• Business Insider spoke with stylists about which shoe trends are in and out this season.
• The pros said boat shoes, low-profile sneakers, and chunky boots will be popular this winter.
• However, logo-heavy styles, distressed sneakers, and pointy toes are on their way out.

Shoes might be the last thing you put on before leaving the house, but they often determine whether an outfit feels dated or modern. So, as trends in texture, shape, and overall vibe shift, it's worth taking a closer look at what's currently on your shelves and in your closet.

Business Insider spoke with two professional stylists to share which footwear trends are gaining traction right now and which are starting to fade. Here's what they said.

Boat shoes are back in a big way.

According to Kendra Sharpe, stylist and founder of Kendra Sharpe Styling and Creative, boat shoes are having a full revival right now. She said these shoes are nostalgic, thriftable, and easy to wear worn-in.

In addition to the classic style, designers and fast-fashion retailers are also updating this look with modern shapes and colors.

Low-profile sneakers are taking over.

Patrick Kenger, the lead personal stylist and founder of image-consulting company Pivot, said slimmer, retro-inspired runners are becoming the dominant sneaker shape right now.

In line with the broader minimalist shift, these sneakers are simple in design, often featuring thin soles, low profiles, and clean uppers that create a more streamlined look.

Kenger recommends sticking to neutral shades like black, gray, or white because they work seamlessly with a wide range of outfits without competing for attention.

Lug-sole boots are still going strong.

According to Kenger, chunky Chelsea boots and similar lug-sole styles will remain popular this season, especially as the colder months approach.

He told BI that these heavier soles also work particularly well with wide or straight-leg pants because the structured base helps visually fill out the hem and balance today's more loose shapes.

Slip-on mules and clogs are becoming everyday staples.

Both stylists said they're seeing mules and clogs everywhere right now.

From backless loafers to soft suede clogs, Sharpe said these slip-ons work across genders and are easy to style with everything from jeans to trousers.

Kenger told BI that many of the updated versions also come in neutral colors, which pair well with casual pants.

Hiking sneakers are moving from the trail to the sidewalk.

According to Sharpe, hiking sneakers are gaining popularity off the trail this season. She said this is due to people gravitating toward practical shoes with bungee laces, tech-focused materials, and an overall outdoor look.

"They read less like performance gear and more like casual streetwear now, so they're easy to pair with leggings, trousers, or even dresses," Sharpe told BI.

On the other hand, shiny leather finishes are being swapped for softer textures.

Kenger said he's seeing many people move away from stiff, glossy finishes and toward softer materials in neutral tones.

"Loafers in suede are really big right now, especially in soft grays, tans, and taupe," the stylist told BI.

As minimal styles take over, he said these muted neutrals are becoming the go-to for an understated, modern look.

Distressed shoes are becoming less popular.

According to both stylists, dramatic distressing is falling out of favor.

Kenger said that even retro-inspired sneakers are leaning more polished and streamlined, stepping away from the overly dirty, beat-up aesthetic.

Sharpe told BI that trends now favor softer textures and subtle wear, rather than anything intentionally scuffed or heavily worn.

Pointy and sharp-toed shoes can feel too formal for today's more casual trends.

Kenger said that sleek, narrow, sharply pointed styles, especially in flats and loafers, don't align with the softer, more relaxed direction footwear is heading.

"We're swapping the sharp, pointy, shiny stuff for rounded toes and softer fabrics," Kenger told BI.

Instead, the stylist suggests trying rounded-toe options and more organic shapes.

Logo-heavy shoes have seen their day.

Loud, heavily branded footwear, once a status symbol, is losing momentum as fashion shifts toward quiet luxury, according to Kenger.

"We had these really logo-driven, metallic sneakers, and all of that is trending out," the stylist told BI. "People are going for quiet luxury now."

Instead of metallic finishes or oversize logos, he recommends opting for cleaner, more understated designs.

• Azoma raised $4 million to boost brands' visibility in AI search and chatbot results.
• The London startup simulates how brands appear in chatbot replies and creates content optimized for AI.
• Business Insider got an exclusive look at the pitch deck it used to secure the funding.

A startup that helps brands show up in AI search results and chatbot conversations has raised $4 million in funding.

London-based Azoma aims to capitalize on the rise of generative engine optimization (GEO), a strategy to make content more visible in AI overviews and chatbots like ChatGPT.

"We're helping the world's most recognizable brands to stay relevant in the era of AI search," Max Sinclair, the CEO and cofounder of Azoma, told Business Insider.

