• I tried on similar pairs of wide-leg jeans at Old Navy, Banana Republic, and Gap.
• All three Gap Inc. stores had decent offerings, but my favorite jeans came from Banana Republic.
• However, I also thought the pair from Old Navy was great for the price.

Cooler temperatures have arrived, but my favorite part of the fall-to-winter transition is the style: cozy knits, chic boots, and layers that make every outfit feel effortlessly elevated. But of course, no wardrobe is complete without a good pair of jeans.

Wide-leg silhouettes continue to trend, but I have yet to find a pair that hits all the marks: a flattering fit, high-quality fabric, and a classic yet versatile wash.

So, I turned to Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy (all under the Gap Inc. umbrella) to search for the perfect pair. Here's how it went.

I started at Old Navy, which had a great selection of denim styles.

As someone on a budget, I appreciate that Old Navy offers a wide range of affordable pieces that don't sacrifice on style.

The first thing I noticed upon walking into the store was the expansive denim display near the front entrance. Jeans were neatly folded on well-organized shelves and separated by silhouette, making it easy to find what I was looking for.

I grabbed a pair of wide-leg, high-rise jeans in a medium wash that seemed fitting for the darker tones of the season.

I liked how these jeans fit me, but the material around the zipper was odd.

These jeans were long on me and would need to be hemmed, but I loved the overall fit and shape of the denim. I also appreciated the dynamic look of the wash, as it was slightly faded on the thighs and darker along the hems.

However, it seemed as though the material around the zipper didn't overlap properly, which made it appear as though the fly was down.

I also really appreciated the reasonable price point.

The material (63% cotton, 30% recycled polyester, 6% recycled cotton, and 1% spandex) felt soft and comfortable on my body, but didn't seem to be of the highest quality.

Although I prefer denim made with a higher percentage of cotton, I'd consider this option based on the low price. The jeans were originally marked at $37, but they were on sale for $28 during my visit, which I thought was an incredible deal for a stylish pair of pants.

This style was a high contender, but I decided to try my luck at the other retailers before making a decision.

Next, I went to Banana Republic.

I love Banana Republic's elevated aesthetic, so I was excited to explore the brand's denim collection.

When I walked in, I noticed the jeans were neatly folded on shelves, and the store felt chic and luxurious. However, the styles were scattered throughout the store, and the labels were small, making it a little more difficult to find what I was looking for.

Once I spotted the wide-leg silhouettes, I grabbed a pair of similar high-rise, wide-leg jeans with a slightly lighter wash. The store didn't have my exact size in stock, so I sized up.

It's also worth noting that despite my best efforts, I couldn't find the exact pair I tried on on the Banana Republic website after my visit.

These jeans were comfortable and flattering.

My first impression upon trying these jeans on was that I loved the overall style.

They featured a medium wash that was slightly distressed throughout, creating an effortlessly cool look, especially when paired with the slouchy silhouette.

The shape of the pants was also flattering on my backside and legs, which is always a plus.

In my opinion, the Banana Republic jeans would be a worthy investment.

When I looked at the tag, I noticed this pair was made of 74% cotton, 25% lyocell, and 1% spandex/elastane. With the highest percentage of cotton of the pairs I tried on, they were comfortable and breathable while still holding their structure and shape.

At $120, the Banana Republic jeans cost significantly more than those of the other retailers I visited. But in my opinion, a good pair of jeans is always a worthwhile investment. With the proper sizing, this pair is something I'd wear regularly for a long time.

I went to Gap for my final attempt at finding a great pair of denim.

Lately, I've shopped at Gap for everything from a stylish fall sweater to work-friendly pants. So, I was hopeful I'd be able to find a nice pair of jeans there.

When I walked into my local store, I found a sizable section of denim on shelves with large labels. However, I could only find one wide-leg style — the mid-rise baggy jeans, which have an extra-wide and slouchy silhouette.

When I tried the Gap jeans on, I didn't think they were flattering on my body.

This pair of jeans was oversized in the legs and length, and if it were available in-store, I would've tried on a size down. However, I did appreciate the light wash, which was classic and still had some dimension.

Overall, these were comfortable and breathable, with fabric made from 55% cotton, 40% lyocell, and 5% recycled cotton.

However, I thought the style was unflattering and overwhelmed my body type. Based on the fit, wash, comfort, and style, these were my least favorite pair of jeans out of the three options, especially considering the $90 price tag.

