• Big Tech companies like OpenAI, Meta, and Google are in an epic race for data to train AI.
• Ali Golshan, CEO of Gretel, believes synthetic data is a better alternative to public data.
• He says synthetic data supports privacy, reduces biases, and enhances AI model accuracy.

The global AI arms race has unleashed a war for data.

Companies at the forefront of the technology, like OpenAI, Meta, and Google, are scouring the internet and troves of books, podcasts, and videos searching for data to train their models.

Some industry leaders, however, worry this kind of "land grab" for publicly available data isn't the right approach, especially since it puts companies at risk of copyright lawsuits. Instead, they're calling for companies to train their models on synthetic data.

Synthetic data is artificially generated rather than collected from the real world. It can be generated by machine learning algorithms with little more than a seed of original data.

Business Insider chatted with Ali Golshan, CEO and cofounder of Gretel, who one might call an evangelist for synthetic data. Gretel allows companies to experiment and build with synthetic data. It is working with major players in the healthcare space, such as genomics company Illumina, consulting firms like Ernst & Young, and consumer companies like Riot Games.

Golshan says synthetic data is a safer and more private alternative to "messy" public data, and that it can shepherd most companies into the next era of generative AI development.

The following conversation has been edited for clarity.

Why is synthetic data better than raw public data?

Raw data is just that: raw. It's often filled with holes, inconsistencies, and biases from the processes used to capture, label, and leverage it. Synthetic data, on the other hand, allows us to fill those gaps, expand into areas that can't be captured in the wild, and intentionally design the data needed for specific applications.

This level of control, with humans in the loop designing and refining the data, is crucial for pushing GenAI to new heights in a responsible, transparent, and secure manner. Synthetic data enables us to create datasets that are more comprehensive, balanced, and tailored to specific AI training needs, which leads to more accurate and reliable models.

Great, are there any cons to synthetic data?

Where synthetic data isn't very good is at the end of the day, if you have no data or clarity, you can't just have it create perfect data for you just, so you can experiment endlessly. So there is that scope that needs to be created.

Ultimately, the other part of it is that synthetic data is very good at privacy if you have enough data. So, if you have only a few hundred records and want ultimate privacy, that comes at a huge cost to utility and accuracy because the data is very limited. So, when it comes to absolutely zero data and wanting a domain-specific task or having very limited data and wanting great privacy and accuracy, those are just incompatible with the approaches.

What are the challenges of using public data?

Public data presents several challenges, especially for specialized use cases in healthcare. Imagine trying to train an AI model for predicting COVID-19 outcomes using only publicly available case count data — you'd be missing crucial specifics like patient comorbidities, treatment protocols, and detailed clinical progression. This lack of comprehensive data severely limits the model's effectiveness and reliability.

Adding to this challenge is the growing regulatory pressure against data collection practices. The Federal Trade Commission and other regulatory bodies are increasingly pushing back against web scraping and unauthorized data access — and rightly so. As AI becomes more powerful, the risk of re-identifying individuals from supposedly anonymized data is higher than ever.

There's also the critical issue of data freshness across all industries. In today's fast-paced business environment, organizations need real-time data to remain competitive and train models that respond rapidly to changing market conditions, consumer behaviors, and emerging trends. Public domain data often lags by weeks, months, or even years, making it less valuable for cutting-edge AI applications that require up-to-the-minute insights.

What do you think about companies like Meta and OpenAI that are willing to risk copyright lawsuits to get access to public data?

The era of 'move fast and break things' is over, especially in the age of GenAI, where there's too much at stake to operate in such a flippant manner. We're advocating for an approach that leads with privacy. By prioritizing privacy from the start and embedding it into the customers' AI products and services — by design — you get faster, more sustainable, and defensible AI development. That's what our partners and, ultimately, their customers want. In this sense, privacy is a catalyst for GenAI innovation.

This privacy-first approach is why partners like Google, AWS, EY, and Databricks work with us. They know that current methods are unsustainable and the future of AI will be driven by consensual, licensed data and thoughtful data-driven design, not by grasping at every bit of public data available. It's about creating a foundation of trust with your users and stakeholders, which is crucial for long-term success in AI development.

Companies are scrambling to build models that unlock insights from proprietary data. Where does synthetic data fit into that equation?

By some estimates, companies use only 1-10% of the data they collect. The rest is stored and siloed so that few can even access or experiment with it. This creates additional costs and data breach risks with no return value. Now, imagine if a company could safely open access to that remaining 90% of data. Cross-functional teams could collaborate and experiment with it to extract value without creating additional privacy or security risks. That level of knowledge sharing would be a huge boon for innovation.

It's like we're moving from the parable of the blind men trying to describe an elephant to each other. Each only has a grasp and understanding of the part they can touch; the rest is a black box. Providing an entire organization with shared access to the 'crown jewels' and the opportunity to surface new insights from that data would be a paradigm shift in how companies and products are built. This is what people mean when they speak of 'democratizing' data.

There are already ways of training smaller models with a fraction of the data we may have once used that yield great results. Where are we headed regarding the amount of data we need for training generative AI?

The idea of throwing the kitchen sink, in terms of data, to train a large language model is part of the problem and reflects the old 'move fast and break things' mentality. It's a land grab by companies with the means to do that, while AI regulations are still being hashed out.

Now that the dust is settling, people are realizing that the future lies in smaller, more specialized models targeted to very specific tasks and orchestrating the actions of these models through an agentic, systematic approach. This specialized model approach provides more transparency and removes much of the 'black box' nature of AI models since you're designing the models from the ground up, piece by piece.

It's also where regulation is heading. After all, how else will companies adhere to 'risk-based' regulations if we can't even quantify AI risks for each task we apply them to?

This shift toward more focused, efficient models aligns perfectly with differential privacy and synthetic data. We can generate precisely the data needed for these narrow AI models, ensuring high performance without the ethical and practical issues of massive data collection. It's about smart, targeted development rather than the brute-force approach companies have taken.

• TV producers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato created "Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles" almost 20 years ago. 
• It launched a genre of shows following the professional pressure and personal tensions of real-estate brokers' lives. 
• Bailey and Barbato break down the appeal of the genre as their latest show, "Owning Manhattan" with star broker Ryan Serhant premieres.

One Los Angeles real-estate agent might single-handedly be responsible for launching two decades of reality television.

In 1994, producers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato landed in Los Angeles from New York City and needed a place to live. Friends recommended agent Debby Berg and they were immediately enamored. Berg had a larger-than-life personality, drove "an enormous gold Mercedes," and was so small she had to sit on the Yellow Pages phone book to see over the dashboard, Bailey and Barbato told Business Insider.

