• Microsoft has been feuding with Nvidia, The Information reported.
• Jensen Huang's attempt to control how Nvidia chips are used led to a standoff with Microsoft.
• The dispute lasted weeks and eventually reached Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's desk.

Microsoft has reportedly been feuding with Nvidia.

On Tuesday, the chipmaker overtook Microsoft to claim the title of the world's most valuable company — but behind the scenes, tensions have been bubbling for months.

The Information reported that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's tight control over how chips are allocated and installed has rubbed Microsft the wrong way.

Huang has previously said the company dictates how chips are allocated to stop companies from stockpiling them amid limited supply.

However, when these efforts extended to telling companies how their GPUs should be installed in data centers, it led to a standoff with key customer Microsoft, The Information report said.

It added that when Nvidia tried to convince the Big Tech company to buy its next flagship chip — the GB200 — exactly as it had been designed in the server rack, it resulted in a feud.

Installing the chips the way Nvidia wanted would have reportedly hindered Microsoft's ability to switch to different AI chips.

The dispute with the chipmaker over server racks lasted several weeks and even reached Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's desk, the report said, citing people involved.

Microsoft eventually won out when Nvidia backed down and agreed to let the Big Tech company design its own custom racks, The Information reported.

Representatives for Nvidia and Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

On Tuesday, Nvidia stock rose 4%, helping push its market capitalization past that of Microsoft and dethrone the company as the world's most valuable. The chipmaker boasted a market value of $3.338 trillion, edging out Microsoft's $3.326 trillion market cap by $12 billion.

• Economic instability and rising costs have led many young people to rethink their career paths.
• Some have become NEETs by choice — not in employment, education, or training.
• They would rather wait things out and be "idle" until they find the right job.

Youth unemployment around the world is rising to levels not seen in decades.

According to the International Labour Organization, in 2023, around a fifth (21.7%) of people between 15 and 24 years old were considered NEETs worldwide.

The acronym stands for people who are not in education, employment, or training.

Many NEETs are listless, struggling through tough economic times, living off loans, and losing hope of retirement or buying a house.

But not all of them are pessimistic about the future.

Some young people reject the idea that being a NEET is a bad thing and want to reclaim the label by creating a subculture of the voluntarily dormant.

Rather than jump on the first opportunities that come along, voluntary NEETs are holding back and hoping to witness an evolving workplace culture that they'll enter when it suits them better.

Voluntarily idle

Some Gen Zers struggle to find a job or stay in work or education, earning the nickname "disconnected youth."

One Gallup survey found that Gen Zers are increasingly anxious about their education or career paths. Another study by the St. Louis Federal Reserve's Institute for Economic Equity found that a third of young Americans aged between 18 and 24 have no income.

Millennials are in a similar boat, being labeled the "lost generation" and being first in the firing line when companies go through layoffs or axe middle management positions.

But some Zoomer and millennial NEETs are happy to wait out unemployment for the right career path.

Morgan Pitcher, for example, recently shared why he is happy to be "voluntarily idle" on TikTok.

Pitcher, who was born in 1994 and lives in Vancouver, has been unemployed since the start of the COVID pandemic when he got sick.

He believes being a NEET by choice is "breaking one of the most accepted social norms that we have today."

Pitcher told Business Insider his experience being a NEET has been "revealing."

He worked in the automotive industry before the COVID-19 pandemic but then became very ill and was in hospital for weeks. When he recovered, he wasn't able to go back to his previous job, he said.

"It reveals how much shame in guilt is built into our every day lives," Pitcher told BI of being a NEET. "People are not happy for you. They actually despise you, seeing you as lazy and unmotivated. And dependent on the charity of others."

Pitcher was making a good salary when he was employed, but he was "miserable" the whole time, he said in his TikTok.

So, despite the struggles, he'd rather wait it out and find a job that matters to him than pick the first thing that comes along.

Rejecting hustle culture

Several NEETs recently spoke to Vice. Many lived at home or had some inheritance or savings they could live off for the time being.

Some said they basically "do nothing all day" except work on themselves through yoga, hobbies, creative projects, and seeing friends.

Many NEET interviewees told Vice their experiences at work had contributed to their new lifestyle.