I'd be most likely to invest in the pair from Banana Republic.

At the end of the day, I thought all three options I tried on were decent.

The price for the Old Navy pair was hard to beat, but overall, my favorite jeans were from Banana Republic.

• Elon Musk predicts AI will make most job skills obsolete within 20 years.
• Still, he values college for social growth and broad learning, he said.
• Experts urge young people to develop critical thinking and leadership skills that AI can't replace.

Elon Musk thinks the age of human labor is coming to an end, but he's still happy for his kids to go to college.

In a conversation with investor and podcaster Nikhil Kamath, posted on Sunday, the billionaire painted a future where AI and robotics transform society so dramatically that traditional skills — even highly technical ones — may become irrelevant.

"AI and robotics is a supersonic tsunami. This is really going to be the most radical change that we've ever seen," Musk said.

At one point, he described a world less than two decades away where work becomes optional because machines can do nearly everything society needs.

"My prediction is, in less than 20 years, working will be optional. Working at all will be optional," he said.

Even his own children — several of whom he said are technologically adept — recognize how quickly their skills could be overtaken by AI, Musk said.

"They agree that AI will probably make their skills unnecessary in the future, but they still want to go to college."

Musk's ambivalence toward higher education

Despite his long-running skepticism about the value of formal education — he said that college is "not for learning" but for proving you can "do your chores" in 2020 — Musk took a more balanced stance here.

"I don't think you have to go to college," he told Kamath, adding that he sees higher education more as a social environment than a skills factory.

"If you want to go to college for social reasons, I think that's a reason to go — to be around people your own age in a learning environment," he said.

"If you do, just try to learn as much as possible across a wide range of subjects," he added.

A growing divide

Professors and researchers are navigating the rise of AI and its impact on learning.

Steven Mintz, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin, told Business Insider last week that AI hasn't made learning irrelevant — it has revealed how shallow and mechanized much of higher education already is, and how urgently it needs reinvention.

Anastasia Berg, an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of California, Irvine, has similarly warned that overreliance on AI is eroding foundational abilities, leaving junior workers unable to function without digital hand-holding.

For younger workers in particular, several researchers say that the safest bet is not to step back from skill-building but to double down on the abilities AI can't easily replace.

James Ransom, a research fellow at University College London, told Business Insider last week that Gen Z should stop fixating on job titles and instead understand the tasks inside those roles — then show how they can supervise and scale AI more effectively than their peers.

Mark Cuban, meanwhile, believes students who learn to use AI critically will become sharper thinkers and stronger leaders, not less capable ones.

And finance veteran Quentin Nason told Business Insider in October that shrinking entry-level roles and AI-driven hiring make it more urgent than ever for young people to build real-world skills, like entrepreneurship and financial literacy.

• We moved from a Utah city with about 95,000 residents to a small town in Wyoming with about 1,000.
• Moving helped us save money, but we also had to live further from family and get used to the cold.
• We used money we saved for a down payment on land in Washington, where we plan to build a home.

The moment my wife and I finished earning our college degrees, we were ready to leave Utah.

We'd been living in Orem, a city with about 95,000 residents, while attending school nearby. Now that we weren't tied down to the area, we wanted to move elsewhere — ideally, someplace cheaper.

I'd started working as a remote freelance writer, so we were flexible on location and interested in seeing where my modest income would stretch furthest.

Most of all, we wanted to live somewhere that would help us save for a down payment on our first home. Eventually, these goals led us to a tiny town in Wyoming.

Wyoming's Bridger Valley offered lower rent, taxes, and gas prices

After learning about our moving plans, my wife's aunt suggested looking in Bridger Valley, where she and her husband lived. We're glad we did.

Located on the southwestern tip of Wyoming by the Utah border, the area had a lot of relatively affordable rentals, and we settled on an apartment in its small town of Mountain Valley.

Our rent was $650 a month — nearly half of what our existing lease would've renewed at for about the same living space. Both apartments were two-bedroom, one-bathroom units in a fourplex.

Over the next two years, we discovered other financial benefits of living in Wyoming, such as not having to pay a state income tax or sales tax on most groceries. Even gas was significantly cheaper here than it was in Orem.

As a result, we were able to save more of our income each month.