Azoma, founded in 2022, has developed two patented technologies. One is what it calls a "digital twin" to simulate how brands appear in AI chatbot responses. Most conversations with chatbots are private, so Azoma creates profiles of people matching a client's target customer demographic, then uses those to submit a "very large volume" of prompts to see what the chatbot says about a brand.

For example, Azoma could send 100,000 prompts asking for the best coffee shop in a city from the profile of a man in his 30s, Sinclair said. Azoma would then assess how its client ranks in those chatbot answers versus its competitors.

Azoma's second solution is generating content, such as product listings, that it says is optimized to appear in AI search results and chatbot answers.

Sinclair said Azoma is a software-as-a-service platform that charges brands on a per-use basis and retailers by product categories. Its clients include the likes of Mars, Colgate, Zappos, and P&G. Azoma achieved profitability earlier this year, Sinclair said.

The GEO and answer engine optimization market is a young and competitive space where the rules are still being written.

Search engine optimization experts from companies like Google and Microsoft previously told Business Insider that some SEO principles still apply to GEO, such as creating relevant content. Sinclair, a former Amazon executive, said he agrees with the top-level principles, but large language models have changed the game.

"The way these LLMs work is totally, totally different. It's a totally new technology," Sinclair said. He explained that this is because the number of keywords is much greater in AI search versus traditional search, and because AI has significantly more context about the user.

Investors in the pre-Series A funding round included Ignite Ventures, Rank Ventures, eBay Ventures x Techstars, Twinpath, MaRS ISF, plus angel investors.

Azoma, which was also cofounded by Timur Luguev, who has a Ph.D. in computer science, plans to use the fresh capital to invest in R&D and expand its commercial operations by hiring for sales and customer success roles.

Here's an exclusive look at the 19-page pitch deck Azoma used to raise its $4 million pre-Series AI round.

• AI pioneer Stuart Russell warns leaders are "staring 80% unemployment in the face."
• Russell says AI may replace surgeons, coders, and even CEOs as firms chase efficiency.
• He fears a future where machines do all work, leaving humans struggling to find purpose.

After more than 40 years of studying AI, UC Berkeley professor Stuart Russell hasn't mellowed.

The man who co-authored "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach," the world's most authoritative textbook on AI, now spends up to 100 hours a week trying to avert what he sees as a historic crisis — one that could leave almost the entire global population without work.

Russell, one of the world's most influential AI researchers and a recipient of the OBE — a royal honor awarded by the UK — for his contributions to computer science, told British entrepreneur Steven Bartlett on the "Diary of a CEO" podcast posted on Thursday that the economic shock ahead is far bigger than governments realize.

'80% unemployment' is no longer a sci-fi scenario

Russell said political leaders are "suddenly staring 80% unemployment in the face" as AI systems accelerate toward replacing abilities once reserved for the highest-skilled humans.

"AI systems are doing pretty much everything we currently call work," he said. That includes fields once believed to be safe from automation.

"Anything you might aspire to — you want to become a surgeon — it takes the robot seven seconds to learn how to be a surgeon that's better than any human being," he added.

He suggested that sectors once considered safe — from driving and logistics to accounting, software engineering, and even medicine — are likely to be swept up in the coming wave of automation.

Russell joins a growing chorus of AI experts and tech leaders in forecasting historic levels of job displacement.

While Andrew Yang has warned AI could wipe out 40 million US jobs in the next decade, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has predicted up to half of entry-level white-collar roles could disappear within five years.

Others, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Yann LeCun, Meta's outgoing chief AI scientist, believe AI will transform work rather than erase it.

Why CEOs could be replaced, too

The disruption won't stop at the top. Russell said even senior executives won't be spared.

"Pity the poor CEO whose board says, 'Unless you turn over your decision-making power to the AI system, we're going to have to fire you because all our competitors are using an AI-powered CEO and they're doing much better.'"

Google CEO Sundar Pichai and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have both echoed these thoughts in recent interviews.

"I think what a CEO does is maybe one of the easier things for an AI to do one day," Pichai told the BBC last month.

Companies are already cutting jobs because of AI.

HP, IBM, Salesforce, and Klarna have also cited AI as a factor in sweeping layoffs or workforce reductions announced over the past year.

"Even the giant AI companies will have few human employees in the long run," Russell said.

A world where work disappears — and meaning must be reinvented

Russell believes that even if AI advances safely, the bigger challenge may be psychological. Humans derive purpose from striving, problem-solving, and contributing to others, he said.

