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• Some threads pulled away from Neuralink's first brain implant in a human, but it's now been fixed.
• Elon Musk's company considered removing the device from the patient, The Wall Street Journal reported. 
• Neuralink reportedly wants to install 10 more devices in humans this year.

Neuralink's brain-chip implant is working — except that some of the device's threads pulled away from the first human patient's brain.

Elon Musk's company shared a progress update in a blog post on Wednesday and said a number of threads "retracted" from the patient's brain a few weeks after his surgery. That rendered the implant less effective.

The "Link" device lets the patient move a computer cursor using his thoughts. The process involves more than 1,000 electrodes in the device and at least 64 "threads," which are each thinner than a strand of human hair, Neuralink said in an earlier blog post.

Neuralink measures the Link's speed, accuracy, and performance and its cursor control using a metric called bits-per-second (BPS). The Wednesday blog post said a higher BPS score means it has stronger cursor control.

The retraction of some of the threads caused the electrodes in the device to be less effective, Neuralink said. It's since made tweaks which in turn "produced a rapid and sustained improvement in BPS, that has now superseded Noland's initial performance."

Neuralink revealed in a livestream on X in March that 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh, who was paralyzed below the shoulders after a diving accident in 2016, was the first person to receive its implant in January.

Neuralink considered removing the implant from the patient altogether, The Wall Street Journal reported citing unnamed sources.

In February, Musk said on an X Spaces session that "progress is good" and that "the patient seems to have made a full recovery."

On Thursday he posted on X:

Neuralink plans to implant 10 devices in other human patients by the end of this year, according to the Journal.

In a meeting at Neuralink, shared on X in March, Arbaugh said it took five months from applying to be in Neuralink's human trials to having brain surgery, which took less than two hours. Since it was implanted, he's used it to play video games, including "Mario Kart," post on social media, and play chess.

Neuralink didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

• Donald Trump's next Cabinet is unlikely to be like his first.
• Trump has said he's learned who he should keep around him if he wins election in November.
• While some billionaires could get top posts, it's possible Trump assembles a collection of vocal allies.

Former President Donald Trump has said his next Cabinet would not be like his last.

"I'm not going to bring many of those people back," Trump recently told Time Magazine. "I had some great people. I had some bad people."

Trump was responding to a question of why the majority of his Cabinet has not endorsed him. The now-former president entered Washington as an unprecedented neophyte who had never held political office or served in the military. Now, Trump says "the advantage I have now is I know everybody."

In 2016, Trump assembled a so-called "gold-platted" Cabinet that was the wealthiest in modern history. Now, according to multiple reports, Trump prizes loyalty above all else. Perhaps it's not surprising, based on the now-confirmed reports, that members of Trump's Cabinet discussed invoking the 25th Amendment in the wake of the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. It was a stunning end for a group of officials who had experienced an unheard-of turnover for a one-term president.

While Washington is abuzz about who could rise to power if Trump wins in November, the former president's campaign has stressed no such discussions are taking place. His most immediate needs remains finding a running mate, which could lead to other finalists ending up in his Cabinet.

"There have been no discussions about who will serve in a second Trump administration," Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung has previously told multiple outlets. His sentiment was reiterated to Business Insider.

Here's a look at the top names that may end up in Trump's Cabinet

• A FedEx Boeing 767 made a dramatic landing at Istanbul Airport due to failed nose gear.
• The pilot contacted air traffic control for assistance; both pilots were evacuated and uninjured.
• The incident could potentially damage Boeing's reputation amid struggles to regain trust after recent mishaps.

A FedEx cargo plane had to make a dramatic landing after its nose gear failed to deploy.

The Boeing 767 touched down at Istanbul Airport on Wednesday after flying from Paris Charles de Gaulle.

A video of the runway shows the jet touching down on its main landing gear, before leaning forward as the nose scrapes along the tarmac, producing smoke and sparks.

In a post on X, the Turkish transport minister, Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, said the pilot contacted air traffic control after the front landing gear wouldn't deploy. Airport staff helped guide the pilots to land, the minister added.

He also said that the two pilots were evacuated and found to be uninjured.

The runway was closed to other flights until the plane could be removed. Videos shared on Uraloğlu's X account show workers surrounding the 767, and the jet being lifted by a crane.

FedEx is one of the world's largest airlines, with a fleet of more than 700 jets for its cargo operations.

It is currently unclear what caused the landing gear's failure.

Boeing remains under heavy scrutiny worldwide as the planemaker struggles to regain trust after January's Alaska Airlines blowout.

However, because the 767 involved is a decade old, it is unlikely that the landing-gear malfunction is Boeing's fault, and is more likely to be down to an issue with its maintenance.

• Natalie Fischer and her husband Keldon are DINKs — a double income, no kids, couple.
• In July 2023, Fischer quit her tech job to become a full-time content creator. 
• Being a DINK has meant Fischer has been able to travel, own a home, and take a risk on a new career.

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Natalie Fischer, 25, from Washington, about her experience in a "DINK" — double income, no kids — relationship. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

When my husband Keldon and I first got together in January 2018, we knew we weren't ready to have kids.

I was 20 and he was 25 — we were very young and wanted to experience the world and get our finances together first.

Keldon is now a software engineer. After college, I went into marketing roles, but in 2020, I became a data analyst for a Washington-based energy company. In 2021, I started earning over $100,000 a year. We were tech DINKs, which stands for double income, no kids.

We do want kids later in life, but we both agree that now's not the right time for us. With two incomes and no children, we've been able to buy a house, pay for a wedding, build up our savings, and travel. I even quit my 9-to-5 to pursue my passion for content creation.

There's also been a spate of tech layoffs. These factors make me feel like we've made the right decision by putting off having kids.

