• Bob Iger said Disney's new deal with OpenAI will let the company harness the tech to engage younger audiences.
• Disney and OpenAI struck a licensing pact that lets Sora users access Disney characters.
• Iger said he sees Disney+ users being able to ultimately use Sora on the streaming platform itself.

Disney CEO Bob Iger says his company's major licensing deal with OpenAI is all about establishing a foothold in a new realm of entertainment and engaging younger audiences.

The licensing agreement gives ChatGPT and OpenAI's Sora video tool access to Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Darth Vader. Disney is also investing $1 billion in the AI company and becoming a "major customer."

Speaking on CNBC about the deal with OpenAI's Sam Altman on Thursday, Iger said it gives Disney a chance to get in on a fast-growing technology.

"It gives us an opportunity, really, to play a part in what is really a breathtaking, breathtaking growth in essentially AI and new forms of media and entertainment," Iger said.

Iger said the deal also fulfills a longtime desire by Disney to put user-generated content on its Disney+ streaming platform. Disney initially plans to put select videos created on Sora onto Disney+ to increase engagement with users, especially younger ones, and ultimately, let them create such videos on the platform itself.

"That's a big step for us," he said.

Disney has long been highly protective of its famous characters and storylines, and Iger is widely seen in Hollywood as a champion of the creative set. But like other entertainment players, Disney has an engagement problem. The time people spend on streaming has stayed essentially flat over the past few years, despite increased spending on content. The bet with OpenAI is that the deal can get people to spend more time on Disney platforms by giving them more ways to play around with its famous franchises.

Iger has also long positioned the company as pro-technology, and he said, in reference to the OpenAI deal, that he'd rather participate in technology than be disrupted by it.

"We think this is actually a way for us to be part of these developments, as opposed to being harmed by them," he said.

Altman added that the demand for Disney characters, in particular, is "off the charts" and that he saw the deal enabling people to do things like putting themselves in a lightsaber scene from "Star Wars" or creating a custom birthday video for their kid using the Buzz Lightyear character.

Iger said the deal is also a way for Disney to participate in the big rise in user-generated short-form video on social-media platforms.

AI firms have been "frenemies" to media companies, as many in Hollywood are concerned about how they use copyrighted material and the threat that they could undermine the creative process. Iger said the OpenAI deal is good for creators rather than a threat.

"This does not in any way represent a threat to the creators at all. In fact, the opposite," Iger said. "I think it honors them and respects them, in part because there's a license to be associated with it."

Disney said the agreement does not include any talent likeness or voices and that OpenAI would have guardrails in place to make sure Disney's IP was used in a safe way.

In June, Disney, along with Comcast's NBCUniversal studio business, sued AI company Midjourney, claiming its tech created unauthorized copies of works ranging from Star Wars to The Simpsons. Midjourney denied the claims in its legal response. That suit is ongoing.

• Anne Thibodeaux's daily routine is a model of science-backed habits for longevity.
• She exercises twice a day, and mixes up her routine with yoga and stability workouts.
• For a healthy heart and brain, she takes walks and has a busy social life with friends and family.

When I first met 79-year-old Anne Thibodeaux, she was fresh out of two back-to-back workout classes and excited to show me what she was reading for book club.

The book was "Outlive," a longevity handbook from Dr. Peter Attia, an anti-aging specialist beloved by tech CEOs and Hollywood actors, and now, apparently, this grandmother from New Orleans.

The funny thing, Thibodeaux told me via Zoom last month, is that Attia's advice for a long life matches what she's been doing for decades already.

We all might want to take a page out of her book when it comes to longevity.

Thibodeaux said she works out 11 times a week, on average, doing everything from yoga to dance to strength and stability training. Her social calendar is packed. In her free time, she loves to garden, check out museums, and hit the dance floor.

These habits, which Thibodeaux believes have kept her vibrant and healthy, are science-backed strategies for healthier aging.

Try new things in the gym — and beyond

Thibodeaux has been retired for more than two decades, but spent her career teaching and never lost her love of learning.

These days, she channels her curiosity into learning new types of exercise (among other things).

Her weekly routine includes a variety of different virtual classes from SilverSneakers, an exercise program for adults 65 and older (available at no cost with eligible Medicare plans).

That's why, flipping through Attia's book, she found his anti-aging exercise recommendations were already familiar.

Stability work? Check, her regular classes include plenty of core and balance moves.

Strength training? Check, courtesy of dumbbell exercises.

Low-intensity cardio? Double-check: Thibodeaux loves to dance in class and out on the town.

Get plenty of (dance) steps

Thibodeaux isn't just active in her virtual classes twice (or more) a day. She's also out and about — keen to avoid becoming too sedentary, which can shorten lifespan, especially for older folks.

"A lot of people my age sit all day. And that's not healthy," she said.

Her typical habits include working in her garden, walking in the park, or strolling around local landmarks, especially in nice weather.

"We have a beautiful sculpture garden right by our museum, so I like to get out and get some of that vitamin D," she said.