But living in a small Wyoming town also had its drawbacks

Mountain View has a population of just over 1,000, and many residents work at one of the nearby trona mines, making them a hardy group. I felt like an outlier as a remote worker, and I only met one other person who worked from home while we lived here.

Meanwhile, though we were only a two-hour drive from my wife's family in Utah, it was far enough that we saw them much less — maybe five or six times a year.

Compared to Orem, there were also fewer amenities: We had a gas station, a grocery store, a bowling alley, a tiny library, a handful of restaurants, and little else. However, we didn't mind much, especially since we made good friends at church and in the community.

The hardest part was the cold. Winter weather in the area basically lasts half the year, from about November to April, and temperatures regularly drop below freezing.

On occasion, the freeway connecting Mountain View to Utah was even closed due to dangerously icy road conditions. We stayed indoors a lot and missed Utah's milder winters.

After 2 years, we'd saved enough to buy land in Washington, where we plan to build our first home

Our move ultimately paid off.

During our time in Wyoming, we saved $20,000 to put toward just over an acre of land near my family in rural Washington.

Today, we own the land outright as we prepare to have our first home built on it. In the meantime, we're living in my parents' newly renovated ADU nearby.

Looking back, those cold Wyoming winters and quiet weekends were worth it. We traded convenience and proximity to family for financial breathing room — and in two years, that breathing room helped us buy real estate.

Plus, we came to love so much about remote small-town living, like its slower pace of life and the friends we made. For us, it was exactly the sacrifice we needed to make homeownership possible.

• Russia and Ukraine have increasingly turned to small drones controlled by fiber-optic cables.
• These drones are leaving their fiber-optic cables strewn across the battlefield.
• A Ukrainian special operator said it is forcing soldiers to move with caution.

Small unjammable drones controlled by fiber-optic cables have become so integral to Russian and Ukrainian combat operations that they are leaving trails of cabling everywhere, turning areas of the battlefield into a tangled web.

As a counter to extensive electronic warfare, fiber-optic drones are becoming increasingly prevalent on both sides. And with sprawling cables stretched across the battlefield, soldiers are moving with greater caution.

"You see the little webs, and you never know — is it from the fiber-optic drone? Or it's a part of a booby trap," Khyzhak, a Ukrainian special operator who for security reasons could only be identified by his call sign ("Predator" in Ukrainian), told Business Insider. Mines and traps have also been prominent threats in this war.

Earlier in the war, first-person-view (FPV) drones — small quadcopter-style drones fielded by both Russia and Ukraine that often carry explosive warheads — relied on radio-frequency connections. However, both sides quickly figured out how to use signal jamming to stop them.

In response, Russia and Ukraine began developing fiber-optic FPV drones that connected to their pilots using spools of long, thin cables. The cables preserved a steady link and made the quadcopters resistant to traditional electronic warfare tactics.

The best chance that soldiers have to stop the fiber-optic drones is by shooting them out of the sky, but that requires precision, quick reaction times, and a lot of luck.

The fiber-optic cables that provide these drones with their greatest advantage are also their greatest vulnerability, as they can get tangled in the environment and bring the flight to an abrupt stop. And even if they don't get tangled, the cabling is still left draped across the battlefield after use.

Khyzhak, a soldier in the 4th Ranger Regiment, a Ukrainian special operations unit modeled after its US Army counterparts, said it is very common to see fiber-optic cables everywhere because there are more and more of these drones in use, and the cables frequently get stuck in trees and fields.

The 4th Ranger Regiment shared combat footage earlier this month showing Khyzhak, along with two other operators and their driver, narrowly avoiding a Russian fiber-optic drone strike while speeding back to base after a front-line mission.

The footage shows fiber-optic cables strewn in the field next to the road and even on Khyzhak's gun.

"It was everywhere," he recalled, speaking about the September incident, where the driver skillfully maneuvered out of the path of the Russian drone, which detonated on the side of the road.

Other video footage taken from the battlefield shows how fiber-optic cables crisscross like spider webs, sometimes only visible in direct sunlight or when viewed from a certain angle.

Khyzhak said the cables are particularly annoying during nighttime missions, when special operators can't use a lot of light. He described them as a "tactical issue."

Soldiers can't always tell right away if it's a harmless fiber-optic cable or something far more dangerous, like a booby trap. This forces them to think carefully about whether they should call an engineer, destroy the web with explosives, halt, or proceed forward.