We splurged and traveled a lot during our tech DINK era

As tech DINKs, Keldon and I could splurge on whatever we wanted because we had a lot of discretionary income.

We both worked east of Seattle and would meet up after work to eat out or watch a movie. We saw it as a way to treat ourselves because we worked incredibly hard.

In July 2020, we bought a two-bedroom condo for around $500,000. We combined our finances and got pre-approved for a mortgage. It was easier to afford a home with two incomes because we could split the downpayment equally between us.

We were sharing expenses, so it felt like everything was half off, and we were able to save more. We both built up emergency funds in 2022; I have $31,000 in mine. We stopped putting money into them to prioritize savings for our wedding and honeymoon expenses. We were able to save around $20,000 for our wedding in August 2023.

We have a travel fund with $4,000 in it. We also have a home renovation fund, and we put extra income into maxing out our Roth IRAs and investing in a regular brokerage account. Our savings strategy was pretty disciplined. We could put away a little over half our income after taxes into financial goals like savings and investments.

Our dog, a pomeranian, brings a lot joy into our lives, but he was expensive. He cost around $1,700 when we bought him a month after getting our house, making us DINKWADs (double income, no kids, with a dog). We spoil him with a lot of treats.

Last year, Keldon and I could travel almost every other month, even after I quit my job. We felt we had the financial security to do this because we already had a home and emergency funds.

We went to places like Rome, Mexico, and Finland. Having the time and freedom to experience the world was awesome since we didn't have kids.

I quit my tech job to become a content creator

I started making TikToks about my personal finance journey in 2022. On TikTok, people told me I was making an impact by teaching them new things about finance. I made $40,000 in revenue from content creation in 2022 and $107,000 in 2023 before expenses.

Most of my income from content creation in 2023 came from UGC, or user-generated content, which I make for fintech companies to use on their social media platforms.

In my data analyst job, I was crunching numbers and it was very difficult to feel I was making any impact. I quit my 9-to-5 in July 2023 to pursue content creation full-time.

I felt last year was the perfect time to take that risk of quitting my job because I'm still young, have a savings fund, and don't have the scary responsibility of providing for a kid. Being a DINK was a large part of why I had savings and could take that risk.

Before I quit my job, content creation was an additional income on top of my salary. We've had to adjust our lifestyle because my income fluctuates more from month to month now.

I'm so grateful to have a supportive partner like Keldon. He contributes more toward expenses than I do during months when I make less from my business. He's been a stable rock — I certainly couldn't do this without him.

Since I'm not earning a stable income, we've decided to limit our spending more this year.

The glory days are kind of over. We spend less on eating out and aren't traveling as much. This year, we've planned one big trip together in the summer.

I decided to give myself a salary of $35,000 for 2024 from my content creation business. Keldon made over $100,000 last year, so we're still well off, but I'm still trying to be more frugal and financially conscious.

I'm hoping the risk will pay off. As content creation doesn't require me to go into an office, I'm hoping to build a flexible career that I can continue around raising a kid.

We want to hit certain financial milestones before becoming parents

I think we've made the right decision in waiting to have kids. I'd have a lot of regrets if I were already a parent. Keldon and I are both early in our careers and haven't made a name for ourselves yet.

We feel things are uncertain with the economy, especially with the layoffs happening in tech. We want to hit certain financial milestones before becoming parents. We want a net worth of $1 million and a fund to cover any medical and day care costs of having kids.

• A millennial quit his job in 2015 to pursue a college degree because his career growth had stalled. 
• But he's struggled to land a job since graduation and is stuck with student debt. 
• He's among the rising share of US men who've at least temporarily dropped out of the labor force. 

In 2015, at age 34, Dan Colflesh decided to quit his job in the customer service industry and pursue a college degree.

"I worked my way up in a few companies, but I always hit a roadblock in promotions because I didn't have a college education," he told Business Insider via email.

By 2021, he earned an associate degree in physics from a community college in Massachusetts and a Bachelor's in political science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. But the additional education hasn't helped him much in the job market and saddled him with student loans, he said.

"No one will hire me," he said. "My Bachelor's degree is pretty much worthless."

Colflesh said he's been looking for work over the last few years and applied to more than 100 jobs. But he said there have been stretches where he's felt "defeated," during which he paused his search for a few months at a time. What's more, he said an injury delayed his search for a couple of additional months.

While the US male unemployment rate is low when compared to past decades, Colflesh is among the men who have struggled to find work — or have stopped looking altogether. In 1950, about 97% of American men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job or were actively looking for work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As of January, that figure had fallen to about 89%.

Among the several explanations for this trend is that, in recent decades, it's become more difficult to land a high-paying job without a college degree — a development that's contributed to some men leaving the labor force. These challenges persist today for men, who now account for less than half of college enrollees, even as more companies have started hiring candidates without a degree.

Some men aged 25 and older aren't in the labor force because they're pursuing a Bachelor's or advanced degree. But as Colfesh can attest to, having a degree doesn't guarantee success in the job market.

Over the past year in particular, it's become more difficult for some Americans to find high-paying jobs. A recent Vanguard report found that the hiring rate has held steady over the past year for workers who earn less than $55,000 a year, but has fallen for workers in the top third of earners, who make over $96,000, to its lowest level since 2014.

Today, Colflesh is still focused on finding a job. He shared the application strategies he's tried, why he thinks his job hunt has been so challenging, and what he plans to do moving forward.

Experience requirements and employment gaps could be working against him

Colflesh said he thinks one of the reasons his employment search has been difficult is that the job landscape has changed in recent years.

"Once you could have a Bachelor's degree in just about anything and get some kind of good-paying job," he said. "Now you have to have an insane amount of experience," he said.

