• Dagobert Renouf funded his wedding by selling company logo spots on his suit.
• His creative approach gained support from his entrepreneur community and social media followers.
• Renouf's unique suit led to a discussion with a fellow founder and, ultimately, a new job.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with entrepreneur Dagobert Renouf, 36, who lives in Lille, France, and now works in tech sales at the startup Comp AI. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.

I was an entrepreneur for seven years, bootstrapping businesses. That means not getting any funding. I had some good moments and some struggles. Over the summer, I launched a solo startup, and it wasn't going very well. I was running out of money.

Almost two years ago, I met my now wife. She's Russian and I live in France. We wanted to live together. Because of visa issues, we wanted to accelerate the wedding. I could absolutely not afford any kind of wedding because of the business situation, but at the same time, I didn't want to give up on either dream — of building my startup or on the wedding.

I have a community on social media talking about my journey as an entrepreneur. So I posted something like, "I have to find a way to pay for my wedding. No idea how I'm going to do it."

I said the minimum wedding I can do is going to be 4,000 euros. A friend of mine who's a famous entrepreneur in our community said, "I'm going to loan you the 4,000, but you don't have to pay me back if you can't. I just want to support you." Then somebody joked, "If you really need help for your wedding, you just put my logo on your suit." Because it's an entrepreneur community, everybody wants to promote themselves. That's what we do.

After all these years in business, I'm like, "You've got to get out of your comfort zone. You try crazy shit if you want to make it." So I said, "Let's do it." I posted on X, and then dozens of people were like, "Yeah, I want to put my logo on your suit."

How my fiancée felt

When I told my fiancée, she hated it. All she saw was the reaction on X — people joking, making fun of it. What made her come around, and what was making this whole thing beautiful, was when I really connected it to the fact that it was a way to bring my community to our wedding. She said, "OK, we can do it, but only if it's nice companies that you love, mostly indie companies — people you know."

I had to convince people that she loved it. So, it became way harder than I thought to sell it. On average, I sold spots on my suit for 300 euros. I ended up selling about 10,000 euros' worth.

Once I started doing the suit, then I'm like, "OK, now I want it to look good. I don't want to look like an idiot." I have a friend who's a stylist — a very talented guy, but very expensive. He was like, "It's going to be like 5,000 euros, but I can do this."

We had the final list of logos at the end of August, and the wedding was in October. At first, he wanted to print everything on the suit, but that takes more time because you need prototypes. So we ended up having to do embroidery. The suit is high quality and very beautiful. When you look at it in person, it doesn't look like a joke. Our family and friends loved it.

The fun thing is, out of the 26 entrepreneurs who supported it, I know almost all of them. A lot of them told me something like, "Just keep the money, but don't put it on your suit. I just want to support you." It was like a wedding gift between entrepreneurs.

I was like, "No, I want to do the suit. We love it."

Landing a new job

It's the most basic thing that we hear all the time as entrepreneurs: At first, they think you're crazy, and then it seems obvious. For the first time as an entrepreneur, I had this experience.

I really had to fight for this. It took months of me posting on social media about it. Every time, half of the people were like, "This is so bad. This is disgusting." I feel like sometimes I was the only one to see the beauty. That's because, for me, entrepreneurship is my life. There's nothing on the suit I don't like. I can almost see the face of every founder associated with their company.

I wanted to do right by all the people who supported me. They helped me get to where I'm at now. Because I felt like I owed them something, I was actually quite stressed — more stressed than my wife — during the wedding because I was always like, "I need to make sure these logos are visible."

I joked with a friend who was beating himself up because he missed putting his logo on the suit, "Don't worry, you can have dibs on the baby crib." My wife wasn't on board with that.

One of the people who replied to my posts about the suit was the cofounder of Comp AI. We were only acquaintances, but he kept replying to my posts, saying to put his company's logo on my suit.

At the same time, I realized that I can do sales, and he said, "Let's get you a sales job." That was completely unexpected. I was an entrepreneur for years, and I couldn't see any other way of living. Without the suit, I would have never gotten this job.

Do you have a story to share about your career? Contact this reporter at tparadis@businessinsider.com.

• I've always had a very strong bond with my mother and frequently turned to her for advice.
• Losing her unexpectedly made it more difficult to parent my own kids for a time.
• Now I'm drawing on my mother's values and lessons to guide my parenting journey in her absence.

Being the youngest of six and having already lost my father at the age of 7, my bond with my mother was exceptionally strong.

Over the years, I leaned on her for advice on everything and never made a major decision without her input. From home remedies for my children's illnesses to finding balance in a busy life with three kids, she stayed at the center of my world with her guidance and steady support.

Ammi, as I lovingly called her, lived a life filled with challenges, but her strength stayed firm. She became a widow at a young age and raised six of us on her own. She managed the home, the responsibilities, and her own losses. It felt like she never had a pause from hardship, but she moved through each phase with calm determination.

We remained close, even after I got married; I lived only a few houses away from her. That physical closeness deepened my emotional dependence on her. She played a major role in raising my three children, who adored their grandmother with their whole hearts. I will always remember how she was always there for me with a warm embrace, yummy homemade food, and above all, a sense of stability that filled the void my father left years ago.

Life shifted in a way I never imagined after she was gone

I genuinely believed things would continue on this way forever. I thought she would stay in this world long enough to watch my children grow and to keep guiding me through every new stage. But in a devastating turn of events, I lost her.

