available for the families and their family offices," Peter Vogel, one of the report's authors and Director of the IMD Global Family Business Center, told Business Insider.

Vogel, also a professor of family business and entrepreneurship, said that the first big hires are usually investment-focused — people with backgrounds in private equity, private debt, real estate, or venture capital.

Families that care about sustainability or impact will add ESG (environmental, social, and governance) expertise and impact-metrics skills on top, he added.

Beyond technical chops, Vogel said families increasingly look for candidates who bring emotional intelligence, trustworthiness, and experience handling family dynamics — qualities he described as essential but hard to find.

Limited appeal for top performers

But even when families are willing to pay, the pitch isn't always as attractive as it looks.

"One of the big questions is, what is the value proposition for a top shot to join a family office?" Vogel said.

Vogel said that for senior hires like CIOs or CEOs, family offices offer limited upward mobility: once you reach the top job, there's nowhere else to go except a larger family office.

Vogel added that while family-office compensation can be strong, it often falls short of the millions of dollars top performers can earn in big banks, private equity, or hedge funds — especially without co-investment or carried interest.

Michael Kosnitzky, Co-Leader of Pillsbury's Private Client & Family Office practice, previously told Business Insider that family offices are increasingly structuring "golden handcuffs" — long-term incentive packages designed to make it costly or unattractive for executives to leave — and carried-interest-style deals to stop their CIOs and dealmakers from being poached by rival funds or other family offices.

On top of that, Vogel said, the market itself is opaque.

The term "family office" isn't regulated, and titles are vague, he said, which makes it harder to find talent because roles vary widely from one office to another, and there's no standard job description. Many professionals also don't publicly name the families they work for.

"There's no big, qualified database of people saying, 'hand up, I'm a family office person,'" Vogel said.

For now, families are improvising: pulling trusted bankers into newly created offices, experimenting with incentive packages, and relying heavily on headhunters and word of mouth, he said.

This essay is based on a conversation with Jan Gerber, 44, who runs the Paracelsus Recovery clinic in Zurich. Business Insider has verified his admission to another Swiss clinic for burnout. The piece has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2022, I realized something was wrong. I had almost lost my company, my marriage was falling apart, and it felt like everything hit all at once. I did outpatient therapy while things were unraveling, but I was clearly getting worse.

About six months later, that December, I checked myself into an inpatient program in Zurich, where I was diagnosed with acute depression brought on by stress. The symptoms fit burnout, too — burnout and depression often overlap.

At the time, I had spent 12 years helping other people recover from burnout, depression, and addiction. I'm the founder of Paracelsus Recovery, a private clinic in Zurich that treats executives, founders, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals who require discreet and private care. A six-week stay can cost around $800,000.

CEOs and the ultrawealthy need discreet treatment

It all started when a friend of a friend, the CEO of a major, publicly listed corporation, called my parents, who worked in the mental health space, for help, and moved into their guest room for treatment. The person needed very discreet treatment for alcohol addiction — if it went public, the stock market impact could have been in the billions.

I previously worked in consulting and medical concierge services, and had launched my own businesses in the travel sector. So, the entrepreneur in me realized there was a niche here: offering discreet treatment for people who couldn't just go to any old rehab.

In 2011, I co-founded a clinic in the high-end mental health space with my mother and then step-father, which initially offered one-on-one care. In 2012, this became Paracelsus Recovery.

In the early years of Paracelsus Recovery, we had a small number of clients, but it took years to establish a reputation. The high cost is a big hurdle for potential clients. We primarily find ultra-high-net-worth clients through family offices and membership organizations, such as Campden Wealth.

About half are members of wealthy families, trust fund babies who don't develop a sense of purpose or drive. The other half is a mix of royalty, entertainers, entrepreneurs, founders, and top executives — those who have the funds to come to us.

Clients rarely experience burnout on its own. In many cases, people are self-medicating and in a cycle of taking downers like sleeping pills in the evening, then stimulants in the morning, such as ADHD medication or illicit drugs like cocaine. Eventually, they reach a dead end.

The breaking point for burnout comes late

Often, burnout is not solely prompted by the number of hours worked, but also by the responsibility of overseeing thousands of employees, investors, and business partners, which weighs heavily on their shoulders. If you're in the public eye or run a public company, where, for example, earnings aren't meeting expectations, that can also have a significant impact on stress levels.