He said this made it challenging to land a job with his political science degree, but that he didn't want to take out more student debt to pursue graduate school. So he decided to plow ahead on his job hunt, expanding his search and tweaking his application strategies.

He tried tailoring his resumes and cover letters for each employer and applied to some jobs that didn't require a degree, but he said he still had little luck. For example, he said he applied to be a cashier at two liquor stores with employee recommendations — but couldn't get an interview.

"I keep hearing employers talk about no one wanting to work and I desperately want to work, and I can't get someone to ever sit down and talk to me," he said.

Physical limitations would make it difficult for him to do blue-collar work, he said. He's also autistic, which he thinks could be contributing to his challenges in the job market.

"I'm always going to seem off to most non-autistics," he said. "The general lack of acceptance of autistic people makes social networking challenging and that impacts job opportunities."

Colflesh has a few other theories for why his job search has been difficult. He thinks he might be being too honest on his resumes — he's seen research that a lot of people stretch the truth. He also thinks he lives in an area where "who you know matters," and that not growing up in the community has disadvantaged him. Additionally, some employment gaps on his résumé might not be doing him any favors, he said.

Lastly, he said growing up in the Appalachian region of the US, an area that has struggled economically in recent decades, has been an additional obstacle.

"I would say that the No. 1 predictor of financial success is the zipcode you grow up in," he said. Some research suggests there could be some truth to this.

Colflesh said that he, his fiancé, and his daughter live with his future mother-in-law in Massachusetts and that his fiancé and her mother have been paying the bills.

His student loans provided him with about $5,000 each semester for living expenses, which he said he used to help his family. He also received some income from a "big crypto investment."

Looking forward, Colflesh said he recently had a second interview for a job. He's also considering going back to the type of work he did before going to college.

"I'll keep looking no matter how bleak it gets because I have to," he said.

Are you a man who's not looking for work or has struggled to find a job? Are you willing to share your story? If so, reach out to this reporter at jzinkula@businessinsider.com.

• Cathy, a 63-year-old clerical worker in Minnesota, fears she may never be able to fully retire.
• Despite having a master's degree, she's concerned about affording rent upon retirement.
• Many peak boomers and ALICE Americans fear they will have to keep working well into retirement years.

Cathy R., 63, has a master's degree and has worked all her life, though she's very worried for her future.

The clerical worker in Minnesota has struggled to rise up the ranks throughout her career. She said she's earning a salary similar to some entry-level positions despite nearly three decades in her current role. She's nervous that even though she's eligible for a pension in a few years, it won't supplement Social Security payments nearly enough to live comfortably.

"I can't afford life while working. How can I even think of retiring?" the St. Paul, Minnesota resident said.

Cathy is among the 30 million "peak boomers" born between 1959 and 1964 who will reach the traditional retirement age of 65 in the next few years. However, many are struggling to make ends meet, let alone have enough saved for retirement. Over half of peak boomers have just $250,000 or below in assets, according to the Alliance for Lifetime Income's Retirement Income Institute.

Many peak boomers also fall into the growing category of ALICE, which stands for asset-limited, income-constrained, and employed. Many ALICE Americans fall above the federal poverty level and typically earn too much to qualify for government assistance, though most can't afford their daily expenses.

"People are educated, and they're trying to make a better living, but there are a lot of us who are barely making it because our wages are not livable," Cathy said. "We've been working our whole lives and working hard."

Living as an ALICE

Cathy grew up in Minnesota and attended the University of Minnesota, after which she enrolled in law school. She worked full-time as a legal secretary at the Attorney General's office while in school part-time at night.

She said the job didn't work out, as her supervisor disapproved of her leaving an hour early each day to attend classes. Law school didn't pan out after two years, and she was laid off from her government position. She still had loads of student loan debt, and she took jobs in Minneapolis as a legal secretary at different law firms.

After a decade, she hadn't climbed the corporate ladder at any firm, so she returned to working for the state government to attempt to make more money and not lose benefits. She worked at the Department of Revenue in the mailroom, then got a job as an administrative assistant for the state's college system, which she kept for about 25 years.

Because she worked for the college system, she received free tuition for a degree, so she obtained a master's in public administration shortly before the pandemic. She believed this would help her propel her career and get her out of a cycle of financial instability.

However, even with a master's, she said she couldn't find anything higher-paying than clerical work, as she was constantly told she didn't have enough experience. She makes about $20 an hour and has good health insurance and vacation and sick leave, though she works part-time jobs as a tax consultant to supplement her income, which she said is common among many she knows.

She's frustrated that even with decades of experience and years of networking, she feels trapped in a position that doesn't pay her enough to fully get by. She said she's seen entry-level positions offering a similar salary to what she makes now after 25 years.

"I was told, you can't get a professional position because you don't supervise. You can't get a professional position because you don't deal with budget," Cathy said. "How are you supposed to get that experience when all you do is give me clerical work?"

She added that even finding flexible part-time work has been a struggle — she's applied to many part-time positions that would require late hours or long weekends.

"The competition for part-time jobs is huge, everybody's applying, but employers are not flexible for people who work full-time," she said. "The way things keep going up? When is it going to stop? People are barely making it. A lot of couples, one is retired, the other is still working."

'Barely making it'

For over three decades, she lived in an apartment complex in St. Paul with affordable rent that rarely increased. Recently, she said her building owners changed and forced residents to reapply for their apartments due to remodeling, and many left for more affordable apartments.

She said the rent in her new apartment, which is now over $1,500 for a two-bedroom, increases at least $70 each year. She lives alone, meaning she's reliant solely on what she brings in. Buying a home hasn't crossed her mind for years, she said, even with first-time buyer programs.