All the walking adds up over time on her FitBit, Thibodeaux told me.

She's often going above and beyond 10,000 steps a day. (Research suggests as few as 4,000 steps a day can boost heart health.)

One recent highlight: at her granddaughter's wedding, Thibodeaux logged 22,315 steps.

"I never left the dance floor. I was determined I was going to enjoy that wedding, and I did," she said.

Pick up the phone

Thibodeaux's social life is as action-packed as her gym routine. She said she regularly hangs out with friends on outings to the mall or to catch a movie. Her workout classes, while virtual, are also intensely social, with members often connecting during and outside class for daily chitchat.

Her daily mantra is to stay in touch with people in her life, whether it's a quick chat or getting lunch. Her granddaughter, for instance, calls regularly.

"It's important to check on your family and friends, make sure they're doing OK, because sometimes you have no idea what challenges some people are dealing with," Thibodeaux said.

Longevity isn't about staying physically active. The longest-living people on earth are renowned for strong community ties, and research suggests good relationships are key to healthy aging.

Spending time with loved ones is also linked to another longevity-boosting habit: gratitude. Feeling appreciation in your daily life can even lower the risk of dying early, according to some studies.

"I'm a person of simple pleasures," Thibodeaux said. "I think it's important to be grateful for the blessings you have."

• Since I have a lot of friends, buying them all gifts got expensive, so I threw a dinner party.
• It was a lot of work, but I loved bringing everyone together to celebrate the year.
• Now it's my annual tradition, and it's the perfect blend of gift-giving and acts of service.

In 2018, I considered my army of close friends a blessing — until December rolled around. Suddenly, these friendships came with an overhead I couldn't afford, just for the sake of tradition.

Dozens of women who considered me their gay best friend sounded great until it was time to exchange presents with all of them during the holidays. I was too cheap to buy all my friends expensive Christmas gifts but too classy to give them something, well, cheap. I had also grown tired of spending $50 on something pointless in bulk, usually a criminally overpriced novelty item.

So I came up with a better idea: I threw a holiday dinner party instead. It eventually became my preferred love language — no matter the occasion.

That first dinner party was better than any gift I could've bought at a store

From prepping to hosting, throwing a dinner party for a large group was more work than I expected. But I loved every second of it.

That first time, I made about 100 empanadas in five flavors and 100 chocolate-covered strawberries. Still, I thought of it as a labor of love.

There was nothing quite like the rush of concocting a culinary feast from scratch, the dopamine hit I got from each beloved guest I bear hugged hello, and the humble joy of my speech.

But most of all, I loved introducing strangers, watching them banter, and then exchanging socials — like little seeds that could grow into anything and everything.

I probably ended up spending as much on food, alcohol, and decorations as I would have on gifts, but all the thank-yous at the end of the night felt so much more satisfying.

I didn't expect throwing dinner parties to become such an integral part of who I am

Although it started as a way to try to save money, dinner parties have evolved into my preferred way of showing people I care about them.

Sure, every time I plan one, you might hear me list a million things I need to do in agony, but I'm suffering with a smile.

This year, I decided to gather my friends to celebrate all our collective milestones. I felt like a fraud having the food catered in Miami, rather than making it myself, but the guest count seems to increase each year. My guilt quickly faded once I was able to relax, take my time decorating, and get ready.

As the guest list continues to grow ( this year, I hosted 30 people), dinner parties become increasingly more difficult, but it's always worth it.

For me, hosting a dinner party falls perfectly in the middle between a gift and an act of service.

Most of all, these kinds of intimate parties seem to freeze time in a way that lets you take in where each attendee is in their life and feel the blessing of how far we've all come.

• Young founders are rapidly building AI startups, raising millions, and disrupting industries.
• Many left college or jobs to seize the AI boom, attracting top investors and talent.
• Their AI ventures span healthcare, education, shopping, and creator tools, shaping tech's future.

They are moving fast, raising serious cash, and leaving established paths behind. Across Business Insider's Young Geniuses series, which highlights next-gen leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs, urgency is the constant.

The AI window has opened, but it may not stay that way for long. That's why these young founders are fleeing college classrooms, skipping dream internships, and leaving full-time roles to take advantage of this moment.

A Stanford graduate student dropped out and raised $64 million for her AI math company. A pair of MIT freshmen dropouts secured $2.7 million for their police tech startup.

These are just a couple of young founders who are stepping into the AI race at full speed, backed by investors willing to bet early and big, driven by the sense that hesitation costs more than risk.

Meet 16 young founders who spoke with Business Insider this year about their ideas for transforming everything from healthcare and shopping to how we interact with technology and one another. (Ages and figures are accurate to the time of reporting.)

Zach Yadegari cofounded an AI-powered nutrition app while still in high school. It's generating around $30 million annually.

Zach Yadegari, 18, sold his first video gaming app at age 16 for almost $100,000 and used the proceeds to fund Cal AI, an AI-powered nutrition app he co-founded.