The average worker typically seeks burnout treatment after a spouse, their kids, or employer tells them they can't show up late or get drunk every night anymore. Founders and professional executives tend to have much more to lose, and a network of people who help them conceal some of their issues. As a result, they'll hold on for dear life until they just can't anymore. And, in general, they seek help much later.

Sleep is usually the first to go. That was a massive red flag for me. I used to be a good sleeper, even in stressful times, but it started to deteriorate — not just a week or a month, but about half a year of restless nights. By the time these CEOs seek treatment, it's often when a substance is involved, and it's showing up as a fatty liver or cardiovascular issues, coming from alcohol abuse, for example.

We offer a 10-day program called an "Executive Detox." These programs don't solve everything, but they stabilize clients and buy them some time. On average, people stay with us for six weeks; however, in extreme cases, they may stay for six months or more.

A week at Paracelsus Recovery costs around £100,000, or about $131,000. This includes a private residence, a chef, a driver, a live-in therapist, and a daily schedule of psychotherapy, medical treatments, infusions, and complementary therapies such as yoga, acupuncture, and fitness training.

My own treatment at another clinic encouraged me to introduce treatments such as shiatsu and breath-work.

Success is relative. For me, it mostly means that someone leaves equipped with the tools to live a better life. Treatment at a clinic like Paracelsus Recovery is what I consider an acute stabilization, while the real work happens afterward. People should have ongoing therapy and support.

The key thing is to pull the emergency brake

To recover from burnout, the most vital thing — and it's hard for career executives and entrepreneurs to hear — is to pull the emergency brake. If you continue to hold on for another week, another month, or step back halfway while the stress persists, you'll still crash.

You have to decide between investing in the quality of your life over just your career trajectory.

Personally, I didn't do that. For the sake of business continuity, I had to hang on. I still haven't fully recovered. I still feel brain fog from being burned out, and my memory is worse than it was. I'm not sure if it will ever return.

But my own experience, and my treatment at another clinic in Zurich, taught me about the value of proper inpatient treatment.

At Paracelsus Recovery, we typically treat only three or four clients at a time, which makes for a warmer and more personal experience, whereas the Swiss Clinic I attended had a capacity of about 75 patients.

Our patients stay in penthouse apartments with lake views, where most of their treatments take place. No day is like another, as treatment is tailored for each client. They have access to medical treatments, a midday IV to rebalance their biochemistry, as well as a personal trainer and private chef. Their food and supplements are curated based on their lab tests and genetics.

Yes, the price tag is very high, but you get a lot for your money. Besides, there's no price on health and well-being.

• Collectible trading cards like Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! are popular among Gen Z.
• The cards were the most-purchased secondhand item among Gen Z on eBay.
• Some are selling for big bucks on the platform, one seller said.

Gen Z is embracing one decades-old phenomenon: Trading card games like Pokémon.

Collectible card games were the most-purchased secondhand product category for Gen Z in the US on eBay so far this year, according to data from the e-commerce platform.

The trend was especially clear among Gen Z men, who collectively shifted spending from electronics to trading cards and other collectibles, according to eBay. Trading cards were also the top secondhand sales category among Gen Z women on the platform, followed by books and cameras.

While trading cards for franchises such as Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! initially became popular with kids and teens in the US in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the data shows that the cards remain popular, even among those who were born as they were taking off.

Part of the enduring popularity is because those people who grew up with trading cards are now passing the interest on to their own kids, Aaron Ottensmann, a 29-year-old who runs card sales business SassyTCG, told Business Insider.

"You're starting to see people like me having kids, and they're picking up starter decks and playing with their kids," Ottensmann said.

While Ottensmann said he sources cards from distributors, the business has become competitive enough that some newer sellers buy cards at retailers like Walmart and Costco, then resell them.

Other customers are after high-dollar cards, with some turning to trading cards as an alternative to investing in the stock market.

In early December on Ottensmann's eBay shop, shoppers could find about two dozen cards or packs of cards priced over $1,000. His most expensive sale over the past year, a set of 127 early Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, sold for about $75,000 through eBay.

Trading cards are one part of the broader secondhand sales market, which eBay said is expanding in a report released last month.

About 82% of survey respondents said they planned to spend more on secondhand items this holiday season than they did in 2024, according to the company's Recommerce Report.

Shopping secondhand has gained popularity this year, especially as President Donald Trump's tariffs have raised the price of some goods and added costs to items ordered from outside the US.