A society where machines handle all productive tasks could drift toward a future in which humans become passive, sedentary consumers living for entertainment — a scenario he describes as "not conducive to human flourishing."

"We need to figure out what is the next phase going to be like," he said, and "how in this world do we have the incentives to become fully human, which I think means at least a level of education that people have now and probably more."

So far, he added, nobody — not AI researchers, not economists, not science fiction writers, not futurists — has convincingly described that world.

• Archer Aviation unveiled its plans for a flying taxi network in the Miami metropolitan area.
• It plans to connect major cities and airports across southern Florida.
• This includes vertiports at Hard Rock Stadium and a golf club co-owned by the Miami Dolphins' owner.

While many US cities, such as Austin, LA, San Francisco, and Dallas, are seeing robotaxis come to town, Miami plans to take it one step further.

Archer Aviation, the flying taxi startup, unveiled its plan for an air-taxi network in the Miami metropolitan area on Wednesday.

It aims to connect Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, and West Palm Beach — as well as the region's international and general aviation airports.

Flying taxis are officially known as electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles, or eVTOLs. The idea is that 10 to 20-minute flights can make commutes easier compared to driving a car.

Unlike helicopters, which face numerous restrictions due to their noise, the fact that eVTOLs are electric means they're much quieter.

The company has previously said it expects a seat on board to cost about the same as an Uber Black, or around $150.

Archer is working with the Hard Rock Stadium, home of the Miami Dolphins, as part of its planned network.

The stadium already has helipads, and Archer said these will be readied for its eVTOL operations.

Stephen Ross, the billionaire owner of the Dolphins and chairman of Related Ross, said, "We're excited to embrace a forward-thinking vision that transforms how people and businesses move across the region."

These specialized facilities are known as vertiports and would likely feature charging stations and areas for passengers.

The plan has the backing of Miami's mayor, Francis Suarez, who said having Archer's flying cabs "will elevate Miami's position as a global capital for innovation and mobility."

Archer said Related Ross is also planning to develop a vertiport in downtown West Palm Beach. Another one is planned for Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood.

Its map also shows a vertiport at the premium Apogee Golf Club, co-owned by Ross.

Building out the infrastructure for flying taxis remains a key challenge, while companies work on certification.

Wednesday's announcement follows Archer signing an agreement last month to purchase Hawthorne Municipal Airport near Los Angeles, which it plans to use as a hub for its network in the city. It hopes to launch in time for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Archer plans to start its first commercial operations next year in the United Arab Emirates.

There are several firms competing in the eVTOL space, including Joby Aviation, which also plans to launch in the UAE next year before expanding operations in the US.

• Billionaire John Morgan shares five key mindsets for building and maintaining wealth.
• Morgan credits his success to embracing imposter syndrome, luck, and professional independence.
• He emphasizes the importance of delegating, avoiding debt, and seizing opportunities when they arise.

Billionaire John Morgan sometimes wakes in a rush, grateful to find himself in his own bed instead of the place his mind occasionally drags him at night. In a recurring dream, he's stranded in an old car with almost no money, unsure how he'll make it.

Morgan, valued at $1.5 billion, grew up as the oldest of five in a family that was "financially insecure," he told Business Insider's Kevin Reilly for the video series Authorized Account:

Despite coming from little, Morgan went on to found one of the nation's largest personal injury law firms, Morgan & Morgan, which has offices in all 50 US states. He also owns a collection of science attractions, malls, hotels, and billboard companies.

However, listen to Morgan for even just a few minutes, and it becomes clear he's not your stereotypical pompous billionaire. He admits to having imposter syndrome, dreams about losing everything, and attributes a lot of his success to sheer luck.

Here are five mindsets that shape how Morgan works, hires, and sees risk and opportunity in places others might overlook.

1. Embrace imposter syndrome

Morgan's first job out of law school didn't pay much. "My first job doing personal injury, I had a $10,000 base and 10% of whatever I would close. And I think my first year I made like $15,000."

After a few years, he started his own law firm. However, despite its tremendous success over the last 37 years, he's never managed to shake the feeling of imposter syndrome.

"I don't know how this happened," he says of his wealth and success, "and I'm going to be found out one day." He doesn't see this mindset as a weakness, though.

In the philosophy of late businessman Andy Grove, which Morgan emulates: Only the paranoid survive. It's that paranoia fueled by his imposter syndrome that feeds Morgan's undying drive. "It keeps you hungry," he says.