He first discovered an interest in coding at a coding camp his parents sent him to when he was 7. For years, he'd spend hours watching people program video games on YouTube and try to emulate them.

He got the idea for Cal AI while trying to bulk up at the gym and quickly learning that most results come from diet. So, he and his co-founders set out to build a calorie-tracking app that integrates AI technology.

Over the last year and a half, the app has taken off, generating around $30 million in annual revenue and employing a 30-person team, Yadegari told BI reporter Agnes Applegate in October.

Carina Hong has recruited top Meta AI talent to her AI startup, Axiom Math, which has raised $64 million in seed funding to build an AI mathematician.

Carina Hong, 24, is on a mission to build a superintelligent reasoning system through her AI startup, Axiom Math.

Hong, a Rhodes Scholar, dropped out of her graduate studies at Stanford to found the company in March and has since hired top talent across Meta's Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) lab, Meta's GenAI team, and Google Brain.

"One thing I heard from some of the top researchers and mathematicians I've recruited to Axiom is that solving for mathematical superintelligence will be their legacy," Hong told BI reporter Geoff Weiss in December. "When the problem is hard enough, talent density gets very high, and that makes you a magnet for other great thinkers."

And Hong isn't only recruiting from Big Tech. She has also hired her former professor, the renowned mathematician Ken Ono.

Arlan Rakhmetzhanov dropped out of high school to launch an AI coding agents startup that's raised $6.2 million.

Arlan Rakhmetzhanov, 18, dropped out of high school in Kazakhstan in March 2025 to pursue his AI coding agents startup, Nozomio, at Y Combinator, a startup accelerator for many young founders.

Both of his parents are entrepreneurs, so his entrepreneurial journey began at a young age. He taught himself coding and built his first company at 15.

His journey to Y Combinator wasn't easy. He applied twice before finally getting accepted the third time. Even though he didn't have a Stanford PhD, he was told his YC partner selected him because he ships fast, which is critical in the age of AI, he told BI's Weiss in September.

Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni raised $8 million for their AI fashion startup, Phia.

Phoebe Gates, daughter of Bill Gates, and Sophia Kianni launched an AI-powered shopping assistant in April and said it had reached 600,000 users by October, when they spoke with BI's Jordan Hart.

Both 23 at the time of their interview, Kianni and Gates met as roommates at Stanford University, where they conceived the idea for Phia.

Phia is a free app and browser extension that uses AI to help compare prices on fashion items across tens of thousands of linked sites to help users find deals.

The duo raised $8 million in a seed funding round in September, led by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins and featuring investors such as Kris Jenner, Hailey Bieber, and Michael Rubin.

Toby Brown raised $1 million in funding for his AI project, Beem, at age 16.

Toby Brown, 16, has been fascinated with tech from a young age. His parents aren't in tech, but that hasn't stopped him from teaching himself to code everything, from math games to alarm systems.

In 2023, he developed the concept for his AI project Beem. "I can't share too much about it," he told BI's Joshua Nelken-Zitser in October. "I hope that if done right, it will redefine how people interact with technology."

He dedicated his summer break 2024 to pitching to firms and other potential investors in London, New York, Silicon Valley, and San Francisco. "There was nobody to coach me on pitching to investors, so I just took a maniacal approach of bashing away at it until I got the right solution," he said.

In November 2024, he got a call from South Park Commons, founded by some of Facebook's early engineers, saying they wanted to invest $1 million in Beem. Instead of finishing school exams the following year, he left the UK to pursue his project in Silicon Valley.

Alyx van der Vorm raised $14 million in Series A funding for her friendship app, which uses AI to help connect people IRL.

One day in her Harvard University dorm room, Alyx van der Vorm felt lonely. Her friends were out of town, and while she could easily open an app to order food or stream a movie, she wanted more. Enter Clyx.

Van der Vorm, 25, founded the social app in 2020 and has since rolled it out in four major cities worldwide: Miami, London, New York, and São Paulo.

Clyx is a social app that leverages AI to connect people in real life. It utilizes AI-powered tools to scrape events from across the web, converts those events into meetups within the app, and then helps identify which of your friends are attending the event or matches you with new connections if you don't know anyone going.

At the time of reporting, Clyx had 50,0000 active users joining events and about 200,000 looking at events, BI's Sydney Bradley reported in September.

Georges Casassovici and Mathieu Rihet dropped out of school to launch their AI startup Novoflow, which has raised $3.1 million.

Mathieu Rihet, 19, saw the inefficiencies of the healthcare system firsthand while working as a medical translator. So, he set out to try and fix some of it.

He met Georges Casassovici, 18, via his LinkedIn post seeking a non-technical cofounder to build with. Together, the two of them founded Novoflow, an AI startup that builds AI agents for medical clinics to help automate tasks, starting with cancellation recovery and appointment booking.

Both told BI's Weiss in November that they have no plans to pursue a college degree after leaving school to join Y Combinator's Spring 2025 class.