"My parents said education will get you somewhere. Well, not always," Cathy said. "The joke is that I'm one of the most educated clericals in the state of Minnesota."

Her biggest expenses are various loans that she can't consolidate due to high interest rates. To keep grocery bills down, she often coupons and only shops at the least expensive stores. She's grateful that she can work from home, which saves money on transportation.

"I don't own anything except a car, I always have to rent, but I don't know how seniors on limited income are paying rent," Cathy said.

She recently got her $40,000 in student loans forgiven from law school, though she said paying off much of it for 25 years on a clerical salary was challenging, especially with increased interest.

She thinks she can retire in five to seven years and get a pension that could give her enough to survive, though she's not confident she'll have enough. Per the Rule of 90 in Minnesota, in which a person becomes eligible for retirement benefits when their age plus years worked for the government exceeds 90, she can retire this year, though she would have to pay her health insurance until Medicare kicks in at 65.

"My biggest worry is how are we going to be able to keep affording rent when it keeps going up like that?" Cathy said. "There is only so much income I have. I live off of what I make every two weeks, and it's scary."

Are you a peak boomer or ALICE? Are you worried about retirement? Reach out to this reporter at nsheidlower@businessinsider.com.

• Seattle's city council is considering replacing its PayUp law for gig workers after just three months.
• Under the proposal, delivery workers would make well under the city's minimum wage, per one estimate.
• The bill has the support of companies like Uber and DoorDash.

Since January, gig delivery workers in Seattle have been reaping the benefits of a local law mandating a certain pay level. Just months later, they could see their incomes cut under proposed revisions.

PayUp, which took effect in the city in January, requires DoorDash, Uber, Instacart, Grubhub, and other delivery apps to pay independent contractors the equivalent of the city's $19.97 minimum wage — a rule that the app companies have opposed.

But CB 120775, a proposal introduced last month by Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson, would lower the minimum pay for drivers and roll back protections for workers, according to a draft of the legislation.

Under the proposal, gig workers would be paid an hourly rate of $19.97 for their time spent retrieving and delivering orders. While that seems consistent with Seattle's minimum wage for employees, the gig workers covered by the PayUp law are only paid for "active time" spent working on orders — meaning that time spent trying to claim an order is uncompensated. They're also responsible for their own costs, such as gas.

Those aspects of the job had led Seattle's city council to create a system that pays workers based on the miles they drive and the minutes they spend on the job. PayUp also demands that no offer pays less than $5.

The latest proposal would do away with that $5 minimum and the per-minute payment. Instead, gig workers would get paid 35 cents per mile — down from the current 74 cents.

It would also eliminate or cut back other protections for gig workers in the city. For example, a PayUp rule giving workers two minutes to review an order before accepting it would shrink to 45 seconds.

The bill is scheduled for a committee vote on Thursday. If it passes, the proposal could face a vote by the full Council on May 21.

'That makes a difference'

If that vote passes, the bill will result in a significant pay cut for gig workers, according to estimates released Monday by Working Washington, a group that advocated for PayUp. For example, a gig worker who spent five hours of active time and drove 32 miles would make $15.81 an hour — below the city's minimum wage — after accounting for expenses, they calculated.

Hourly pay would be even lower — $13.17 — after accounting for the time that a gig worker would likely spend on the apps just to find and claim orders, according to the study.

Justin Taylor, who has delivered and driven for multiple apps in Seattle over the last four years, said his pay has increased by $100 a week on average since PayUp went into effect — even though he's delivering fewer orders than he did before the law.

"That makes a difference," he told BI. "It allowed me to do things like install new front brakes on my car."

If the proposal before Seattle's City Council becomes law, Taylor said, he'll once again be reliant on customers' tips to cover his expenses and make money working for services like DoorDash.

The delivery companies have made it clear that they oppose the changes that took effect in January. In emails and calls to action sent to gig workers, DoorDash, Instacart, Uber, and others have claimed that there are fewer orders for gig workers to claim.

Some shoppers for Instacart have also had to drive miles out of their way to deliver orders in Seattle's suburbs as the company routed them to stores outside city limits.

Seattle City Council President Nelson did not respond to a request for an interview from Business Insider. In a hearing on the bill on April 25, Nelson said that she had worked with some of the delivery companies as well as Drive Forward, a group whose leadership includes multiple current and former employees for Uber and DoorDash, to draft the bill.

"I want to make sure that people realize this was an agreement that was forged between Drive Forward and the network companies," she told the Council.

A DoorDash spokesperson told BI: "Predictably, Working Washington's opposition to this proposal is not rooted in reality. The proposed law guarantees Dashers will earn nearly $20 per hour on delivery in addition to mileage and tips. We're grateful that Council President Nelson and Drive Forward were able to reconvene stakeholders and reach a compromise that better serves Dashers, local businesses, and consumers in Seattle."

A spokesperson for Instacart said the company "supports the pragmatic approach being taken by the new Seattle City Council as they balance the needs of workers, customers, and businesses across the city and reform the current version of PayUp legislation."

"Uber supports the complete package, and believes it will go a long way to ease the operational burdens and costs experienced by customers throughout Seattle and reduce delivery times," a spokesperson told BI.

But gig worker Taylor said he was dismayed that the delivery companies have had such a direct role in developing the bill that would replace PayUp.

"To me, it's basically saying we're allowing lobbyists to write our laws," Taylor said.