It can definitely slow down the mission, Khyzhak said, and becomes a bigger concern the closer special operators get to the front lines, or if they're working covertly in Russian-held territory.

Ukraine and Russia have expanded production of fiber-optic drones over the past year, and both sides are racing to develop variants that can fly farther across the front lines.

Russia, for instance, has begun to employ fiber-optic drones with a 50-kilometer (31-mile) range, which exceeds the distance that most known variants can travel. Cable length typically limits their range to between 10 and 25 kilometers (roughly 6 and 15 miles).

In Ukraine, fiber-optic drones have become such a threat to critical supply routes that soldiers have covered the roads with netting to protect vehicles from attacks, although it doesn't always guarantee their safety.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's defense industry is developing new countermeasures to defend against these drones. The innovations have also caught the attention of NATO leadership, which has been using lessons from the war to inform its own military planning.

• Sanders and NYC mayor-elect Mamdani joined striking Starbucks workers on a Brooklyn picket line.
• Their visit comes as Starbucks faces a record $38.9 million settlement over worker-rights violations.
• Mamdani slammed CEO Brian Niccol's record pay, saying baristas are "striking for the bare minimum."

Starbucks baristas on an open-ended strike in Brooklyn got the kind of star power most labor actions can only dream of.

Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani showed up to walk the picket line alongside them on Monday, lending momentum to a movement energized by a historic legal win.

New York City announced on Monday a $38.9 million settlement with Starbucks for what officials described as "systematic violations" of the city's Fair Workweek Law.

A multi-year investigation by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection found the coffee giant committed more than 500,000 violations across 300 stores, including arbitrarily slashing hours, unpredictable schedules, and keeping baristas involuntarily part-time.

More than 15,000 baristas in the city are now set to receive restitution checks as soon as this winter.

Against that backdrop, Sanders and Mamdani joined striking workers outside a Brooklyn Starbucks store, posing for photos and blasting the company's labor practices.

Starbucks could not be reached for immediate comment.

Scroll to see photos from the Brooklyn picket line.

Sen. Bernie Sanders and Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani joined the picket line on Monday

The strike — which began on Red Cup Day, historically one of Starbucks' busiest sales days where customers can get a free reusable cup with their order — has already spread to dozens of stores nationwide.

The union has warned that the work stoppage could expand to more than 500 stores if negotiations continue to stall.

Sen. Bernie Sanders marches with Starbucks strikers

Sanders, a longtime champion of labor rights, voiced support for workers demanding stable schedules and a living wage.

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke to the press

Mamdani, who urged New Yorkers to boycott Starbucks during the strike last month, used the moment to reaffirm his intentions for the mayoralty.

In one photograph he shared on social media, he appeared to be holding a sign that read: "No contract, no Starbucks."

'Glad to be on the right side of the picket line with them'

Mamdani has highlighted the pay gap driving worker frustration.

In a post on X on Monday, he contrasted the company's record executive compensation with what striking baristas say are basic demands for stability and respect.

"Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol made $95 million last year. His workers are striking for the bare minimum. Glad to be on the right side of the picket line with them," Mamdani wrote.

"We are continuing to fight back against Starbucks' greed"

In a press release announcing the city's settlement, a Workers United union boss called it a "major victory."

"It shows the power baristas have when we stand together and demand change," Kai Fritz — a New York City Starbucks worker — said, which was also included in the press release. "We are continuing to fight back against Starbucks' greed and will not stop until we have a fair contract that ensures the support and protections we need to thrive."

• Melania Trump's 2025 White House Christmas decorations are more traditional than in past years.
• Donald Trump, meanwhile, has made dramatic White House design changes during his second term.
• The first lady appears to be playing it safe, while the president is doing anything but.

Gone are the bare white branches and blood-red forests that once adorned the halls of the White House in December. Instead, they've been replaced with classic Christmas trees and standard-issue garlands.

While first lady Melania Trump's Christmas decorations leaned more avant-garde in her first term, during a visit to the White House on Monday, I saw she has taken a more traditional approach in her second term as first lady.

Now, President Donald Trump is the one making dramatic White House design choices.

This year, the first lady chose to decorate the White House around the theme of "Home Is Where The Heart Is," drawing inspiration from the nostalgia of childhood toys and the transformative symbolism of butterflies, according to the 2025 "Christmas at the White House" guidebook.