"Every time you got in her car, you were kind of taking your life in your own hands," said Bailey.

Together, the trio cruised around LA and Berg found them a four-bedroom Hollywood Hills home she described as "Brigadoon," the magical Scottish village from the 1954 movie.

But the process sparked an idea: Real-estate brokers might be stars who are just as big as the homes they sell.

Bailey and Barbato went on to produce "Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles," which followed the lives of agents selling luxury properties in neighborhoods like Brentwood and Beverly Hills. By season 6 in 2013, episodes were averaging over 1 million viewers. As the years passed, agents like Tracy Tutor and the Altman brothers became nationally known personalities with massive social media followings.

Bravo launched spinoffs in New York, Miami, and San Francisco, and streaming giant Netflix made its own version with shows like "Selling Sunset," "Selling the OC," and "Buying Beverly Hills."

Now Bailey and Barbato are launching another real estate show — "Owning Manhattan," premiering June 28 on Netflix — with one of their "Million Dollar Listing New York" stars: Ryan Serhant.

Serhant, now 39, leveraged his television career into a massive social media following, with over 2 million followers on Instagram. According to his website, he's closed $8 billion in sales to date and opened his own brokerage.

The pair also produce "RuPaul's Drag Race," which, over 16 seasons, has won 29 Primetime Emmys and minted dozens of drag superstars. They told Business Insider they believe in the star power of agents and say there are marked similarities between the worlds of drag and real estate.

"Brokers are kind of like drag queens," said Barbato. "They're self-made. They're putting on a show for you."

It's no mistake that many agents in Los Angeles and New York are former actors themselves, he added.

Once, the pair were touring Gore Vidal's Los Angeles home during an open house, and a dead rat appeared in the pool. Without missing a beat, they recalled, the agent told everyone attending it was a "sign of good luck."

"That's a born entertainer," said Bailey.

Real estate was not an easy sell to TV executives at first

Early on, Bailey and Barbato said, real-estate agents were not obvious television gold.

They said the biggest obstacle was convincing network executives that among the details of dealmaking was a storyline audiences could follow.

Closure became a big obstacle. In real estate, deals fall through all the time, and interested parties back out at the last second. Agents could lose a client for any number of reasons, or a seller may decide to stay put after all. The producing pair has learned to trust the process and follow more storylines than might actually make the air.

"You have to be willing to follow a story that might not end how you want it to," said Barbato. For "Owning Manhattan," the duo said they filmed 20 different sales listings represented by Serhant and his fellow brokers, but only seven resulted in deals.

Audiences naturally want to peek behind the curtains to see how others live, and sometimes it's best to let the brokers work their magic and sell the home's fantasy, they said.

In the first episode of "Owning Manhattan," Serhant shows off a listing atop the world's tallest residence, the three-story penthouse at Central Park Tower, asking $195 million. Standing on the tallest terrace in New York City, he tells another agent that one billionaire who toured the space had a very specific question.

"If I put a ping-pong table here, would it be the tallest ping-ping table in the world?" Serhant recalled the billionaire asking.

The producers like to focus on the business drama

Though brokers' big personalities may make fascinating draws, the producers say they like to focus on business, not interpersonal conflicts.

"We're really interested in the transactional element, not leaning on soap," said Barbato.

In "Owning Manhattan," viewers get a firsthand glimpse of Serhant selling in real time as he attempts to close a deal for the tallest residence in the world.

"You're not just buying luxury, you're buying scale," he says in the first episode of the show, highlighting the windows he adds are among the largest single-pane pieces of glass in the world and emphasizing that the trophy property sits "higher than helicopters" and their usual flight path.

Serhant then brags about his "buydar," his ability to sniff out when a buyer is serious. Standing above the clouds, he points to another luxury building below, explaining to the agent that its penthouse just closed at $22,000 per square foot. With the Central Park Tower pad asking just $14,000 per square foot, it's practically a steal, he argues in the show.

Viewers will follow Serhant in "Owning Manhattan" as he attempts to make his namesake brokerage firm the No. 1 firm in New York. They're already "the greatest real estate brokerage in the history of the known universe," he says to the camera with a wink.

The audience will have to wait to find out if that's true.

When in doubt, the producers have learned to let the houses themselves tell the story.

"Inside these properties is a map of the human mind," Bailey said.

• A tourism ad for Oslo, Norway has taken the internet by storm.
• VisitOSLO's marketing manager worried the ad's "self-irony" wouldn't translate to global audiences.
• Richie Karaburun, a hospitality and tourism professor, said the ad's authenticity is key to its success. 

Don't visit Oslo. That's what the city's new tongue-in-cheek marketing campaign declares.

VisitOSLO, the official marketing agency for Norway's capitol, debuted the ad last week. The video follows a 31-year-old resident named Halfdan, played by Bendik Aunan, who doesn't understand why anyone would want to visit Oslo.

"I mean, is it even a city?" he asks.

Halfdan takes audiences on a tour of Oslo while remaining thoroughly unimpressed by the city's walkability, quality of service, accessibility, and gorgeous landscapes.

Despite Halfdan's lukewarm feelings about his hometown, the ad has quickly amassed millions of views and sent Oslo to the top of travelers' bucket lists. Some people have praised the ad's dry and somewhat self-deprecating humor on social media.

Anne-Signe Fagereng, the agency's marketing manager, said in a press release that they knew using "typical Norwegian self-irony" would be risky, especially in a global market.

"Oslo has in recent years emerged as a truly exciting destination but is probably still a well-kept secret for many," she said.

She added: "The inspiration for the ad is Oslo's position as an underdog as far as city break destinations go – both in Europe and in the Nordics. However, Oslo has been through an incredibly positive transformation over the last few decades, so it's time our confidence in our capital catches up with reality."

VisitOslo's risk is exactly why it's resonating with audiences

Richie Karaburun, a clinical associate professor at NYU's Center of Hospitality and Tourism, said the ad's success lies in its authenticity and storytelling.

Unlike other tourism ads that show sun-kissed beaches and flashy attractions, VisitOslo's video prioritized the city's understated local charms with witty humor. Instead of unnamed glossy models, audiences meet Halfdan and his reluctant attitude.

"You need to create an emotional connection between your visitors and your destination. That resonates," he said.

Karaburun, who visited Oslo with his family last summer, added that travelers are craving that emotional connection when they book vacations. Some travelers have begun shunning traditional tourist traps for smaller, less crowded destinations that offer a glimpse into local communities.

Oslo could thrive with this type of traveler. The ad suggested so when Halfdan compares Oslo to Paris, Istanbul, and New York City.