My mother went to visit my sister in New York, over the summer. She planned to return this November. Instead, she suffered a massive brain stroke in early September, slipped into a coma, and was moved to hospice care. She passed away soon after. From thousands of miles away in Pakistan, all I received were updates about her condition. First, the stroke. Then the coma. Then the end.

My family and I only managed to see her for a few minutes through a video call, lying still in a state no child wants to witness. It felt unreal. I never spoke to her again. I never touched her hand. I never said goodbye. I never asked her how I would go on without her.

It has been two months since her death. As I move through grief, I often feel lost while parenting my kids. I still reach for my phone at times when I would ask her something. I scroll through her voice notes and read her messages because hearing her words gives me a moment of comfort. I ache for just one more conversation with her.

Parenting became much harder without my mother in the picture

My children need me. They feel her loss, too. But in those first weeks, even simple tasks like handling a tantrum required a strength I could not find. There was a time when I had to attend my eldest child's parent-teacher meeting, but I had no strength left in me to discuss important issues with his teacher, and my husband had to step in. Although I had always handled these things perfectly before, I was too overwhelmed by the feeling of having lost my guidance to handle everything properly now.

With time, my family and friends reassured me of the steady devotion and strength my mother had instilled in me during her lifetime. My elder sister also reminded me how committed our mother was to her responsibilities after our grandmother died. She never let that grief overcome her love and dedication as a mother. None of us ever felt she wasn't there for us when we needed her. That memory finally pushed me to believe that I could keep going, too.

Carrying on with instinct instead of memories

I won't have my mother's guidance and support in everything, nor will I have her message or voice note for every challenge that comes my way in life. But I knew her well enough to understand how she thought about life. Now, when I face decisions, I pause and imagine what she would have told me, trying to stay strong even in the painful silence she left behind.

I will miss my mother for the rest of my life. No one will ever fill the space she left. But her courage, resilience, and compassion now shape the way I raise my own children. This feels like the lasting gift of having a loving parent. Their values stay alive in you long after they are gone.

• Meet Semlani quit JPMorgan in 2018 and now has raised over $6 million for his startup.
• He says he was afraid to leave the money and validation of JPMorgan, but life had become static.
• Semlani says leaving JPMorgan helped him redefine success and feel meaningfully busy.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Meet Semlani, a 33-year-old startup cofounder based in India. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I was two years into my time at JPMorgan when I realized how disillusioned I'd become with my life. It felt robotic.

I was following the motto "30 VP," a phrase I'd heard at the company. It means the goal is to reach vice president status by the age of 30. I'd seen my seniors have these glamorous investment banking careers, so that's what I thought I was supposed to do.

At 26, every day felt the same. I'd be in the office by 9 a.m., go to the same meetings, do the same actions, and leave at 7p.m. During that time, I lost friends and relationships.

On a whim, I signed up for a 10-day silent meditation retreat with the intention of taking a digital detox, and came back with the clarity that it was time to quit. My time at JPMorgan shaped my career, but quitting helped me redefine success and eventually raise over $6 million for my startup.

I was chasing a goal that wasn't mine at JP Morgan

I started working at JPMorgan in 2015 as an intern on a US visa. Later, I moved back to India and became an associate within the asset management department. I was focused on climbing the corporate ladder.

At the same time, I felt like every conversation with coworkers was about having kids, buying a house, paying loans, and planning for the future. But I didn't see a future for myself at JPMorgan. I had just grown accustomed to the status, validation, and money it provided.

I wanted to make a real impact and keep learning, but I was afraid to quit.

I had associated my identity with working at JP Morgan

If I went to an event and said I worked at JPMorgan, it meant something. People seemed more curious about me when they learned where I worked. I liked the validation and didn't want to give it up.

The idea of leaving a good salary was also a hesitation. I got used to buying the best gadgets and going to nice restaurants. I definitely experienced some lifestyle creep, and I wasn't sure how I'd maintain my habits without that salary.

I knew I needed a break from work

I had no idea what to expect going into the meditation retreat. There were no screens, no talking, just breathing. The first few days felt depressing, but when I really settled into the meditation, it gave me space to question everything.

I asked myself, "Do I really want to live like this? Is this how I want to be known?" The answer was no.

I questioned what's the worst that could happen if I left JPMorgan, and kept coming back to the idea that, no matter what happens, at least I'm not dead. When I returned home, I felt a sense of calm and a knowingness that I was ready to let go of my job. I didn't know what was next for me, but I knew it was time to forge a new identity.

The day I returned to work, I told my manager I was thinking about quitting. I ultimately stayed a few more months, until February 2018, to hand over my work as smoothly as possible and ensure the team wouldn't be negatively impacted.

I took a 70% pay cut to work for a startup that fulfilled me

I was living with my parents rent-free at the time, but I still had some expenses. That's when I began looking into startups.

I applied to some jobs and ultimately got hired as a customer service associate at a startup. I really resonated with its mission of helping international students go abroad through scholarships, loans, or grants, because of my shared experience as an international student, which motivated me to take a 70% pay cut from JPMorgan.

I had to scale down on a lot of things I was doing before, like eating out at nice restaurants and traveling, which was tough. There were even moments where I considered going back to JPMorgan because of it, but I'm so glad I stayed.

