• Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH, remains guarded on his succession plans.
• The 76-year-old billionaire leads the world's largest luxury goods company, LVMH.
• Uncertainty about LVMH leadership succession continues to draw attention in the luxury sector.

Bernard Arnault really doesn't want to talk about his succession plans.

The 76-year-old billionaire, who has been at the helm of LVMH since 1989, remains guarded about his plans for retirement and his future replacement.

In an interview on Wednesday, Arnault said that he hopes to be at the helm of the company for another decade before naming his successor. Earlier this year, the LVMH board voted to allow Arnault to keep his top spot at the business until he's 85.

"Talk to me again in 10 years, I can give you a more precise answer," he told CNBC's Sara Eisen, adding that he hopes he "will make these 10 years."

The LVMH family's eventual handover of power has been frequently compared to HBO's satirical drama "Succession," where the Roy family is locked in a battle over who will inherit control of the patriarch's global empire.

Analysts have said that Arnault has created a "Darwinian contest" between his five children for the top spot at LVMH.

All five of his adult children — Delphine, Antoine, Alexandre, Frédéric, and Jean — have senior roles at the company across its various brands. Four of them also sit on LVMH's board.

"For my children, I tried since their birth to explain that they are very lucky to be in a family that has the chance to manage such a group," he told CNBC's Eisen.

"But for getting responsibility, they have to merit the responsibility and to prove they can do it," he added.

Still, it isn't necessarily guaranteed that one of his children will take over the reins of the company. Arnault told CNBC that when he speaks of a "family company" at LVMH, this includes some of his longtime senior employees.

"As in any family, at one point there is a succession," he added.

• AI mentions in job listings are declining as employers expect AI competency to be a basic skill.
• Ladders' data shows AI roles have grown, but it's listed as a required expertise less frequently.
• Knowing how AI is affecting your industry and your job is still important, said one CTO.

That job description you're reading might not mention AI, but an employer will likely still expect you to know how to use it.

A new snapshot of job listings from career platform Ladders showed that, while the number of AI roles listed on the site has tripled since 2021, the share of postings mentioning AI has decreased.

It's an indication that more employers are viewing technology as an everyday skill rather than as a differentiator, Marc Cenedella, founder and CEO of Ladders, told Business Insider.

"It will be mentioned less and less in the same way that Microsoft Office isn't mentioned in job postings anymore," he said.

Among about a dozen job categories Ladders reviewed, each saw a drop in postings that name-checked AI. For design and UX roles, AI mentions dropped from 56.7% of jobs in 2021 to 44.6% in 2025. Listings for product management positions registered a similar decrease.

Even in software engineering, where the proliferation of coding agents has raised concerns that junior coders, in particular, will have a harder time finding work, AI references in job listings decreased from 53.5% to 45.8% in the four-year span.

Mentions of AI in job listings could pick up again, Cenedella said, if specialized tools emerge in different industries, though he said that might not happen until sometime in 2026 or 2027.

If that shift does come, it might mean that people in areas such as sales, pharmaceuticals, or semiconductors could need to demonstrate fluency with specific AI applications or methods for using the technology, Cenedella said. Employers could then start calling out those skills in job postings.

AI outside technical roles

The overall drop in mentions of AI doesn't mean interest in the technology is fading, especially in certain areas. Ladders found that about 525,000 leadership and executive roles include AI references, up from 213,000 in 2021. All told, in 2025, the technology has been mentioned in 45% of executive postings on the site.

Roles that aren't primarily technical — areas like finance, ops, design, sales, and project management — are seeing some of the fastest increases in AI skills adoption, Ladders found.

One reason, Cenedella said, is because the technology is moving so fast.

Overall, Ladders said that jobs specifically about AI, such as engineering roles, shot up on its site to 6.7 million in 2025 from 2.1 million in 2021.

Regardless of whether a job posting mentions AI, a boss will likely want you to be able to use it, Agur Jõgi, chief technology officer at the software company Pipedrive, told Business Insider.

"It's just like a ticket to the game," he said.

Know your business

Jõgi said that you need to understand how AI is transforming your field and how it's affecting your job. "That enables you to move as fast as the rest of the industry is moving," Jõgi said.

By knowing how others in your line of work are using AI, he said, you can then develop similar skills.

Jõgi said that if you're a holdout who's resisting using the technology, it could mean you're in for longer days if you want to keep up with colleagues who are going all in.

Eventually, as more people embrace AI, the early adopters who juiced their workplace productivity through AI will see that advantage fade, he said. To maintain it, Jõgi said, these go-getters will need to develop a fresh advantage.

"To beat the competition, you need to do something smarter, or you need to do slightly more," he said.

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

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Stacey Kennedy, the US CEO for Philip Morris International, based in Stamford, Connecticut. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I began my career with Philip Morris International, a tobacco company, in 1995 as a territory sales manager. I held several other positions before becoming vice president of sales for the Southeast region in Atlanta in 2006.