That's why he starts every morning by checking numbers. "I get numbers from my attendance and my attractions. I get numbers from new cases signed up the day before. I get all sorts of leaderboard reports," he says.

2. See luck everywhere

Morgan talks about luck the way some people talk about weather — unpredictable, constant, and impossible to ignore. "Life is a thousand left turns, a thousand right turns, a thousand U-turns," he says. One different turn, he adds, could have changed everything.

He traces that belief to a feeling of humility. Success, he warns, convinces people they are far smarter than they truly are. And he believes the remedy is simple: look for opportunity everywhere because luck shows up only when you put yourself in its path, he says.

Chasing luck meant saying yes to everything — cold-calling lawyers for cases in his early law years, visiting union halls, or going to events other people dismissed as pointless. The more chances he took, the more "lottery balls" he had in play.

"When you're looking for opportunity," he says, "the more lottery balls you have, the more chance you have to win the bingo game."

That mindset guided him through the biggest pivot of his career. When lawyer advertising became legal in 1977, many attorneys refused to try it. Morgan borrowed $100,000 and went all in anyway, even though "I was embarrassed about it," he says. The calls came almost immediately.

3. Whatever you do, be a professional

This line came from Morgan's father, whose continuous string of job losses didn't help the family's financial struggles when Morgan was a child.

"But the great gift that my dad gave us was every time he would get fired … he would say these words: 'Whatever you do, be a professional, nobody can fire you,'" Morgan said. "And it was seared in my mind that I was going to do something where nobody could fire me. I wasn't going to be in his position."

His father's message shaped how he handles risk and made him determined to work for himself. This mindset formed the backbone of his career, from selling Yellow Pages ads for AT&T to help pay for law school and founding Morgan & Morgan in 1988 in his early 30s, far earlier than his friends had expected.

"They were all working for somebody," he said of his friends. "I'd already watched my dad work for somebody. I'm like, that ain't happening."

4. Delegating is freedom

In the early days of his firm, Morgan says he was deeply involved in the day-to-day decisions, making cold calls to law firms, signing up cases, and driving his Nissan Maxima from one lawyer to another.

Decades later, he says, "most importantly, the thing that I learned was to scale and delegate. And once you learn to scale and delegate, then you get what you can't buy, which is time."

He spends part of that time picking what he calls "send-delete people" — employees who handle something the moment he sends it and never need follow-up. Once he sees that in someone, he delegates "a little bit more and a little bit more."

The result is freedom to focus his time and energy on strategy, expansion, and the next puzzle to solve.

5. Fear and avoid debt

While many financial experts say accruing good debt is key to building wealth, Morgan avoids debt as much as possible.

After starting several banks in the 1980s, he learned how compounding interest "is like a tsunami" and how fast debt can "swallow you."

That said, he did borrow $100,000 to invest in mass-market advertising in the early days of his firm. However, he says he resisted borrowing when starting many of his other business ventures, including interactive museums, hotels, and shopping centers. For example, when he bought a struggling mall in Myrtle Beach, he says he paid cash.

"I am scared to death of debt," he says. "I have at this time zero debt, zero personal guarantees on anything."

• Katelyn Jonozzo, 31, lived a very active lifestyle and had no symptoms of colon cancer.
• She was diagnosed in February when she suddenly felt a sharp pain and extreme bloating.
• Jonozzo needed an emergency colostomy and adjusted to running with a colostomy bag.

From a young age, Katelyn Jonozzo took pride in being very active.

Up until she was 18, she practiced gymnastics 4 to 5 days a week. "I loved the discipline, I loved having a regimented schedule," Jonozzo, 31, told Business Insider. "That instilled how important health and fitness are to your lifestyle."

In her 20s, she gravitated toward marathon running. A supply chain analyst, Jonozzo would regularly wake up at 4 or 5 am to lift for two hours and run before going to work. In 2024, she qualified to run the Boston Marathon. She couldn't wait to run it in 2025.

That was before she felt a sudden, sharp stomach pain in February.

Jonozzo started experiencing flu-like symptoms and throwing up. She chalked it up to norovirus, which was going around at the time in her Cleveland suburb.

"My stomach started to get really, really bloated — I looked like I was almost pregnant," Jonozzo said. "But that was also a symptom of norovirus, so I kind of just lumped it into that."

When the pain got worse — stabbing sensations in her sides and nonstop vomiting — her two best friends urged her to go to the ER instead of waiting another day. Jonozzo complied, assuming the worst-case scenario was appendicitis.

