• My brother and I were raised by my grandparents and my great aunts helped. 
• My kids have a special relationship with them, and I'm grateful. 
• The benefits of their intergenerational bond go both ways.

When I was a kid, my aunts were the coolest. Auntie Pauline lived in a ranch house with a pool in Long Island, New York. Her husband, Sy, was the kindest of all my uncles and would stick up for me when my brother and cousin, who were three years older than I was, made fun of me. Pauline's daughter would become and remain one of my closest friends.

Auntie Joanne drove a Chevy Vega hatchback and was the first in the family to go to college. She was a teacher who lived within walking distance. She always made time for me and my brother.

My aunts were always there for my brother and me

After my brother and I went to live with our grandparents in Everett, MA, my aunts became a constant. When my mother died, it tied us together even more tightly. Of course, I was a generation removed because all my aunts were great-aunts. Though the age divide was great, it never stopped us from creating a unique bond.

My aunts helped my grandparents raise me. My Auntie Joanne took me to doctor's appointments, and Auntie Pauline had me over for Thanksgiving when I was in college in New York. I couldn't return home so she made a turkey and we celebrated together. After Auntie Joanne had her son, I became his unofficial nanny, accompanying them on vacations.

When my first marriage ended, I received little support from my brother and grandparents, who could not understand why I would divorce a man they loved. Auntie Pauline called me and left a message on my answering machine. "Nicole," she said, "I don't know what happened, but I wanted to say you are my niece. I love you, and I am on your side." It remains one of the kindest and most loyal things anyone has ever told me.

When I had kids, my aunts loved them, too

When my children came along, my aunts loved them fiercely. Auntie Joanne came for a week after the birth of my fourth child because my grandmother, who had come with my first three children, was battling ovarian cancer. Auntie Pauline made treats for my kids and purchased gifts for all the major milestones.

When my daughter was struggling during middle school, my Auntie Joanne took her for a girls' weekend, providing her a reprieve from the horrors of being 12. Both of them have taken my kids to the zoo and the mall, and they drive close to two hours to attend our family Christmas parties, a tradition I made my own after my grandparents died and our family Christmases changed.

These intergenerational relationships are important

My aunts fostered relationships with my children that allowed my kids to remain close to my side of the family. Through these women, my kids learned about family traditions and heard stories about my life before them. My grandparents died in 2013, and by the time my youngest kids were old enough to remember things, the size of the family had decreased significantly.

This weekend, we are headed to Boston to celebrate my Auntie Pauline's 90th birthday. When I told my 11-year-old son I was making the trip alone, he told me he had to go. He refused to miss seeing her on such an important day.

Throughout every event in my life — and now in my children's lives, too — the aunts, as we've come to refer to them, have been there. Despite the generational differences, they have remained a constant in our lives. They have taught us lessons, made us laugh, and pulled all of us through some of the most challenging times. It is impossible to remember every fun thing and every milestone moment we've celebrated with our great aunts. Without them, a part of my history, and my children's, would not have existed.

• A Colorado couple credits the FIRE movement with helping them grow their net worth to $800,000. 
• FIRE is an acronym for "financial independence, retire early."
• The duo shared their top strategies for increasing their savings. 

Chrissy Arsenault and her husband, Ryan, didn't grow up wealthy. To get ahead financially, they've long known that a combination of "hard work and frugality" would be necessary, Arsenault told Business Insider via email.

So when the couple learned about the FIRE movement in their mid-20s, it was music to their ears.

FIRE is an acronym for "financial independence, retire early." Generally, people who've embraced the FIRE movement want to grow their savings so they can achieve financial freedom and retire before they turn 65 — though some people prefer to keep working. To accomplish their goals, some FIRE advocates save most of their income, take on side hustles, or delay costly life milestones like having kids. Many FIRE advocates trace the movement's philosophy to the 1992 best-selling book "Your Money or Your Life."

To learn more about the FIRE movement, in particular strategies for maximizing savings and reaching financial independence, the couple sought out FIRE-related YouTube videos, Facebook groups, newsletters, and podcasts. They then tried to apply some of that information to their financial strategies.

Their efforts have paid off.

Over the past several years, the couple has grown their combined net worth to more than $800,000, according to documents viewed by BI. Arsenault said their goal is to grow their investments to roughly $2.5 million over the next 10 to 15 years — which she hopes will allow them to retire before she turns 50. Both she and Ryan are in their early 30s.

"Retiring at 65-plus years old just doesn't sound appealing," said Arsenault, who works as a marketing director and is based in Colorado. "I'm sure we'll still be active and healthy at that age, but there's a lot more that we can enjoy when we're in our 40s and 50s."

As many Americans struggle to save for retirement — and many retirees feel they don't have enough to stop working — the FIRE movement has offered a potential blueprint for people who desire financial security. While some people have found success with FIRE, it hasn't been a good fit for everyone, in part because it can require significant savings goals that might not always be realistic. However, FIRE proponents live a wide range of lifestyles. And experts say some principles of FIRE — like the benefits of saving and investing at a young age to take advantage of compounded investment returns — are applicable to a wide audience.