"In all these jobs, I wasn't treated well as a person, and they weren't fulfilling either," said 22-year-old Leonie. "I felt like a puppet, always having to do what I was told without being able to make decisions."

Another NEET, Lukas, 21, said he started an apprenticeship in a car manufacturer's warehouse when he graduated high school but quit because "it was so terrible."

"I wasn't treated like a human being there, more like a tool that could be easily replaced," he said.

The benefits

While career experts agree being unemployed for too long can negatively impact someone's trajectory and make them "unmarketable," there are benefits to being more selective and patient in a job search.

James Watts, a career coach and the founder of the community platform Teach.io, told BI that a corporate culture that prioritizes profits over employee wellbeing is a "turn-off" to young people.

He said Gen Zers and young millennials favor organizations with ethical values, a commitment to diversity, and a transparent culture. They have witnessed the burnout that hustle culture can cause and aspire to something different.

"The NEET mindset highlights how young people today are looking for work that truly inspires and fulfills them, not just jobs that pay the bills," Watts said. "It's a wake-up call for workplaces to change."

Laurie Cure, who has a PhD in industrial and organizational psychology and is the CEO of the management consulting firm Innovative Connections, told BI that people who entered the workforce during a period of economic instability — after the Great Recession and COVID lockdown years — "bore witness to many lows and very few highs."

"They are living in a time when wealth is concentrated, home ownership feels out of reach, and rental prices and cost of living are skyrocketing," she said.

For generations that are already contending with mounting debts, side hustles can be more appealing than a traditional career path.

It's not about avoiding work

Darrin Murriner, the CEO and cofounder of the team coaching platform Cloverleaf, told BI that the NEET label is not a retreat from work but "perhaps a call for meaningful and fulfilling employment."

"Perhaps it's only articulating the demand for purposeful work that aligns with individual strengths and passions," he said. "It's not about avoiding work; it's about finding work that lights a person up."

The long-term impact may be that more people are in the right positions.

"When people are engaged in work that truly matters to them, they are more productive, innovative, and committed," Murriner said.

Pitcher's family doesn't understand his decision to be a NEET by choice, but he's found security and support with his friends, who have given him places to stay. This gives him faith that things will be OK, he told BI.

"I just stopped caring about finances and stopped worrying," he said. "It was the hardest thing I've ever done, but also the best thing I've ever done."

Brenna Carney was 26 when she started seeing videos circulating on TikTok of women her age freezing their eggs. She began to panic. Was this something she should be thinking about? The Texas native was single at the time and had always wanted children. "When I was 18, I thought I'd be married by 24, with my first kid by 26," Carney told me. "That definitely did not happen."

She started researching and found numerous articles preaching the advantages of freezing eggs before age 35 for higher viability in the future. "I felt the biological clock ticking," she said.

Egg freezing offered a plan B. She wouldn't have to worry about her fertility declining or rushing into a relationship with someone — she would have viable eggs to use whenever she found the right partner or decided the time was right. So in 2022, at the age of 27, she discussed it with her primary-care physician and was referred to a fertility clinic. "I put a lot of thought into it, but I will say I was kind of just freaking out a little bit," she said.

Carney is one of many young people who feel like they're running out of time. Ever since the American Society for Reproductive Medicine lifted the "experimental" tag from egg freezing in 2012, more people have decided to freeze their eggs. Between 2012 and 2020, procedures surged by 400% in the US, according to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology. Initially, ASRM recommended egg freezing only for women undergoing medical treatments that affected their fertility, but in 2021, thanks to improved technology, ASRM acknowledged "delaying childbearing" as a valid reason for the procedure. And in 2022, women were given the option to store their eggs for up to 55 years, a significant increase from the previous 10-year limit. For the first time, egg freezing was an option for younger women worried about their reproductive future.

Since then, clinics have used platforms like TikTok and Instagram to entice an increasingly young base of women with the message that they're running out of time — the earlier you freeze your eggs, the better, they warn. From 2021 to 2022, the most recent year for which data is available, US egg-freezing procedures jumped another 20%, to nearly 30,000. Younger and younger women are posting online about freezing their eggs — and getting paid by clinics to do it. But the messaging often ignores a few key realities: Egg freezing is expensive, the chances of success vary significantly, and the idea that earlier is always better isn't clearly supported by research.