"I think it is going to have a huge impact on Oslo's branding," Karaburun said of the ad. "Hopefully, it will impact the numbers because, at the end, it's all about the increased visitation numbers."

Karaburun said that if Oslo continues to attract travelers with unique ads, the city could emerge as a coveted destination.

"If they keep on doing these very creative destination marketing ads, I think they're on the right path to being well known like Istanbul, Paris, and New York."

• The Embraer Phenom 300E is the most flown aircraft in the US.
• Plus, it's the best-selling light jet of the past 12 years.
• See inside the compact aircraft that has a best-in-class speed of Mach 0.80.

The most flown aircraft in the US is not only a private jet, but a light jet just 51 feet long.

I went inside an Embraer Phenom 300E at the European Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition in Geneva in May, and had a look around.

It was a tight squeeze since the cabin is less than five feet tall, but this makes sense when you know the jet is designed for shorter journeys.

The $10 million plane leads the light-jet sector — being the best seller for the past 12 years. That's largely because it's the fastest and has the furthest range at around 2,300 miles.

Plus, it only requires one pilot to fly, reducing operational costs for customers.

At the end of May, I visited Geneva to attend EBACE — Europe's largest business aviation conference.

The aircraft on display varied hugely, from four-seat turboprops to a fully customized Boeing 737 Max worth over $100 million.

One of the more understated planes on display was the Embraer Phenom 300E, the newest version of the most flown aircraft in the US.

Last August, the planemaker announced that the Phenom 300 logged over two million flight hours, overtaking the similarly-sized Cessna Citation Excel.

A light jet powered by Pratt & Whitney PW500 engines, it has a range of around 2,300 miles.

That's just far enough to cross the US coast-to-coast.

The Phenom 300 has also been the best-selling light jet for the last 12 years.

I had to duck my head to fit inside the cabin, which is 4 feet and 11 inches tall, since it's designed for shorter trips.

The inside was indeed snug, but there was still space for a two-person divan in the galley …

… As well as a small area for refreshments.

The cockpit has two seats, but the 300E requires only one pilot. In fact, it's the fastest and longest-range single-pilot jet on the market.

Its top speed is Mach 0.80 — equivalent to 534 mph at 35,000 feet. By comparison, an Airbus A320neo usually cruises at Mach 0.78, or 520 mph.

The 8 best 'personal' private jets that only require one pilot to fly

It also uses fly-by-wire technology, which Embraer initially developed for its military aircraft.

Instead of mechanical flight controls, fly-by-wire uses computer-controlled systems to process the pilots' input. That also means better fuel efficiency as there are fewer parts and lighter wires.

Concorde was the first commercial jet to use fly-by-wire until the Airbus A320, which proved to be a pivotal chapter in the competition between Airbus and Boeing.

The cabin is configured with six seats.

If you look closely you can see me in the mirror, hunched over quite uncomfortably. But again, since it's a light jet, there isn't usually much need to walk around the cabin.

The four seats in the front have tables that pop out from the side, next to the vase of flowers.

While the rear seats don't have a table, there's at least a drink holder and good legroom.

In the aft, there's a compact bathroom, where the toilet can also be used as a seat.

Some of the larger jets I've seen, like the Gulfstream G700, don't have a window in the bathroom, so that's a nice luxury perk.

Qatar Airways has received the world's first $81 million Gulfstream G700 private jet as it caters to elite customers — take a look inside

The Phenom 300E might be a smaller jet, but for many customers that's all it needs to be. It's easy to see why it's proved popular thanks to its technical specs.

In some ways, that also sums up Embraer's commercial airliners. It's the third main player behind Boeing and Airbus, but doesn't compete directly since its narrowbody jets are smaller.

The E175 and E195 are four-abreast regional jets, versus the six-abreast of a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320.

Last month, Embraer denied a report from The Wall Street Journal that it was planning to build a new narrowbody jet to compete directly with the two, amid Boeing's ongoing crisis.

"Embraer certainly has the capability to develop a new narrowbody aircraft. However, we have a young and very successful portfolio of products developed in recent years, and we are really focused on selling those products and making Embraer bigger and stronger," a spokesperson said.

• I love traveling and enjoy taking solo trips to reconnect with who I am outside being a mom.
• Every year, I take a trip by myself and always come back to my family feeling refreshed.
• Though I sometimes feel guilty for spending the time and money, it's so worth it.

I grew up moving often, rarely attending the same school for a full year, and learning to find my way around new places every few months. For better or worse, this shaped how I approached life as an adult, making me more open to new places, people, and experiences throughout my life.

One result of this openness is a love of travel — I've visited 40 of the 50 United States and 25 countries (and counting). Traveling is a core part of who I am, and while I love the ability to travel with my family, it's also a priority for me to take a trip once a year by myself or with friends to stay connected to the person I was before having kids.

I started traveling alone early in life

In my early 20s, I was offered a severance package when my company merged with another and laid off much of the staff, including me. With no strong ties to the city I lived in at the time and no real love for the work, I decided to take the money, buy a one-way ticket to Europe, and see how long I could make it last.

I stayed in Europe for six months, traveling by train anywhere I wanted to go on a whim. I drank the best whiskey sour of my life in a back-alley bar in Krakow, learned about the drum-and-bass scene in Berlin from a Parisian hostel mate, watched a fútbol match in San Sebastian with locals, and learned to snowboard from an Australian trio of plumbers in Chamonix.

The trip changed my view of traveling alone. No longer was it scary or unattainable. Instead, it was full of magical surprises and kind people — strangers who became fast friends. It was joyful and enthralling, and I loved it.

Learning to travel as a parent and partner

About a decade later, after my love of solo travel was well-established, I met and married my husband, and then I became a parent. One of the things my now-husband quickly learned about me was that I wanted to continue traveling alone occasionally, and he has always supported me in this. So, I still take an annual solo trip these days.

While it's hard to leave my family behind, it's also hard to say no to things that feed my soul. Like many parts of parenting, traveling solo is a push-pull in two directions for me. I want to explore the world, and I also want to soak up every moment I can with my family.

So, I have some rules about when and how I travel. I never take trips when I know or suspect something big might happen, like an important school event or one of my kids taking their first step soon. I usually plan trips that last three to four days, but never more than seven. (For now, anyway, as the kids get older, that might change.) And I'm always available for Facetime at some point during the day.

But I also always make time for the trip.

Solo trips refresh me and help me maintain my identity

At some point, I'll become an empty nester. When that time comes, I don't want to have forgotten who I am outside "mom," and my annual solo trip helps me remember who that is. They offer an opportunity to explore what I'm interested in and what it feels like to think about what I want to do with my "one wild and precious life."