Arsenault shared her and Ryan's top strategies for growing their savings — and the one change to their lifestyle that could make an early retirement a bit more difficult.

How to live a FIRE lifestyle

Arsenault summed up the couple's financial strategy as "spend less, make more, and invest more."

To spend less, she said they've reduced how much they dine out at restaurants, bought in bulk from Costco, planned their own vacations rather than using travel agents, avoided gym memberships by working out at home, and limited alcohol consumption.

They've also postponed certain expenses to save some extra cash.

"I went many years with a broken phone screen and really didn't mind," she said.

To make more money, Arsenault said they've "aggressively pushed for additional income." For Arsenault, this has taken on the form of "climbing the corporate ladder" — she said she landed a six-figure salary at age 26. She also started a side hustle working as a registered dietician, something she focuses on during evenings and weekends.

Ryan works full-time as a human resources professional. In his spare time, Arsenault said he focuses on managing the couple's three investment properties which provide them with passive income. The couple's combined taxable income was roughly $250,000 in 2023, according to a document viewed by BI.

When their strategies generate extra money, the couple invests as much as possible in their 401(k) plans and low-cost index funds.

In case of emergencies, the couple keeps about six months of funds in savings.

Arsenault said saving money was easier when she and Ryan lived in Indiana. The couple relocated to Colorado during the pandemic, a few years into their FIRE savings journey.

One of the biggest differences between the two states has been the housing costs, Arsenault said. The couple is based in Monument, Colorado, where the average home value is about $743,000, per Zillow. In Fishers, Indiana, where they used to live, the average home value is $426,000.

In the years ahead, one lifestyle change could put some additional pressure on the couple's finances: They're expecting their first child, which they know will come with many new monthly expenses.

However, Arsenault said she thinks her financial goals are still achievable, in part because she and Ryan have been planning for life with a newborn. They've even planned how to finance their child's potential college education.

"We've started to save up for his 529 plan so that they can attend college," she said, referring to the investment account that offers tax-free withdrawals when the money is used for certain education expenses.

Are you part of the FIRE movement or living by some of its principles? Reach out to this reporter at jzinkula@businessinsider.com.

• A Business Insider analysis reveals the household income needed to be middle class in major US cities.
• Some parts of the Bay Area require over $100,000 to even be considered middle class.
• Middle-class cutoffs vary widely; they're highest in the West and lowest in the South.

Most Americans consider themselves middle class, but in reality, the cutoffs are more limiting. In some states, just over 40% of residents fall in the middle-income bracket.

This chart shows exactly how much it takes in each major US city to be considered upper, middle, and lower class.

A Business Insider analysis of US Census Bureau data for about 400 metropolitan areas reveals that in some parts of the Bay Area, your household needs to make six figures to be considered middle class, while in a few cities in the South, making six figures is upper class.

Inspired by a GoBankingRates analysis, BI looked at all large metro areas tracked by the US Census Bureau in 2022. BI determined middle-class cutoffs using Pew Research Center's definition of earning between two-thirds and double each metro's median income.

The following table shows our results for all 392 metro areas, sorted from highest to lowest. You can find your hometown using the search bar:

In the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro area in California, being middle class means a household must earn between $99,267 and $297,800. Meanwhile, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, middle-class households make between $29,509 and $88,526.

The Census Bureau notes the real median household income nationally was $74,580 in 2022. This would be considered below middle class in the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley and Washington DC-Arlington-Alexandria metro areas.

Many of the highest-cutoff metro areas are in the West, with seven of the top 20 in California, two in Colorado and Washington, and one in Utah. Among the lowest 20, almost all were in the south in states like Arkansas, Texas, and Georgia.

The New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area was outside the top 20 with cutoffs of $61,041 to $183,124. The Chicago-Naperville-Elgin area was not in the top 50, with cutoffs of $55,276 to $165,828.

Though many Americans may fall into the middle class, according to these calculations, many are still struggling to afford their basic necessities. Some in the ALICE — asset limited, income constrained, employed — demographic have told BI they're worried they may never retire as much of their income goes to expenses such as food, rent, and transportation. For many older Americans, Social Security doesn't cover everything, forcing many to take part- or full-time jobs in their retirement years.

This stress often doesn't go away even as Americans climb the income ladder. HENRYs — or high earners, not rich yet — often make six figures but have told BI that their savings feel inadequate in the case of an emergency or job loss, forcing some to delay having kids or buying a home.

An earlier BI analysis on a state level found that states like New York and California had the lowest percentages of residents in the middle class at under 45%, meaning that more residents were either upper or lower class. California's statewide cutoffs were $61,034 to $183,102, while New York's were $53,038 to $159,114.

Do you feel middle class? Did you move to another state where you could feel more financially secure? Tell this reporter why or why not at nsheidlower@businessinsider.com.