Do you deliver food, groceries, or other items as a gig worker and have a story idea to share? Reach out to this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com

• Kendal Lindstrom started a career-change management consultancy after struggling to change jobs.
• She shared her strategy for acing job interviews, which includes having five key questions ready.
• They focus on areas like company culture, team dynamics, and an employer's long-term plans.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kendal Lindstrom, 25, who lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. She runs a career-change management consulting firm called Doux and works in tech. She recently posted a TikTok about five questions she has ready for a job interview. Lindstrom said she believes asking at least some of these questions is why she's always landed a role she interviewed for. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.

I started Doux because I never liked to be put in a box in terms of my career. Coming out of college, I thought, I just want to be known as the girl in fashion. I was so wrong. But I didn't know how to pivot into a new industry. It took me two years of connecting, trying, and failing. I found the framework of what Doux is now by failing.

After working in fashion, I got myself into medical sales. I then switched to tech because that's where my passions lie. It took me two years to go from fashion to medical sales. But from the day I decided I wanted to be a tech consultant, it only took me three weeks to get my offer letter.

The difference was I knew how to write my résumé. I knew how to become the candidate that they needed.

My formula is to map your résumé to the career you're going to, not the career you've been in. To get to my current job, I created a résumé that was unstoppable.

Usually, I tell my clients to reach out to the hiring manager. In this case, the hiring manager got to me within minutes of me submitting my résumé. The interview process was extensive, but, like I always tell my clients, it's about follow-ups.

I followed up three times because they had great candidates. But I needed to stay in front, and I needed to be the person they chose.

I had the drive

It's funny when I look back and talk to the executives who hired me. They're like, "You had no business being in tech. You had nothing on your résumé that told us that you would do a good job in this. But the way you presented yourself, it was a no-brainer to hire you because we knew you would get it." So, it's often more how you're presenting yourself in a professional realm rather than what you're saying to answer the questions.

I had drive, and that's what they were looking for. They were looking for someone young to grow with the company. If they wanted someone young, they weren't going to get all the experience in the software that they needed. But I was eager to learn, and however many hours outside work that took, I was willing to do it. I really drove home that it doesn't stop at 5 p.m. My job stops when my job is done.

Each day after work, I spent 30 minutes reading a training book my company had given me. Then, I tried to apply the knowledge for 30 minutes. The next day, I would get time on my boss's calendar and say, "This is what I learned yesterday. Tell me how you have seen this applied in scenarios with a client."

It took me about a year to really digest everything. It was tough, but it came down to whether I was willing to ask questions when I needed help rather than having too much pride and not asking anyone.

I've done a lot of interviews for my age because I kept my options open no matter where I was in my career. I've never wanted to be stagnant. So I have done upwards of 10 or 11 interviews, and I've never been told no because my goal was to make an employer feel like I had their best interests at heart and I wanted to be part of their company, which meant I needed to sell myself as a solution. And it's more about the questions you ask than the answers you get.

I have pretty thick skin

When I worked in medical sales — or even with some of the comments on my TikTok — so much was about my image. I was like, "What does my blonde hair have to do with the knowledge that I have?" Not that it ever hurt my feelings because I have pretty thick skin. In any industry, there will be people who would want to discredit someone's abilities because of how they look. But at the end of the day, I can use my brain to where people are like, "We need to listen to you."

Some of the comments on my TikTok have been so far off the mark. At the time of my interviews for my current job, I didn't have a website, and my social media wasn't publicly available. So, I got the job because of the things I said and the questions I asked, and not because of my appearance.

These are my five key questions:

What's the company culture like?

The first thing I tell people to ask is about company culture. That's a big one. It's such a make-it-or-break-it for enjoying your job. I wanted my audience to know that asking about it is so important because if you're miserable in your job, you're only setting yourself up to fail.

What's the lowdown on my predecessor?

The second one is, "What did the person who held this role before me do that was appreciated but not required based on the job description?" I suggest this one because I want my audience to put themselves in the role already. It's an assumptive selling tactic. I always say go into the interview and sell yourself.

I asked that question one time — "What are you going to miss most about this person?" — and the interviewer said, "Oh, they got Starbucks all the time." And I was like, "Great, I guess we'll be getting Starbucks for the office all the time."

What do my colleagues require?

The third question was, "How can I best suit the needs of my direct counterparts?" That came from wanting to understand — in the most professional way — the team you're walking into. It helps me understand and identify how I would fit into the team.

I've seen teams before where they just don't get along. But you don't know that until you sit down on the first day. And at that point, it's already too late. You're either leaving, or you've got to deal with this until you can figure out another job.

How successful is the team?

Number four is what the current state of the department is in reference to the bottom line. That has to do with asking about sales, of course, but I'm also asking, "Am I walking into a failing department? Are you expecting me to turn things around? Are you expecting me to just take the blame for something that's already failing? Or are you guys seeing numbers you've never seen before and need more people?" And, if so, "What did you do to see those numbers?"

What does the company's future look like?

My fifth question is my favorite. It's "what's the company's three-year, five-year, and 10-year plan?" I love this one because I've never walked into a job and thought, "I'm only going to be here for one year," or "I'm only doing this to collect a paycheck." I always say, "Think like the CEO." I never want to go into a job and strive to just be an associate. That's just where you start.

All you really need — or maybe have time for — is one of these questions. So many people on my TikTok said, "That is too many questions. You're so high maintenance." I was like, "Just use one of them, and they'll be blown away." Because you're starting a whole other conversation that doesn't have to do with their questions for you. These are just concepts that I hope people can take with them as they go — little nuggets — to nail these interviews.

There is a singular misery to trying your very best, after months of training, only to be crushed by a 6-year-old.

Last December, I spent a cloudy day holed up at the Mechanics' Institute, a venerable chess club in San Francisco, to play in the 22nd annual McClain Memorial Tournament. It was my first in-person chess competition, and I was full of optimism.