From learning to build my first campfire in the Rocky Mountains to learning the history of the Alhambra in Spain, each trip I've been privileged to take has taught me something new about myself and the world. While I sometimes feel slightly guilty about taking time for myself and spending money on a solo trip — even if they aren't necessarily luxury destinations — at the end of each one, I'm grateful for the reminder of who I am as my own person. Not a wife, not a mother, not an employee. Just a person living in this amazing world with limited time to explore it on my own terms.

As a woman and a mother, I know it isn't always easy to make or take time for ourselves. But after two decades of traveling alone, I can promise you it's always worth it.

Remi never intended to secretly outsource her job. It sort of just happened.

After graduating from college in 2019 with a degree in education, the Gen Zer found work at a Chicago publishing company. She did not love it. Most of her colleagues were decades older than her, and their struggles to use basic software forced her to become a one-woman IT operation. The work itself was uninspiring and relentless: On most days she juggled presentation slides, managed spreadsheets and databases, and formatted page layouts.

The pandemic provided a respite from the tedium of in-office interactions. But it didn't lessen her workload, and she quietly began asking her boyfriend, a STEM major working in a lab, for occasional help. Certain she'd be fired for it, she didn't tell her employer.

Then her mother died.

Remi was appointed executor of the estate, and settling her mother's affairs was a never-ending nightmare: wading through countless gambling debts, maintaining the crumbling family home, and distributing the few remaining assets. Though she took a leave of absence from work and continued to rely on her boyfriend when she returned, she couldn't keep up. Soon, she also turned to a childhood friend, who was unemployed and needed money. Remi proposed a plan: She'd pay her friend $100 a book to help with editing and formatting, saving her hours of work every week. The friend eagerly accepted. Her colleagues, meanwhile, remained clueless.

And just like that — although she didn't know it — Remi had become part of a hidden movement that went far beyond her Chicago publishing company.

Across the globe, a wave of workers are secretly outsourcing parts or all of their jobs. Labor has never been easier to invisibly offload, thanks to a perfect storm of factors: globalized social networks, ubiquitous software tools, and the pandemic. An inadvertent byproduct of the rapacious, profit-seeking impulse that drives our global economy, this corporate subterfuge stretches from high-powered Silicon Valley techies to legions of low-paid helpers in India and Pakistan.

Welcome to the world of shadow stand-ins.

Stories about covert outsourcing are nothing new. Essay mills and faux test-taking have become perennial problems in academia, and gig-economy workers are occasionally caught lending their accounts to friends. Walter Keane gained notoriety in the 1960s for passing off "big eyes" paintings by his wife, Margaret, as his own. In 2012, a Verizon engineer was caught farming out his work to a team in China so he could browse Reddit all day. But in most workplaces, the idea of hiring someone to do your job for you seemed so outlandish that The Onion satirized it in 2009 as the natural endpoint to globalization and American laziness.

No longer.

I talked to dozens of players in the shadow stand-in economy, including people like Remi, hired helpers, and those who have watched colleagues or friends partake. (Citing reputational or professional risks, most spoke on condition of anonymity or asked to be identified only by their first or middle name.) Given its clandestine nature, it's difficult to know just how many people the network scoops up. But providers told me they had seen a surge in popularity since 2020, a consequence of the pandemic and its attendant remote-work revolution. The past four years have transformed workplace norms, liberating millions from commutes and precipitating a wave of alienation from professional life — while providing eye-watering opportunities for the hungry or unscrupulous.

"It becomes very easy for people to take the support when working from home," said one shadow stand-in who lives in India and who has been in business since 2019. "After the pandemic," said another from Pakistan, the industry "boomed."

There's no one model for how shadow stand-ins work, and practitioners use different terms: outsourcing, delegating, proxy work, subcontracting, virtual assistants, offshoring, or the delightfully euphemistic "job support." It ranges from doling out small tasks to providing someone login credentials for full remote access. Some people want a mentor, some want a crutch after using "proxy interview" services to cheat their way through the hiring process, and some just want the productivity guru Tim Ferriss' "4-Hour Workweek" on steroids. Others use the free time to rake in cash by working multiple jobs, a twist on the concept of overemployment.

Though Remi recruited people she knew, shadow stand-ins are often sourced from a complex online web of faceless providers. Sites like Fiverr and Upwork are common conduits; a designer in the Southwestern US told me he would periodically hire two freelancers for the same job and discard the inferior work. Platforms like Facebook, Telegram, and WhatsApp are full of job support groups with thousands of members each. dedicated to matching providers and users. In one recent Facebook post, an Atlanta man struggling with his Salesforce-related job offered half his salary to anyone willing to quietly hold his hand through tasks and meetings. In another, a woman in San Jose, California, working for a major tech firm asked for help with a short programming assignment.

"Job support is nothing bad," Raj Kumar, the Bengaluru, India-based cofounder of Onlinejobsupport.net, told me. He simply sees it as an "advanced version of training." Like many professional job-support firms, his team often acts as a kind of black-market IT helpdesk, using screen-sharing software to dial in to their clients' computers for a few hours a day to give pointers as they work — or completing the work themselves if the client would rather be elsewhere.

You could hire shadow stand-ins in many workplaces, assuming your boss isn't looking too closely. But it's much more common in jobs in technology and IT. SaaS tools and tech services like Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Amazon Web Services have become the plumbing for our global economy, used by everyone from fast-fashion retailers to nonprofits, and their cookie-cutter systems make it easy for anyone with the right skills to quietly step in.

For the past few years, an American Java developer named Kevin has been living in Southeast Asia and outsourcing his jobs — all three of them. With the help of a Filipino friend acting as a recruiter, he brought on three local "virtual assistants," offloading nearly all of his technical work. He writes formal assignment sheets for each worker; "Implement a test for valid JSON in POST content," reads a typical directive.

Needless to say, none of his employers — finance and construction firms — know about one another, and his workers are similarly in the dark. Even his location is a secret: He told his bosses he was based in the United States, and he works nights to avoid detection. "It's low-cost labor or low cost of living, mostly," Kevin explained. "I'm making three American incomes, but I'm paying Filipino rates to live."

He's an extreme example of a user of shadow stand-ins. But whether they're juggling multiple jobs or outsourcing the odd task, they tend to have one thing in common: a deep skepticism of traditional corporate values.

Some believe if the work gets done, no matter how unconventionally, there's no problem. "Everybody has a different moral compass and a different thing that they say: 'This crosses the line for me,'" said Andrew, a consultant in Colorado who has outsourced work to freelancers and family members. He views "quiet quitting" — deliberately coasting at work — as far more odious. "I don't believe somebody hires me for my time. They hire me to get results for them," he said.