• Airbus forecasts that it'll be able to double the size of its global fleet to 48,230 planes by 2043.
• The demand comes from strong growth in Asia and the Middle East, per Airbus.
• The optimistic outlook stands in stark contrast to Boeing's losses, which have been in the billions.

As its competitor Boeing bleeds millions of dollars in the face of legal issues, Airbus has reported a much more optimistic future outlook.

The aircraft manufacturer revised its 20-year demand outlook in an annual global market forecast, saying it expects to more than double its global fleet size in the next two decades.

The current size is 24,260, per Airbus documents seen by Business Insider. Airbus forecasts that this number will rise to 48,230 by 2043, with 42,430 new deliveries expected until then.

"We see particularly strong growth in Asia and the Middle East, led particularly by India and China," Bob Lange, head of market analysis and forecasts at Airbus, told Reuters.

To be sure, Airbus' positive outlook for the future might be a bright spot in the aviation industry.

Companies like Boeing, for instance, have been bleeding cash. In its first-quarter earnings report, Boeing reported that it burned through $3.9 billion in cash. Boeing also posted a net loss of $355 million in that quarter.

Boeing has also agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge and will cough up $243.6 million to resolve a US Justice Department investigation into two 737 Max fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019.

The department said Boeing violated a 2021 deferred-prosecution agreement, which stipulated that Boeing had to pay $2.5 billion — mostly to the victims' families — and agree to strengthen its safety and compliance program.

The two crashes, which involved its Max 8 models, killed a combined 346 people.

A representative for Airbus did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

When Bob Iger returned to Disney in late 2022 for his second tour as CEO, the company was in dire straits. It had just reported poor earnings, was scrambling from unpopular business moves, and was left reeling from previous CEO Bob Chapek's bad press.

Just a year later, Iger began to put the Mouse House back in order: He delivered a strong earnings report in February, announced partnerships with Epic Games and Taylor Swift, and trumpeted a sports streaming platform. "We have entered a new era," Iger effused to investors during his February earnings call, a nod to the news that Swift's "Eras Tour" film would stream exclusively on Disney+. In response, the company's stock price got a much-needed boost, and investors rejected a public challenge by the activist investor Nelson Peltz to exert control over the company.

Investors' celebration, however, was short-lived. Amid the declining TV business, dismal box-office numbers, and the need to name a successor, Iger continues to face significant problems. Perhaps most concerning of all: Disney is losing its monopoly on kids.

The Disney Channel, once a gateway to all things Disney, plummeted from a top-10 network with nearly 2 million average daily primetime viewers in 2014 to No. 80 with a measly 132,000 in 2023. Kids are now getting their TV fix on streaming, which accounts for two-thirds of TV watch time for children 2 to 11, per Nielsen estimates. There, YouTube has become king. Kids increasingly prefer to zone out for hours watching free short-form videos instead of full-length TV episodes and movies. In April, Nielsen estimated, kids 2 to 11 watched three times as much YouTube as Disney+ content. Meanwhile, Disney said in 2022 that over 60% of Disney+ subscribers were adults without kids at home.

"YouTube is their primary platform of choice," said Alexia Raven, a former Warner Bros. Discovery research vice president who cofounded the consultancy Maverix Insights & Strategy, where she studies kids' viewing behavior. "It meets them where they are and meets their passions in nuanced ways. It really has shifted the entertainment landscape."

Media companies have increasingly incorporated YouTube into their distribution strategies by releasing shorts and trailers there, but it's not an ideal setup. Companies don't control the distribution or revenue from their content, and it's not clear whether YouTube works as an on-ramp to their own properties in the same way the Disney Channel did for Disney. Kids watching Disney clips on YouTube may have no need for Disney+.

Meanwhile, the movie theater is also faltering. The company had a string of box-office bombs and has focused more on creating content just for its streaming service. But by reaching for streaming dominance, Disney seems to be missing kids in a big way.

In some ways, Disney has the same challenges as other long-standing media and entertainment companies like Comcast and Paramount. For years, the conventional wisdom was that they had to get bigger to compete with the tech giants like Google and Netflix. But streaming, advertising, and the box office aren't panning out the way they were supposed to. For Disney, the problem is existential. Without a steady stream of kids growing up on Disney content, the downstream effects for the other arms of its business — such as theme parks and merchandise — look grim. Unless it can recapture the hearts of Gen Alpha, the House of Mouse risks losing its next generation of fans to other brands.

Over the course of a century, Disney transformed a quaint cartoon about a mouse into a sprawling $185 billion empire. It became synonymous with wholesome entertainment for millions of children around the world.

Now, not so much. The most popular kids show for the past two years was "Cocomelon," a show made by Moonbug Entertainment that airs on Netflix. Moonbug — which was acquired in 2021 by two former Disney execs — has quickly gained on giants like Disney, Paramount, and Comcast, clinching the No. 5 spot for kids' entertainment on YouTube in 2023, according to Tubular, a social video analytics company. On YouTube, shows featuring child stars reign supreme — channels like "Kids Diana Show" (123 million subscribers) and "Ryan's World" (37 million) have each captured the attention of millions of children.