Her signature detail is the red bows that appear on the 75 wreaths in the White House windows, a more conventional choice in line with past first ladies' holiday displays.

Melania Trump's yuletide aesthetic plays it safe — an approach that has been reflected in other areas of her life.

Her fashion choices have been noticeably more muted than the outfits she wore during her first term as first lady. She often opts for skirt suits in gray and beige with only the occasional vibrant piece, a departure from her statement-making and sometimes controversial style during the first Trump administration.

She also told Fox News in January that instead of residing at the White House full time, she planned to divide her time between Washington, DC, Trump Tower in New York City, and Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, making her public appearances more infrequent.

Contrasting styles on display

While Melania Trump keeps a lower profile at the White House, Donald Trump's is doing anything but.

In addition to adding numerous gold embellishments to the Oval Office and portraits of himself to the Cross Hall, he oversaw the demolition of the entire East Wing to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom.

This disparity was evident when I visited the White House to view the Christmas decorations on Monday.

The absence of the East Entrance and East Colonnade, due to the demolition of the East Wing, left the first lady with a smaller canvas to decorate.

The halls lined with Christmas trees and garlands chosen by Melania Trump were certainly beautiful. The decor featured "Be Best" ornaments in a nod to her initiative focused on children's wellness and AI-generated, 3D printed ornaments in recognition of her Presidential Artificial Intelligence Challenge.

The piece of decor that attracted the largest crowd was one of Donald Trump's design contributions: a portrait by artist Marc Lipp depicting the president with his fist in the air after surviving an assassination attempt.

Melania Trump may have been the one to deck the halls, but it was Donald Trump who seemed to steal the show.

• Amina Green, 29, was stuck in a Waymo after two men blocked her robotaxi near a traffic light.
• Green said the experience left her frustrated, and she stopped taking robotaxis for a few months.
• However, Green said she'd still prefer a robotaxi over human drivers. Here's why.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Amina Green, a 29-year-old data scientist based in San Francisco. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. A Waymo spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

I remember being excited for my first Waymo ride earlier last year.

When I was a child, I got into a really bad car accident, so I've always been afraid to drive myself around. It's a personal choice for me not to get my driver's license, so I walk most places in San Francisco or use ride-hailing.

I've known about autonomous-driving technology for a while. I've been living in SF for about five years. So it was exciting just to even step inside a Waymo for the first time.

The robotaxi felt safe. I appreciate the ease of use, the convenience, and the privacy.

Sometimes, after coming back from therapy, I call a Waymo because I can be in a sensitive state of mind, so I'd prefer to be alone.

It's also just fun. It feels so sci-fi. I even made a video of myself doing my makeup inside the robotaxi, and it got a lot of views on social media. There's the novelty of it to some extent. But it's also like having my own energy or vibe in the car; I can set the music to what I like, I can control the temperature — those sorts of things.

Then, in September 2024, I was involved in an incident inside a Waymo that left me a little scared and frustrated.

I was heading to an appointment to get my hair braided. I remember sitting in the front seat of the Waymo, filming randomly as I've gotten into the habit of recording myself inside the car.

Then, near the South of Market-Tenderloin area, these two guys stepped right in front of my ride after the Waymo stopped for a red light.

I don't know why they did that. They seemed like they were trying to be silly, but they kept badgering me for my number. I repeatedly told them to get out of the way, to stop, and that they were holding up traffic.

I was annoyed because I was already running late for my hair appointment. But I was also a bit afraid. I used to work for a nonprofit in this neighborhood, so I knew that if something happened, there wouldn't be police nearby or anyone to really help.

The most frustrating part was that after the guys left, my Waymo just sat there. It was a little scary, but also kind of annoying. Other drivers on the road were getting upset, and I felt like a sitting duck. If it had happened at night, it would've been a lot scarier.

I don't remember if I called Waymo's remote assistance or if they contacted me, but the support team determined that something had happened during my ride. They asked if I was OK; I said yes and talked a bit. Throughout the day, they called me two more times to make sure I was OK.

I ended up getting $100 in credit and participated in a user research experience with the Waymo team. It was interesting to see the features they're working on.

After the incident, I stopped taking Waymo for maybe about two or three months.

Waymo feels safer

After a while, I started taking Waymo again because I still feel safer riding in a Waymo than in a human-driven vehicle.