These 20-year-olds couldn't find an AI tool for students, so they built one.

Rudy Arora and Sarthak Dhawan, both 20, met in sixth grade, and by high school, they were coding and building viral apps together, including a Christmas light installation app that made $60,000 in annual revenue one year.

When they both started college in 2023, Dhawan said he struggled to take notes and listen to the teacher at the same time. So, he and Arora set out to build an AI-powered notetaking app called Turbo AI. It's attracting 20,000 new users per day, BI's Lakshmi Varanasi reported in November.

Since launching Turbo AI, they've both now dropped out of college and say their startup is on track to earn eight-figures in annual recurring revenue.

Sean Hargrow and Nathaneo Johnson raised $3.1 million in pre-seed funding for their AI startup, Series.

College juniors Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow say LinkedIn has become bloated with vanity metrics like follower counts and likes, which distract from the professional qualities that matter when landing a job.

So, they launched their own AI social network while attending Yale. Skipping the likes and clicks, Series connects professionals over text message. The idea is that it only focuses on who you are and what you can bring to the table, Hargow told BI's Bradley in April.

Balancing college and a startup isn't easy. Johnson later told BI's Nelken Zitser that he often ends up working 120-hour weeks to manage both.

Christine Zhang, 19, turned down an internship and took a gap year from Harvard to launch her AI startup that's already raised $1 million.

Over the summer, 19-year-old Christine Zhang turned down an internship to spend two months living in a hacker house. There, she built a startup with her college roommate and cofounder, and by the end of the summer, they'd raised $1 million for it.

Instead of returning to Harvard, she's taking a gap year to stay in San Francisco and help scale her startup, which has grown to six people, she told BI's Applegate in October.

"I miss a lot of things about school. I had to delete my Instagram during the first week of classes so I wouldn't get FOMO. However, I don't regret my decision," she said.

Aidan Guo and Julian Windeck founded AI startup Attention Engineering, which secured $1.25 million in pre-seed funding for its desktop assistant.

Early this year, Aidan Guo, 19, and Julian Windeck, 23, launched their startup, Attention Engineering, which is essentially a desktop assistant powered by AI to automate everything you do on your computer, much like a "cursor for everything," Guo told BI's Varanasi in November.

Guo said he's on his "second gap year" from college. He found encouraging mentors by joining programs like Z Fellows and Emergent Ventures. Ultimately, he decided to forgo Carnegie Mellon and move to the Bay Area to build his startup.

Windeck studied computer science in Germany and at Cambridge University, and then conducted AI research at MIT before deciding academia wasn't for him.

The two met through mutual friends, discovered they worked well together, and have since raised over $1 million from noteworthy backers, including Lukas Haas, a product manager at Google DeepMind, Marvin von Hagen and Felix Schlegal, the cofounders of Interaction, and Bryan Pellegrino, the cofounder of LayerZero.

Jay Neo is the cofounder of a new creator economy AI startup called Palo, which is launching out of stealth with $3.8 million in funding.

Jay Neo, 21, has been studying what makes a video go viral since he was a teen.

At 18, he landed a job with MrBeast, helping make short-form video content and learning the ins and outs of how the YouTube mogul grows his business and popularity. For the last year and a half, however, Neo has been focused on his own AI startup called Palo.

Palo is a content creator's assistant. It utilizes AI to analyze a creator's entire catalog and then writes scripts for short-form videos with related themes, outlining content with storyboards. It also has its own network, where creators can follow one another.

Large-language AI models "are a perfect thing not for replacing the creator, but for analyzing every little thing," Neo told BI's Bradley in November.

Brothers Shraman and Shreyas Kar dropped out of Stanford and raised $4.1 million in seed funding for their AI startup.

Shraman and Shreyas Kar, 19 and 20, participated in hackathons together throughout middle and high school.

They were busy studying at Stanford when they were accepted to Y Combinator, and seeing their peers take the risk and drop out of Stanford gave them the courage to do so, too.

They began working on their AI startup, Golpo, while at Stanford. Golpo generates animated explainer videos from documents and prompts. For example, customers can use it to create interactive lessons for school districts or training programs for work.

As of mid-October, 14,000 people had generated videos with Golpo, Shraman Kar told BI's Weiss.

George Cheng and Dylan Nguyen raised $2.7 million for their tech startup that aims to arm police with AI.

George Cheng and Dylan Nguyen, both 19, dropped out of MIT as freshmen and raised $2.7 million in seed funding out of Y Combinator for their tech startup Code Four, which aims to arm police officers with AI.

They say their technology can generate reports from bodycam footage for record-keeping, redact footage and reports for records requests, and generate transcriptions and summaries from video interviews and security footage. Basically, it aims to reduce the time spent on paperwork, allowing officers to dedicate more time in the field.

Code Four is working with 25 police departments, BI's Weiss reported in November. While Code Four uses AI to generate preliminary drafts of reports, officers review and edit them for accuracy, Cheng said.