"Kids are growing up seeing themselves on these platforms; they're seeing kids like themselves creating the content," Liz Huszarik, a former research executive vice president at WarnerMedia who is now a managing partner at Maverix, said.

It's a trend that parents like Nick Macknight, a streaming media executive who lives in Dallas, knows firsthand. He used to try to get his daughters, ages 2 and 4, to watch his favorite Disney movies from childhood over top YouTube shows like "Kids Diana Show." "I tried desperately because I love 'The Lion King' and 'Aladdin,' but they will just say, 'I'd rather watch something on YouTube,'" he said.

This drift toward YouTube threatens a foundational gateway to the wider world of Disney. The Disney Channel, which started in 1983, used to be a marketing juggernaut for all things Disney — kids were introduced to stars like Justin Timberlake and Zendaya and hit TV movies like "High School Musical." But it's become just another casualty of cable's erosion.

By reaching for streaming dominance, Disney seems to be missing kids in a big way.

Disney is certainly trying to meet kids where they are. To promote "Disney Junior's Ariel," it released a series of shorts on YouTube. And earlier this year, it launched a short-form Winnie the Pooh series on YouTube to test interest in a long-form version. In Disney's biggest games investment ever, Iger bought a $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games to bring Disney characters to mega-popular games like "Fortnite," where kids and young adults are increasingly spending their time and money. The bet is that efforts like these will entice kids to seek out more content on Disney's own platforms. But while Disney is now the top media company on YouTube, gaining traction on other companies' platforms isn't really a solution to its problem. (Disney declined to comment on the record for this story.)

Kids are known to watch things on repeat and play a key role in keeping their families subscribing to streaming services, which makes them especially valuable to media companies. But it can take a long time to develop new franchises that stick in order to realize that lifetime value. Another problem is that the number of kids in the US is rapidly shrinking. Increasingly, media companies are throwing in the towel. When Netflix's growth hit a speed bump in 2022, it and other streamers pulled back on kid programming as they promised investors to make streaming profitable.

In some ways, Disney has followed suit. It's branched out beyond kids into sports, news, and general entertainment, moving to acquire the remaining third of Hulu that it didn't own in 2023. It is also investing more in the growing "Disney adult" market, which makes up about half of its theme-park visitors — a figure that an insider said had gradually increased over time.

Diversifying, though, has had its challenges. Like the rest of traditional TV, Disney's TV business is in decline. The highly profitable Experiences arm, which houses its theme parks and resorts along with merchandise tie-ins, has grown more important over time, contributing 70% of the company's operating income in 2023 compared with less than 25% a decade prior, per Bernstein. But those figures can be misleading. For the past decade, the division has increasingly relied on higher spending per guest rather than increased attendance, Bernstein found. While park and resort attendance has stayed relatively flat, spending per guest grew 7%, raising questions on Wall Street about how much growth is left in parks.

In theory, going after adult audiences — which, unlike kids, advertisers can freely target — could help Disney get its streaming business in the black, but it also puts Disney up against a bigger field of competitors like Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery's Max — platforms that have a head start since they aren't seen as "just for kids" the way Disney is. Iger himself has acknowledged that general entertainment content tends to be undifferentiated compared with Disney's franchises.

For Disney to secure its future, it needs to replenish its pipeline of young fans. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any easy fixes. When he first became CEO of the company in 2005, Iger went on a massive buying spree, snapping up Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm. But today, there's no big equivalent company for it to buy to shore up its kid appeal. Disney already distributes the global kids phenomenon "Bluey," but it doesn't have the merchandising or theme-park rights to it.

It's far too soon to count Disney out, though.

The company has survived plenty of challenges over the decades, from the Great Depression to expensive flops like "The Black Cauldron" and "Mars Needs Moms" to criticisms over its portrayal of minority groups and a surreal public battle with Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis over what critics dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" law.

Kids preferring short-form videos on YouTube over full-length episodes and movies is a problem that Disney doesn't seem to be able to solve.

One silver lining is the strength of Disney's franchises. The company had six of the top 10 streaming movies of 2023, including 2019's wildly popular "Moana," "Encanto" (2021), and "Elemental" (2023), according to Nielsen. And it's still captivating fans with "Star Wars" and Marvel spinoffs like "Andor" and "Ahsoka," which dominate Disney+. After a string of box-office flops, Iger has been public about his plan to course-correct, starting with making fewer titles and leaning on sequels over original titles. In June, Pixar's "Inside Out 2" became the year's biggest-grossing box-office hit, just a week and a half after its release. Its other highly anticipated films of the year are also sequels or spinoffs, like "Moana 2" and "Deadpool & Wolverine." Disney is also shifting resources from digital series to theatrical releases that can make a big splash, as evidenced by recent Pixar cuts that targeted teams focused on streaming.

Disney's reliance on franchises comes with risk, though. When Marvel releases stumbled last year, it cast a pall on the company and left Iger vulnerable to losing control of the company. To regain its dominance in the future, Disney will need some fresh stories.