The learning and access I had in a startup environment were unbeatable

Being able to grab coffee with the CEO, share ideas, and see decisions happen in real time changed me. It was a real startup hustle, and I was actually building things, not just attending meetings.

I felt meaningfully busy, not just calendar busy. That's when it clicked for me that success isn't only about money or titles. If I focused on becoming truly competent and useful, the success and money would eventually find their way.

In late 2019, the startup was having fundraising issues, and I was asked to leave. It came as a bit of a shock, and I felt like I hit a professional roadblock. I thought about going back to a secure role at a place like JPMorgan, but I realized I wouldn't fit into a structured setup again.

The pandemic hit shortly after, and oddly, it gave me time to explore ideas. I decided to go all in on my startup idea as a cofounder.

Leaving JP Morgan helped me redefine success

The early days of fundraising and building were hard. There was a point in time about six months in where I went to bed crying every day, thinking, "When will this end?" But I'd wake up the next morning and remember that this is what I signed up for. This is what I wanted to do.

Since then, our startup has raised over $6 million from global investors and we've built Tartan into a leading data-infrastructure platform.

I still feel like JPMorgan was an integral part of my career. It shaped me into becoming disciplined and structured. Sometimes I think about what my life would be like if I stayed there. I'd probably be a managing director with a corner office, but that's not what success looks like to me anymore.

These days, success isn't about title, big paychecks, or nice things. It's not even about chasing a goal 10 years down the line. It's about what keeps me going every day. If I'm waking up in the morning smiling and going to sleep smiling, I think I'm good.

Do you have a story to share about taking a risky or unconventional career pivot? If so, please reach out to this reporter at tmartinelli@businessinsider.com.

• ChatGPT now has a group chat function where you can add your friends.
• I tested it and found that ChatGPT was often too long-winded and annoying. Let me know if you try it!
• I can imagine that having multiple users is great for certain things, like for work or studying.

ChatGPT just added a group chat feature, which is intriguing and slightly confusing. You add your friends to a new chat inside the app, and then as you and the real humans chat away, the AI chatbot can weigh in as needed.

Like I said, intriguing. The idea of moving your group chat with friends to something that lives inside ChatGPT is, well, somewhat headache-inducing, if only from a privacy and security standpoint. I won't even touch on the freakiness of moving our social lives into an AI chatbot app — I'll let you ponder the implications of that all on your own.

I can imagine there is some usefulness, though. In the demo video created by OpenAI about the feature, a group chat is shown where friends are trying to decide where to meet for dinner, and it provides several restaurant recommendations.

(Side note: "Trying to decide what restaurant to pick" is a human conundrum use case that seems like every tech company has attempted at various points to solve. There are, indeed, many potential technical solutions here, although, in my experience, the only true fix is having one extremely forceful person in the group who goes ahead and picks a place for everyone.)

Anyway, I had to test out this new group chat feature.

I tried inviting some friends to three separate group chats with ChatGPT. Now, of course, I was testing it out for the first time, so we were doing the standard "let's play with a new AI tool" schtick. In one chat, we pretended to have an argument and tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to get ChatGPT to take sides; we accused ChatGPT of hurting our feelings. Our immediate impulse to try to torture a chatbot as a sort of game reminded me of a famous tweet about killing E.T. with hammers.

In another chat, we tried to talk normally, but ChatGPT kept butting in. One weird thing is that ChatGPT replies to nearly everything people write unless it's explicitly addressing the other person ("Hey Peter …").

This, as you can imagine, is pretty annoying. ChatGPT tends to be long-winded compared to a typical human. It answers in paragraphs and bullet points, with lots of throat-clearing and hedging, taking up inches and inches of screen per answer. This is fine when it's just you and ChatGPT, but somehow reading ChatGPT's replies to someone else is intolerable.

As for the restaurant use case, I suppose it needs a little work. I asked it for a restaurant in NYC, and it suggested Gramercy Tavern, which is very famous, expensive, and hard to get a table at. But, sure.

It was, however, helpful when I tried doing a "normal" chat with my colleagues Peter and Pranav. Pranav talked about weekend plans for a hike, and I asked ChatGPT to make him an itinerary. It gave him helpful advice (screenshot his parking pass because there was spotty cell service — good tip!).

None of these were particularly amazing or unique uses for ChatGPT, just one-on-one, and they weren't particularly thrilling in a group chat, either.

I won't be taking my group chats to ChatGPT

I don't imagine I'll switch my group chats to the ChatGPT app anytime soon. But I can see some other great potential uses for it as a multi-user version of ChatGPT. Think of a group study session, or coworkers writing code together, or preparing meeting notes, or the myriad of other things people use ChatGPT for — now just with another person able to do it, too.

I don't think my personal group chats need an AI assistant at the moment (maybe yours do? I don't know your weird life!), but the ability to work with another person inside the same ChatGPT chat seems productive and appealing.

Like with any new AI product, figuring out "what will people use this for?" is a bit of a guess, and there's a huge range and lots of unexpected uses. I'm curious to see what happens here — email me to tell me if you have fun uses for this with your friends: knotopoulos@businessinsider.com. I want to hear!

Standing in the middle of the road in his bright yellow uniform, Marc DuMoulin, 80, grasps his shoulder. A sharp pain rings in the spot where, last year, he was hit by a car.