Raymond Zhao founded his company, StructuredAI, while in college at Oxford and has raised about $1M in pre-seed funding.

"Many of the great AI companies of the next decade are being built right now, and I want to be a part of that," Raymond Zhao told BI's Nelken-Zitser in October.

Zhao studied math and statistics at the University of Oxford, thinking he wanted to enter the financial sector. However, after an uninspiring internship at Goldman Sachs, Zhao ultimately pursued AI instead.

While at Oxford, he joined the venture capital society, which introduced him to a network of VCs, founders, and one of his future cofounders. They've raised about $1 million in pre-seed funding for their AI startup, Structured AI, and are pursuing it further at Y Combinator.

Structured AI builds AI agents that can perform quality control on technical documents and drawings. It's laying the groundwork for the AI workforce for construction design and engineering.

David Kobrosky dropped out of the University of Michigan to launch his startup, Intros AI.

David Kobrosky, 26, dropped out of college twice. The first time was to work for businessman and social media personality Gary Vaynerchuk, at his company VaynerX. The second was to launch his own company, Intros AI.

Kobrosky said he always thought AI would play a huge role in how humans interact, and that's exactly what Intros AI does. Intros AI was acquired by software company Bevy in July.

Companies can use Intros AI's product to connect their most active customers to each other, creating a space for knowledge sharing and networking that helps boost their customer retention, BI's Charissa Cheong reported in November.

Kobrosky didn't disclose the amount he sold Intros AI for, but he is now an AI product manager at Bevy, earning over $100,000 a year, plus bonuses. "I think starting and selling a company sets me up for the future in a way that a more traditional path wouldn't have," he told Cheong.

• I've always dismissed reality TV like Bravo's "Real Housewives" series as shallow and exploitative.
• Then my 22-year-old daughter asked me to watch "Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" with her.
• The show gave us a shared language to talk about women, relationships, and the pressures we face.

As a former English literature major, I really thought I was above reality TV.

I don't watch a lot of content, and when I do, I'm more of a "Game of Thrones" person than a "Real Housewives" person. I love analyzing themes, motives, and emotional arcs, and I assumed the Bravo franchise had nothing to offer but mindless drama.

For years, I had avoided the shows and would usually leave the room when my teenage daughter turned them on. Today, things have changed. I now happily watch the drama, appreciative of how my daughter and I have connected and found a way to talk about important topics through what many consider to be a guilty-pleasure show.

A new chance to connect with my daughter

My daughter went off to college, and got busier, more independent, and harder to read from a distance. I missed her like crazy and often felt like I had fewer and fewer windows into the woman she was becoming.

So when she suggested I watch an episode of "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City," a show I'd long viewed as the epitome of trash TV, I surprised us both by reconsidering.

Even though we were two states away from each other, while my daughter is away at school, I decided to watch an episode on my own. I didn't expect to like it, but I love my daughter more than I dislike reality TV, so I gave it a try.

The show challenged my expectations

When I sat down for my first episode, I expected tacky glam, tired stereotypes, and fake conflict, and I got all of that. But I also saw a lot more, including women wrestling with shame and accountability, resisting unrealistic expectations, confronting faith transitions, and reinventing themselves after major midlife upheavals.

To my surprise, I was hooked, especially when I started talking through the storylines with my daughter.

I was shocked at how fast the show became our shared language. We started out laughing at the bad behavior and wild fashion, but soon the conversations deepened, and we found ourselves discussing body image, mental health, and relationships, especially women's friendships. In fact, we've talked more in the last month, since I started watching, than we have since she left for college.

I've learned a lot about us both

Watching "RHOSLC" has opened a new connection between my daughter and me at a stage of parenting when I wasn't sure how to reach her. Through our weekly Housewives debriefs, I've learned so much about her views on loyalty, identity, ambition, faith, and belonging.

She notices patterns in relationships that took me decades to understand. Her emotional intelligence, especially her ability to call out toxicity and name her boundaries, reassures me that she's not just okay, she's thriving.

And in turn, I've been able to share my own insights, not in my lecturing "mom voice," but as another woman navigating friendships, reinvention, and societal pressures. Watching the show has created a neutral space where we can meet as equals, rather than parent and child.

It's important to meet adult children where they are

I'm still not a fan of how the show perpetuates negative stereotypes, promotes conspicuous consumption, and glamorizes toxic relationships for entertainment value. But I appreciate how the show gives us a way to talk openly about those issues. Watching women in midlife grapple with everything from body image to an empty nest provides young women with a wider, more complex picture of adulthood than they might find elsewhere.

This experience has changed how I think about connecting with my adult children. Sometimes the best bridge isn't a carefully crafted heart-to-heart, it's the willingness to try new things and meet them where they are. And I'm reminded that I would do anything for my kids. Even watch reality TV.

• My husband, kids, and I spent Christmas traveling instead of visiting with our extended family.
• To create magic for our kids, we had presents shipped to us and decorated our whole caravan.
• It wasn't a traditional holiday, but it was a blast and we loved video calling other family members.