I faced a severe-looking child who wore a food-stained sweatshirt emblazoned with a cartoon penguin. He did not speak. He alternated between fidgeting uncontrollably and fixing me with a disconcerting death stare. He spent much of his time between moves crawling around beneath the table (an interesting psych-out technique, but not one I think I could pull off).

Early in the game, I made an amateur mistake that left me down a knight. From there it was all over, even if I didn't immediately realize it. A checkmate soon followed.

My first game had been against a middle-aged asset manager, and we'd discussed the strangeness of us adults competing against children. (He also beat me.) After an undignified lunch of Doritos and a chocolate protein shake, I managed to eke out a win against my third opponent. A tech worker in her mid-20s, she noted she was nursing a severe hangover, and she had a helpful habit of involuntarily gasping whenever she realized she'd made a mistake. At that point, I'd take whatever modicum of dignity I could salvage.

For the first three decades of my life, I'd had fleeting phases of mild interest in chess, playing the occasional game online while procrastinating or over the board with a drink. But the game's foreboding density and association with supreme intellect dissuaded me from going any deeper. Over the past few years, however, a drumbeat of fanfare and tabloid headlines about the seemingly staid game became inescapable. Like so many other people, I got chess-pilled.

Chess.com, the world's leading chess site, now regularly reports record numbers of players — it said that in February 2023 it hostedhosting more than 1 billion games a month — sporadically crashing under the weight of demand. The pandemic's enforced isolation and Netflix's smash hit "The Queen's Gambit" collectively introduced an entire generation to the game. Socialites are playing chess on "The Real Housewives of New York City." Twitch streamers and YouTubers have racked up millions of followers and ushered in a radical new culture — meme-drenched, rapid-fire, and drama-prone.

Chess has never been more popular, but its ugly side has also never been more exposed. The same characteristics that have driven its popularity online — an easy-to-understand eight-by-eight grid, a strategy without chance or luck — have also made it a cheater's paradise. Meanwhile, rampant sexism festers at chess' heart.

What the hell was happening to the game of kings? To find out, I decided I needed to get better at the game and face off against everyone I talked to.

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In 1990, when Judit Polgár, the greatest female chess player, was emerging as a child prodigy, the world champion Gary Kasparov dismissed her as "after all, a woman."

"It all comes down to the imperfections of the feminine psyche," he said. "No woman can sustain a prolonged battle."

Sexism persists in every level of the game. In 1990, according to the US Chess Federation, only 4% of chess players were women. Today it's 14%. There are innumerable tales of how women were belittled, mistreated, harassed, and abused — from snide remarks about "losing to a girl" at a chess club to sexist comments during online play. Juliana Gallin, a graphic designer in San Francisco, told me before a game on Chess.com (she wiped the floor with me) that she had deliberately omitted any references to her gender in her online profile. Even at professional tournaments, many women say commentators and audiences sometimes fixate on their appearances and clothes rather than the quality of their chess. FIDE, the international chess body, requires anyone wishing to make a misconduct complaint to first pay a fee of 75 euros.

In 1990, only 4% of chess players were women. Today it's 14%.

In 2023, the chess world had its own #MeToo moment. It started when the grandmaster Jennifer Shahade accused Alejandro Ramírez, a grandmaster and well-connected coach, of sexual assault. A slew of further allegations against Ramírez — and claims that the US Chess Federation had failed to act — soon followed. (Ramírez has denied the allegations.)

Shahade and I played a quick game — she smothered me, picking off my pawns until my structure crumbled — and talked. Shahade told me that, in addition to the gender imbalance, part of the issue is that chess is "complex to attack because there's so many different cultures," adding that "every country might have its own policy for safe play." Beyond that, she said, "all ages play together — which mostly is a really awesome thing about the game that we love — but unfortunately for bad actors that could be an opportunity for grooming."

And there's no easier place for bad actors to take root than in chess' most popular venue: online.

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More than anything else, the internet has transformed how chess is played and talked about. It has infused the 1,500-year-old game with modern video-game sensibilities and smack talk. Online chess can feel a world away from the carefully considered hourslong games of old; many modern players prefer "bullet chess," whose warp speed games take less than three minutes. Beyond Reddit hubs like the more pedantic r/Chess (1.1 million members) and the oddball, shitposting r/AnarchyChess (500,000), ground zero for chess' reimagining is video platforms like YouTube and Twitch. Dedicated chess influencers like Levy "GothamChess" Rozman (nearly 5 million YouTube subscribers) and the Botez sisters (1.5 million subscribers) offer guidance to amateurs like me, dissecting tournament games and diving into the nearly constant beef between chess celebs. Even grandmasters — historically cast as cerebral recluses — are getting in on the action. The five-time US champion Hikaru Nakamura (2.3 million subscribers) has become one of the most prolific streamers out there.

"You definitely can make in general a lot more from making content than what you can from playing competitive chess," said Anna Cramling, a fast-talking 21-year-old Swedish player with nearly 900,000 YouTube subscribers. After we chatted, we played a quick game; I timed out with no good moves open to me. All the time in the world wouldn't have made a difference.

The seedier side of internet culture has also wormed its way into chess. "The biggest downside to what I do is I don't always feel safe," Cramling said. Some of her followers, she says, are often "trying to get to know things about me." Poor sportsmanship abounds: Some players rage quit when they make mistakes, try to "stall" their opponents, or abort games if they don't get to play as white. Chat rooms are full of normalized abuse, often sexual or racist. Sometimes dark behavior bleeds out beyond the screen: In late 2023, Nakamura said the police had turned up at his home after someone tried to "swat" him.

But is playing online as fulfilling as playing over the board? As I explored, I kept up a steady stream of middling games on Chess.com — my Elo rating slowly rising — but wanted a more immersive experience. I decided to devote an entire day to playing bullet chess.