Others, like the Southern California developer Brandon Nowak, have contemplated dipping their toe in the water. He told me that shadow stand-ins are an inevitable outcome to our system of making money. "Companies themselves are taking advantage of you, by hiring you to do work which they reap more value from you than they give to you. That is the basis of capitalism," he said. "I'm not an anti-capitalist necessarily, but I don't fault anyone — myself included — for looking to turn those tables on the companies themselves."

There is one wrinkle to this line of thinking. Some shadow stand-in connoisseurs — particularly those who ship their work to offshore helpers earning much less — are arguably replicating the same structures they're trying to rebel against.

"For-profit corporations are government-sanctioned psychopaths, existing only to predatorily and parasitically earn profit," Kevin said. "Corporations are owed no moral obligation whatsoever, any more than a hen owes a fox moral consideration. The only rational response is to extract as much as possible."

But, he conceded, "I readily admit I can't provide a consistent response to the problem of pushing predator-parasite further down the line."

Soon after hiring her friend, Remi had an awkward realization: They were bad at the job.

Sometimes, they made glaring errors. Reformatted manuscripts came back with page numbers inserted into paragraphs, or charts were missing data. Remi effectively demoted them, adjusting the arrangement to pay $10 for each individual chapter, but that created new problems: Since they took hours to complete what usually took her 30 minutes, she was effectively paying them less than minimum wage.

Their friendship suffered, too. "I'd give soft corrections on how I would like the work to be done, and they would be a little defensive about it, or wouldn't take the note," Remi said.

After two months, Remi decided to fire them, fibbing that she simply no longer needed help. She turned back to her boyfriend, who began working for her more consistently.

The dustup highlighted a key drawback to shadow stand-ins: While alluring, things can go horribly wrong.

Half a dozen workers at different companies in the US and India told me they knew of colleagues who had secretly outsourced work. Problems invariably piled up, they said: The work was inadequate; there were inconsistencies in communication; and organizational chaos abounded.

"If you can't trust your employee — if they're dishonest and they're not telling you the truth about one thing — that could mean that they're not telling you the truth about other things," said Amber Clayton, a senior director at the Society for Human Resource Management, an HR industry body. "I wouldn't want that individual within the organization, because who knows what they would do?"

Even when it goes right, managing a secret helper or two can be laborious. Your conventional workload may be lightened, but it's replaced with finding and vetting helpers, delegating tasks, reviewing the completed work, and living in constant fear of being found out. "It required a lot of micromanaging," said a backend engineer in Pennsylvania who hired shadow stand-ins to help him juggle multiple jobs. "It's like you were working — but then on top of that, it became another task of just managing them."

Occasionally, the problems can have implications far beyond the workplace.

In December, Tim Woodruff, a ServiceNow developer in Washington state, got a curious LinkedIn message from a "consulting" firm. "We will send job applications to remote jobs and schedule job interviews for you," the message read. If he got the job, the firm promised to "attend everything related to programming." All he had to do for whatever role he landed was attend meetings, and give the firm half of his salary.

Woodruff despised workplace deception, even joining job support and proxy interview-focused Telegram groups to disrupt them in his spare time. "I'm autistic, and rules help me make sense of the world, and I don't like it when they're just ignored and no one seems to care," he told me. He decided to go along with the chicanery to see where it led.

He joined the firm's Slack channel and let it apply for jobs on his behalf, even attending some job interviews. He said he noticed a disquieting trend: Many of the jobs he was interviewing for had national security implications, including tech consultancies working with the Secret Service and the Department of the Treasury. Other applications were to financial institutions. Woodruff said he reported the firm to the FBI. (A bureau spokesperson said they couldn't confirm the existence of any investigations.)

Ranjan, a software engineer from Bengaluru, is regularly approached by job-support firms trying to hire him to work for their clients. "We will keep your name, all data confidential. We do not deduct tax from your salary," one recruiter wrote to him on LinkedIn. "Your package will be Beautiful, trust me."

The pitch hints at the stark economic power disparity that underpins shadow stand-ins, he told me: Most job support comes from countries like India and Pakistan, where wages are low and "desperate" workers will provide cheap labor. Pay rates for shadow stand-ins are "definitely more than what people earn in their regular payday, that's for sure," he said.

Despite mixed feelings about the practice, Kiran, a shadow stand-in based in Bengaluru, has continued to provide help because of the money he earns. "They are faking," he said of clients. He has watched, frustrated, as clients coast through high-paying jobs, lying about skills and taking job opportunities "which are supposed to be for honest people who are actually experienced."

Still, Western pay remains an alluring prospect to many. "I think it's a win-win situation," said Rahul, an Indian developer whose friends have provided job support and who is interested in doing it himself. "We get paid peanuts anyway, so this is an extra source of income. It usually pays better, too." Andrew, the Colorado consultant, argued that both parties agree on a price they're happy with. "I feel like I pay people fairly," he told me.

Peter Steele, a Michigan developer, has an Upwork account and receives unsolicited pitches several times a year offering to apply for and complete jobs using his name in return for a slice of salary. "They talk about how getting clients is extremely difficult when you're not based out of the United States," he said.

High demand has paved the way for intermediaries who match clients and helpers — a veritable nesting doll of outsourced hustle. Many of them aren't shy about their businesses: Kumar's job support firm Onlinejobsupport.net, for example, claims on its website to have more than 500 happy clients across 25 countries — focusing on popular systems or tools like Java, AWS, Hadoop, and React. (It might be wise to be skeptical of any one provider's marketing claims, but there's clearly a bustling ecosystem.)

Many of these intermediaries aren't shy about their business, either. You can even find some marketing their services on LinkedIn.

The pandemic years were a boom time for shadow stand-ins. Now the winds are shifting.

Return-to-office has forced some delegators to give it up — it's harder to screen-share and outsource tasks if you're sitting in a cubicle — while others are reduced to huddling with helpers after returning home. Providers told me they're feeling the pinch, but there's no putting the genie back in the bottle.

The model has been proved, the global supply chain is there, and worker attitudes have shifted. "If I died at my desk tomorrow, my job would be posted online before my funeral," said one Oregon worker whose colleague tried to outsource their job.

Others question why secret delegating might be stigmatized more than other tactics. "Assuming you are not sharing proprietary data," Andrew, the Colorado consultant, asked, "what is the difference from outsourcing your work vs using an AI or software tool to automate your work?"