DuMoulin works part-time as a school crossing guard, helping elementary-aged children in Newton, Massachusetts, cross busy streets. Last fall, a driver didn't stop when DuMoulin raised his red sign. The car hit him.

After a few days' rest, DeMoulin said he had no choice but to get back to work. He needed the money.

"I will work until I won't be able to move anymore," DuMoulin said.

He's one of the thousands of Americans 80 and older who work in professions that can be seen as risky or dangerous — especially for older workers. Business Insider has interviewed nearly 200 people in this age group to explore why they continue to work into their twilight years. Most people who spoke to Business Insider over the past year have jobs that pose little direct risk to their physical health. Some hold more physically demanding roles — like homebuilding, which 81-year-old Jim Franck says brings meaning to his life. Others work physically demanding jobs because they need the money.

These jobs can be dangerous — even deadly. A Business Insider analysis of 2023 Census Bureau data found that thousands of Americans 80 and older work in the top 10 most dangerous professions, as defined by government statisticians and measured by total fatal injuries. Over 15,000 work as drivers or make deliveries. Nearly 4,600 are ground maintenance workers. More than 2,500 are agricultural workers, and about 3,100 are construction laborers and helpers. Hundreds are loggers, roofers, and garbage collectors.

In interviews, more than a dozen people in these professions said they considered themselves healthy enough to keep working. They said they understood the risks. Some said they tried not to work in the dark, didn't drive during peak traffic hours, and avoided lifting heavy objects.

DuMoulin became a crossing guard over five years ago. His earnings go toward rebuilding his safety net after spending thousands of dollars on medications and doctor visits for his vascular surgeries and chronic kidney disease. It was one of the few jobs he could find after a career with the US State Department and as a consultant. His Social Security isn't enough to cover his expenses.

Walking and standing are strenuous activities, he said, and the rain or heat can worsen his symptoms. Still, DuMoulin isn't sure he'd stop even if he could financially make it work. Connecting with the students, their parents, and their pets has made his 5 a.m. alarm less bothersome, he said.

"I will work until I won't be able to move anymore," DuMoulin said.

Even in jobs that aren't typically considered risky for younger people, dozens of people over 80 who Business Insider interviewed said they worried about getting hurt on the job. Some retail workers said they feared that being on their feet all day could make them vulnerable to falling. Some medical workers said they worried their lives could be at risk if they had to help a patient stand up. A few other workers thought they could be targets of crimes given their age and potential vulnerability. Many said they suspected their preexisting conditions, like arthritis or vision problems, could one day cause havoc on the job.

Ruth Harden, 88, knows there are risks to being on her feet as a registered nurse for an adult day care center, a position she's had for more than two years after years of struggling to secure work. Harden, who lives in San Diego, can't afford to retire, but at her age, she's just starting a Ph.D. program in nursing at the University of San Diego and plans to work until she can't.

"I feel better now than I've felt in more than 40 years, but I've gone through heart attack after heart attack, unable to work with many hospital bills," Harden said. "I've got stiff knees, and I do use a cane occasionally, but other than that, I don't have any problems."

Data suggest that the rate of minor injuries among older workers declines slightly with age, as they are more experienced and often healthier if working past retirement age. The rate of severe injury and fatality, however, increases with age. As of 2023, workers 65 and older were 2.5 times more likely than workers of all ages to die on the job, at a rate of 8.7 per 100,000 workers, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A Business Insider analysis of fatality data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration found that since the start of 2020, 67 workers age 80 and older have died from a work-related injury or illness, a figure that appears to have never been reported in the media because research on workers in this demographic is sparse. This is up from 40 fatalities in this demographic between 2011 and 2019. These numbers are likely an undercount, as some deaths may not be reported to OSHA.

And an analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries revealed that workers 65 and older have a rising share of the total number of fatal injuries at work over the last two decades.

Among those who OSHA reported died at work: A 91-year-old man in North Dakota fell and struck his head while making a bed at a hospital. An 86-year-old woman in Tennessee was pinned underneath a dolly at a transportation company. An 83-year-old woman in Ohio died from asphyxiation after her shirt was caught in a drill bit. An 81-year-old man in Florida was stabbed at a retirement community where he was a safety officer.

In 2023, Monique Morrissey, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, determined based on 2018 American Working Conditions Survey microdata that roughly half of workers aged 50 to 70 work in physically demanding jobs, while nearly half hold high-pressure roles, such as those with tight deadlines or fast-paced work. Many of these jobs don't pay enough for a proper retirement, Morrissey told Business Insider, adding that reduced access to disability benefits and threats to long-term Social Security solvency could keep workers in riskier jobs for longer.

Sometimes, a risky job is the only one available

Lugging 16 tons of stone across the highway, Merle Heckman, 82, slams the brakes on his dump truck and honks the horn. It's the fifth time he was cut off that day.

"Everybody's in a hurry, nobody's willing to wait, nobody has any patience on the highway," Heckman says. "These drivers don't realize that the truck weighs 11 tons, and it's 27 tons total. You can't stop on a dime."

He's been driving since 7:30 a.m. and expects to finish by 6:30 p.m. He's grown to love the job. It keeps his mind alert and isn't too physically demanding, though he never anticipated doing it.

Heckman spent most of his career in accounting and construction. A business he founded in 2003 closed in 2019 due to some poor investment choices, he said. He withdrew most of his 401(k) savings, declared bankruptcy, and lost his home.