By hour two, the games were blurring into one another — aching hands, no time for strategy, just vibes.

In the version I played, a 1:1 time control, each player was allotted one minute total for the entire game plus one additional second per move. My first game went beautifully: excellent piece development, no big mistakes, and a neat checkmate. During game two, I started to feel a little frantic. By hour two, the games were blurring into one another — aching hands, no time for strategy, just vibes. When I took a break for a virtual doctor's appointment, I was seized with a compulsion to fill out the intake forms at blitzkrieg speed.

I had a breakthrough when I switched up the time control. Now I was playing just a flat minute per player, no additional time. Suddenly I was winning clearly lost games because I was just a bit faster on the draw. All I had to do was hide my king in the corner and make my structure just convoluted enough, and I'd win by default as my opponents timed out. It was a lightning-fast game of pattern recognition and counterstrike reflexes, and totally unconducive to improving my actual chess skills.

Eight hours later, I was 150 games down and completely exhausted. It was time to log off.

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Out in the world, chess' resurgence has been accompanied by a wave of new clubs and events.

In April 2023, The Washington Post reported that chess was causing an "epidemic of student distraction." In Berkeley, California, a controversial unlicensed street club has become a flash point for debates about gentrification and police brutality. When I visited, I was bested by a guy who I suspected was extremely high and who got up to dance to Bill Withers between moves.

A couple months into my chess journey, I was in New York City for the week. I made a pilgrimage to the Marshall Chess Club, a 109-year-old institution in Greenwich Village.

Beneath impressionist murals of naked women, and among candles and pumping EDM, an eclectic crowd of hipsters, skaters, and the occasional dyed-in-the-wool chess nerd mingled.

Inside, rows of players sat in perfect silence as the bust of the club's founder, Frank Marshall, the American chess champion of 1909, frowned down at them. But my itch to play could not be scratched: The club was hosting a tournament that day, a nice man told me apologetically, for high-ranking players only. Even the youngest attendees would demolish me. "These aren't your normal kids," he said.

The following evening, I went to an East Village bar and found a very different scene at Club Chess. Beneath impressionist murals of naked women, and among candles and pumping EDM, an eclectic crowd of hipsters, skaters, and the occasional dyed-in-the-wool chess nerd mingled. There were no chess clocks in sight, and downstairs there was a full-on dance floor. It was standing room only. Founded in 2023 by Alexander Luke Bahta — who spent the evening swanning around, tailed by a photographer and reporter for a lifestyle blog — Club Chess has been described by The Guardian and New York magazine as the epicenter of chess' ascendance in nightlife.

I played a young Canadian mycologist in an evenly matched game that she ultimately resigned. Then came a wiry Romanian in athleisure — Elo rating 2200, extremely good — who inexorably ground me down, trapping one of my bishops and stomping through my pawn structure. Afterward I watched him play the burly security guard and checkmate him barely a dozen moves in. The bouncer "plays unconventionally," the Romanian said diplomatically.

"That guy's a monster," the bouncer told me later.

With work looming the next day, I left the party, still going strong, at about 11 p.m., feeling rejuvenated. It had been chess at its purest and most freeing — no scores or internet trash talk to be found.

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If you've heard anything about chess in the past couple of years, it's probably been about anal beads.

In 2022, the world champion Magnus Carlsen accused the grandmaster Hans Niemann, chess' enfant terrible, of cheating in a tournament. What followed was a breathless debate (not by Carlsen) over whether Niemann had managed this with a device hidden in a particularly intimate part of his body.

The consensus among serious chess players is that the specific allegation is absurd, but paranoia about cheating pervades the game, from grandmasters playing in tournaments to amateurs whacking away at each other online. Chess.com bans 90,000-odd players every month for cheating.

I understand why. I've cheated at chess.

Years ago I periodically played online against a college buddy. He beat me, a lot. So in one or two games, purely out of curiosity, I booted up a chess engine, plugged in the moves he made, responded with the computer-determined optimal moves, and won handily. I told him promptly what I'd done. But there was also a prurient little thrill to winning, no matter how undeserved. And I'm hardly the only one who feels this way.

If you've heard anything about chess in the past couple of years, it's probably been about anal beads.

Chess is an extraordinarily easy game to cheat at. Computer programs have handily beaten human players ever since Deep Blue versus Kasparov in 1997. And there's no easy remedy. At the most basic level, there's the risk of people copying computer moves by rote, but that's relatively straightforward to detect. For more sophisticated players, cheating on a single move at the right moment is sometimes enough to give them the edge. Even just a signal — a cough, a gesture, a vibration — that their seemingly innocuous next move will actually be critical, even if they're not told what the right move is, can be enough to make a player slow down and find the pathway to the (ill-gotten) win.

Hence a constant fear of cheaters and a string of minor scandals. The former world champion Vladimir Kramnik has in recent years repeatedly cast aspersions on other high-profile players, including Nakamura. (Chess.com subsequently said it investigated "dozens of players" whose play Kramnik had questioned and found no evidence "in the vast majority of cases.") The grandmaster Fabiano Caruana said in a recent interview that he'd "bet a lot" that someone in the top 10 players had cheated at some point.

The concern can taint players' enjoyment of the game.

"It just sucks because you're trying your hardest — but it kind of doesn't matter because you're just playing god, essentially," said Dan Timbrell, a 33-year-old working in machine learning in the Netherlands. "You are pulling your heart and soul into really trying to win a game, and then you just realize it is just punching a brick wall."

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Over four months, I played a shit ton of chess, and I learned a lot by being summarily beaten by nearly every person I talked to. But I also felt more and more burned out by the game. I found myself constantly fretting about my Elo rating. It distracted from what actually mattered: the chess.