Do you have a story idea? Reach out to this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com.

• JetBlue will open its first-ever airport lounge called BlueHouse on December 18.
• The two-level space is unmistakably New York with local art, food, and alcohol.
• To minimize crowds, it's open only to JetBlue's most loyal and highest-paying customers.

JetBlue Airways has finally added the one premium perk it's been missing for years.

Come December 18, the low-cost carrier will open its first-ever airport lounge — a two-story, art-deco-inspired retreat called BlueHouse — at its New York-JFK Terminal 5 home base.

A lack of lounges has long been JetBlue's glaring weak spot, but BlueHouse represents JetBlue's greater push to elevate its premium offerings.

It complements Mint, the airline's flagship business class, and the new domestic first-class seat set to arrive in 2026.

I toured the 9,000-square-foot BlueHouse ahead of its opening, and it is quintessentially "New York."

There's colorful artwork — including three pieces created by JetBlue employees — a ceiling mural painted as an ode to Grand Central Terminal, and a help desk adorned with a wall of vintage post office boxes (and they have little surprises inside if you ask).

BlueHouse is a vibe closer to a boutique hotel lobby in Midtown than a traditional airline club. JetBlue envisions this as an exclusive spot to relax with a free drink or to work away from the busy terminal crowds.

Compared to competitors' flashier lounges, the BlueHouse service has no showers or full buffets, which could disappoint some customers.

Still, guests can enjoy complimentary hot and cold quick food like breakfast burritos, sandwiches, parfaits, and salads.

I liked the food, but it's simple, and there are few options to start. It's more of a grab-and-go experience rather than a sit-down. But meal options may expand; JetBlue said a kitchen would open in 2026.

The lounge also sports social areas, private workspaces, power ports, a full lineup of alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks across its two bars and coffee stations, and a dedicated game room for kids or families.

Bigger airlines have worked to satisfy their customers with lounges, and JetBlue's entry is erring on the side of small and exclusive.

During the media walkthrough, JetBlue's head of loyalty, Ed Pouthier, said access will be intentionally limited at first to avoid overcrowding in the 140-person space. Think roughly the size of an average Trader Joe's.

The lounge is a perk for JetBlue's executive travelers and a way to entice more travelers to its new credit card. Only transatlantic Mint business class passengers, Mosaic 4 loyalty members (the highest tier of JetBlue's status ladder), and JetBlue Premium credit cardholders can enter. The latter two get one free guest; extra guests cost $39.

No Blue Basic passengers, which is JetBlue's budget, bare-bones fare, and no domestic Mint business class customers will be allowed in. And there is no reciprocal entry for United MileagePlus elites, despite the airlines' loyalty partnership.

"We promised ourselves when we came up with the idea that we would never have lines," Pouthier said.

He added that limited-access passes will be available for purchase starting in February for Mosaic 1, 2, and 3 loyalty members, JetBlue Plus and Business cardholders, and non-transatlantic Mint customers.

These early restrictions appear to be JetBlue's answer to the long queues that have plagued its competitors. It remains to be seen how the queue will look once JetBlue introduces paid access, especially with its smaller capacity.

Delta's SkyClubs, for example, have become known for snaking queues, which prompted the airline to rewrite its own access rules in 2023. United Airlines similarly tightened its Club Lounge access in March by upping the price of membership.

BlueHouse New York is just the beginning

BlueHouse is the first of at least two JetBlue lounges, with Boston expected to follow in 2026. CEO Joanna Geraghty teased a potential Fort Lauderdale location at an industry conference last week.

JetBlue President Marty St. George acknowledged that customers like consistency, but said future lounges depend on whether JetBlue can grow its base of Mosaic elites and premium credit card holders enough to justify the investment.

The $499-a-year JetBlue Premium credit card — launched in January — is already proving lucrative, with St. George saying JetBlue exceeded its 2025 sign-up goal by roughly 67%.

"We saw the lounge as being sort of the flagship benefit," he said.

JetBlue Premium card benefits also include up to $300 in travel statements, free checked luggage, and access to the global airport lounge network, Priority Pass — a clever way for JetBlue to provide lounge access to more customers without building its own.

BlueHouse is a significant step for JetBlue, finally giving it a stronger foothold in the premium space — and the news comes a day after Southwest Airlines' CEO, Bob Jordan, told CNBC that lounges would be a "huge, next benefit" for its customers.