"Egg freezing is a really valuable and important technology," Zeynep Gurtin, a sociologist and lecturer at the Institute for Women's Health at University College London, told me. However, she said it's not a blanket positive. "What we're starting to see with egg freezing now is the overexploitation of egg freezing as a technology that's marketed as being potentially useful to all women who should use it as some kind of backup plan," Gurtin said. "That's absolutely not what this technology is designed for or is right for."

---

The first step in Carney's egg-freezing journey was to go on birth control — something she had never done before. "That week, I was a raging bitch," she said. The pill sent her emotions spiraling in every direction. Then, Carney had to self-inject daily hormone shots for 10 days to coax her ovaries to mature as many eggs as possible. Finally, the doctor could remove her eggs.

During a typical egg-retrieval procedure, a doctor guides a needle attached to a catheter through the vaginal wall and draws out the eggs using light suction while the patient is under anesthesia. The harvested eggs are immediately preserved in a cryogenic freezer in liquid nitrogen, where they stay until they're needed for in vitro fertilization. The whole procedure takes less than 20 minutes — but recovering from the anesthesia might take several hours.

The more eggs the doctor can retrieve, the better the chance one will result in a successful pregnancy down the road. In a 2022 study, women who froze their eggs before the age of 38 had a 70% chance of having a baby if they thawed 20 or more eggs. But if they thawed fewer than 10 eggs, the success rate plunged to 36%.

Women under 38 typically get 10 to 20 eggs per retrieval, but of the eggs that are frozen, not all will survive the thawing process. Even fewer will be successfully fertilized, fewer still will become embryos, and even fewer will result in a live birth. At each stage of the process, there's a chance that something goes wrong. "Even in the best-case scenario, your success rate is never going to be higher than the average IVF cycle, which is around 30%," Gurtin said.

In your 20s, you still have a lot of runway. The right partner might be around the next corner, and when it comes to conceiving naturally, time is on your side.

Carney's retrieval resulted in only nine eggs. "I thought that I would get a lot more because I was 27 and very healthy," she told me. "Some women get, like, 25 to 30." She felt frustrated and discouraged. "I just did all that and now I only have nine?" she recalled thinking at the time. Most women undergo the entire process multiple times to retrieve more eggs and increase their chances of success. But that also comes with a cost — and Carney doesn't plan to do another round.

Egg retrieval typically runs you $8,000 per procedure, plus $2,000 to $5,000 for the hormone shots. Each year you store your eggs, you also have to pay a fee ranging from $400 to $800. And when you decide to use your eggs, it costs $3,000 to $5,000 for the frozen-embryo transfer. Insurance coverage for these procedures is rare, with exceptions in situations such as when a cancer patient's fertility is endangered by chemotherapy. Some employers do offer assistance — Meta and Apple, for instance, cover up to $20,000 for egg freezing, and since 2016, active-duty women in the US military can have the procedure covered — but everyone else is on their own.

To pay for her procedure, Carney took out a $6,000 loan. Her insurance covered a couple of doctor visits, and her mother helped out with an extra $2,000 to $3,000 for the hormone treatments. Carney now pays $200 each month to pay off the loan, and when we last spoke, she had just paid her annual $600 fee to keep the eggs frozen. She plans to keep paying until she turns 36; if she hasn't used them by then, she'll have them destroyed to avoid paying more fees. Nine years of storage would bring her total cost to nearly $14,500, not including interest on the loan.

While freezing eggs doesn't guarantee children, it's also not clear whether doing the procedure in your 20s gives you a significant advantage for a successful pregnancy. Most studies compare women in their early 30s with those in their late 30s and early 40s. In those studies, women under 35 tended to have better outcomes than those who froze their eggs at 40 or later. But that doesn't mean earlier is always better. Other studies have found that there isn't much added benefit to freezing eggs earlier than 30. One 2015 paper looked at the optimal time to freeze eggs among women 25 to 40. It found that freezing your eggs before your 30s didn't generally improve your chances of having a live birth over trying naturally. While egg freezing has the highest chance of success when done before 35, the researchers found the age at which freezing your eggs made the most sense in terms of both viability and cost-effectiveness was 37.