Chess is a notoriously brutal game for the ego. If you lose, it's simply because you weren't good enough. Chess is a skill that can be learned, like any other, but that doesn't stop people online from discussing ad nauseam whether there's a correlation between chess prowess and IQ. Add internet-tracked Elo ratings, and you've got a potent recipe for an inferiority complex.

As a 27-year-old musician in New York City who got into chess after watching "The Queen's Gambit," told me: "You either make good moves or bad moves. So it's very easy to say, 'Oh my, I've made a terrible move — I'm so stupid.'"

I could relate. When I was playing online, I began gravitating toward anonymous, logged-out games — a far more relaxed affair.

Chess' problems aren't unique. But it is uniquely positioned to act as an accelerant for the internet's worst impulses: sexism, abuse, cheating, elitism, and toxic nerdery. It's a far cry from what Juliana Gallin described to me as "the stunning, breathtaking beauty and magic of chess." My most memorable chess experiences, the places where I encountered that magic, weren't online. They were playing in the crowded thrill of Club Chess in New York, or trading pieces with a buddy over a gin and tonic in a Lake Tahoe cabin, or battling it out in the cafeteria of a Russian bathhouse in San Francisco.

As I was wrapping up this story, YouTube recommended me a video by ChessPage1, a janky instructional channel. At the high levels, the robotic-sounding voice said, players need an encyclopedic knowledge of openings and theory and a grand strategy to execute. But among us mortals, people screw up in minor ways several times a game.

"If you can be the guy who just doesn't blunder and also spots the opponent's blunders," the voice said, "you can easily become a very good chess player without having to pull off some complex mastery game plan … You don't have a game plan, your opponent doesn't have a game plan, everybody is confused. But confusion means high probability of blunders, and if you don't blunder, you will crush 99% of your opponents. Congratulations, you are now enlightened and smart." They added, "Remember, whenever you feel like you need a complex strategy, just don't blunder."

It's good advice for chess, and for life. If in doubt, remember that basically no one else has it figured out either. Just try not to screw up too badly.

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Rob Price is a senior correspondent for Business Insider and writes features and investigations about the technology industry. His Signal number is +1 650-636-6268, and his email is rprice@businessinsider.com.

• Tony Fernandes, CEO of UEGroup, managed his company from a cruise ship for 21 days.
• Fernandes experienced challenges with slow internet and communication but found workable solutions.
• Despite the hurdles, he finds value in being offline at times and plans to continue cruising.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tony Fernandes, a 60-year-old founder and CEO of UEGroup based in San Francisco, about his experience working remotely on a cruise ship. It's been edited for length and clarity.

My wife and I are in the post-kid, post-pet phase of our lives. Our kids have gone off to college and we had a beloved dog and house rabbits that have passed away. After they passed, that really opened up a window for us to travel — and we did — but extended travel is new for us.

In November, I embarked on a trip where I spent several weeks leading my company from a cruise ship with my wife. We ultimately circumnavigated the globe on two different cruises and with air travel. Leaving California, we went through Europe, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan.

It's been a cool experience. But I found that while working on the ship, you do need some discipline — especially on a 21-day cruise.

You have to create a time for work and a time for play

We didn't realize it, but when we upgraded our internet, it upgraded our drinks package. So, it turned out we could get bottles of Moët & Chandon Champagne for free.

We had a couple of lunches and dinners where we enjoyed Champagne, but we also developed a rhythm where we had work time and playtime. It wasn't rigid — but there were times when my wife, who does finance at UEGroup, and I knew we had to get things done.

Working can set you apart from people who are on vacation. That doesn't mean you can't work in your bathing suit or have a beer before you start your work, but it puts you on a slightly different footing than some of the other people on the cruise.

Expect very slow internet service

One thing I didn't realize prior to the trip was that the cruise ship had only one satellite connection shared by thousands of people. The internet was oppressively slow at times.

For our next long trip, I'm looking into getting a data satellite phone so I can put an antenna on my patio facing the right direction for the satellite. I've still got to figure it out, but there were times when it was really important for us to communicate, and we couldn't.

We're now very mistrustful of statements the cruise lines make about the quality of their internet. For example, we upgraded our Internet, but it turned out the cruise line's definition of upgrading was that we could have more than one device, not that there was any better speed or reliability. You've got to read the fine print about how they define an upgrade.

I would also recommend asking what kind of download and upload speeds to expect.

Create a backup plan for meetings and other communication challenges

Internet access can be unpredictable even with research and planning ahead, so we had backup people for important meetings back at the office. If we weren't able to show up, there was someone prepared with the slide deck. I can't say it didn't create awkward moments at times — and it is one of the downsides — but you can plan for it the best you can.

When my wife was dealing with a bank and needed to get a two-factor authentication code without working SMS, there wasn't much she could do. So, that was a challenge as well.

At some points, I was forced to go ashore and buy SIM cards to leverage local cell service, but this requires research. Depending on the country there might only be one cellphone service that works there, or you might be able to get SIM card brands that work for a larger area.

Being offline can end up being a good thing

I find it hard to be offline, but because the connectivity was so bad sometimes, it just forced it to happen. We were in the middle of nowhere, and it wasn't going to change. In a way, being offline was good because I could just tune out.

My wife and I plan to cruise more in the future and even recently bought a home in Portugal near a cruise port that we're going to commute to using cruises as much as possible.

When we did the math, taking a cruise from California to Portugal was less than two business-class air travel tickets. Plus, you get meals, entertainment, and no jet lag — it seems like the way to go.

If you live or work on a cruise ship and would like to share your story, please email mlogan@businessinsider.com.