And while shadow stand-ins feel like a uniquely modern, internet-enabled phenomenon, its roots run much deeper. "Historically, at least in certain trades, both in the US and other countries, the household unit was the unit employed to do the work," said Michel Anteby, a professor of management and sociology at Boston University. He offered up the New England spinning industry as an example. "No one really cared or tracked if it was the husband, the wife, the kids who are doing the job."

Remi fits neatly within that framework.

Her boyfriend, it turned out, was a great worker. He could swiftly complete technical tasks that usually took her all day, and she didn't pay him; they had already merged finances when her mother died. They continued the arrangement until she quit a year later. But even after she left, Remi received intermittent texts from old coworkers asking for help. She never replied. She had no interest in letting the company exploit her labor.

Today, the Chicagoan has no regrets. "I personally come from a background where I am very anti-corporation," she told me. "I don't personally see the harm in it — especially because if my company isn't going to do its best to keep me happy and healthy, and have my best interests in mind, then that falls upon me to ensure that that's happening for myself."

Remi now works in an education-related field. Her boyfriend is employed as a remedial tutor at a school, and she sometimes lends him a hand, formatting his presentation slides and doing other miscellaneous work.

His employer doesn't know, and the couple have no plans to stop.

Rob Price is a senior correspondent for Business Insider and writes features and investigations about the technology industry. If you have experience with shadow stand-ins, you can contact him via Signal/WhatsApp at +1 650-636-6268 or email at rprice@businessinsider.com.

• Kettlebell sport champ Jennifer Hintenberger shared the smoothie recipe she uses to start the day.
• Ingredients like spinach, cherries, ginger, and turmeric can help speed recovery and prevent illness.
• Hintenberger has been vegan for over a decade and said it helped her manage serious health issues. 

An elite athlete said she starts every day with a smoothie full of greens, fruit, and other anti-inflammatory plants to help her feel and perform her best.

Jennifer Hintenberger, who holds multiple world records in kettlebell sport, told Business Insider that switching to a vegan diet helped her manage chronic health issues like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).

The 43-year-old Canadian athlete is part of the Vegan Strong PlantBuilt roster, which includes plant-based bodybuilders and powerlifters.

She said that her typical day of eating includes as many as 20 servings of fruit, starting with a nutrient-packed morning smoothie.

Her recipe includes:

• Spinach — rich in iron, calcium, and vitamin C for a healthy brain and heart.
• Banana — full of potassium, magnesium, fiber for healthy digestion, and carbohydrates for energy.
• Frozen fruit — adds flavor and texture. Hintenberger's go-to, cherries, are also linked to reduced muscle soreness and better recovery.
• Ginger — has been studied for a range of health benefits ranging from reducing inflammation to improving digestion.
• Turmeric — contains a compound called curcumin with science-backed anti-inflammatory and antioxidant benefits.
• Black pepper — can work in tandem with turmeric to boost its benefits, but also adds beneficial compounds of its own which may help regulate blood sugar and prevent illnesses.
• Maca root — a plant native to the Andes, it's often used in powdered form to provide amino acids and promote healthy hormones, although research is still ongoing.
• Plant-based protein powder — helps to make the smoothie more filling and supports muscle-building and maintenance. Hintenberger opts for vanilla flavor.

The blend is not only full of nutrients and disease-fighting polyphenols, it also tastes delicious, according to Hintenberger.

"I bounce out of bed, I'm so excited to have it," she said.

• My partner and I were monogamous for the first six years of our relationship.
• Now, we are nonmonogamous, and neither of us wears our wedding rings.
• It's a never-ending journey, and we've learned a lot about ourselves and each other.

My partner Sean and I started dating in 2013 and married in 2019. We were monogamous for six years and began our journey with polyamory around the same time we decided to get married. After a disastrous attempt, we reverted back to monogamy one year later, only to open the door to polyamory again in 2021.

Our reasons for exploring the relationship style again were vastly different. Sean is an easy-going and open-minded person. He's never been the jealous type, and polyamory naturally appealed to him.

I decided to try polyamory again because of some feelings I was having after I stopped wearing my wedding ring. Maybe it sounds a little ridiculous that I made a big decision over a piece of jewelry, and at the time, I didn't quite put together how the two things were related. Years later, after much introspection, I found my answer.

Wedding rings are supposed to symbolize to the world we are committed to one person forever. Polyamory, for us, is a lifestyle where we can explore ourselves more deeply and with other people. For me, wearing a wedding ring felt at odds with my desire to be nonmonogamous.

Initially, I couldn't wait to wear my ring

I was excited about wearing my wedding ring, but Sean was indifferent about wearing his. That bothered me, but I realized it was too minuscule to get worked up over. Sean and I were already a non-traditional couple, having explored nonmonogamy in the past.

Regardless of our unconventional ways, Sean bought me the perfect wedding ring — two silver cats surrounding a white gold diamond. He couldn't find a ring he wanted, so he asked me to make one with epoxy resin. I did, but it didn't fit him and he didn't press me to make another one. I took his nonchalant attitude personally when, in reality, he just had less attachment to the idea of wearing a ring. Eventually, I also stopped wearing mine.

I worried what my family and friends would say when I took my ring off

Even after becoming less attached to my ring, I worried what others would think. I wondered whether my family and friends would notice and, if they did, how they would perceive us as a couple. I felt the love I shared with my partner might come into question.

A fear of judgment was impacting my choice to wear a ring. It was also affecting my ability to act on my desire to be polyamorous. But since I had worked through the shame that came with going against the societal expectation to wear a wedding ring, I thought we might be ready to try nonmonogamy again.

For me, being in a nonmonogamous dynamic is an act of radical love

As an abolitionist, I work to decolonize my mind and my relationships. I'm not the type of person to claim ownership over another. To me, that is exactly what wearing a wedding ring symbolized: Sean as my property. I didn't want that for us, and he didn't either. Once the ring came off and my research brain turned on, I read more about polyamory, starting with books like "The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures'' and "Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy."

One difficult aspect of polyamory is working through the insecurities you have to just get started. There are no rigid rules or structures, just rough guidelines. You figure it out as you go and will likely hit some bumps and potholes along the way.

For Sean and me, being in a nonmonogamous relationship means we can be intimately connected with others, both sexually and emotionally. Every new relationship encourages introspection and growth. Sure, you can get that in monogamy, but we're bound to learn more from multiple relationships.

Nonmonogamy is a way for us to celebrate our love. Although insecurities come up — including some I never thought I had — there are good feelings, like compersion, which is when a person feels joy from seeing their partner happy, whether or not that happiness involves them directly. Working through the guilt I felt for not conforming to societal norms was liberating, and I continue to learn more about myself every day.