He couldn't secure another accounting job, so he got a commercial driver's license and found work delivering mulch and stone to houses in North Carolina. The $600 to $800 weekly pay helps him pay off the five-year loan on a new house.

It can be difficult for someone over 80 to find a job — especially a higher-paying role. For many older workers, lower-paying, sometimes riskier jobs can be the only option.

James Atkinson, vice president of thought leadership at the Society for Human Resource Management, said older workers are more willing to learn and adapt quickly than many hiring professionals would believe. Only 7% of organizations have formal or informal recruiting targeted at workers 65 and older, he said.

Richard Smith, 81, drives for DoorDash between shifts at a campsite, where he patrols the grounds nightly and maintains security. Smith spends half the year in an RV in New Hampshire and the other half in Florida. He said he couldn't find a six-month part-time job, so he delivers Mondays through Wednesdays in the afternoons and evenings, aiming to earn about $100 a day.

Smith, whose wife is a housekeeper, said his health is good enough that he can drive "fairly well," but he's uncomfortable driving fast. He hopes to continue for a few more years, given that he has less than $20,000 in his IRA and no other savings.

"There may come a period in life when we'll have to stay in Florida all year for health reasons, and I'll need to find a year-round job," Smith said.

Unable to quit

After a series of rejections, Horace Cathcart, 82, found a job in 2023 that he never expected someone his age to do: an umpire for youth baseball games.

Cathcart, who lives in Washington state with his wife, worked in sales for 35 years before transitioning to a computer repairman. After a few years of retirement, he was back on the job market.

He said his job is "very dangerous." He can get hit by a ball at any time, and he sometimes has to separate fights. He's heard of umpires getting attacked by people who disagree with their calls.

"Without this job, we'd probably be struggling," Cathcart said. He said he earns about $50 to $90 per game. "This carries me over to the next spring."

Siavash Radpour, an assistant economics professor who studies aging at Stockton University in New Jersey, said that as older Americans comprise more of the labor force, more may end up in physically demanding jobs.

"Historically, older workers had seniority, so they were protected against recession and layoffs, but that's not the case anymore," Radpour said.

John Gercher, 81, said the extra income from driving a school bus helps after a series of financial setbacks years ago left him with less savings than he had anticipated for this stage of his life.

Gercher, who lives in Pennsylvania, worked for 33 years at Xerox, and said he lost much of his savings amid the dot-com bubble. That loss, combined with his desire to travel, left him with tight retirement savings, though he said he doesn't have to work anymore. He became a bus driver seven years ago when his district was desperate for drivers. He said his main reason for working is the joy of giving back to his community.

Gercher has cataracts developing, and though he has passed his vision test and physical, he doesn't think he'll drive past next year. The only physical limitations he's felt at his job are checking the bus for any belongings left behind.

"I'm healthy mentally, but I don't want to overstay my welcome, especially when transporting kids," Gercher said.

Risky jobs can come with a thrill

Some older workers in jobs that can be seen as more dangerous say they like the work for the thrill of it — not because they necessarily need the money.

Bill Miller, an 82-year-old real-estate broker in North Carolina, said he's cut back on real estate because he has "too much fun driving" a forklift.

Miller doesn't need to work for financial reasons, but said working has been essential to keeping his mind and body active. For 15 to 20 hours a week, Miller operates a forklift, backhoe, tractor, and scissor jack, primarily for a friend or local organizations.

"Some days, I'm loading trucks with steel with a forklift, and other days, I'm covered in grease doing manual labor," Miller said.

For John DeBeaumont, 82, every workday is about staying healthy and preserving his family's legacy.

His father opened a small ready-mix concrete company over 55 years ago. He took it over and ran it with his son until six years ago, and now serves as an advisor.

He wakes up at 4:30 a.m. and works until around noon, which can involve physical labor. He has struggled to find enough staff to keep his business running, but he hopes to scale back in the coming years.

"I can sell the business, but if I did that, I know a lot of people who have retired and died the next year," said DeBeaumont, who lives in the Bay Area of California.

Dix Roberts, 88, runs Roberts Family Farms in Utah with his wife, Ruth, and their children. Roberts works to challenge himself. Ruth, 83, sells produce at farmers' markets a few times a month.

"I'm doing the amount of work that I can do while feeling safe doing it," Roberts said. "I help control the weeds, which is an easy job. I ride a four-wheeler with a 15-gallon tank on the side and a 100-foot hose."

One wrong step can be disastrous

The potential danger in some of these jobs can be inescapable for older people.

In 2018, George Pierce, now almost 80, was working as a mechanic in Maryland, a position he had held for three decades. One day, he stumbled over a jack and injured his left knee.

The accident was responsible for the majority of his injuries, doctors determined, as he also had some preexisting conditions that contributed. He underwent a left total knee replacement two years later, followed by another reconstructive knee surgery the following year. He won nearly $83,000 in a settlement; Business Insider has reviewed the settlement documents. Money has been tight because Pierce can no longer work and struggles with daily tasks like walking or cleaning.

Pierce considered part-time work, but mobility issues have narrowed his options. He stays active to maintain his strength and budgets carefully to keep up with his bills.

"My dad always said to put something away for a rainy day because you never know what's going to happen," Pierce said.