From there, I worked in Lausanne at the VP level and subsequently became the managing director for multiple countries in Europe, before being appointed president of the South and Southeast Asia region. I assumed the role of CEO of PMI's US business in January 2023.

I just celebrated 30 years at PMI. I've spent half of my career in the US and half outside the US. I'm a former smoker myself who switched to IQOS, a heated tobacco product, more than a decade ago.

Here's what a typical day in my life looks like.

I wake up between 6:30 a.m. and 7 a.m.

I allow myself five minutes to check my phone and ensure there's nothing urgent, as we're a global business and things can happen overnight.

I start my mornings with a mantra of 'pay myself first.' I've adopted the mental image of putting my own oxygen mask on first, because if you start the day refreshed, you can show up as a better leader.

In my ideal morning, I get out of the house and take a mindful walk in my neighborhood. I add a 15-minute yoga routine after the walk.

The less ideal morning is when I skip the walk, either because the weather isn't great or I decide to trade it for 30 minutes of extra sleep, and then try to get my 15 minutes of yoga and stretching to start the day, regardless.

I'm not a big breakfast person, so I might grab a handful of berries or a couple of figs. I always have a double espresso from my Nespresso machine. Occasionally, I'll have a matcha from a Cuzen Matcha maker.

I hit the road for my office around 8 a.m.

I usually go into the office in Stamford four days a week on average, and it's about a 25-minute drive away. What makes me anxious before walking into the office is whether the business is moving fast enough — if we're innovating with urgency while staying disciplined and responsible.

My mornings are filled with meetings. I've ensured we have a well-organized office layout with numerous open spaces, a barista bar, and coffee corners.

I spend a lot of my morning with my direct reports, working on our strategic plans, and there's a lot of travel mixed in there, too.

We have our flagship factory in Owensboro, Kentucky, and we're building a new factory in Aurora, Colorado. Additionally, we have an office in Washington, D.C., where I spend time on policy and regulatory matters. I work with our teams and policymakers and regulators, including the FDA, to ensure adult smokers have access to better alternatives.

My calendar is typically scheduled a year in advance

We start with the global management team and board meetings, which are fixed on the calendar. We're usually six weeks out for non-fixed things that come up on the schedule.

We've developed interesting ways to ensure that there's free and flexible time. We have something called P.O.D.D. meetings — a problem, opportunity, discussion, and decision meeting. We address issues that arise and ensure we don't miss a critical opportunity.

One of my leadership principles is to identify your strengths and operate from a position of strength, while also acknowledging your weaknesses. I have my fair share of flaws; one of mine is the importance of running timely, efficient, and effective meetings.

I'm not a particularly timely person myself — I just don't possess that capability. To me, time is a concept, and as a curious person, I love engaging in conversations. When I get into a deep discussion or solve a problem, I honestly can't tell you if I've spent 40 minutes or four hours, because I'm fully immersed. My husband is an extremely timely person, so this drives him bananas.

I take an hour lunch and have meetings during it

I think it's a great way to sit and hear different topics from different groups.

I usually have lunch in a conference room or an open space. Sometimes, I go down to the canteen, but I prefer to have a smaller group with me so I can actually have a conversation.

If I'm choosing my meal, it's usually a salad with grilled chicken and a drizzle of olive oil. If it's a lunch arranged around a bigger meeting, my assistant chooses, and I'm very happy to eat what someone else has decided. It's one less decision to make.

My afternoons are full of, you guessed it, meetings

I take a moment at the end of the day with my chief of staff and assistant to reflect on what we accomplished that day and review the schedule for the rest of the week.

My job is very demanding, and it's easy to get overwhelmed; it's also easy to get frustrated. My non-negotiable indulgence that gets me through the day is a strong espresso and an IQOS break.

During the moments when things feel overwhelming, I almost always go to a gratitude practice. It's amazing how much it shifts your entire mood and perspective away from the things that frustrate or make you grumpy and onto the things that are so important to be grateful for.

I leave the office around 6:30 p.m.

I try to have dinner with the family at 7 p.m., but sometimes it ends up being 7:30 p.m., depending on whether my teenage 16-year-old twins have sports practice after school.

Normally, I'm the chef, and when I travel, I try to set my husband up for success — he's definitely not a chef. We had to have crockpot lessons.

I cook a Mediterranean-style diet. It's likely a salad with grilled fish and possibly rice.

We have a 'check your phone at the door' policy, and it's been a game changer for the whole family. My husband almost always brings an interesting topic to the dinner table. It's a great way for our kids to develop their own perspective on things.

My husband's tried to get me into some TV series, but it's just not my jam

I've gotten into a couple of shows with the kids on weekends, and my son has a wicked sense of humor, so we got into Parks and Recreation. We don't watch TV during the week, because they're off with their homework.

I almost always have a decaf espresso with my husband after dinner and debrief on our day.