Whether all this can help Disney get ahead of changing consumer behavior is an open question. Kids preferring short-form videos on YouTube over full-length episodes and movies is a problem that Disney doesn't seem to be able to solve.

When Macknight, the Dallas media executive, sat his kids down to prepare them for a family trip to Disneyland, he showed them a video about the famed theme park. The platform they watched it on? YouTube, of course.

Lucia Moses is a senior correspondent at Business Insider.

• Companies like Walmart are shifting to digital price tags and menus in many of their stores.
• They said they won't use the technology to surge prices at times when products might be in high demand.
• But new pricing strategies could present risks to consumers down the road. 

There's not much the American consumer loves more than a discount, and companies are constantly competing with each other to offer the best prices — or at least make the shopper think that they are.

Take Walmart, the latest big company rolling out new pricing innovations. In early June, it announced it would begin implementing digital, on-shelf labels in 2,300 stores by 2026.

A Walmart spokesperson told Business Insider that, even with the ability to quickly adjust prices via the digital shelf labels, the company will not surge prices for consumers when demand is high: "There is no plan to change the frequency of price changes or implement different pricing methods."

However, the practice brings up major questions for some experts concerned about the implications of shifting pricing strategies. While airlines and ride-hailing companies like Uber have been using surge pricing for decades, experts worry that if dynamic pricing becomes even more prevalent in retail and grocery stores, enabled by technology like digital price tags, consumers could struggle to budget for basic necessities. On the other hand, those with the time and resources to shop around and wait could take advantage of lower prices.

To be sure, adjusting prices based on supply and demand is a basic tenant of the capitalistic system in the US. Many retailers and restaurants have long had differentiated pricing at different times, whether it's a back-to-school sale or a happy hour. However, the digitization of shelf tags and menus, as well as other shopping methods like apps and websites, speeds up the process and allows companies to offer a wide range of prices to different customers — and shoppers could struggle to keep up.

A new era in pricing — rooted in old strategies

The Walmart spokesperson told Business Insider that the primary goal of digital price tags is to streamline tasks for employees, such as the time-consuming process of manually switching out price tags for hundreds of items each day to accommodate changes due to inflation or discounts.

"The new operational efficiencies enabled by digital shelf labels allow associates to spend less time on onerous tasks and more time serving customers and meeting their needs," Greg Cathey, senior vice president of innovation and transformation at Walmart, said in a statement to BI.

Elizabeth Pancotti, the director of special initiatives at the left-leaning think tank Roosevelt Institute, told BI that while digital pricing strategies are not new, she's concerned to see it applied to necessities.

"There are so many folks that are relying on more stable prices. Prices are high, but they're at least stable," Pancotti said. "And you could see a lot more instability. I think when you think about our macroeconomic tools, the Fed doesn't have the ability to fight for price stability when they're waging a war against digital price tags that can change every three seconds."

Imagine it's pouring rain, and you find yourself outside without an umbrella. You see a seller on the corner charging $20 for an umbrella, up from his usual $5 price on a sunny day. You're likely more willing to spend that $20 because you need the umbrella to stay dry, and you have no other option. With digital price tags, big retailers, in theory, could do the same.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has said that type of dynamic pricing is "incredibly important in our economy."

"I think we need to give companies the freedom to do that as long as they're not fixing prices or failing to disclose the nature of the price changes to the public," Powell said during a Senate hearing on monetary policy in March.

Some experts agree, saying dynamic pricing practices could benefit consumers who are able to gain some understanding of the system and shop around. Z. John Zhang, a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, told BI that changing prices throughout the day would allow consumers who cannot afford a full-price product to seek out lower prices and discounts.

"In the airline industry, if you're patient, you can probably wait to buy tickets and get a lower price," he said. "But imagine if you only had one price. That's not very efficient for the company, and certainly that would deny a lot of people access to flights."

But as Wendy's learned earlier this year, some customers are skeptical. Its CEO announced during a February earnings call that it would begin testing out dynamic pricing features like digital menus that could change prices and menu items throughout the day. After customers complained online that those changes would surge prices, a spokesperson announced the company did not intend to implement surge pricing.

Wendy's said the digital menu boards would instead be used to offer discounts to customers more easily. But this type of pricing experimentation is what's making some consumers and experts nervous, especially when they can make these changes without significant oversight, Pancotti said.

"I commend companies for being creative and trying to find these places where they can operate without regulations and without a lot of government capacity," she said. "But I think it's a huge risk for consumers."

What's at stake for shoppers

Some Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern over the rise of new pricing strategies. Sen. Sherrod Brown held a Senate banking hearing in May to address that topic, saying in his opening statement that some companies are "adding electronic menu boards to restaurants and digital price labels to shelves so that corporations can raise the price at a moment's notice."

"It's frustrating, and it makes it impossible for people to compare prices and shop around – key ingredients in any fair, open market," he said. "Families with fixed budgets cannot afford to walk into the grocery store or pharmacy not knowing how far their paycheck will get them."