Business Insider analyzed dozens of workplace compensation lawsuits filed by some of America's oldest workers, mostly in their 70s, and some in their 80s. The cases showed that, in many instances, a slippery floor, a misplaced sign, or a dark room resulted in injuries serious enough for major surgeries and years of recovery. Many of these cases centered on people working in the most unsafe industries.

Experts in workplace safety and ergonomics told Business Insider that workplaces should do more to support older workers' ability to work safely and productively. Gigi Petery, a professor at Western Kentucky University who previously worked as a manager at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, said workplaces should focus on three pillars of workability: physical work environment, work organization, and individual health management.

This can be as simple as removing trip hazards, installing proper signage, and ensuring proper lighting, or more advanced changes like implementing tools that require less strength to operate, Petery said.

Jim Franck, the 81-year-old contractor, knows that one wrong step could put an end to his career as a homebuilder, but the risk hasn't stopped him.

Franck, who lives in Oregon, has been a homebuilder for more than five decades in the US and the US Virgin Islands. He's avoided doing too much physical labor and has taken on more of a supervisory role, but he drives a backhoe and builds decks and fireplaces, despite the soreness and back pain it can cause.

"It's like an art to me, and an artist keeps painting until they drop dead," Franck said.

• Embraer wants to launch an affordable and safe electric air taxi called Eve in major cities by 2027.
• Eve has been ordered by airlines like United, and the CEO expects they'll one day be pilotless.
• EVTOLs resemble helicopters, but they have more safety redundancies and are much quieter.

The future of commuter aviation may be a teal-green octocopter that has yet to take flight.

As traffic worsens in major cities worldwide, aviation companies are betting that more consumers will soon opt to fly above the gridlock using a radical new technology that aims to cut the costs and noise of piloted helicopters.

Enter the electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOLs) — zero-emission air taxis that lift off like helicopters but fly like airplanes.

This fast-growing market, still in its early days, is expected to reach at least $4 billion by 2030, but achieving its lofty goals hinges on persuading travelers of the eVTOLs' convenience and safety.

One frontrunner is Brazil-based Eve Air Mobility, a division of Embraer — the world's third-biggest planemaker behind Airbus and Boeing.

Its CEO, Johann Bordais, told Business Insider that the new Eve eVTOL is expected to enter service by 2027 and will be more affordable than helicopters.

"The safety level, operating cost, and quietness of the eVTOL make it better than the helicopters flying today," he said. Customers can expect the buzzing sky taxis over cities like Manhattan and São Paulo for airport transfers, ride-hailing, and sightseeing.

Bordais added that Eve is designed to one day need no pilot — it'll be like the Waymo of the skies.

The focus on eVTOLs comes as other major players, including Hyundai's Supernal and Airbus' CityAirbus NextGen, have paused their electric-taxi programs this year.

Still, Embraer — which has already presold hundreds of units to United and SkyWest — has yet to fly a full-scale prototype, while two California rivals have.

Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation, partnered with Delta and United, respectively, showcased their eVTOLs to the public at a California airshow in October. Both are targeting 2026 launches as they race to carry the first passengers.

Bordais said he isn't fazed: "Flying a prototype is one thing; going through certification is another."

He said Embraer is prioritizing engineering and modeling all systems and subsystems to meet operator needs and federal standards before flying what will be its first eVTOL airframe.

He added that Embraer's decades of experience certifying commercial, military, and private aircraft give it a major edge: "Certification is a milestone, and we've been through those milestones before," he said.

Here's what customers can expect onboard Eve.

Eve is designed as a four-seater electric aircraft with a range of 60 miles.

Eve is meant to whisk passengers within minutes between major cities like Manhattan or São Paulo and their airports.

A simulation on Eve's website shows a hop from Miami International Airport to South Beach would take 15 minutes.

It has rotors, propellers, and batteries for propulsion — and plenty of backups.

Eve is built with extensive redundancy — eight rotors and multiple battery packs — so if one component fails, others take over.

It's like how an airplane can safely fly on just one jet engine if the other fails.

Eve will use new and established infrastructure to start and scale up.

Many target markets already have heliports or vertiports, and Bordais said the US alone has over 5,000 airports.

Scaling up, however, requires investments in charging stations, ground support, and other infrastructure.

Embraer is working with countries including Bahrain, the US, the UK, Singapore, and Costa Rica to develop vertiports and support urban air mobility.

There is one pilot, but Embraer hopes the eVTOL will one day be autonomous.

Bordais said Eve is designed to reduce the pilot's workload, allowing them to focus on flying.

But, he said, it's also built to eventually be pilotless. Without a pilot, the eVTOL could be configured for six passengers instead of four.

"We're talking about inserting autonomous and non-autonomous aircraft into the airspace," Bordais said. "It's a journey of how to do this."

Some industry experts are skeptical about pilotless eVTOLs.

Andy Day, the SVP of operations at the private aviation safety risk management firm Wyvern, told Business Insider that he would "never be okay with completely autonomous aircraft" and that you can't replace a human's reaction and intuitiveness in an emergency situation.

Companies like Airbus, Bulgaria's Dronamic, and American planemaker Pyka are working toward autonomous flight.

Eve will begin flight testing soon.

Bordais said Eve's first full-scale prototype is expected to fly within two months. It will serve as a "knowledge accelerator," but it's not part of the certification process.