I've been using ride-hailing services for nearly 10 years. I've had mostly positive experiences using them, but I've also had a few weird incidents.

There are situations where I wouldn't have wanted to be alone in a car with a stranger at night.

Sometimes, the ride is just straight-up dangerous. I recall a driver who was distracted by his phone, watching YouTube videos while driving.

I usually report these incidents, but I'm not sure how the companies handled the situation.

I feel safer knowing that Waymo has personnel on standby in case something happens to its cars.

The robots could improve

That's not to say Waymo is perfect.

Beyond getting the engineering right, I think there are social and cultural factors the company should consider if it wants the technology to be widely adopted.

For example, people interact with the streets differently in different neighborhoods. I think about the Tenderloin, where it's common for people to run into the middle of the street. Is Waymo thinking about the kinds of environments its cars go through?

Maybe Waymo could give users different route options that could avoid certain neighborhoods. It may not be politically correct to say, but I think this is just the basic reality of the world we live in: There are certain neighborhoods where women, or any person, might be more likely targeted if you're by yourself.

It would also be nice if there were an extra security feature, such as automatically locking the door once the rider steps into the car.

Then, there are a lot of people in the city who aren't in tech. To them, Waymo is a symbol of this larger cultural change in the region that they feel like they're being left out of.

So, while I don't agree with it, I almost understand why some people would vandalize the cars.

I'm also just a practical rider. I still use human ride-hailing services — I'd say it's about 50-50 — because Waymo's wait time can be a bit long. Or sometimes Waymo's just way more expensive.

Ultimately, I'm positive about the technology. I hope this will be widely available, but there are some considerations and edge cases that may need to be addressed before mass adoption.

Do you have a story to share about preferring a human driver or a robot taxi? Contact this reporter at lloydlee@businessinsider.com.

• Logan Brown, a corporate lawyer, left Cooley to launch Soxton, an AI law firm for startups.
• Soxton raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding and has served over 270 early-stage companies.
• Soxton offers affordable legal services, targeting founders who might otherwise use ChatGPT.

Logan Brown, a 30-year-old corporate lawyer, began the year billing hours at the global law firm Cooley. Now she's building a tech-first law firm that meets the routine needs of startups, without the Big Law price tag.

Soxton, Brown's new venture, has raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding, Business Insider has learned exclusively.

"I didn't have a deck. I didn't have a team," Brown said.

Instead, she told investors, "I am building the solution for founders. That is not the billable hour."

Cooley hired Brown straight out of Harvard Law School. She spent about two and a half years working with emerging companies and helping open the firm's Miami office. In May, she took a risk and left a secure Big Law job to launch her own startup.

Two weeks after her last day, she flew to New York City and dropped in on an event hosted by a fund she had pitched.

There, she met Katie Jacobs Stanton, a venture capitalist who founded Moxxie Ventures and who has held executive roles at Twitter, Google, and Yahoo. Brown gave her the quick version of Soxton on the spot. Moxxie Ventures sent over a term sheet within a week.

"I've never moved so fast to invest," Jacobs Stanton told Business Insider.

Moxxie led the round, with participation from Coalition, Strobe Ventures, Flex, Park Rangers Capital, and Flickr cofounder Caterina Fake.

Unlike the legal software vendor Harvey, Soxton doesn't sell software to law firms. It offers legal services directly to startups. Brown said the company helps founders tick the boxes at the top of their checklists: incorporation, fundraising, equity issuance, and compliance checks.

Brown said Soxton does not replace a law firm when it comes to nuanced legal work. What it can replace, she says, is the shaky legal advice founders might pull from ChatGPT or another chatbot.

For $20 a month, clients can grab a contract template from Soxton's library and tweak the language. Most clients request a custom contract reviewed by an attorney, Brown said, with Soxton turning it around in four hours for $100.

While Soxton has been operating in stealth, with only a waitlist on its website, Brown said more than 270 companies — mostly pre-seed startups — have used it so far. Many clients are founders who wouldn't hire a lawyer so early and would otherwise turn to ChatGPT to ask questions.

"People put their contracts into ChatGPT, and they say, 'What does this mean?' It's often very wrong," Brown said. "I think it's designed to sound correct. Founders really rely on that, and so we're working on retraining founders."