"I generally recommend women who are considering freezing their eggs do so before the age of 35 if they can," Dr. Geeta Nargund, the medical director of the fertility center ABC IVF, told me. "If there is no medical reason to freeze your eggs in your 20s, I would advise that you would be in a better position to make an informed decision in your early 30s instead, while the chances of success of treatment remain good."

A 27-year-old doesn't need to feel like she's left behind or left out because she's not freezing her eggs.

There's also the chance that someone never uses their frozen eggs. In fact, very few women do — only 16% of women who froze their eggs at one London hospital between January 2016 and March 2022 came back to use them, a 2023 study found. It's another reason earlier isn't always better: In your 20s, you still have a lot of runway. The right partner might be around the next corner, and when it comes to conceiving naturally, time is on your side. More women are having children into their late 30s, and if someone reaches that point and still doesn't see kids in their immediate future, there's still time to explore options.

"A 27-year-old doesn't need to feel like she's left behind or left out because she's not freezing her eggs," Gurtin said. "The reality is, most women, let alone women in their 20s, are not freezing their eggs, don't need to freeze their eggs, and don't need to think about freezing their eggs."

---

Fertility clinics have an obvious business case for trying to convince as many people as possible that egg freezing is something they should do. In a 2020 study, Emily Tiemann, then a regulatory-policy manager at the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in the UK, dug into the marketing strategies of egg-freezing companies. First, she noticed a significant lack of comprehensive information on egg-freezing sites. Second, she was struck by the language used, which seemed to target young women at a particular stage in their lives. Phrases such as "you haven't found the right partner," "you're waiting for Mr. Right," and "you want to take control of your life" were common, she told me, adding: "The kinds of messages that you wouldn't necessarily think would be on a clinical site that offers medical treatment."

Since then, marketing toward younger women has amped up. Kindbody, a venture-backed egg-freezing company that launched its first "boutique" clinic in New York City in 2018, traveled nationwide in 2020 with an Instagram-friendly van providing complimentary hormone tests to check fertility and marketing its services. Another well-known fertility studio, Trellis Health, calls itself "the Equinox of egg freezing," a nod to the $385-a-month luxury gym chain popular among millennials.

I would still do it. I would just wait a little bit longer.

Several companies have partnered with social-media stars to leverage their reach. Alex Stewart, an influencer who was 35 at the time, was offered a significant discount by the fertility-preservation program Ova to share her experience with her Instagram and podcast audiences. Similarly, Serena Kerrigan, a 28-year-old content creator, decided to freeze her eggs with Spring Fertility in New York after it approached her for a paid Instagram collaboration. Other companies have targeted women in their 20s, with blog and social-media posts that tout "having children on YOUR time" and say, "Don't feel you have to rush into a relationship this year."

When Carney began exploring fertility services, she couldn't ignore the targeted ads that followed her everywhere, recalling ones featuring the popular reality-TV star Lala Kent. Carney also documented her own journey on TikTok.

Since most women who use their eggs are in their late 30s, clinics make money on the prolonged storage times. "The earlier, the more expensive," as Tiemann put it. In 2022, fertility-tech startups raised $855 million, according to PitchBook — a significant jump from the $306 million raised in 2017. And in fiscal year 2023, Kindbody grew its revenue by 50% to about $180 million.

Yoojin Jang, now 32, said she regretted freezing her eggs at 30 in a video posted on her YouTube channel. The procedure affected her body, she said, causing muscle loss and fat gain. It also influenced her dating life. "Before going on a first date, I would think to myself, 'Is this guy worth the 23 hormone injections that I just had?'" she said, adding: "My standards became ridiculous." She said she wished she had waited until she was 35 and seen where she was in life. In a 2018 survey by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, one in six women who'd had their eggs frozen reported feeling significant regret.

Carney has mixed feelings about her procedure. Whether she meets someone in the next few years and gets pregnant naturally or gets a sperm donor to inseminate her eggs down the line, she can't predict the future. In that sense, she doesn't regret her decision to give herself a fighting chance at becoming a mother. But knowing everything she knows now, she wonders about her timing: "I would still do it. I would just wait a little bit longer."

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Eve Upton-Clark is a features writer covering culture and society.