While many of the companies adopting digital strategies have denied that they will engage in surge pricing, Pancotti said there could be consequences down the road should they do so. For example, Americans relying on federal benefits like SNAP could be impacted the most because the amount of assistance they receive is based on pricing data, and it would be difficult to calculate those benefits accurately should prices constantly change.

As The American Prospect highlighted in a recent series on price gouging, shifting prices could lead to highly personalized pricing in which companies collect data on consumers' shopping habits — they could even find information on income and family size — and tailor prices of products based on that data.

With dynamic pricing already a part of consumers' lives, think changing prices at gas stations, Zhang said shoppers just might have to get used to it as it makes its way into other industries. But they — and lawmakers — will be watching.

"All of this is a game," Pancotti said. "They all have the same goals of maximizing profits, and we're just finding new ways to do so as our economic conditions change."

Where have you seen surge pricing in your life? How does dynamic pricing impact you? Share your story with this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.

• In 1984, Bill Gates went on a radio show to talk about his plan to get PCs in every household.
• Gates talked about the importance of graphics to make computers more accessible and easy to use.
• The Microsoft cofounder also envisioned getting computers "to learn" the same way humans might. 

A newly unearthed interview from the 1980s features Bill Gates talking about one of the earliest iterations of artificial intelligence.

The Microsoft cofounder spoke with the hosts of "The Famous Computer Cafe," a tech-centric radio show that ran in the mid-1980s, according to Kay Savetz, a podcaster and web publisher who found the lost tapes and has raised money to digitize the interviews.

"The Interviews on these radio episodes provided a contemporary account of the dawn of the microcomputer revolution — not tainted by nostalgia," Savetz told Business Insider in an email. "They are a great piece of history now, a time capsule."

Savetz added that the interviews were thought to be lost and that it was a "small miracle" the tapes were found and well preserved.

Gates' interview took place on November 17, 1984. He had just turned 29. Microsoft was only nine years old with less than 900 employees, and according to the US Census Bureau, only 8.2% of US households had a personal computer.

When asked about his expectations for the near future, Gates said he believed everyone would have a PC in their homes.

"I'm a believer that eventually we'll have a machine on every desktop and a machine in every home," he said in the interview.

To achieve that, Gates said computers would have to become easier and fun to use. He explained that graphics would play a key role, so that computers could display pictures, "good-looking text," and a "real-life document."

But another key advancement Gates mentioned hinted at AI.

"Another thing that we're trying to get the computer to do is learn," Gates said in the interview. "That is, after you've used it for a while, then you'll be able to refer back to something you've done previously so you don't have to repeat those commands."

He added that the computer will be able to recognize mistakes the same way "a human coworker might and aid you in the working process with the machine."

Gates said at the time that Microsoft was calling this "softer software," which he described as a "very tough piece of research" to get computers to that level.

The interviewer asked if the idea was similar to artificial intelligence.

"Yes, it is," Gates responded. "But that term is kind of loaded right now. When people hear artificial intelligence, they think of robots and things that are, you know, going to take over the world and that type of stuff. Softer software refers to the simple steps we can take to make the machine learn and recognize what it is you're trying to do."

Forty years after the interview, Microsoft has been looking to integrate AI into its suite of software products, while Gates, long after he stepped down as the company's CEO, predicts the technology will bring a new world order where "AI agents" or digital personal assistants will change how people interact with computers and "upend the software industry," Business Insider's Ashley Stewart reported.

"In the extreme case," Gates said in the 1984 interview, "once software gets 100% soft, then we will have achieved human level of intelligence. That's a long ways away."

Spokespeople for Gates and Microsoft did not return a request for comment from BI.

• Food delivery costs have gone up for customers over the last few years.
• But gig worker earnings have fallen from their early-pandemic highs. 
• That's created a reckoning for food delivery and its business model.

There's a growing contradiction behind that burrito you just had delivered for dinner.

Chances are, you paid a premium — over one-third more than if you had walked into the restaurant for takeout — just to have someone drop it off at your door.

But at the same time, the gig worker who made the delivery for DoorDash, Uber Eats, or a similar service may be getting paid less than they would have a few years ago.

Making deliveries used to be more lucrative — during the pandemic, for instance — but many gig workers now make less than minimum wage. That's driving some to abandon gig work — a possible problem for companies who need delivery drivers to keep clients served, and in a timely fashion.

And while some cities have imposed minimum-wage laws for gig workers, that's also a problem for companies, they say, claiming it's leading to higher costs for consumers.

The increasing tension points to a broader question in the delivery world that's become clearer than ever this year: Can the delivery business be profitable for the companies, affordable for consumers, and pay workers a living wage at the same time?

"I saw the writing on the wall"

One Instacart worker in California said he made delivering for the app his full-time source of income in 2020. But starting early in 2023, his daily earnings started falling.

That's when he first considered that his work for Instacart wouldn't last forever. "I saw the writing on the wall," he told Business Insider. He asked not to be named in this article, citing fear of Instacart deactivating his account.