I read in the evening for anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes. I usually allow myself two fiction books and a nonfiction book. I save fiction for the weekend, because once I start a fiction book, it's really hard to put it down.

I typically go to bed around 11 p.m.

Going to bed before 10 p.m. is really tough for me, but I try to have my lights out by 11 p.m. so I can have an ideal morning.

I usually do a quick check-in before I start reading, so if everything's OK by 10 p.m., we're good to go.

If I check in, I try not to get caught up in responding to everyone. Sometimes I do. I might send my chief of staff a quick note so that she can get this organized first thing in the morning, but I limit myself to no more than five to 10 minutes of work-related tasks at night.

When I go to bed, I'm a great sleeper. I'm about asleep the second my head hits the pillow.

I try not to work on the weekend, but things always come up

I rarely go into the office, but I do work to engineer any tasks that need to be done on the weekends around the family schedule.

I attend as many regattas as I can. My son is in crew and loves it, and my daughter's in debate. I volunteer as a parent judge at debate competitions.

My non-routine routine is what helps me show up as my best. If I'm too routine and scheduled, I feel like I'm in a box. I need a bit of free space and curiosity to drive me.

• Tech unicorns valued at $1 billion aren't all that special anymore.
• The hectocorn, companies valued at $100 billion or more, are the hot new thing.
• OpenAI, SpaceX, and Anthropic are leading the way with multi-centibillion-dollar valuations.

Nearly two decades ago, tech startups used to chase the distinct pedigree of being a unicorn — reaching a $1 billion valuation.

Now, fast-growing tech startups like OpenAI and SpaceX have shifted the goal posts by hundreds of billions of dollars.

The era of the hectocorn has arrived. It is a small but growing club, and you must be valued at more than $100 billion to qualify.

The next company to join the list could be Waymo, the self-driving robotaxi startup owned by Alphabet Inc. The autonomous automaker is in talks to raise billions in a new round of funding that could send its value soaring past $100 billion, multiple outlets reported on Wednesday.

Here are seven startups that have already reached hectocorn status.

The offers and details on this page may have updated or changed since the time of publication. See our article on Business Insider for current information.

• For Love & Money is a column from Business Insider answering your relationship and money questions.
• This week, a reader struggles with her husband's anxiety and negativity around saving for retirement.
• Our columnist suggests being gentle and honest about their financial situation to her husband.

Dear For Love & Money,

I have a large inheritance coming my way when my grandmother dies. She's still alive and healthy, so it feels gross even talking about it at this stage, but she's 86 and has had us sit down with her estate planner to explain how her trust for me would work.

My husband and I are both 42 and work great jobs with high incomes. Between the retirement packages we have in place and my grandma's money, we'll have more than enough to ride out the 20 to 30 years we will hopefully have left if we retire at 65.

The problem is our quality of life right now. My husband has a lot of anxiety around money, and he groans constantly about never getting to retire and working till he dies. Anytime I suggest we do anything fun with our money, he shuts it down because he thinks we should be saving for retirement.

When I argue that we're more than fine and that we can count on grandma's inheritance, he acts like it's stupid for me to really think that's going to happen. He says that the money will probably get tied up in court, or she won't keep her word.

I'm a fun person with a lust for life and adventure. I'm sick of his negativity and find his inability to enjoy life with me exhausting. How do I get through to this man?

Sincerely,

Sick of the Negativity

Dear Sick,

With two high incomes, retirement saving plans in place, and a generous inheritance on the way, I agree that your future financial security is well in hand. More money won't solve your problems because the problem isn't a lack of funds. Instead, the solution to your husband's negativity and "inability to enjoy life," as you put it, will require the much more complex work of a mindset shift.

A common issue affecting couples is the frequent, conflict-prone pairing of fun-loving types with serious-minded counterparts. You know the type: Guests are arriving in an hour, and one person thinks the house looks great and is just looking forward to watching the game with friends, while the other is having heart palpitations over the baseboards. One person wants to jump in the car and go on an adventure, but the other can't leave the house without a bag packed for doomsday. Or — and this one might sound familiar — one person wants to travel, live generously, and bask in the present; the other wants to save for retirement and safeguard the future. Who is "right" depends entirely on the individual situation, and the healthiest functioning is found in the balance of the two.

What makes finding this balance so difficult is that the mismatch is rarely as simple as opposites attracting. No, the incompatibility is more dynamic than that. It's losing thousands of dollars because your spouse never got around to filling out their expense reports. It's having a terrible vacation because your partner won't stop checking their bank account app. When our significant others fail us in these ways, we tend to try to compensate for their shortcomings ourselves. But overcompensating for them will only make our partners feel the need to overcompensate for us — worsening the imbalance.

The only way to break this cycle is for one person to stop participating in it. In the case of you and your husband, you need to stop seeing it as your full-time job to elicit your husband's reluctant buy-in to a joyful, adventurous life that you alone must manufacture. You also need to recognize that when you say, "We don't need to worry about the future," what he hears is that he now has to worry for both of you.