Christmas is a really, really big deal in our house.

It's when our close-knit extended family gets together to celebrate, feast, and spend time with one another.

However, my husband, two young kids, and I spent last Christmas sitting in our caravan on a remote beach in South Australia, just the four of us.

It was a far cry from the holidays before. But after years of deliberating, we'd just recently packed up our lives and belongings and headed toward the Australian outback for a yearlong adventure in a small caravan.

Coming home for Christmas wasn't an option — but, with a bit of planning, we still ended up having a brilliant (and unique) holiday.

We were able to bring Christmas magic on the road

When you travel with everything you own packed into a caravan, space is at a premium.

We would've loved a standard Christmas tree, but we opted for a small, travel-sized version that had been stashed in the back of a cupboard for months as it silently traveled Australia.

As the holiday season approached, we dug out the tree and our kids decorated with the small selection of trimmings we'd brought with us.

Quickly, the whole caravan turned into a Christmas ornament, with tinsel and fairy lights hanging from every nook and cranny. To our surprise, it was really magical. The kids loved the space so much that the lights stayed up long after December 25.

We also got creative when planning our Christmas feast, especially since our caravan doesn't have an oven and we'd be miles from any major city on the big day.

Instead of roasting a whole bird, we made nachos with our barbecue and stove and topped them with ground turkey and other fixings.

While sitting on a blanket on a beach, we used our best plastic plates and shared our low-stress Christmas-inspired feast. As a bonus, cleaning up after dinner was a breeze.

We made sure Santa could find us, and that we could get in touch with family

Like any inquisitive 4-year-old, my daughter asked: "How will Santa find us?" She was concerned we didn't have a chimney, a letterbox, or even space for Santa to fit in our van.

Once again, we did some serious problem-solving. Thanks to the magic of Christmas — and preparations we made months in advance — Santa did find us.

Grandparents also wanted to send gifts, which proved difficult on the road. Since we'd be in a remote area at Christmastime and unable to receive parcels, we arranged for relatives to get their presents to a town we knew we'd be visiting a few weeks prior.

Then, we hid them in the van the best we could until Christmas Day.

That morning, thanks satellite coverage and modern technology, we were able to video call members our extended family so they could see the kids unwrap their gifts.

I still love our big holiday celebrations, but last Christmas is one we won't forget

Our holiday wasn't traditional, and we'll absolutely remember it for years to come.

Being on the road forced us to problem-solve and come up with ideas as an extended family. It allowed us to rethink many traditions and leave some behind simply because, logistically, they couldn't happen.

Instead, we created new traditions and memories as a young family, while still staying connected with loved ones over video calls.

Would we do it again? Absolutely. But this year, we plan to celebrate in person with our larger family again … and we might even bring the turkey nachos!

• The Trump administration announced an agreement to officially end the SAVE student-loan repayment plan.
• If approved, the settlement would require enrolled borrowers to move to a different plan and restart payments.
• SAVE borrowers would likely face higher payments under a new plan.

It's looking like SAVE can't be saved — and it'll mean millions of borrowers could soon face higher monthly payments.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump's Department of Education announced a settlement with the State of Missouri to officially end the SAVE student-loan repayment plan.

Since last summer, SAVE — created by former President Joe Biden — has been paused due to litigation from Missouri and other GOP-led states. The plan was designed to provide affordable monthly payments to the 7 million enrolled borrowers, along with a shorter timeline for loan forgiveness.

If a court approves the settlement, the department will stop accepting new applications to SAVE, require borrowers to transfer to an existing plan, and resume payments.

The Trump administration is "bringing an end to this deceptive scheme," Nicholas Kent, the undersecretary of education, said in a statement. "The law is clear: if you take out a loan, you must pay it back."

The next steps for the SAVE student-loan repayment plan

The proposed settlement is pending court approval, and borrowers will not face any changes until the court finalizes it. If the settlement is approved, borrowers will have "a limited time" to select a new repayment plan and resume repayment.

In addition to the 7 million borrowers enrolled in SAVE, the Department of Education said that 450,000 borrowers have "expressed interest in enrolling in the plan" and will be affected by the settlement, as well.

The proposed settlement said that the department would deny pending applications and help borrowers transition out of SAVE, and it would undergo negotiated rulemaking — which includes negotiations with stakeholders on the department's proposal — to effectuate the settlement.

The department did not provide a timeline for the negotiated rulemaking process.

Carolyn Fast, the director of higher education policy at the left-leaning think-tank The Century Foundation, told Business Insider that borrowers who transition out of SAVE will likely face higher monthly payments. She referred to the Repayment Assistance Plan, a new plan the department is set to launch in July 2026, which would allow for loan forgiveness after 30 years.

"It is less generous in terms of monthly payments, and also to the extent that you have to be in the program longer before you can get forgiveness," Fast said.