Eve has completed nearly a dozen campaigns evaluating aspects such as propeller efficiency and noise, as well as rotor behavior while the aircraft transitions between vertical movement and forward flight.

Bordais didn't provide the expected fare for Eve.

Eve would be a workhorse for airlines. United, for example, aims to build a network in San Francisco and has entered into a conditional purchase agreement for 200 Eve eVTOLs.

Bordais didn't offer fare estimates but said air taxi fares are trending downward with new technology.

"Would we want to see Manhattan to [New York] JFK be $220 or $250? Yes, but it's going to be up to the operator to decide the price," he said, adding that eVTOLs are expected to be cheaper than helicopters.

Joby and Archer said their fares would be about those of an Uber Black.

Based on midday rates on a recent Wednesday, an UberBlack from New York-JFK to Grand Central Terminal costs $172 for the entire car.

Joby and Archer would charge per seat, so an eVTOL ride would be $508 for a family of four. The car is cheaper, but, based on average drive times, the UberBlack would take at least three times as long as Eve's 10-minute hop.

Bordais said the biggest priority for Eve is safety.

Safety is crucial, especially amid a negative public perception stemming from two high-profile helicopter crashes in 2025.

Bordais said Eve's propellers are off during boarding — unlike a helicopter's spinning blades — and the aircraft can glide during a power loss, making it more survivable during forward flight than a helicopter's auto-rotation.

"Embraer has a long history of making safe airplanes that fly 100 million people a year," he said.

• The health reporter Kim Schewitz used to be a chronic alarm clock snoozer who felt tired all the time.
• Jet lag helped her work out in the morning for the first time, then three things turned it into a habit.
• Becoming a morning person has boosted her mood and energy throughout the day.

Here's an embarrassingly cold take: waking up early and exercising has changed my life.

The kicker, however, is that I went from being a late-rise-lifer to a workout-before-work kind of girl almost overnight.

Since I was little, I would repeatedly snooze my alarm clock each morning until I had to get up. The evidence on whether this makes you feel more tired is mixed, but I would get stuck in a state of sleep inertia, prolonging the period of confusion and sleepiness when you first wake up. It left me feeling anxious, and I would struggle to focus all day.

But for the last eight months, I've forced myself out of bed when my first alarm goes off (no snoozing!) and done a yoga or reformer pilates class (sorry) before work most days. Sometimes, if my body is too tired, I'll just go for a walk or grab a coffee.

I feel more energetic, less anxious, and generally in better spirits. Is that surprising? Definitely not. But it's still a massive win.

I used jet lag to my advantage

Fed up with feeling so sluggish, I set my sights on becoming a morning lark about a year and a half ago, but each time I set my alarm and planned to get out of bed early, I just couldn't manage it by morning. However, I was able to make the shift after I returned to London from a vacation in Sri Lanka in March.

For those first few days, I took jet lag waking me up at sunrise as an opportunity to book myself into a morning yoga class. At the time, I did around three evening yoga classes per week, building my fitness and strength with an activity I genuinely love. But fear of the unknown meant I was scared of morning classes. What if I couldn't handle a full hour of exercise at that hour? What if it made me too tired to concentrate at work?

As I went to sleep the night before my first 7:30 a.m. class, I was nervous and presumed it would take my body at least a few test runs to adapt. But I was pleasantly surprised when I felt more energized than usual.

I loved starting my day with movement, giving myself time to wake up before work, and doing something for my own enjoyment and well-being before locking in for eight hours. I discovered a whole world that had been going on while I was usually asleep.

I hate to say it, but I was instantly hooked.

As time went on, I adjusted to U.K. time and the novelty wore off, which made it more challenging to get up when my alarm went off pre-7 a.m.

But I felt no more rested on the days I went back to my snoozing ways.

I learned a big lesson: Waking up is painful either way! I feel fine after 10 minutes, but when I snooze I end up feeling tired all day.

Waking up for something I enjoy and am financially tied to helps me get out of bed

Jet-lag helped kickstart my new routine, but I think three things helped me make it into a habit.

Firstly, I wake up early to do something enjoyable, whether that's yoga or walking to get a coffee. It wouldn't work if I were forcing myself to go to the gym, do a run, or meal prep because I don't like those things.

Secondly, booking myself into a class is essential because I wake up with a sense of urgency. The class operates a zero-minute lateness policy, and as a law-abiding citizen, the idea of breaking a rule fills me with panic. Plus, there's the financial incentive: If I don't show up I will be fined up to £12 ($15.70). At times, I've told myself I'd follow a YouTube yoga video at home in the morning instead, but that never happens.

Finally, I know how much better I feel all day when I do this, and as someone who struggles with low mood and anxiety, the alternative is just not worth the extra time in bed.

This is what my average morning looks like:

• Wake up around 6:45 a.m.
• Get straight out of bed, brush my teeth, wash my face with water, and put on SPF.
• Turn on BBC Radio 4 and listen to the news while I put on my workout clothes.
• Do a 45-minute to one-hour class.
• Walk home and get a coffee on the way.
• Log on to Slack at 9 a.m.

Tons of successful people — from Dolly Parton to JPMorgan's CEO Jamie Dimon and the longevity bro Bryan Johnson — are early risers, usually because they say it's their most productive time.

But my motivation for becoming a morning person is more about feeling good than getting more done.

The next time you have jet lag, why not give it a go?