Instead, show him it's possible to be fiscally responsible and have a good time. Make an appointment with a financial advisor to get hard numbers and set clear retirement objectives. Then, treat this information as the actionable intel that it is. If your husband keeps trying to shut down your attempts to have a good time after you've walked through the numbers together, go on your adventure without him. Perhaps, if your husband sees you actively participating in your retirement strategy beyond depending on inherited wealth, he'll feel less stressed about it.

Over time, he may realize that you're right, the sky isn't falling, and that your grasp on the numbers is as strong and steady as his own. In the meantime, you're still living the life you want and deserve.

That said, when you share a life with someone you love, I know that watching them remain stubbornly dissatisfied when your circumstances are objectively wonderful tends to drain the joy out of your experience as well. It may be worth exploring if his anxiety about the future is a deeper-rooted personal struggle. If it is, there's nothing you can do to change his mindset; he has to do that.

However, you can support your husband in this by being gentle but honest with him. Gentle, because living with his scarcity mindset is likely just as exhausting for him as it is for you. And honest, because, as his spouse, there may be no one else to tell him he needs help and doesn't have to exist in a perpetual state of dread and doom. Help him find a therapist to help him work through his fear of the future and the roots of his relationship with money.

If nothing else, your gentle, honest support will show him that he can count on you no matter what happens. And with time, perhaps you can both find peace and joy in a life that balances spontaneous adventure with long-term security.

Rooting for you,

For Love & Money

Looking for advice on how your savings, debt, or another financial challenge is affecting your relationships? Write to For Love & Money using this Google form.

• NGL is an anonymous messaging app that soared to the top of the Apple app charts in 2022.
• It has been acquired by Mode Mobile, a smartphone company that allows users to earn rewards.
• In 2024, NGL paid a $5 million fine to settle with the FTC over allegations that it targeted minors.

NGL, an anonymous messaging app that soared to the top of the Apple app charts in 2022 before reaching a settlement with federal regulators for targeting minors, has been acquired by Mode Mobile, a smartphone company that allows users to earn rewards.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Started in a WeWork, NGL never raised outside funding and stayed lean with only five employees. Named after an acronym for "Not Gonna Lie," the app debuted in November 2021 and briefly shot to the No. 1 overall spot on Apple's US App Store in 2022.

"Anonymous apps have long held a certain kind of allure for young people," Business Insider wrote at the time in 2022. "They offer a sense of anticipation, a dopamine hit if the anonymous comments or questions are favorable. Will someone confess their feelings for you? Shower you with compliments? One can only hope."

NGL surged in popularity, but much of that growth came from illegally targeting minors, according to a 2024 complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission and Los Angeles District Attorney's Office.

"NGL marketed its app to kids and teens despite knowing that it was exposing them to cyberbullying and harassment," FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said in a statement.

NGL and its founders paid a $5 million fine to settle and agreed to no longer market to minors.

Since then, cofounders Raj Vir and João Figueiredo have refocused the app on adults and strengthened safety measures.

"There was a short-term effect from restricting under-18 usage, followed by renewed momentum after refocusing on an 18+ audience," said Figueiredo, who says the app now has reached the point where he believes it would be best to sell.

"NGL stands out as one of the most culturally relevant Gen-Z platforms operating at true global scale, with more than 125 million monthly active users and one of the strongest viral loops we've seen replicate across countries and cultures," Dan Novaes, CEO and Co-founder of Mode Mobile, wrote in an email.

The company's three employees will join Mode Mobile, while Vir and Figueiredo say they will move on to pursue other unspecified projects while also advising during the transition.

Other anonymous messaging apps, such as Ask.fm, Yik Yak, Yolo, and LMK, have also been criticized for facilitating cyberbullying and harassment. Ask.fm shut down last year.

• Watches dominated responses to a Business Insider survey about what the finance world wants this year.
• Certain quiet luxury brands, alcohol, and fitness gear also got shoutouts.
• Experiential gifts are on the rise, especially for those who "have everything they want."

The trading floor might have a little extra sparkle after the holidays.

Business Insider asked readers who work in finance what was at the top of their wishlist this holiday season, and of the more than 100 responses from those who said they work in the industry, watches were at the top of their list.

While an unscientific survey, the answers helped give a glimpse into what to give the banker in your life. All of the costs included are retail prices from the companies' websites, though many of the pieces are likely ripe for the booming secondhand luxury market.

Read more about what Wall Street wants this holiday season below.

• As college costs soar, Starbucks is doubling down on its free degree program for eligible employees.
• Enrollment is up 60% in the last five years, Chief People Officer Sara Kelly told Business Insider.
• Starbucks says the program boosts promotions, retention, and builds a stronger leadership pipeline.

Starbucks receives more than a million job applications a year, the company's Chief People Officer says one reason is a quietly powerful lure: the promise of a fully-funded bachelor's degree from Arizona State University.