While the department resumed interest charges on SAVE plan accounts in August, enrolled borrowers previously had until 2028 to transition to a new plan. This proposed settlement accelerates that timeline, and it would be a significant undertaking for servicers to carry out, Fast said.

Abby Shafroth, managing director of advocacy at the National Consumer Law Center, said that eliminating SAVE "without access to a clear and affordable alternative is reckless and short-sighted, creating even more needless confusion, uncertainty, and financial stress for millions of Americans already struggling with the rising cost of living."

"In the midst of a national affordability crisis, their way forward is murky and complicated," she said.

• Johannes Thomas is the CEO of Trivago, a company he joined as an intern in 2011.
• He realized he could learn more at the company than he could by completing his degree.
• He prioritizes a candidate's portfolio rather than their degree when hiring, he says.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Johannes Thomas, CEO of Trivago. It has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2011, I took a six-month internship at Trivago. I was in my third year of university, nearing completion of a four-year degree in economics and tourism. I had started a digital travel company on the side, and I planned to learn from the internship and apply the new skills to my own company.

The internship came with a steep learning curve. Back then, the company had about 50 employees, many of whom were interns. I had a lot of responsibility and room to grow. Being at Trivago felt like playing in a crazy sandbox where I could try anything.

By the time the internship was halfway over, I knew I could learn more working than I ever could at university. When the company offered me a job, I decided to stay. Fourteen years later, I'm the CEO.

I rarely think about the fact that I don't have a degree

I never had the expectation of following a traditional career path. My father was an entrepreneur who ran a tour company in Germany. I considered joining the family business, but I was interested in the digital side of tourism. Coming from an entrepreneurial family, I was taught to follow my curiosity.

Still, my mother wasn't thrilled when I dropped out of school. She argued that I only had one more year, and I should just finish. I have no regrets about not getting my degree, however. I rarely think about it these days.

I changed jobs every 2 to 3 years to keep learning

My internship at Trivago was focused on online marketing in the UK. At the time, Google's performance marketing was the new frontier. You couldn't learn about it at school, because once a book was published, its information was outdated.

You had to learn by trying things out, which gave young people like me a real advantage. Since I was able to understand performance marketing, I was hired to handle global search engine marketing. I stayed in that role for three years before moving on to strategic projects.

I've changed jobs at Trivago every two to three years. I try to make myself obsolete within a team, and always move on to something that's a new learning experience. Since my internship, I've held six different positions.

I left briefly during the pandemic, but returned as CEO

The pandemic, which hit when I was chief revenue officer, was a near-death experience for Trivago. We lost 95% of our revenue within a matter of weeks. No one knew when it would come back.

That's when I stepped away from the company for the first time. I formed a startup with other Trivago folks. I'm still involved with that as an investor, but in 2023 I returned to Trivago as CEO.

When I came back, the team was very demoralized. As the leader, I needed to take decisive actions to stabilize the company and create success. Luckily, travel came back stronger than ever. Today, Trivago has about 600 employees (down from about 1,500 before the pandemic), but we're able to make a great impact due to technology like AI.

I'm not the only former intern who's leading the company

Three of the four leaders of Trivago started as interns, so my experience is not unique. We aim to be a company where people can grow long-term.

Trivago still has a strong internship program: in fact, I've about doubled the number of interns since 2023. It's great for recruiting. When someone has a six-month internship, you really get to see whether they're going to contribute to your team.

When I hire, I always ask people about their portfolio before I ask about their degree. A degree is important for getting into the workforce, but it becomes less important when you're able to demonstrate the real impact you've had. I've been successful because I take initiative and execute ideas. That's more important than any degree.

• Chet Kittleson is the founder of Tin Can, a landline for kids that runs on wifi.
• He's a dad of three, and says the phone has led to more sleepovers and playdates for them.
• Now, the phone is backordered for months.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Chet Kittleson, founder of Tin Can. It has been edited for length and clarity.

About three years ago, I was picking my daughter up from school and started chatting with parents about how arduous it is to run the kids' social lives. One mom said that she felt like an executive assistant for her daughter. There was a lot of frustration and angst toward the kids, and as a dad of three, I understood it.

But that day, I played devil's advocate. What else are the kids supposed to do, I asked. My first social network was the landline, but my kids didn't have that. Most of the parents I knew were delaying cellphones, but that left the kids reliant on us for coordinating meet-ups.

I got to thinking: wouldn't it be cool if there was a landline my kids — who are now 10, 8, and 5 — could use to organize their own social dates?

The phone led to my daughter walking to school with friends

I had been working at the tech and real estate company Redfin, which I loved because the company environment allowed me to be a rising executive and an active dad. Still, I had this itch to build a company of my own. I left to start another real estate-related company, but ultimately, we didn't have a product-market fit, and had to call it quits after about two years.

The same week I wrapped up that venture, I brought my co-founders over to talk about making my landline idea a reality. We spent a week at my kitchen table, making prototypes. By the end of the week, we had five phones.