A smaller slice of clients are startups that have raised funding and are already working with a Big Law firm, though they still route low-stakes work such as advisor agreements and influencer contracts through Soxton.

The legal tech industry has undergone major shifts this year. The first wave of startups developed tools for law firms, aiming to make legal services faster and cheaper. The newer wave handles the work itself, hiring lawyers on contract and arming them with software that can chew through documents and spit out summaries and drafts.

Crosby, backed by Sequoia Capital, handles the unglamorous but essential chore of contract review. Covenant helps private-market investors parse dense fund documents. Manifest Law and Casium use AI to file and track visa applications for employers.

Brown shrugged off comparisons to Crosby. That startup, which announced a $20 million Series A in October, largely serves more established companies than Soxton's typical day-one clients. Brown casts Soxton as more of an outside general counsel for founders, while Crosby focuses on contract review.

Ashley Mayer, cofounder and general partner of Coalition, says while other companies focus on "bigger-ticket" mid-market and business customers, Brown makes a smart bet on young companies.

"By offering a better, more affordable product, Soxton actually expands the market, making it possible for a broader set of startups to access foundational legal services and for those moving away from big law firms to increase their consumption," Mayer said.

"If your mission is to end the billable hour," she added, "this is the place to start."

Jacobs Stanton described Brown as a high-energy founder with "a history of winning." While at Harvard, Brown also started a pantsuit company after a frustrating search for something to wear to an interview.

Zooming out, Brown is part of a broader reshuffling in the legal profession.

At conferences and in online forums, talk of a Big Law exodus has gotten louder. More associates are stepping off the partner track to build the next generation of legal software. Startups such as Harvey, Norm Ai, and Legora are hiring "legal engineers," with JDs preferred.

Soxton plans to start snapping up attorneys. For now, it has three software engineers on payroll and a roster of contracted attorneys working through a separate Massachusetts law firm. Brown said she's about to make her first full-time offer to a Big Law attorney.

"She is just a force of nature," Jacobs Stanton said.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at mrussell@businessinsider.com or Signal at @MeliaRussell.01. Use a personal email address and a non-work device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• A 26-year-old Google software engineer says it took her a year to transition to an AI team.
• Maitri Mangal dedicated two hours daily toward upskilling and still spends hours learning weekly.
• She says making content helped her understand material and suggests solo projects to nail concepts.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Maitri Mangal, a 26-year-old software engineer at Google, based in New York. Her identity and employment have been verified by Business Insider. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

When I started off as a software engineer, my dad, who also works in tech, kept telling me to get into AI.

I brushed it off because I was just starting off my engineering career, and no one was really talking about AI in 2019, unless they were getting a PhD.

Then in 2023, the tech industry changed and everyone started going into AI. That led me to want to start pursuing AI as a job, and also creating content about it. When trying to join an AI team, I think having a strong presence and personal brand is crucial for others to take you seriously.

In my three years at Google, I've changed roles three times, most recently switching to the Workspace AI team.

It's important to make a distinction between an AI machine learning engineer and an AI software engineer. An AI ML engineer creates the model, trains it, and evaluates it. An AI software engineer integrates AI capabilities into software applications, and builds APIs and infrastructure to serve the model to the end user.

My transition to an AI team didn't happen overnight. It required spending about a year upskilling through courses and creating content about the material, which forced me to learn the concepts.

Here's how I made the switch:

Creating content about AI

In the spring of 2024, I started creating tech content on Instagram and LinkedIn, outside my job. That became a major factor in my transition to an AI team.

Making content motivated me to keep learning and also made me confident about sharing what I knew. Once I started seeing how much it helped people, I wanted to learn more. So that's where the upskilling started, and I started taking courses to understand the fundamentals of AI.

Eventually, I started applying to AI teams at Google. I felt like if I was going to spend so much time upskilling and making content about AI, I should make the most of what I had. I started searching for new roles in January, about seven months after I started upskilling. In March, I landed the new job.

I still spend an hour a day upskilling

I typically take Google's internal courses to upskill. Coursera also has amazing courses.

The easiest way to start is by taking the basics of AI, like Google's Introduction to Generative AI and Google Prompting Essentials. Since I have a computer science background, I was able to get more in-depth with concepts like linear regression and vector analysis.

I took courses for about two hours a day, but in order to absorb the material, I had to talk about it, not just read. When I verbalized the concepts through making content, it helped me understand the material.