• Sunday Robotics, a robotics startup, spent less than 2 years in stealth, developing a home robot named Memo.
• Memo can autonomously clear the dinner table and load the dishwasher, the startup said.
• CEO Tony Zhao said his company achieved the feat by using gloves that mimic the robot's hands.

Everyday tasks like clearing the dinner table and loading the dishwasher are a major dexterity challenge for home robots that can require a lot of training data and capital.

A new startup says it spent less than two years and a fraction of the costs to figure it out.

On Thursday, Sunday Robotics emerged from stealth to demonstrate Memo, a fully autonomous home robot on wheels that can complete household tasks.

A video posted on X by the company's cofounder, Tony Zhao, showed Memo move from the dining room to the kitchen to clear the table of dishes and load them in the dishwasher. The company said Memo was conducting the task autonomously.

One other feat included Memo picking up two wine glasses, which can be notoriously fragile, with one hand. The robot also folded socks and loaded up an espresso machine.

Sunday Robotics, also known as Sunday, was founded in April 2024 by Zhao and Cheng Chi, both of whom have a background in robotics.

"Today, we present a step-change in robotic AI," Zhao said in an X post. The cofounder added that Memo broke zero wine glasses over more than 20 live demo sessions.

To get a robot to interact with common household items — some of which can be delicate — is a crucial benchmark for dexterity in the world of robotics.

For one, replicating the human hand, which has thousands of touch receptors, is a challenging engineering feat in itself. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said as much in the company's latest earnings call in October.

The information used to train robots is also a major bottleneck.

Many companies have turned to teleoperations, in which a human controls a robot via joysticks or various controllers, to teach robots. Other companies are experimenting with synthetic data and simulations.

Sunday doesn't use any of those widely accepted methods. Instead, the startup's cofounder said the company built a proprietary glove that mimics the shape of the Memo's Lego-like hands.

A human wears the gloves and completes specific tasks, which will provide data to Memo such as the amount of force used to pick up an object.

Zhao said that this method presents a more efficient and cost-effective means of training robots. In an X post, he said the glove gives "two orders of magnitude higher capital efficiency compared to teleoperation ($200 vs $20,000)."

Zhao added that this is also scalable since data can be collected anywhere without having to lug Memo around. The startup has more than 500 human data collectors across the US, providing training data for Memo.

"In robotics, if the only thing we can rely on is teleoperation, to gather the amount of training data it would take like decades for sure," Zhao said in an interview with "TBPN."

• Google's Gemini 3 and Nano Banana Pro showcase major advances in generative AI technology.
• The new AI models demonstrate improved spatial reasoning, fixing past image generation flaws.
• Google's AI progress reestablishes its leadership in tech and boosts the company's value.

In 2017, Google was criticized for a bad emoji. This week, CEO Sundar Pichai fixed it. How he did this says a lot about the progress Google has made in generative AI.

The internet giant schooled the rest of the tech industry when it launched its latest model, Gemini 3, on Tuesday. It followed that up by rolling out an upgraded image-generation tool called Nano Banana Pro, which is churning out impressive, realistic pictures, diagrams, and charts.

Google proved that AI scaling laws still work, just as its rivals are being questioned. The stock jumped to a record, making the company worth more than Microsoft.

This is all a long way from 2017. Back then, Google rolled out a cheeseburger emoji for Android smartphones. It had the cheese under the meat. Absolute scandal.

Pichai apologized and said Google would get working on a fix immediately, in a joking kind of way.

Fast forward to this week with the launch of Gemini 3 and Nano Banana Pro.

These new AI models are much better at creating and rendering images. Their understanding of 3D space and how the world works, physics-wise, has improved so much that they now absolutely nail the cheeseburger stack.

Pichai tweeted an AI-generated image out to prove the point, writing "iykyk" as a nod to the 2017 furor. As you can see, the earth has been set back on its correct axis, and we can all calm down: the cheese is above the meat.

OK, it's time to get serious. Why am I telling you this?

The ability of AI models to innately understand where stuff should go in the world is really important.

"Normally, AI models struggle with spatial orientation, particularly with respect to the relative position of objects," Balaji Srinivasan, a tech investor and former Coinbase CTO, wrote on X after Pichai's latest burger post. "But this image (if rendered by Gemini 3) seems to resolve that issue, as the exact spatial positioning of the cheese is handled correctly and precisely."

If AI models can know where cheese should go in a burger, they might also know where more important stuff should be in the real world. That could mean better machine decision-making in design, engineering, and other fields.

One theoretical example: A safety barrier likely needs to be placed in the right spot on the corner of a road. Maybe AI models can guide workers to put this structure in exactly the best spot, down to the millimeter.

There's another takeaway from this eight-year cheeseburger saga. Google has been criticized for being behind in generative AI, and this week's releases have finally put those questions to bed.

Powerful products like Gemini 3 take many years, and a lot of technical research and plumbing, to pull off. Google has been working at this for a very long time, and Pichai has been pushing the company toward an AI-first mindset for about a decade. Now the fruits of these labors are showing through.

"Google really did drop everything they were doing to truly focus on AI. And Gemini 3 represents the moment when they actually retook the lead, at least for now," Srinivasan wrote. "When combined with Sundar doubling Google's revenue to $100B, he's proven he can lead Google to unprecedented heights both technologically and commercially."

"Hence: iykyk. If you know, you know," he added.

Sign up for BI's Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.