• In a survey, 52% of CEOs said their workplace culture was toxic, a 10-percentage-point increase.
• Yet only about one in three workers reported that their employers had a toxic culture.
• Workplace toxicity is linked to increased mental health issues, affecting both workers and profits.

You might think your job has toxic vibes. It turns out the person running your company might feel the same way.

In a recent Businessolver survey, 52% of CEOs said their workplace culture was toxic. That's a 10 percentage-point increase from 2023 and, notably, higher than the nearly one in three employees who said there was a noxious culture where they work.

The findings on toxicity at work are significant because people who say their culture isn't beneficial are 47% more likely to report suffering mental health issues, according to Businessolver, which develops tech for managing employee benefits.

But hold up. CEOs who believe they're sitting atop a bad-for-you culture would seem to be in a position to solve the problem. Right?

Yet, Rae Shanahan, chief strategy officer at Businessolver, told Business Insider that in many instances, company heads underestimate the impact that managers have on their teams.

She said that toxicity within an organization is about fear and that moves to reduce those feelings must start from the top.

"The CEO can't fix it, but the CEO can certainly set the stage," Shanahan said.

Young workers, in particular, could be looking to leaders to act. In the survey, 65% of Gen Zers reported a mental health issue, while only 38% of boomers did the same.

CEOs are having a hard time, too

Businessolver also found that many corporate chiefs are struggling with their own mental health challenges. Fifty-five percent reported having had mental health issues in the past year, a jump of 24 percentage points.

Those challenges haven't necessarily translated to a change in how those with mental health concerns might be perceived inside organizations.

Among all survey respondents, CEOs were most likely to concur that companies regard someone with a mental health challenge as "weak" or a "burden." About eight in 10 CEOs said this was the company's view, whereas 72% of HR professionals and about two-thirds of workers said the same.

Shanahan said it's possible some CEOs think showing empathy makes them look weak — and that they can't attend to the needs of shareholders and drive the business while also trying to foster a more positive environment in the company.

"Sometimes people feel like, if you talk about empathy, that you're being soft and you can't hold people accountable," she said.

The survey involved about 3,100 workers in the US — about 400 of whom were CEOs — and ran from mid-February to early March.

How to address the problem

Shanahan said one approach that might help companies better understand their cultures would be to treat workers more like customers. The UX teams that design products and services, she said, could be deployed to learn more about how an organization acts toward its employees.

That might involve digging into what happens, for example, when an employee joins the company. What types of communications do they receive? Do they get conflicting messages?

Beyond that, the fix could involve looking at what workers say will help their mental health. About nine in 10 employees stated that measures like flexible working hours, open-door policies, and encouraging time away from work are important to helping fortify their mental health.

"If we have people that are performing — let's deal with the outliers — but let's treat the vast majority as adults and let them integrate their work and their home life," Shanahan said.

• Brittany Betts left her job bartending at Twin Peaks in 2021 to pursue a marketing career.
• She started as an intern at StaySense and moved up before becoming the CMO within three years.
• While Twin Peaks helped her pay her way through college, she's now earning six figures.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Brittany Betts, a 28-year-old CMO in Nashville. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I'm the online travel agency manager and CMO of StaySense, a short-term vacation rental management platform owned by Guesty.

I started working at Sonic when I was 15. When I was 17, I had a few random serving and hosting jobs at restaurants like Chili's.

I went to college and needed to make more money, so I applied and started serving at Twin Peaks, a restaurant similar to Hooters, in 2015 because I heard the tips are higher than at a traditional restaurant.

When I first started working at Twin Peaks, I was young and extremely shy

I was grateful for my first few years at Twin Peaks. I started to break out of my shell, felt confident, and made a good living.

As I got older, my body and mindset changed. The Twin Peaks in Tennessee, where I worked, valued the size of my pants over my work ethic. I also briefly worked at a Twin Peaks location in Florida, and it was the same. There's a franchise standard for working there.

Customers and managers commented on my weight and other women's appearances, which felt demeaning. I told myself it was what I signed up for since I signed a waiver to be a model there (hostesses, servers, and bartenders are considered "models").

When I started, my brother died, and I barely ate, was depressed, and was tiny. My body started changing as I got healthier, and I knew I had to lose weight to keep my job. I began to struggle with an eating disorder.