For Brea Yancey, a barista in Washington state who has worked at the company for eight years, that benefit hasn't just reshaped her future — it reshaped her family's. She enrolled, then inspired her mother, a Starbucks store manager, to join her, turning a workplace perk into a two-generation push toward a goal neither woman thought was financially in reach.

"I didn't think college was going to be an option because of how much it costs with loans and things like that," Yancey, who celebrated her graduation on Monday, told Business Insider. "I know it's going to make all the difference in the world not having to worry about that."

Yancey pursued a degree in interdisciplinary arts and performance, with the goal of becoming a music teacher. Her mother graduated last semester with a degree in interdisciplinary studies, concentrating in sales, marketing, and project management.

"I'm glad that she got to finish school, because that's all she ever wanted, and she stopped originally because she got pregnant with me, but now we finished it together," Yancey said.

As college costs have soared, so has enrollment in Starbucks' College Achievement Plan (SCAP) program, Chief People Officer Sara Kelly told Business Insider. The program, which began in 2014, offers eligible employees 100% upfront tuition coverage for their first bachelor's degree, facilitated through online classes at ASU.

"Over the last five years, we've seen a 60% increase in participation," Kelly said. "We have 13% of our partners participating as scholars today."

That represents at least one enrolled Starbucks staff member at about 90% of its coffeehouses, Kelly added.

Starbucks isn't the only retail or Fortune 500 employer offering education benefits. Amazon, Walmart, and Chipotle also offer similar programs. However, compared to most programs in the US retail sector, Starbucks doesn't require reimbursement of tuition payments or require students to stay with the company for a certain amount of time after graduation.

Younger students are increasingly questioning the value of a college degree. A May 2024 Deloitte survey found that a third of Gen Z and millennials chose to skip higher education due to rising costs, and the average price of attendance for a student living on campus at an in-state public 4-year institution is $108,584 over 4 years, according to Educationdata — so you can't beat free.

"This started over 10 years ago, all in service of creating access to education, and the importance of creating access to education," Kelly said. "College is incredibly costly, and so how do we create access to that education for all of our partners? So we're really proud, because we see this as one of the most powerful expressions of our investment in our partners."

Starbucks has expanded the SCAP program in recent years, offering access to more than 150 degree pathways, providing enrolled students with a broader range of fields to pursue than in the program's early years. They've also added a "Pathway to Admission" support route for partners who don't initially qualify for university admission, allowing them to take preparatory courses and earn their way into ASU. Additionally, a "plus-one" benefit is available for eligible military and veteran partners, extending SCAP to a qualifying family member.

This year, Starbucks introduced new study abroad and coffee education opportunities, offering a hands-on sustainability immersion at Hacienda Alsacia in Costa Rica, where scholars study climate, agronomy, and the future of coffee at their global research and development farm.

Of course, the students aren't the only ones benefiting. The program is a significant retention win for Starbucks. Turnover is at record lows, Kelly said, and baristas who have spoken to Business Insider frequently cite the SCAP program as a reason they've stayed with the company.

The program also helps to strengthen Starbucks' talent pipeline, as the company has committed to a 90% internal hire rate or fill rate for its retail leadership roles.

"Our Starbucks college achievement plan partners are part of our pipeline for those management roles, and we're very excited about that," Kelly said. "But do they have to stay with Starbucks? No."

Starbucks has never considered adding a retention requirement to the program, Kelly said, because the company wants "to offer access to education that people can take with them on their journey, no matter where it takes them."

For Yancey, her Starbucks journey is winding down, but it's not over. She continues to work part-time as a barista and has a second job as a music instructor, while planning her next career moves.

"They find a way to make it work for whoever wants to go into the university through the SCAP program; they find a way for you to complete it," Yancey said. "I don't think finances or learning ability should hold anybody back, and they really delivered on that."

• Startup Natilus is building a "blended-wing body" aircraft that fits the cabin into one giant wing.
• Natilus' first announced airline customer is the Indian carrier SpiceJet.
• The up to 240-passenger plane may have less natural light but could offer lounges or kids' zones.

Another airline is placing bets on the radical "flying wing" plane that industry professionals foresee as the future of commercial aviation.

California startup Natilus announced Wednesday that Indian carrier SpiceJet will order up to 100 of its new airliner called Horizon. The triangle-shaped "blended-wing body" (BWB) aircraft ditches the traditional tube-and-wing design for one giant, sweeping wing with the cabin built inside.

It's a more efficient aircraft that allows for more space and fewer emissions. Natilus hopes to launch Horizon in the early 2030s.

Company CEO Aleksey Matyushev said in a press release that India's growing aviation sector will be short about 2,200 aircraft by 2040 and believes his next-generation BWB could help fill that demand.

India is the world's fifth-largest aviation market with about 211 million passengers in 2024 — an increase of about 11% year-over-year, according to the global airline trade association IATA.