After an emergency surgery to remove part of her colon, she learned she had stage 3 colon cancer, with secondary cancer in her abdomen.

Jonozzo said her training mindset helped her navigate her new reality. "I'm definitely a tunnel-vision person," she said. "I think I cried for about 30 seconds. Then, I looked back at the doctor, and I was like, 'What's the plan? What do we do?'"

Zero warning signs

Jonozzo said she was initially dismissed when she went to the hospital and told she might just have a stomachache or gassiness. She insisted that she had a high pain tolerance and wouldn't come in unless it was serious.

Eventually, she had an MRI done, which revealed a three-inch tumor on her colon — one that was about to rupture.

Within the next 48 hours, she had an emergency colostomy that removed one-third of her colon and installed a colostomy bag. "I was just in so much shock and so much was going on that I didn't really know what was happening," she said.

After recovering from a catatonic state for 10 days, she learned her exact diagnosis. Her doctor estimated that the tumor had been growing for about a decade, Jonozzo recalled.

"How have I been running marathons?" she said. "How have I been working out when I had a tumor on my stomach?"

Working out with a colostomy bag

Weeks after the surgery, Jonozzo began her chemotherapy treatments. At first, she stayed positive: making poster boards with affirmations to leave around her house.

"It still didn't really ever sink in, the journey that I was about to go through, until I would say probably around three or four of chemo," she said.

By that point, she started to lose her hair and taste, experience skin changes, and develop neuropathy, losing sensations in her hands and feet. "That's when I realized, 'Ok, you have cancer. This is not just something that we're going to duck our head down and go through."

One challenge was working out. During treatment, her usual routine was out of the question. "I definitely had to tone everything down," she said. She swapped long training runs and weightlifting for outdoor walks and three-mile jogs.

The biggest obstacle was the colostomy bag. "I was obviously super self-conscious about the bag in the beginning," she said. But as she started to connect with other young cancer patients through The Gathering Place support group and the Colorectal Cancer Alliance, she began to embrace the bag.

"I would go to the pool in a bathing suit, with the bag out, or I would lift my shirt up at the gym and let people know that the bag was there, which I guess made me just gain confidence," she said.

Looking for the positives helped her keep up her normal routine as much as she could. "I think it's amazing that they found out how to pull your intestine out and you could still go to the bathroom," she said. "It's a great contraption, if you ask me."

She's running a marathon with her cancer support group

After seven months of treatment, Jonozzo was deemed cancer-free. She finished chemotherapy in August and had a colostomy reversal in November. In mid-December, her first screening since finishing treatment, she'll learn more about her future screening schedule, which she already knows will include two colonoscopies a year.

She'll also be officially cleared to work out after her surgery — and is eager to go back to her old routine.

"I'm a little nervous just because normally I can just pop out and run and do those things, but I have to take baby steps back into it," she said. She plans to run three marathons in 2026, with the hopes of re-qualifying for Boston through one of them.

She's especially excited for the Cleveland Marathon in May. She'll run it as the team captain for her cancer fundraising group, which she said awakened new passions in her. "I love advocating, I love talking to people," she said. "I've always loved doing that — I just didn't have the confidence to do so before."

It's just one of the ways that her cancer experience changed her, she said, along with becoming more present.

"People think I'm crazy for saying this, but I truly believe it was one of the best things that ever happened to me," she said. "I would not trade this experience for anything. I really wouldn't."

• Cybersecurity firm ThreatLocker rewards its two most helpful employees with luxury cars each year.
• CEO Danny Jenkins said he values teamwork, given the company's fast-paced nature.
• The company also selects 14-16 employees and rewards them with an all-expenses-paid group trip.

Companies are getting creative with rewarding standout workers, but few are giving out $170,000 luxury cars or cruises to the Bahamas.

ThreatLocker, an Orlando-based cybersecurity firm with about 700 employees, gives luxury cars to its two most collaborative workers at its annual holiday party, the company told Business Insider.

The firm, which also has offices in Dublin, Dubai, and Australia, receives hundreds of votes each month for the two most helpful employees — one in the US, and one abroad. It flies in its international workers in for the holiday party.

Additionally, every manager votes for the best performer on their team that month. At the end of the year, the total votes for the top performer and the most helpful employee are combined to determine the two car recipients, the company said.

The firm usually awards an electric model, but has also handed out a $125,000 Porsche Panamera. The company hasn't announced its car for this year yet, but told Business Insider one of the models is worth $173,000.