I hit a breaking point in 2020. Working at Twin Peaks helped me pay my way through college, but I realized I was ready to venture out in my career. I quit in 2021.

During the pandemic, I started taking marketing classes on LinkedIn, so I would be prepared for my exit

I loved my business administration classes about marketing in college, so I always knew it was a potential career choice.

I took an intro and advanced Google Analytics class, a Scrum Master class for managing software meetings, a content marketing intro class, a marketing copy class, an online marketing foundations class, and a social media promotion class during the pandemic.

I had one internship and freelance social media management experience, but I had a very hard time finding a job when I left Twin Peaks. I didn't want to do another internship initially because I wanted to make a better living.

Luckily, I had an extremely supportive partner who knew I was unhappy. They sat with me and discussed opportunities, and we found the internship for StaySense on Indeed. I remember being so nervous for the interview that I was shaking, but I put it plainly that I was willing to learn, and I wanted to develop my career.

I started at StaySense 2021

I was hired and started a marketing internship at StaySense in the summer of 2021. My internship mostly consisted of data entry, reviews, and content writing. I made it a point to tell StaySense how much I enjoyed working there and that I wanted more responsibility.

After a few months, I was hired as a full-time marketing specialist, and my responsibilities grew. Two years later, I was promoted to CMO over our business unit. This year, I also became Guesty's online travel agency (GOTA) manager.

My income has doubled from bartending to marketing

I work in the office five days a week from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., an additional day on the weekend, and a few extra hours some nights. I try to maintain a healthy work-life balance, so I work when I can but make time for my family and friends.

In three years, I doubled my bartending income. When I left, I made in the mid-five-figure range, and now I make in the low six figures.

I highly suggest finding a mentor

Having a mentor and asking questions are two main reasons I progressed so quickly. I had two mentors, the former CEO and owner of my company and my direct manager when I was hired.

I asked to learn more about marketing, about the startup from the ground up, about previous failures, and for more responsibility and opportunity.

I didn't care if it sounded stupid or I "should have" already known the answer. Instead, I asked, got my answers, and continued to develop my own personal brand through the help of mentors and peers. Rely on them and build your network.

Don't stay in one place for too long because of the fear of trying something new

The most common notions associated with the fear of something new are increasing self-doubt, lack of security, and worry of failure.

Failure stems from not putting yourself out there. You can't expect results like happiness, wealth, and career progression without taking the steps to get there. My only regret is not leaving my service industry job sooner to start my marketing career.

• Lucas Frischmann was laid off from Snap in February and left the country 1.5 weeks after the notice.
• He'd been working in tech since he was 15 and had roles at Twitter (now X), Meta, Snap, and more.
• Frischmann said the layoff gave him and his wife an opportunity to travel and explore.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lucas Frischmann, a 34-year-old former Snap employee from Los Angeles. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I completed a 3.5-year apprenticeship as a media designer and engineer, and I've been in the tech industry since I was 15.

Then I started my career as a software engineer and later transitioned to different positions at Twitter (now X), Meta, and Snap. At Twitter, I was a senior product manager from 2016 to 2017 before spending four and a half years at Meta in global product and program management roles from 2017 to 2020.

After three years of self-employment, I joined Snap in May 2022 as a technical project manager and was just laid off in February. My feelings about my layoff quickly transitioned from initial shock to recognizing an opportunity.

I finally had the chance to pause, recharge, and explore my dream of traveling, which had been deferred by the pandemic and previous commitments. This traveling period has also reinforced the importance of direct social interactions in an increasingly digital age and helped me spark some new tech ideas.

I received the news of my layoff during an early morning video call and left the country a week later

My manager shared the news with me in an early morning video call, and it kind of felt like a dream come true. Despite the challenges my colleagues faced, which weighed on me emotionally, my immediate reaction was one of positive anticipation.

I'd long aspired to take a significant break, with specific plans for an Asia tour postponed since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Though unsettling, the layoff coincided with my long-term desire to explore and connect with the world more deeply with my wife — who has a similar layoff experience from Twitch.

We terminated our lease, put everything in storage, and took off just a week and a half after receiving the layoff notice.

Snap gave me a severance package, but I was already prepared for a change

Thanks to prior planning and savings, we weren't concerned about immediate financial stability, job security, or the severance package itself.