Both low-cost airlines are trying to catch up to their legacy rivals.

American, Delta, and United operate extensive networks of lounges — sometimes running more than one in the same airport — that are increasingly designed like luxury hotels with full-service restaurants, wellness rooms, and chef-made menus.

• Lawyers are fighting over evidence in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
• They are also sparring over such terms as "execution," "manifesto," and "Faraday."
• Here's a look at this war of words and what it means for accused killer Luigi Mangione.

Yes, it's a fight over a backpack — how it was seized, how it was searched, and whether the gun and notebook found inside will be tossed or kept as knockout-blow evidence in a future murder trial.

But Luigi Mangione's ongoing evidence suppression hearing, playing out for two weeks in a Manhattan courtroom, is more than that.

The serious legal battle features an often amusing undercard bout: repeated sparring over nothing more than the naming of things.

Was UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson shot on a Midtown sidewalk last year? Or was he "executed?"

Is the red notebook found inside Mangione's backpack a "manifesto," or a "journal?"

And is the aluminum-lined pouch found in Mangione's backpack a "Faraday bag," meant to block his cellphone from being tracked during a five-day manhunt? Or was the bag simply "waterproof?"

It all depends on who is standing at the courtroom's podium: lead defense lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo or top prosecutor Joel Seidemann.

These pretrial rhetorical rumbles foreshadow how intensely these two adversaries — seasoned legal veterans with decadeslong experience — will fight next year, at a yet-scheduled trial in the same state-level courtroom.

The temperament of the judge is also being previewed. NY Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro has alternated between seeming mildly irked and utterly unfazed as he's refereed these sporadic wars of words over the past two weeks.

"Move on," Carro has said when the prosecutor and defense lawyer complain about each other — like when Friedman Agnifilo stood up on Thursday to say of Seidemann, "He wants to play the word 'manifesto' over and over and over again!"

Carro's relative calm has only wavered once, on Monday, after the prosecutor repeatedly referred to Thompson's murder as an "execution."

"You testified you were aware of the New York City shooting?" Friedman Agnifilo had asked the third Altoona, Pennsylvania, cop to take the stand. (Mangione was arrested in a McDonald's there five days after Thompson's December 4, 2024, shooting, after being spotted by customers.) "You were aware it did not involve a bomb?" she asked, scoring a point.

"Were you aware it involved a premeditated execution?" Seidemann clapped back minutes later, visibly eager to take that point back.

The judge's voice was sharp as he sustained Friedman Agnifilo's objection. Soon afterward, she stood to complain about the prosecutor's repeated references to "manifesto" and "the execution of Mr. Thompson."

"He certainly won't do that at trial," the judge warned.

"I'll bear that in mind, your honor," the prosecutor answered.

A small "Faraday bag," featuring a protective lining that blocks electronic signals, triggered an extended semantic skirmish on Tuesday.

Both the lawyer and the prosecutor were asking a lot of questions at the time, about this one little pouch. The size of a business envelope, it held an Apple cellphone, Mangione's passport, and a small wallet with a driver's license and three charge cards inside.

In questioning the officer who first pulled it out of the backpack, Friedman Agnifilo referred to the pouch as "a black bag that has Velcro."

She also called it a "waterproof bag," noting that other items in the backpack had been damp that day. (The same cop had testified that inside the backpack she'd found a gun clip filled with nine hollow-point rounds — all wrapped in a pair of gray underwear that was "soaking wet.")

Weren't electronics and a passport "items that you'd want to keep dry?" Friedman Agnifilo asked. "Yes," the officer answered.

Seidemann wasn't having it.

"Is that a Faraday bag or a waterproof bag?" the prosecutor asked on his next turn at the podium, pointing to a photograph of the pouch.

"It's a Faraday bag," the cop answered.

"And how do you distinguish a Faraday bag from a waterproof bag?" Seidemann pursued.

"This bag had an aluminum lining," the cop answered.

Seidemann paused briefly.

"If we can continue," he then said, turning toward the audience with a slight smile.

Mangione's evidence suppression hearing is scheduled to conclude next week. The judge has yet to say when he will rule on the admissibility of the backpack and its contents.

The Baltimore native is challenging the admissibility of evidence in both his state and federal murder prosecutions. Trial dates have yet to be set in both cases.