The tradition began in 2021 as a prize for the top performer, but CEO Danny Jenkins said it created a "dog-eat-dog" work environment. In the cybersecurity industry, teamwork is crucial to the company's success, he said. Jenkins said the firm operates 24 hours a day with an average pick-up time of 23 seconds for any customer support issue, and colleagues need to work together to achieve that.

"Everything we do is with this matter of urgency," Jenkins said. "So if you don't have this teamwork where people are willing to get on a call at 2 a.m. in the morning and help each other and collaborate, then it doesn't work."

Jenkins said he works about 100 hours a week, and he keeps his phone on 24/7 in case issues arise.

Retaining the top

AI development has led to a boom in the cybersecurity industry, resulting in heightened demand for qualified talent. Jenkins said the company has never done layoffs and is currently hiring 40 to 50 people a month.

"I'd like to be in a situation where I don't feel like we're drowning because we're constantly struggling to hire and onboard people fast enough," said Jenkins.

That makes it all the more worthwhile to retain top talent and those who contribute to a strong culture.

He said that before the car winners are announced, between 14 and 16 runner-ups are honored in front of the company, and then offered a spot on a fully paid long-weekend getaway.

Jenkins said the trip has included a Royal Caribbean cruise to the Bahamas, as well as trips to Boston or New York. The group typically includes employees from various departments, and they all receive a spending budget of $2,500 on their trip, he said.

ThreatLocker also offers other perks to standout employees. Jenkins said that most employees work 40-hour workweeks, but sometimes teams may have to put in 18 or 19 hours straight to address an issue. Jenkins said when workers push through tight deadlines or go above and beyond, the company may reward them with court-side seats at games in the Orlando Kia Center, where the company has a permanent box.

Jenkins said the trip and car giveaway have bolstered employee success and that no car recipient has ever left the company.

• Jensen Huang has been the CEO of Nvidia for more than 30 years.
• He guided Nvidia through near bankruptcy and now leads the world's most valuable company.
• Huang said the "sense of uncertainty" while leading Nvidia never goes away.

Leading a multi-trillion-dollar company that has become a foundational pillar of the latest AI boom is a tall order. Jensen Huang, Nvidia's CEO for more than three decades, is acutely aware of that.

In an episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience" published on Wednesday, Huang spoke frankly about the mental toll of steering his chip company out of near bankruptcy and ensuring Nvidia remains ahead of the curve in the AI race.

"The phrase '30 days from going out of business' I've used for 33 years," Huang said in the interview. "The feeling doesn't change. The sense of vulnerability, the sense of uncertainty, the sense of insecurity — it doesn't leave you."

Before Nvidia became one of the most valuable companies in the world — with a $4.4 trillion market cap as of Wednesday — the chipmaker was on the brink of bankruptcy at least three times in the '90s.

Those days are far behind Nvidia, but that hasn't allayed Huang's fear of failure — nor does Nvidia's latest success make him any less of a workaholic.

"I work a lot," Huang said, adding that he's running the company seven days a week.

Here's what Huang had to say on leadership and what it's like leading Nvidia.

A spokesperson for Nvidia did not respond to a request for comment.

Vulnerability and leadership can go together

Huang, one of the longest-serving tech CEOs in history, told Rogan that he believes vulnerability and leadership aren't mutually exclusive qualities.

"I think there's nothing inconsistent with being a leader and being vulnerable," he said. "The company doesn't need me to be a genius, right all along, right all the time, absolutely certain about what I'm trying to do and what I'm doing. The company doesn't need that."

The CEO said that being vulnerable allows him to be open to feedback from his peers and consider different strategies if he's ever wrong.

"If we put ourselves into this superhuman capability, then it's hard for us to pivot strategy — because we were supposed to be right all along," he said. "And so if you're always right, how can you possibly pivot? Because pivoting requires you to be wrong. And so I've got no trouble with being wrong."

He's in a constant 'state of anxiety'

The Nvidia CEO said part of what drives him is a "fear of failure."

"I have a greater drive from not wanting to fail than the drive of wanting to succeed," Huang said, adding that he's "always in a state of anxiety."

He recalled some of the near-death experiences his company brushed with in the '90s, including one of the first moments when Nvidia was unable to fulfill a contract with Sega, a Japanese video game company. The Sega CEO at the time, Shoichiro Irimajiri, decided to hand Huang a $5 million lifeline.

Those were formative experiences that gave Huang his mantra — "30 days from going out of business" — for the next three decades at Nvidia.