Snap's support was within industry norms, enabling me to embark on a journey of self-discovery and exploration soon after receiving notice. Leaving so quickly wouldn't have been possible without the support of our LA friends, who helped us in many ways.

These friends let us keep valuable items at their places, assisted with moving, checked in on us regularly, and even offered us a place to stay before we left — and when we should return.

Our trip has taken us through Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Italy and other parts of Europe, such as Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Each destination has been a chapter of learning and exploration.

Traveling has broadened my perspective of the world, other cultures, and how tech is used to connect people

Our travels have been opportunities to network, learn from diverse business cultures, and understand the global tech landscape.

For instance, Bangkok has offered unique insights into work-life balance and a business pace, which is very different from my US and European experiences. Bangkok's business culture feels much more "laid back and go with the flow," while in the US, we're more focused on execution, momentum, and getting business done more efficiently and quickly.

Currently, I'm offering my expertise and experience to companies facing tech, product, program, or operational challenges. I've used this traveling time to reflect and observe how people use technology and live their lives. I reflected on the modern lifestyle and noted how many people "misuse" their smartphones.

Instead of using them to gain knowledge or improve their lives, people often spend time on irrelevant content just for entertainment. This isn't bad in general, but this seems out of balance for most people.

My business idea — LatteLink — was partly inspired by my observations during my trip. I reconnected with many friends, and while it's great to see how paths are changing, it's also very sad to realize that we're losing touch with old friends so quickly.

This period of travel isn't just a break but a quest for new ventures and opportunities

I originally wanted to build an app where users could connect locally, like in a coffee shop, but I've shifted focus to creating a kind of personal customer relationship management (CRM) system to maintain meaningful relationships beyond social media and provide valuable tools for individuals, not just businesses.

In my friend circle, fewer and fewer people are using social media. My current project aims to help maintain meaningful relationships through regular check-ins and updates.

I came up with this idea as I struggled to keep up with all my connections. While traveling, I met an old work colleague, and it turned out we both lived two years in the same city but never met.

Traveling also helped me zoom out and see the bigger picture, not just the tunnel view of tech. For example, I'm about to invest in a real estate project for tourism, which I'd never thought of doing before — my focus was 100% on tech.

Looking back, I see the layoff as a pivotal, positive turning point for me

It's been an opportunity for growth and exploration. It's also allowed me to engage with the world in new ways, like going to a coffee shop during the week and talking to people.

Traveling with my wife has been rewarding for both of us. We don't have a formal plan; we just have a loose checklist we're trying to complete for now, which gives us a sense of adventure and adaptability.

I'm excited to see where this path of exploration — both of the world and of myself — leads.

If you were laid off from a tech company and want to share your story, please email Manseen Logan at mlogan@businessinsider.com.

• Thousands of Chinese migrants flew into Ecuador last year in hopes of walking into the US.
• But Ecuador is now cutting its yearslong visa-free access to Chinese citizens after a surge in migrants.
• The number of Chinese people detained at the US border in 2023 surged to 10 times compared to 2022.

Ecuador is suspending visa-free access for Chinese travelers starting July 1, closing off a popular arrival spot used last year by thousands of Chinese migrants trekking to the US-Mexico border.

Since 2016, Ecuador has allowed Chinese nationals to enter its borders without a visa and stay for up to 90 days.

But in a statement on Tuesday seen by Business Insider, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility said it was ending the program "due to the unusual increase in irregular migratory flows of Chinese citizens" who overstayed their 90 days.

It is only one of two nations in the Americas that offers visa-free access to Chinese nationals. The other is Suriname, a smaller country of about 618,000 people.

The Ecuadorian ministry noted that about 50% of all Chinese arrivals "have not left through regular routes and within the times established by law."

Many people have used the country as a "starting point to reach other destinations in the Hemisphere," the ministry added.

The Niskanen Center assessed in May that Chinese travelers entered Ecuador 48,381 times in 2023 but only left the country legally 24,240 times that year. The deficit was "by far the highest number of any nationality," the US think tank wrote.

It comes amid a surge in Chinese arrivals that year, with a 235% increase compared to the previous five-year average, per the Niskanen Center.

The visa-free access recently made Ecuador a major entry point into the Americas for Chinese migrants looking to travel through Central America and reach the US-Mexico border.