An Instacart spokesperson said the company's force of gig delivery workers "has remained steady" at about 600,000 in North America and that Instacart has made no changes to what it pays in California.

They also said workers who want to earn more through the app can sign up for different kinds of deliveries, such as prescriptions, alcohol, and heavy items.

That's not enough for the worker.

"I really feel that the gig economy, it's going to be there for a long while," he said. "But as for myself, it's just no longer really worth it." Now, he's looking for a regular full-time remote job.

New laws aim to raise gig worker pay

Cities like New York and Seattle are trying to solve the pay problem with new regulations mandating how much delivery workers earn.

In Seattle, a law that took effect in January aims to pay delivery workers for services, including Instacart and DoorDash, a rate equivalent to the city's $19.97-an-hour minimum wage for W-2 employees, for example.

One worker who has delivered food for DoorDash in Seattle since the law entered into force told BI that he's seen his per-hour earnings increase since January. He asked not to be named in this story for fear of retaliation at work, but BI has verified his identity and work.

"It's more steady," the worker told BI. "Before, you'd go out and make $14 or $16 per hour." Now, his income before taxes and his costs, like vehicle upkeep, are as high as $25 per hour. Unlike employees, contractor delivery workers have to cover many of their own costs.

But the delivery companies are campaigning against Seattle's law. They've also added fees to orders in response to it.

A DoorDash spokesperson told BI that the law has led to higher costs for customers and longer wait times to claim orders for its couriers. "No one wins under this law, including delivery workers," the spokesperson said.

Gig workers have had to get choosier about jobs

The dilemma isn't unique to the food delivery world.

Plenty of startups have attracted early customers by offering their products or services to customers by taking a huge loss — consider all those flyers from meal kit companies like HelloFresh that used to show up in your mailbox offering a dozen or more free dinners for signing up.

The strategy: To get you, the customer, so used to what's being offered that you'll keep paying for it — even when prices start going up.

Timothy Turer, who has worked in rideshare and gig delivery in Florida since 2016, remembers the dirt-cheap fares that Uber and Lyft offered riders early on.

"I had people jump in a car and being like 'You won't believe how much I paid for this ride: $5!'" he told BI. "I'm getting paid $15, so I don't know what you think you're doing, but they're just addicting you to the service."

Today, fares are higher for customers, but Turer said he hasn't seen the benefits. Consequently, he said that he's been more strategic about which rides he takes. He sticks mostly to trips that customers schedule in advance, such as early-morning journeys to the airport, which tend to be more lucrative for him.

Waiting around busy parts of town to pick up rides on the spot no longer makes financial sense, Turer said. "I don't want to do that anymore," he said. "The scheduled rides work very well."

Some workers figure it's better to leave the business

Companies are facing a balancing act between paying workers enough to keep them working, turning a profit, and not hiking prices for customers so much that it turns them off.

It's tough.

In February, Uber posted its first annual profit — but 15 years after its founding.

And rival DoorDash has yet to hit the same milestone despite narrowing losses and growing revenue. Meantime, Instacart, which said it was profitable in 2022 ahead of its IPO, swung to a loss in 2023.

Paying delivery workers is one of the biggest costs for the companies. But with many telling BI that the job has gotten less profitable for them lately, or setting up their own delivery services, or even begging food delivery customers for better tips, it's clear cracks are starting to show in the well-polished delivery system.

Are you a gig worker and have a story idea to share? Reach out to this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com

• Trying to get a better look at an immigration statistics chart might have saved Donald Trump's life.
• The former president was nearly assassinated on Saturday during a rally in Pennsylvania.
• Trump told an ally that if he hadn't tilted his head, he might have been shot, per The New York Times.

Former President Donald Trump might have lost his life on Saturday if he hadn't tilted his head to look at an immigration statistics chart.

Trump had a close brush with death during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. A gunman tried to assassinate the presumptive GOP nominee but failed. The suspect, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper shortly after.

"I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin," Trump said in a Truth Social post on Saturday.

But things could've been so much different, according to Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, who said he spoke to Trump a few hours after the shooting.

Jackson, who used to be Trump's White House doctor, recounted the conversation with The New York Times in a report published Sunday.

"He goes, 'The border patrol saved my life,'" Jackson told the outlet. "He said, 'If I hadn't pointed at that chart and turned my head to look at it, that bullet would have hit me right in the head.'"

Trump, who was left wounded by the attack, said on Saturday that a bullet had "pierced the upper part of my right ear."

Although Trump managed to survive, Crooks' bullets were still deadly. The Secret Service said that one rallygoer died in the attack while two others were left critically injured.

"I'm not supposed to be here, I'm supposed to be dead," Trump told the New York Post on Sunday. "By luck or by God, many people are saying it's by God, I'm still here."

Representatives for Trump didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

• Andrew Lambrecht decided to fight procrastination by trying Dr. Anna Lembke's dopamine reset.
• The reset involves abstaining from addictive activities for 30 days to recalibrate the brain.
• By cutting his screen time for a month, he saw improvements in productivity and academic performance.