SpiceJet said it will help Natilus navigate India's regulatory process, with the order contingent on the Horizon ultimately being certified in the country. Natilus also plans to source manufactured parts from India and has established a subsidiary called Natilus India, headquartered in Mumbai, to support its operations.

This is the first publicly announced international airline order for Horizon, but Natilus told Business Insider that its commercial order book — which also includes its BWB cargo version, Kona — stands at more than 570 orders valued at $25 billion following SpiceJet's order.

Kona has purchase agreements with carriers like US operator Ameriflight, a partner of FedEx, DHL, and UPS, as well as Canadian airline Norolinor. However, it's unclear if Horizon has other buyers besides SpiceJet.

Horizon could host unique cabin configurations

Horizon would bring a new type of aircraft to India's skies that promises better operating economics than those offered by the reigning Boeing-Airbus duopoly.

Matyushev previously told Business Insider that Horizon will offer improved efficiency because its wing design generates lift across a much larger surface area, cutting fuel burn by roughly 30% and operating costs by about 50% compared with similarly sized aircraft such as the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320.

The plane, which could carry up to 240 people in a high-capacity configuration, would also fit into existing airport infrastructure and offer about 40% more cabin space thanks to its wider footprint.

Matyushev said this could translate into unique spaces that today's jets can't fit, like a lounge or a kids' playroom.

Renderings of Horizon published in July show a futuristic business class, up to three aisles between rows of a dozen economy seats, and dedicated privacy pods.

Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury recently said that it sees BWB planes as the future of aviation. But he said the jet may be windowless due to the curved structure. This means passengers could face minimal natural light, disorientation, and claustrophobia.

The wider cabin also poses additional safety challenges during emergency evacuations since those in the very center would be further from the exit doors than on today's aircraft, and the passengers and crew wouldn't be able to see the situation outside.

Matyushev confirmed to Business Insider that Horizon would have windows, but for those in the middle of the plane, it is also designing skylights and other lighting strategies to mimic the outside.

He has previously said Horizon would meet and exceed safety standards.

Companies have long experimented with passenger BWBs

The BWB concept is not new. It has long been used by the US military — among the most famous being the Northrop B-2 Spirit stealth bomber — and passenger variants have been studied by innovators like Airbus, NASA, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing for decades.

Sub-scale demonstrators have flown, but no full-sized BWB has been certified for commercial use.

With a team of employees who have worked for companies like Northrop Grumman and SpaceX, Natilus is betting Horizon can break into the fiercely competitive commercial aircraft market. But it's not the only player chasing that goal.

Airbus has been experimenting with commercial BWB aircraft since 2017 as part of its ZEROe program, which aims to build zero-emission airliners that run on hydrogen instead of traditional jet fuel. That project flew a demonstrator in 2019 but has since been delayed at least a decade from its initial 2035 timeline.

Another California startup, JetZero, is developing a 250-person BWB, called the "Z4," that is expected to launch in the early 2030s and offer up to 50% lower fuel burn. It could replace jets like the Boeing 767 or the Airbus A330.

United Airlines' venture capital arm, United Airlines Ventures, plans to order up to 200 Z4s. Managing director Andrew Chang previously described JetZero to Business Insider as a "living room in the sky."

"Everything around the customer travel experience — how they sit in the plane, board, and deplane, and how [crewmembers] serve them — can be reinvented around the new space within this new aircraft design," he said.

Palmer Luckey recently launched what might be his most ambitious endeavor yet. He's calling it his "I told you so tour."

On his raucous, relentless, revenge roadshow, the memelord weapons manufacturer has boasted to Joe Rogan that he has "plenty of money," and that when he retires he'll investigate UFOs as "the government's privately funded X-Files." He's told CBS News top dog Bari Weiss that America must become "the world's gun store," and has bragged about his distinctive métier: "I build cruise missiles, and I post on X." He's told tech's most terminally online podcasting bros that his AI munitions company, Anduril Industries, "did in two weeks what the Army had been working on for years," and that — to boost America's birth rate — he wants teens to get pregnant … right now. ("Let's not be politically correct.") He's called those he spats with on X "retard." The former journalism major has even taken interviews with the mainstream outlets he loves to hate, like CNBC, Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal.

"You even need the hate of the media," Luckey told firebrand flack Lulu Cheng Meservey in a podcast cameo. "You need to be this thing that people love to hate."

"Take me with a pound of salt," Luckey told Bari Weiss. "I am a propagandist."

Luckey's big, long gloat is in part a middle finger to Meta, née Facebook, which acquired his VR startup, Oculus, in 2014 for roughly $2 billion and, Luckey alleges, fired him in 2017 for supporting Donald Trump. (At the time, Meta denied Luckey left over his politics.) Ultimately, his gasconading is making what he calls Anduril's "killer robots" cool among investors, founders, and tech's ascendant generation.

When Luckey started Anduril soon after leaving Meta, defense was a dirty word in Silicon Valley. At the time, "investors would advise our companies not to sell to the government," Raj Shah, who cofounded national security-focused venture firm Shield Capital, tells me.