In response to Ecuador's Tuesday decision, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the country "firmly opposes any form of smuggling activities."

"In recent years, Chinese law enforcement agencies have cracked down on crimes that hinder national border management and have maintained a high-pressure crackdown on various smuggling organizations and criminals engaged in smuggling activities, achieving remarkable results," the spokesperson said.

How Chinese migrants use Ecuador to get to the US

Thousands of migrants fly into Ecuador before traveling through Columbia, where they undertake a grueling trek through a perilous, cartel-run stretch of jungle called the Darién Gap.

If successful, they emerge in Panama. Over 15,500 Chinese migrants were counted exiting the Darién Gap in 2023, per Washington-based think tank The Wilson Center.

"This figure is nearly eight times as many from the same period in 2022 and more than 40 times that of 2021," wrote Joshua Peng, a program associate in refugee and displacement research at The Wilson Center.

Many migrants then travel to Mexico, attempting to reach the US through its southern border.

US border officials said they detained 37,000 Chinese migrants attempting to cross the border in 2023, or 10 times the number detained in the year before. The true number of those attempting to cross the border is likely higher.

The flow of Chinese migrants continued to surge in 2024, with CBS reporting in February that it observed 600 migrants, many of whom were Chinese, entering the US in a single day.

The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability said in May that the number of Chinese nationals encountered by authorities at the US border in March had jumped 8,000% from the same period in 2021.

Illegal immigration from the southern border has been rising in political prominence in the US, with Republican leaders pushing for increased border security and saying southern states are unable to cope with a surge in migrants.

Data on Chinese arrivals in Ecuador give some clues to the demographics of migrants reaching the US. According to the Niskanen Center, Shanghai is the Chinese region with the highest per-capita rate of people leaving to reach Ecuador, with 274 arrivals for every 1 million people in Shanghai.

Hong Kong is second, with 257 arrivals per 1 million people, followed by Beijing, with 161 arrivals per 1 million people. Xinjiang is sixth, with 24 arrivals per 1 million people.

• Central banks from advanced economies plan to buy more gold, according to a World Gold Council survey.
• They're loading up on gold to hedge risks including inflation and economic shocks.
• Meanwhile, central banks expect the US dollar's share in global reserves to fall in the next five years.

Emerging economies, like China and its allies, have been hoarding gold to diversify from the US dollar.

But they're not the only gold buyers.

Even central banks from advanced economies are planning to load up on gold, according to a World Gold Council survey released on Monday.

This enthusiasm for the yellow metal comes even though the spot gold price is hovering at record levels, around $2,330 an ounce, after hitting nearly $2,450 last month.

The WGC survey conducted between February and April found that 29% of 70 central banks — a record share — are planning to buy gold over the next 12 months.

Among the central banks, about 15% of those in advanced economies plan to do so — the most since 2019. Meanwhile, about 40% of emerging market central banks said they'll buy in the coming year.

The central banks' key reasons for more gold purchases include rebalancing their reserves and hedging against risks such as rising inflation, US dollar exposure, and market instability. Eight out of the 20 central banks also cited higher economic risks from countries where reserve currencies are from, because of issues like the rising US budget deficit.

In contrast to their enthusiasm for gold, 56% of central banks from advanced economies said they expect the dollar's share of global reserves to fall over the next five years. Nearly two-thirds of central banks from emerging economies expected the same.

Shrinking US dollar reserves

The WGC's annual survey reflects the sentiment of central banks amid intense discussion about the dollar's dominant role as the world's reserve currency.

Discussion has been gaining ground following the West's sweeping sanctions against Russia over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Other countries worried that they, too, could be locked out of the US dollar-based financial system.

However, king dollar is so entrenched and pervasive in the world's financial system that very few people think it can be dethroned.

Even so, a group of major emerging countries is now working on a way around the dollar.

And while the dollar is still by far the most dominant currency in the foreign exchange reserves of the world's central banks, the greenback's share in these reserves — after exchange-rate and interest-rate adjustments — declined from over 70% in 2000 to about 55% in the last quarter of 2023, according to a recent International Monetary Fund report.

The IMF termed the decline in the US dollar's share of global reserves "stealth erosion."