Two of the prototypes went to my daughter's friends. Right away, we started noticing the kids organizing more playdates and sleepovers. My favorite moment came when the phone rang at about 8:15 in the morning. My daughter's friend was inviting her to walk to school for the first time.

I want to use tech to build better in-person connections

Right away, I started getting texts from other local parents, asking if they could get a phone. I made about 50 prototypes and installed them myself. I asked customers what they liked about the phone and what they were worried about when it comes to kids and tech, which helped me refine the product.

We officially started selling Tin Cans in April of this year. For parents, the phone is a symbol of a simpler time. For kids who have often never experienced independent communication, it delivers a new superpower they didn't know they wanted.

Today, we have Tin Cans in every state and Canada. We've raised $3.5 million. I'm excited to build a different type of technology company: one that uses tech to build connections and healthy relationships.

We're trying to foster independent kids

Personally, that's extremely meaningful to me because I've always struggled with anxiety and had my own challenges with screen addiction. I stopped using social media a few years ago after noticing that it was distracting me from moments with my kids.

Today, my family has two Tin Cans: one in a shared area of the home and another in my oldest's room. These days, my kids frequently get calls from friends asking them to walk to school. They have more sleepovers or just chat with their grandparents.

There are also more subtle changes. When we pick up takeout, my kids are often the ones to go in and claim the order. That confidence is a symbol of the strong, autonomous children my wife and I are trying to raise.

One mother told us that Tin Can helped her daughter find her voice — literally. The girl started off talking quietly and timidly, but within weeks, was louder. That confidence translates to the real world, and the Tin Can lifestyle we're hoping to foster.

• My son was born during the first week of December, and I didn't want his birthday to be forgotten.
• I've tried to make sure his birthday feels separate from holiday celebrations over the years.
• Thankfully, he hasn't seemed to mind so much, though a true birthday celebration does help.

When I figured out that my son would be born in December, I was instantly worried that he'd deal with having his birthday overshadowed by the season. Luckily, over the years, my son developed a different attitude and began to think of Christmas as something for him. But I have still always been careful to protect his birthday as a separate festivity.

Christmas will always be associated with my son now

My son was born during the first week of December, so he was just over two weeks old for his first Christmas. His birth was really marked by the holiday season. The hospital where I had him was decorated already, and I survived those first late-night feedings by keeping myself awake with cookies and Christmas reruns.

By the time his first birthday rolled around, I wasn't sure how to approach the theme of his party. I decided to keep it holiday-adjacent, choosing a red and white color scheme since the house was already decorated for Christmas. I kept this up for years and realized quickly that it didn't bother my son. If anything, I think that, at least while he was young, he always thought Christmas was all part of his birthday.

When he was finally old enough for me to ask what kind of birthday he'd like, it was still "Christmas." To ensure his special day still felt distinct from the season, I'd make sure his cake was something he was interested in at the time, such as a Batman or football theme. However, besides putting up a "Happy Birthday" sign and getting balloons, the Christmas decorations have essentially always doubled as the party decorations.

I've pushed for the separation from Christmas

I'd say the biggest December birthday issue we've run into is when someone gives my son a gift, saying it's both for his birthday and Christmas. This usually happens with extended family and friends that we don't see as often. Luckily, I have a great kid who would never complain about receiving a combined birthday and Christmas gift, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to the fact that it hurts his feelings a little.

The best way I have found to avoid this happening is by throwing him a true birthday party. So far, no one has ever come to celebrate him with a Christmas present. Making sure his birthday is an occasion on its own sets a boundary between it and the rest of the holidays.

Breaking up the holidays by celebrating my son is actually lovely

One unexpected upside to his birthday being during the holiday rush has been that it feels like a break from the season. This year, my son turned 12 and had some friends over to celebrate. And this year, nothing about his party had to do with Christmas. We hadn't gotten our tree up or decorations out yet, and I served all traditional party foods, including pizza, cake, and an ice cream sundae bar. Best of all, all of the gifts from his friends were wrapped in birthday wrapping paper with birthday cards. They all spent the party hanging out, having the absolute time of their lives.

The season's activities can become a lot, especially with school events like Spirit Week, so I think a pause from that to do something that's still fun is refreshing for everyone. But mostly, I think my son felt really special to be celebrated like that by his best friends. It was probably his first birthday party that really felt like something separate from Christmastime.

I think he deserves a birthday that feels like one

My son is a Sagittarius, like anyone with a December birthday before the 22nd. They are known for being adventurous and optimistic, and my son is as well. He could make the most out of any situation, which is part of why I believe having a birthday so close to Christmas doesn't bother him at all. It's me who wants to protect the day we celebrate him from being lumped into Christmas.

I've now seen the difference between the Christmas-adjacent birthday and the birthday-birthday, and it proves to me that it's important not to combine the two. As his mom, I notice the subtle differences. It's the small look I see on his face when he gets a "Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas," instead of hearing each individually on their respective days.

Having a Christmas birthday doesn't make it any less important. However, it is essential to make the distinction.