Not anymore. As the Trump administration ramps up defense spending, as the United States and its allies hustle to modernize warfare and keep up with foes like China, and as tech's elite have shifted to the right, defense has become, short of AI, the tech industry's buzziest and perhaps most consequential sector.

"Every venture fund" is now ravenous for defense tech, says Shah. Venture capitalists sunk $31 billion into defense-related companies in 2024, up 33% from the year before, according to McKinsey. Stanford students whose North Star used to be Google are now vying for jobs at Palantir; some are skipping college entirely to work for the ICE-contracting data juggernaut. Prominent tech executives like Meta's Andrew Bosworth and OpenAI's Kevin Weil are enlisting in the Army Reserve. And factory towns are whirring back to life: Anduril, whose valuation jumped from $14 billion in 2024 to more than $30 billion earlier this year, is planning to open a weapons manufacturing plant outside of Columbus, Ohio, next year.

Ew has morphed into oorah. And no one has summoned that vibe shift quite like Luckey. The goateed, mulleted, Hawaiian shirt-and-cargo-shorts-wearing 33-year-old — who has never served in the military — has become the foremost face and proselytizer of tech's emphatic embrace of war.

Over the past half-century, tech founders have reshaped how humans behave and think. Bill Gates changed how we work. Mark Zuckerberg changed how we relate to each other. Luckey is changing how we kill. And he's doing it the way he knows best. "Take me with a pound of salt," Luckey told Weiss in Washington, DC, in October. "I am a propagandist."

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From listening to hours of his "I told you so tour," it's clear that Luckey's cult-of-personality campaign to win over Silicon Valley and the Pentagon, a bravura display of his wily business acumen and winking weirdness, has three rules: attack, attack, attack; lose nothing, post everything; and claim victory, even in defeat.

In 2023, Luckey realized the Defense Department needed a rebrand. Meservey, the comms warrior, explained in a blog post that Luckey thought the DoD sounded flaccid and vague and that the government should resurrect the pre-Cold War name, the Department of War. This would adequately state its purpose: to fight. The propagandist was looking for, as Meservey put it, "a more honest name."

"The Department of War had a much better track record than the Department of Defense," Luckey posted on X in August. A week later, Trump signed an executive order to rechristen the department. (Though formally changing the name requires an act of Congress.)

A few years ago, Luckey was one of the few in tech to throw his weight behind defense. While Anduril worked on one of its first major projects — equipping the southern border of the US with an AI-powered, virtual surveillance wall — employees at tech giants protested their companies' military contracts. In 2018, about 4,000 Google workers signed a letter asking the company to cancel Project Maven, an intelligence-gathering Pentagon program, and to get out of "the business of war." Later that year, after the company did call it off, Luckey chastised Google for being "controlled by a pretty radical fringe." Anduril later won a Project Maven contract, The Intercept reported in 2019.

In the years since, Luckey has repeatedly retold this story to cast himself as a fearless defender of freedom, a throwback to Cold War-era Silicon Valley, when tech executives and Stanford academics courted the Pentagon. "If both the smartest minds in technology abandoned defense innovation, the United States would forever lose its ability to protect our way of life," Luckey wrote in an essay for The Free Press earlier this year. "And if no one else was willing to solve that problem, I would." He's also long maintained that those concerned with the morality of autonomous weapons should be the ones developing them: "There's no moral high ground in outsourcing that work to people who are less ethical and less competent than you," he told Rogan earlier this fall.

Such rectitude has instilled in some tech bros the confidence to start their own chest-thumpingly patriotic companies.

"Palmer is a guy who everyone in the defense tech ecosystem looks up to," Fil Aronshtein, who cofounded Dirac, an AI manufacturing company, tells me. "He has inspired a lot of founders to be unapologetically themselves instead of trying to fit into Silicon Valley's idea of a tech founder." Where this stereotypical founder is "a shy, hunched-over nerd or laptop creature," Aronshtein insists he isn't so ungainly. "I'm very pro-American, and I'm proud of that. I lift weights. I can definitely be way more myself after seeing that Palmer can be himself."

I'm very pro-American, and I'm proud of that. I lift weights. I can definitely be way more myself after seeing that Palmer can be himself.Fil Aronshtein, cofounder of Dirac

When he's most himself, Luckey — whom his disciples have called a "real-life Tony Stark" — is nerding out over anime and sci-fi. "Science fiction informs reality," he told reporters in October. "It's not even so much that it predicted the future as it literally caused the future." (Anduril is named after the "Flame of the West" sword in "The Lord of the Rings.")