One morning at the end of the fall 2022 semester, I left the library at 5 a.m. Since arriving earlier the previous evening, I hadn't accomplished any meaningful work. That night, I fell into a disastrous cycle of procrastination.

From doomscrolling social media to binge-eating vending machine snacks, I gave into distractions so much that my willpower was indefinitely exhausted, my sleep schedule was ruined, and I had a dreadful week of final exams.

Over winter break, I wanted to devise a plan to succeed in the spring semester. My goal was to resist distraction and become a more productive worker, but I didn't know how.

I asked Dr. Anna Lembke, a Stanford psychiatry professor and the author of "Dopamine Nation," for the answer.

An era of overconsumption associated with dopamine

Several regions in our brains house dopaminergic neurons. These neurons create dopamine, a chemical messenger constantly traveling through "reward pathways." Dopamine is related to everything from physical movement to memory, motivation, and attention.

We're surrounded by addictive substances and reinforcing activities. Once habits are started, altering them typically requires great energy. Dr. Lembke told me the best way to escape this vicious cycle of highs and lows is to abstain from the addictive substances altogether.

She recommends that individuals abandon their favored instantly gratifying activity for 30 days, which provides enough time for their neural circuitry to recalibrate.

My drugs of choice are social media and online car shopping. Before my reset, I spent an average of three to four hours daily on these apps. I embarked on a 30-day mindfulness period to regain control of my life.

Beginning Dr. Lembke's reset

I started my reset after spring break last year to make the second half of the semester as productive as possible. I deleted Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and even LinkedIn from my phone.

I signed out of the accounts on my laptop and abstained from browsing car shopping websites, a habit I would resort to whenever I felt bored or stressed out. I started strong with nothing to do on my computer but school and writing assignments.

Within the first week, my screen time was already significantly down — under an hour and 30 minutes — but I occasionally felt the urge to scroll through Instagram or search for used cars I'd probably never buy. Dr. Lembke said developing the desire to return to one's favored pleasurable activity is a normal part of a dopamine reset.

"Because we're in this dopamine deficit state, we're now not getting this exogenous source of dopamine. We feel worse before we feel better, but usually, by about day 10 to 14, the body starts to get the memo … and then people start to get out of that craving state," Dr. Lembke said.

I replaced my screen time with more productive activities

I replaced scrolling through Twitter with reading and started running again. While certainly not as instantly gratifying as social media, these tasks gave me a sense of accomplishment when I finished. After the first week passed, I was becoming accustomed to my new lifestyle.

Dr. Lembke also recommends disabling push notifications, specifically from social media outlets. "Turn all that stuff off so that you're not in this mode of reacting to your device, but you're very intentional about when you're going to go on and how you're going to use it," she said. Her concept lies within a redistribution of control, ensuring that the device doesn't dictate your interactions with it but instead is managed by you.

By the second two weeks, adhering to the regimen became much easier.

Enabling lifelong habits

At the end of my 30-day experiment, it was time for final exams. I secured eighteen credit hours with a semesterly GPA increase of 55%. I began to enjoy college more and felt better prepared to tackle greater tasks.

During the experiment, I noticed several things. According to Lembke, temporary pain, whether a cold shower or a long-distance run, can ease the transition to starting a harder task, like homework. Walking to class without listening to music through my AirPods made it easier to lock in and get work done.

Another observation is that my connections with friends strengthened once I was off social media. I couldn't connect with them online, but I felt our in-person conversations were more meaningful.

Most notably, I became far more aware of my phone usage. I've stopped scrolling on Instagram when I wake up, and I no longer feel compelled to check social media incessantly. My screen time dwindled to less than an hour daily, and I felt better than ever.

I logged back into my socials, but I proceeded cautiously

Dr. Lembke recommends self-binding strategies to limit your use of social media platforms, like making your phone black and white. Setting the display on a smartphone to grayscale makes it a more boring experience, so you may not want to stay on as long.

I switched my phone and laptop to grayscale. Browsing the used car market is a lot more bland when all the options are in various hues of gray.

Moreover, time away from tech can give users a perspective switch, which significantly helps productivity. Whenever I'm working on something now, I resist the urge to watch YouTube or scroll through social media. Recognizing these distractions for what they truly are — detours from the road of productivity — rather than pastimes for moments of boredom is critical for enhancing efficiency and focus.

Cutting out excessive screen time was for the better

I got into a bit of a productivity slump this year, so I took another monthlong abstinence period. It gave me more time to write, focus on school, and catch up on reading.

I still use social media, though I typically schedule content ahead of time and log out after posting. By "posting and ghosting," I can reap the benefits of being active online without becoming distracted.

I also disable notifications on most non-essential apps, so my phone and laptop aren't inundated by a constant stream of usually unimportant information. I get far more meaningful work done than before.

My main takeaway from Dr. Lembke's 30-day experiment is that intentions are key. Rather than letting external stimuli determine our actions and behaviors, we should purposefully interact with them.