• Tuscan officials created a $3,000,000 fund to incentivize people to move to the rural countryside.
• The fund will pay people grants of up to $32,000 to move to Tuscany and fix up a home there.
• The grants will pay 50% of the costs of renovations. Applicants must make the property their primary home.

Imagine waking up each morning to a view of the Tuscan countryside, making your home in the romantic Italian region known for its dry red wine, medieval architecture, and groves of olive trees.

Now imagine getting paid to do it.

Tuscan officials launched a new "Residency in the Mountains" program in June. The program created a €2,800,000, or about $3,001,740, fund to encourage people to move to the rural countryside.

The fund, part of an effort to stabilize the country's dwindling population, will pay people grants ranging from €10,000 to €30,000 (about $10,720 to about $32,161) to move to Tuscany and fix up a home there.

"The purpose of the intervention is to favor and encourage the repopulation and socio-economic revitalization of mountain areas, acting in contrast to the marginalization of these areas," the program's website states.

The grants will pay 50% of the costs of renovations of a home in one of 76 Tuscan cities with fewer than 5,000 residents — including San Casciano dei Bagni, known for its thermal pools; Caprese Michelangelo, the birthplace of the renaissance artist of the same name; and the island of Capraia Isola.

The program is open to Italians, EU residents, and non-EU citizens — so long as they have established long-term residency lasting no less than 10 years. Eligible applicants must commit to making the Tuscan property their primary home.

Applications for the program close on July 27.

Representatives for the Public Relations Office of Tuscany did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Italy has for years experimented with various schemes to attract new residents to its rural regions. The country, which has Europe's smallest share of children under the age of 15, faces a population crisis so significant that nearly 2,500 towns are on the verge of collapse and will not survive more than 25 years, according to a 2016 study released by Italy's Ministry of Environment.

CNN reported last year that there are more than 6,000 ghost villages around the country, left deserted due to migration and natural disasters.

In response, in 2018, new residents in Molise were offered $27,500 to move to the abandoned towns of the mountainous region on the country's eastern coast. The following year, officials in the town of Ollolai put 200 homes on the market for €1 ($1.25) each to avoid the same fate.

Sicily likewise went viral for offering $1 homes for sale, which, despite their desperate need for repair, attracted swarms of expats who flocked to the country to snap up one of the abandoned properties.

Business Insider previously reported that in Sicily, there were time limits for repairs to be completed, officials required buyers to work with specific contractors to finish the work, and renovations cost upwards of $30,000 to complete — but some buyers found it was worth every penny.

I'm not sure whether I should feel guilty for not telling Jessica about the ulterior motives for my palm-reading visit. On the one hand, I probably should have said I was testing it out for a story. On the other hand, she's a psychic, so she should have intuited it.

She didn't, which meant that on a warm June afternoon I found myself seated across from her in a sweaty little basement space in lower Manhattan. For $25, which wound up being $30 because she didn't have change, Jessica told me my fortune. She said that I'm a kind person (true, I hope), that I'm standoffish (also true, unfortunately), and that I'm about to change jobs and move (no and no). She also said I'm afraid to express my creative side through activities like writing, which … well. Toward the end of the reading, Jessica saw something darker, a negative energy holding me back. She suggested I consider a cleansing. The cost: $500.

Many of you are likely rolling your eyes, but plenty of people are open to the idea of the paranormal. In a 2017 survey of American adults by the Pew Research Center, 41% of respondents said they believed in psychics, 42% said they thought spiritual energy could be located in physical things, and 29% said they believed in astrology. In a 2019 IPSOS survey, nearly half of respondents said they believed in ghosts. There's a line between believing in psychics and paying for them, but plenty of people do indeed pay, and even some big businesses are willing to shell out for a consultation. According to IBISWorld, the psychic-services industry in the US is worth $2.3 billion.

I took Jessica's card and told her I'd think about her proposition. I'm inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt that she trusts in her abilities, but even people I know who are into the psychic thing said this didn't sound legitimate, not like the "real" psychics they go to.

In her defense, Jessica (whose name I changed here because I didn't want to screw up her business) had her prices listed outside her shop, and upselling isn't a new phenomenon. It's a little mind-bending to think about how psychics go about setting prices — how they gauge fair costs for their services, decipher what customers will agree to, and use the opacity of the market to their advantage. It's not like there's some tarot price index or many materials that go into the work besides their supposed magical abilities. But for the most part, psychics rely on good old supply and demand, sprinkling in some extra tactics — mystical and not — to bring in profits. The $500 Jessica was asking for might seem worth it to a true believer. Had she gone lower, I might have said yes and paid $50 to get the devil off my back, just in case.

Psychic prices are all over the place. On Sanctuary, an app where you can find astrologists and mediums, many readings start at $5 for five minutes, but then some people charge $3 (or even $13 or $20) per additional minute. The shops you see in major cities may advertise a price of $10 or $25, but that's often just to get people in the door. Psychics and mediums haven't been immune to inflation either. Data provided to me by the online ticketing service Eventbrite indicates the average ticket price for psychic-related events in the US rose to $44 in 2023 from $39 in 2019.

I reached out to a couple of psychics to get a sense of how they approached pricing, and you may not be surprised to learn that the answer wasn't straightforward. Some of it is basic business principles, but a lot of it is pretty woo-woo.

This is a luxury service at the end of the day.

"Many of us live eccentric lifestyles to be permitted to exist the way that we do safely with one foot on either side of the veil," said Blue June, a tarot reader based in New York, adding that they had to keep "regimented and sometimes unusual routines" to be accurate.

June said some of the parameters that determine price are quite mundane: experience and expertise, what nearby competitors charge, customer reviews, and overhead. But there are also some more mystic pieces to her pricing. She charges $55.55 to $155.55 for her services — a dream interpretation is her cheapest offer, while spellwork is the most expensive. (In numerology, 555 is an "angel number" that symbolizes change and transformation.)

"Clients should not approach the inquiry of service prices with a gifted psychic in the same way they approach their grocery bill," June said. "This is a luxury service at the end of the day, and it cannot be defined in the same way as any other shopping can."

Lisa Stardust, a New York-based astrologer, said she sometimes gives free readings to people if they're in pain or have a quick question — but like anyone, she has her limits. "The thing about being so empathetic and having all of this sensitivity to the world is a lot of people can take advantage of that," she said.

She charges $50 for one tarot question answered via email and $200 for a full astrological reading, though she says there's some wiggle room if people can't pay the full amount. She wants people to feel that they got their money's worth, she abides by a code of ethics, and this isn't her only stream of income. "I'm not pushing services on people that they don't deserve or need," she said.

There wouldn't be a supply of psychics out there charging money if there wasn't demand. Value ultimately comes down to how much someone is willing to pay. So why are people willing to pay for what's essentially a guess by a stranger?