"I'm not ambitious, for example," Huang said, facetiously, "I just want to stay alive."

The Nvidia CEO also doesn't hold any illusions about success.

"There's long periods of suffering and loneliness and uncertainty and fear and embarrassment and humiliation," he said. "All of the feelings that we most not love."

Huang has previously emphasized the importance of "pain and suffering." He reiterated the point to Rogan.

"I think it's good that we pass that forward and let people know that — that it's just part of the journey," he said. "Suffering is part of the journey."

Huang reads thousands of emails a day

Huang told Rogan that he typically wakes up early, checking his inbox for the first few hours of his day. And there are thousands of emails to read, according to the CEO.

It's part of his routine to maintain what he called a "culture of staying super alert."

"There's no easy way of being alert except for paying attention," he said. "I haven't found a single way of being able to stay alert without paying attention. And so, you know, I probably read several thousand emails a day."

There are no days off in the Huang family

Huang has previously revealed that he's a workaholic, working 14-hour days and through holidays.

That relentless work ethic has apparently been passed down to his two kids, who are both employees at Nvidia.

"Both of my kids work at Nvidia," Huang said. "They work every day. I'm very lucky."

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Justin Fenchel, the 41-year-old CEO of BeatBox Beverages, based in Austin. Mark Cuban joined for a portion of the interview and is an investor in BeatBox Beverages. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I was an equity analyst for almost five years but realized I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life. I was 27, unmarried, and childless, and I thought there was more out there for me.

I went to business school in 2011. There, Brad Schultz, one of my best friends and a cofounder of BeatBox, and I had an idea for a party version of boxed wine. We met Aimy Steadman, the third cofounder of BeatBox, in business school.

We went on ABC's Shark Tank in 2014, and Mark Cuban invested $1 million for a third of the company.

BeatBox Beverages continued to grow after that and is now worth over $200 million. It's a balancing act to be a husband, father, and CEO.

Here's what a typical day looks like.

I wake at 6:15 a.m. when our 13-month-old baby wakes up

I'm more of a night person, although my schedule has shifted significantly since our baby arrived. If there's something I need to do, I do it. Having my phone with me always means I can accomplish something.

When I wake up, I can't help myself and grab my phone. I want to see the sales numbers. I don't respond to emails then, but I do like to get a sense of what the day looked like.

I always try to drink a full liter of water as soon as I wake up. I make coffee for my wife, Michelle, and me with the Nespresso machine — I'll have coffee with a little vanilla syrup. I like a cold brew sometimes, and I mix it with a product called Momentum, a longevity powder supplement.

I'm with the baby from 6:30 a.m. to 8 a.m.

I spend a couple of hours with the baby and my wife.

I schedule my first meeting for around 8:30 to 9 a.m. I used to travel frequently, but having the baby helped me prioritize my time more effectively. When I'm home, I'm deeply involved in being a husband and father.

We've been a remote company since our inception, but we now have an office in the Austin area that about 40 people visit. I visit the office a couple of times a month. I've found that I'm productive in my home office.

I handle investor relations, strategy, and any urgent matters that arise. My office doesn't have a fancy three-monitor setup or anything like that. I use my laptop, and I finally have a cool background on my shelf.

I have a DJ booth in the office, and I like to have a fun work environment. I haven't DJed during any meetings (yet). That's what the BeatBox brand stands for — this feeling of fun, togetherness, inclusion, and party.

My calendar is dialed in with the day's meetings

I have meetings with almost everybody on the sales side, so I spend a lot of my day talking to our team. When I'm traveling, I have meetings at conferences, major retailers, or our big distributor partners.

I try to avoid any important meetings on Monday mornings, because I mean, who wants to do that?

It's been a lot of work scaling from four years ago to our current 260 employees. I check in with my team to see what we can do to create a fun and better work environment, and I'm as transparent as possible about what's happening with the company. My job is to keep our team energized.

I also speak to our investors, such as Mark Cuban

I speak with Mark often. He said he invested in BeatBox because he liked the taste of the product. He's a great addition to our team.

(Editor's note: Cuban, who joined the interview, said, "I had the iced tea and the raspberry, and it brought me back to my college days. I liked the form factor at the time; it was fun. I think it's perfect for college kids.

The BeatBox team is fun. I've got the easy job. I show up and play rah, rah! Having fun is great, and now and then we have to answer some questions. They're smart, and so when you have entrepreneurs who are smart, who are driven, who don't get down when they run into a problem, my job is easy," Cuban said.)