He's also bantering with the bros or cracking bawdy jokes on X. In December, when Anduril announced its autonomous submarines had traveled more mission miles than a lap around the Earth, Luckey quipped on the social media site, "almost as far as the circumference of my post-holidays waistline!" Some of his shock jock takes could pass for those of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth: "There's too many people who drink Starbucks and not enough who drink Mountain Dew," Luckey told Rogan. "And you know exactly what I mean when I say that." Some pro-natalist beliefs he espouses — that having fewer than 2.1 children is treasonous — track the talking points of his serial-X-poster investors.

With Silicon Valley elites going MAGA post—last year's election, Luckey is taking a Trump-stanning victory lap. After all, he was "one of the true Trump OGs," he told Rogan. When Luckey was 15, he wrote Trump a letter asking him to run for president: "I loved his extremist rhetoric going back to 2009!" Trump seems to stan Luckey, too: At a press conference in the spring, the president archly called Anduril's Roadrunner drone a "nasty looking thing."

The defense tech industry stands to benefit from the Trump administration. This month, Hegseth announced a plan to throw $1 billion behind American drone manufacturing. In November, he said in a speech that the Pentagon will acquire more off-the-shelf tech from companies that surge "at the speed of ingenuity." That's a reversal from the government's decades of work with defense primes like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, which have long depended on funding from lengthy contracts to make their products. Earlier this year, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said on tech talk show TBPN that the death of one of those primes would be a "success."

This has been Luckey's pitch all along; he told Rogan his goal at Anduril is "saving taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars a year." The company bills itself as the antithesis of a traditional defense prime. Instead of using government contracts to cover project expenses, Luckey's startup sells ready-made weapons to the government at a fixed price. To Shah, the defense tech investor, Anduril is a beneficiary of a "cultural shift where we expect technology to move fast."

That shift is paying dividends. In 2024, Anduril's unmanned fighter jet Fury beat Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman for the Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft program. The company is on a path to go public in "low single-digit years," Luckey told Bloomberg this fall. OpenAI is partnering with Anduril to build AI systems to thwart drone attacks. Even Luckey's old foe Meta is now working with Anduril on augmented reality wearables for the Army. The headsets turn warfighters into, as Luckey has written, "technomancers" who slay IRL opponents while peering at a screen that looks straight out of "Call of Duty." "I don't want to sound arrogant here," Luckey told reporters about the collab, "but I've got this shit figured out."

But will Anduril's autonomous weapons work reliably in combat? Late last month, The Wall Street Journal and Reuters reported that the company's software platform, Lattice, as well as its suite of drone and counterdrone products, have been stymied by technical challenges and failed military tests. "It is not surprising that Anduril, as a leading new defense technology company, is subject to increasing scrutiny," the company wrote in a blog post responding to the reports, adding that the articles covered only "a fraction" of the company's testing. "We welcome that scrutiny."

Luckey also fired back on X: "This is what weapons development SHOULD look like," he wrote, and a few days later added, "We aren't going to change. We aren't going to slow down."

A cadre of Luckey's fans came to his defense. "This is the way," Marc Andreessen posted, with an American flag emoji. (His firm, Andreessen Horowitz, is an investor in Anduril.) Palantir's in-house defense historian wrote an essay in the pro-tech, anti-woke blog Pirate Wires against the "hatchet jobs about Luckey's Anduril," proudly proclaiming, "Yes, Blowing Shit Up is How We Build Things." And a few days later, the Defense Department released a video in which Hegseth visited Luckey and Anduril, demoed some headsets, and, over a triumphant score, made a promotional pitch for the company: "We're gonna compete," Hegseth said. "We're gonna move fast. We're gonna do open architecture. We're gonna innovate. We're gonna scale. And we're gonna do it at cost."

As his "I told you so tour" soldiers on, other tech executives have given Luckey plenty of ammo to prove his point. Zuckerberg and Google's Sundar Pichai were among the several tech billionaires cheering Trump on at his inauguration in January. Nvidia's Jensen Huang is praising Trump for, as he put it in a recent keynote address, "making America great again." Executives everywhere are becoming more brash, meme-driven, and nationalistic — from the once-prototypical Zuckerberg kvetching about the "culturally neutered" workplace and calling for more "masculine energy" in the office, to Alex Karp proudly proclaiming that Palantir is "the first company to be completely anti-woke." Even those that said no to war just a few years ago, like Google, are reembracing the military.

The economic story of tech in 2025 — as you've heard, unless you live under a data center — is the AI boom, and possible bubble. The cultural story of tech in 2025 is its leaders becoming more harcore, right-leaning, iconoclastic, and unapologetic. No one has willed or embodied that shift more than the missile maker in the Hawaiian shirt.

And for tech's future leaders yearning for their own "I told you so tour," Luckey has a message: "Different founders are going to have different things that are available to them," he told Meservey. "They're probably not going to have a cult behind them. Maybe they should try and develop one."

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Julia Hornstein covers Silicon Valley and defense tech for Business Insider. Reach Julia at jhornstein@insider.com or securely on Signal at juliah.22. Use a personal email address, a nonwork device, and a nonwork WiFi connection. Here's our guide to sharing information securely.