If people have got a bereavement and they go to a psychic, having some sort of contact, whether it's genuine or not, with somebody who's passed over actually is reassuring to people.

Neil Dagnall and Ken Drinkwater, a pair of cognitive and parapsychological researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University, have spent years researching people's paranormal beliefs. They said one reason people engage with the paranormal is that they're searching for meaning. They want to resolve life's uncertainties, reaffirm their own beliefs, or gain a sense of closure.

"If people have got a bereavement and they go to a psychic, having some sort of contact, whether it's genuine or not, with somebody who's passed over actually is reassuring to people," Dagnall said.

"Maybe I'm skeptical, but I'm not a debunker, by the way," Drinkwater said. "I end up being compassionate about people's experiences and think that they're real to them."

Some psychics are able to charge what may seem like exorbitant prices because people make inferences about quality based on price. Whatever our motivations for going for a psychic — we think they'll get us in touch with the dead, or we're just doing it for kicks — we don't want the low-budget version. There are limits here, because once you get to $300, chances are you think it's real. But given a choice between a $1 reading or a $20 reading, a lot of people will spring for the $20 one because they figure it's better.

"If it's too cheap, people might assume that it's not good, that it actually isn't effective," said Jane Risen, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business who has studied why people might want magical products even if they don't entirely think they work. "In some ways, putting the price on it, making people pay for it, can be part of why people think that it could work."

If you really believe what the psychic will tell you, of course you're going to pay for it. But not everyone who goes to a psychic buys into it. For those in the latter camp, it may come down to emotional management, Risen said. You're pretty sure the psychic won't predict the future or solve your problems, but she might make you feel less worried. Risen's research suggests that while getting a psychic's services doesn't make the bad thing less likely (obviously), it does make us less afraid of it.

"You could imagine purchasing partially for the emotional management of it and partially because you feel like, 'Well, I might as well be better safe than sorry,'" she said. It isn't that different from knocking on wood or drinking that shot of apple cider vinegar in the morning, even though you can't remember what sort of ailment it's supposed to be alleviating.

It should go without saying here that going to a psychic is often fun. Many people derive joy from having their fortunes told and toying with the possibility that what's said might be right. There's often a social element, too — people get their palms read with a group of friends. It's like when the lottery jackpot gets really high and everyone's buying tickets and fantasizing about what they'll do with their riches, even though they know they're not going to win.

There are countless stories about psychic hoaxes. In the early 2000s, the Federal Trade Commission dinged the TV psychic Miss Cleo, accusing her of engaging in deceptive advertising and billing practices. The faith healer Peter Popoff would send his wife and staffers to chat with audience members before his sessions and then pass the intel on to him. But something doesn't have to be a scam to be harmful or predatory.

Psychics have a lot of tools at their disposal to get more money out of people. They may inject a sense of urgency or scarcity, use a bait and switch, or hook you with a cheap service before upselling you. It's not that different from how a lot of businesses work, from car dealerships to e-commerce websites. On the one hand, if something feels good to someone, who is anyone to say it's bad? On the other hand, these practices can become detrimental when people allow them to dictate their important life decisions. "My psychic said" isn't a good reason to buy a stock or to end your marriage.

"If a person's buying into everything that person's telling them," Drinkwater said, "that's problematic."

He and Dagnall told me that most of the psychics they'd interviewed really believed they had abilities and only a handful admitted they didn't. Many are skeptical of other psychics; they don't want the fakes out there giving them a bad name.

Openness is generally a positive quality, but some people are a little too open, to the point they get taken advantage of, said Ralph Lewis, an associate professor in the psychiatry department at the University of Toronto who has an extracurricular interest in "weird" beliefs. "Some people are very open, and some people are not very open, but too much openness equals gullibility, credulity, suggestibility, and so on," he said. "You go too far, then as the skeptics like to say, don't be so open-minded that your brain falls out."

There are all sorts of biases that make people believe in psychics when they shouldn't. There's hindsight bias, where we see past events as more predictable than they were. There's also our tendency to conflate correlation and causation: I give Jessica $500 for the cleansing, I get a promotion at work, and there I am a month later handing over another $500 even though the cleansing had nothing to do with it.

"People are free to spend their money any way they choose, and we're never going to stop them from wasting money on implausible products," Lewis said. "But I do, on the other hand, think that it's not just benign to let people have their magical beliefs and lead them unchallenged."

Dagnall told me — while telling his coresearcher not to laugh — that at one point he started seeing a series of ones all over the place. He looked it up online, and supposedly it was his guardian angel telling him things were going to be fortuitous.

"Now, I know it's not true, but it's just interesting that I was noticing that number, and I wanted to sort of then say, OK, well, if I was into the paranormal, what significance would it have?" he said. "The paranormal is quite seductive in that way, in that it can offer explanations for odd, anomalous things."

His coresearcher did, indeed, laugh.

If it's not obvious by now, I am a psychic skeptic. I've spent a few hundred dollars on mystical stuff over the years at the behest of friends — a psychic fair here, a crystal there — and have almost always felt disappointed. So while reporting for this story, I talked to a friend of a friend named Katy who's really into all of this to try to understand her motivations.

Katy sees her shaman every month for $80. "I literally run my life through her," she told me. She does monthly therapy through a psychic for $105 a session. That psychic is also a pet psychic, which is not Katy's jam. For her horoscope, Katy has a favorite YouTuber who works on tips. She sometimes stops for tarot readings at her local farmer's market. She sees it all as self-care.

"For me, it's a part of my wellness routine," Katy said. "It just happens to be on my checklist."

In a consumerist society, of course some people are willing to pay to commune with the afterlife.

Once, after an accident on her block in Chicago, Katy used a psychic to ensure the person had crossed over. Another time, she bought a bunch of bath oils in New York after a psychic told her she was cursed. She felt that only the latter episode was sketchy; I thought both were.

What's worth it, financially, for Katy would not be worth it for a lot of people. Once you get past necessities, that's true of a lot of things, whether it be a Birkin bag or Taylor Swift tickets or someone who says they can help you talk to your dead dad. We spend money on silly stuff all the time — just ask the NFT people. In a consumerist society, of course some people are willing to pay to commune with the afterlife. And in a capitalist society, of course some people are willing to take their money.

Despite my qualms, the day after I met with Jessica, I texted her to ask what the cleansing entailed. She told me it was "research meditation" to look into my past, present, and future in order to heal my mind, body, and soul. I asked if there were options if I didn't have the $500 she wanted, and she didn't budge. Apparently, Jessica drives a hard bargain.

Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.