I try to eat a healthy lunch when I'm home

My wife usually cooks something awesome for dinner, and I often have the leftovers for lunch the next day.

My afternoon involves more meetings. It'll vary depending on whether I'm on the road or not.

There are things on the calendar, and then there's always something new to discuss. Typically, my calendar is pretty clear in the afternoon.

By 2 p.m., I'll meet with our CFO to discuss the current status

I'm a pretty even-keeled person, and I tend to thrive in a bit of chaos, which you just have to be OK with in a business that's growing and evolving as fast as BeatBox.

There will be fires that arise or unexpected things that you have to deal with in real time, but I remain grateful and grounded that I get to do what I love with incredible people.

I end my workday around 5:30 p.m. or 6 p.m.

Some moments make me feel drained, but I think it goes back to when you're doing something you love and are so passionate about; it makes the hard days not so hard.

I definitely have to find the time to relax. I feel like I'm at my best mid-week. If it's a day when I'm on back-to-back-to-back calls, I'll certainly feel like I have less brain power at the end, but I'm usually good at powering through.

After work, we usually go on a family walk with the baby, and then we'll take our dog for a one-hour walk. We'll come home, have dinner, and unwind. I might have a phone call with somebody after dinner, and then we'll eventually settle on the couch and have some BeatBox wine.

My wife and I try to sneak in our shows, and we have all the streaming services. We like The Penguin and The Righteous Gemstones. We watch a couple of episodes, and it takes us forever to finish them. I don't read that much, but I should read more.

Each day is exciting, and watching this baby grow is truly surreal. It's the coolest — cooler than anything in business.

I work a bit on the weekends and hang out with my cofounders

I've got my phone, and if there's an email I can get to or a text I can respond to, I'm available. I have to, and in fact, I want to be better about not always being on. I'm learning to tell myself that if I put the phone down, everything will be fine for a couple of hours.

I love to unwind on the weekends, and that's what BeatBox Beverages is all about: unwinding. I've tried all of our drinks. I often attend concerts with my wife, and we recently saw Jack White.

My cofounders are also my best friends, and we spend our weekends together. Outside BeatBox, I also enjoy beer and tequila. We're always talking about BeatBox, but we're also having drinks, going to the pool, and hanging out together.

Every night, I'm in bed by 10 p.m. and asleep by 11 p.m. I wake up and do it all again.

• RMFG has raised $4.5 million in pre-seed funding to bolster US manufacturing with AI.
• Its 32-year-old founder taught himself to code while working in gas station maintenance.
• RMFG wants to jump in on the white-hot robotics industry.

AI-powered manufacturing startup RMFG has raised $4.5 million to help revive US production.

RMFG was launched in July 2024 by Kenneth Cassel, a 32-year-old college dropout and Y Combinator graduate, as well as a father of four. Cassel grew up in a large, blue-collar family in Texas and taught himself to code while working maintenance at a gas station company.

"We're in this kind of renaissance where there's a lot of renewed interest in manufacturing," Cassel told Business Insider.

RMFG says it helps startups that don't want to deal with the costs of building their own facilities or face the security risks of going overseas.

Its AI-powered sheet metal factory, located in Dallas-Fort Worth, handles work that is usually done manually, using AI agents and other technologies to handle quoting, automate quality control, and tweak designs. This cuts lead times from months to weeks, the company said.

In the past, factory jobs lacked status, Cassel said, though technology has transformed the industry, and more people are interested in physical products "because they're seeing AI capabilities erode the value of pure software startups," he said.

RMFG is jumping in on the white-hot robotics industry, where most of its clients operate.

"These companies have raised venture capital, they're scaling, they're trying to build out really quickly," Cassel said. "Ultimately, I think it's going to be larger than automotive."

Y Combinator, Day One Ventures, and Soma Capital participated in RMFG's pre-seed round, along with angel investors Balaji Srinivasan, Patrick Collison, Charlie Songhurst, and Joshua Browder.

RMFG says it has shipped more than 100,000 parts in the last year and has about 200 customers, including drill-rig startup Durin, cloud-seeding company Rainmaker, and robotic fulfillment startup Nimble. It offers laser-cut sheet metal parts and plans to expand into additional services, Cassel said.

RMFG has nine employees — mostly in manufacturing. Cassel said the startup will primarily use funds to grow its technology team, which consists of himself and a founding engineer.

Here's a look at the pitch deck RMFG used to raise its $4.5 million pre-seed. Slides have been redacted so that the deck can be shared publicly.