I also get feedback from my followers, and when they ask follow-up questions in the comments, it makes me go even deeper into understanding a topic. Talking to friends or teammates who are excited about AI also helps me better understand the material.

In this field, it's very hard not to learn. I'm not necessarily still dedicating two hours daily to courses, but I still spend about an hour a day upskilling, whether that's in the form of internal trainings for my job, or watching YouTube courses for the content I create.

Not everyone wants to create content, so that's not always the best way to go about transitioning to an AI team. If you're just starting out in tech, my biggest piece of advice would be to take on projects. You should definitely take courses about AI, but keeping up-to-date with the news and doing AI projects also really helps. Many AI courses have users do mini projects, so you get to know how to work with it.

Since I applied internally, I didn't have to go through the same interview process. However, I still had to submit my résumé, which included all of my side projects, and I think that really helps.

• IBM's CEO walked through some napkin math on data centers— and said that there's "no way" to turn a profit at current costs.
• "$8 trillion of CapEx means you need roughly $800 billion of profit just to pay for the interest," Arvind Krishna told "Decoder."
• Krishna was skeptical of that current tech would reach AGI, putting the likelihood between 0-1%.

AI companies are spending billions on data centers in the race to AGI. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has some thoughts on the math behind those bets.

Data center spending is on the rise. During Meta's recent earnings call, words like "capacity" and AI "infrastructure" were frequently used. Google just announced that it wants to eventually build them in space. The question remains: will the revenue generated from data centers ever justify all the capital expenditure?

On the "Decoder" podcast, Krishna concluded that there was likely "no way" these companies would make a return on their capex spending on data centers.

Couching that his napkin math was based on today's costs, "because anything in the future is speculative," Kirshna said that it takes about $80 billion to fill up a one-gigawatt data center.

"Okay, that's today's number. So, if you are going to commit 20 to 30 gigawatts, that's one company, that's $1.5 trillion of capex," he said.

Krishna also referenced the depreciation of the AI chips inside data centers as another factor: "You've got to use it all in five years because at that point, you've got to throw it away and refill it," he said.

Investor Michael Burry has recently taken aim at Nvidia over depreciating concerns, leading to a downturn in AI stocks.

"If I look at the total commits in the world in this space, in chasing AGI, it seems to be like 100 gigawatts with these announcements," Krishna said.

At $80 billion each for 100 gigawatts, that sets Krishna's price tag for computing commitments at roughly $8 trillion.

"It's my view that there's no way you're going to get a return on that, because $8 trillion of capex means you need roughly $800 billion of profit just to pay for the interest," he said.

Reaching that number of gigawatts has required massive spending from AI companies — and pushes for outside help. In an October letter to the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recommended that the US add 100 gigawatts in energy capacity every year.

"Decoder" host Nilay Patel pointed out that Altman believed OpenAI could generate a return on its capital expenditures. OpenAI has committed to spending some $1.4 trillion in a variety of deals. Here, Krishna said he diverged from Altman.

"That's a belief," Krishna said. "That's what some people like to chase. I understand that from their perspective, but that's different from agreeing with them."

Krishna clarified that he wasn't convinced that the current set of technologies would get us to AGI, a yet to be reached technological breakthrough generally agreed to be when AI is capable of completing complex tasks better than humans. He pegged the chances of achieving it without a further technological breakthrough at 0-1%.

Several other high-profile leaders have been skeptical of the acceleration to AGI. Marc Benioff said that he was "extremely suspect" of the AGI push, analogizing it to hypnosis. Google Brain founder Andrew Ng said that AGI was "overhyped," and Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch said that AGI was a "marketing move."

Even if AGI is the goal, scaling compute may not be the enough. OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever said in November that the age of scaling was over, and that even 100x scaling of LLMs would not be completely transformative. "It's back to the age of research again, just with big computers," he said.

Krishna, who began his career at IBM in 1990 before rising to eventually be named CEO in 2020 and chairman in 2021, did praise the current set of AI tools.

"I think it's going to unlock trillions of dollars of productivity in the enterprise, just to be absolutely clear," he said.

But AGI will require "more technologies than the current LLM path," Krisha said. He proposed fusing hard knowledge with LLMs as a possible future path.

How likely is that to reach AGI? "Even then, I'm a 'maybe,'" he said.