During a January all-hands with employees of the startup, Tools for Humanity, CEO Alex Blania laid out his expectations.
"We will neither fail, nor will we be an average outcome, and that's what we want and that's all I care about every day and all you should care about every day, and nothing else should matter," Blania said, according to a recording reviewed by Business Insider. "If you should care about something else, and if you want something else, you should just not be here. It's as simple as that."
He said that the company exists solely to achieve its mission and that anything else is a distraction.
"We don't care about politics, we don't care about DEI, we don't care about anything, we just care about how can we achieve the mission through merit, performance, and excellence," said Blania, who also told staffers he had recently attended President Donald Trump's inauguration in Washington, DC.
Several "team values" displayed on a television screen in the start-up's now-former San Francisco office echoed Blania's messaging, a February video viewed by Business Insider shows.
The "Afterburner on" team value in Tools for Humanity's now-former San Francisco office.
Business Insider
"We are very (very) hard working. We believe this is a once in a lifetime project and that success is important for humanity," one read. "Therefore, we work weekends, we're always on call, and we push as hard as our circumstances allow us to. As a result we defy the odds, get to escape velocity and succeed on the mission."
Other values included a warning that the company doesn't "tolerate slowness and comfort," as well as the idea that "we have no place for talkers, ideology, or politics. We don't have time to worry about each other's feelings; we say what needs to be said."
The values were written by Blania, according to a former employee.
"The organization's transparency about its values and operating principles has resulted in building a team that is passionate and focused on its increasingly urgent mission of ensuring every human benefits from the age of AI," a Tools for Humanity spokesperson told Business Insider.
The core values currently include optimism about the project, individual responsibility, and clear thinking.
During the January meeting, Blania said that the company aimed to deploy an additional 3,000 Orbs to verify 30 million users by the end of the quarter, and that it wanted 100 million verifications by the end of the year.
He has described the company's overarching goal as reaching a billion users. Business Insider previously reported that, so far, Tools for Humanity has verified around 17.5 million people — a little under 2% of its target.
Employees were also encouraged during the January meeting to use artificial intelligence to boost productivity.
"We're here as a company that's trying to solve problems in the AI world," said Damien Kieran, whose LinkedIn describes him as the company's chief legal and privacy officer. "We also probably don't use AI as much as we should."
To address this, he said, the IT team was negotiating a new deal with ChatGPT Enterprise — the large language model sold by Altman's OpenAI. Business Insider has reported that there were also discussions around integrating Tools for Humanity's cryptocurrency World project with OpenAI to verify those using its services.
OpenAI didn't respond to a request for comment.
ChatGPT wasn't the only artificial intelligence tool being employed by Tools for Humanity. Staffers were told that another AI model — which directly competes with Altman's flagship venture — would soon be accessible.
"Gemini Enterprise will also be available by the end of the month to everybody," Kieran said. "All of the Gemini AI stuff that Google has to offer will be available to folks."
Daniel Walton landed a creative strategist role at Meta after 20 years in advertising.
He balanced agency work with travel breaks to prioritize work-life balance and personal growth.
At Meta, Walton utilizes AI tools and helps brands leverage platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Daniel Walton, a 43-year-old creative strategist for Facebook's Creative Shop based in Singapore. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I've wanted to work in advertising since I was a teenager. When I was 13, my aunt, who worked for an advertising company, said, "You like design, you should be an art director." She explained that it involved drinking coffee, coming up with ideas, and going on photo shoots. I was like, "Wow. That sounds amazing."
I studied graphic design and did everything I could to get an internship at an ad agency. I'd leave direct mailing pieces in the foyers of multinational agencies to try to catch the attention of creative directors and land an internship.
During my final year of university, I worked as an unpaid intern at McCann-Erickson in New Zealand.
From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., I'd split my time between college and the advertising agency
In the evenings and on weekends, I'd work as a bartender, waiter, or barista to earn some money. I was working long hours, but I felt lucky to be working at such a big agency.
During my internship, I put forward an idea for a Coca-Cola TV ad. The client loved it, and they even asked me to act in it because they liked my long-haired, dishevelled look.
I suddenly was getting a check for starring in the ad, and I thought, "This is pretty good."
After I graduated in 2002, I got a full-time job with McCann-Erickson
Over the next three years, I advanced to junior art director, and then I was headhunted to join Blue Hat Advertising. The money was twice the amount I was getting at McCann.
I then moved to London to freelance for ad agencies before I returned to Sydney in 2008 and got a job at BMF. They had some amazing projects and people, but when you're working 80 hours a week, all parts of your life take a dive.
I had a trip planned to go to the Himalayas, but a beer ad shoot scheduled for the same date forced me to cancel my trip. I left the company a few months later.
I had an early midlife crisis
I quit my job, left my apartment, and bought a one-way ticket to the Himalayas. It started a tradition that I still follow today. Every birthday, I do something I've always wanted to do. I'm now a huge advocate for work-life balance.
For the next two years, I traveled around the Himalayas and worked with one of my former colleagues in Africa before returning to New Zealand.
In February 2012, I began working at the social media agency Contagion as a deputy creative director. Following a move in 2015 to Clemenger BBDO in Sydney, where I worked for 18 months, I decided to go traveling again.
I loved the people, but I worked crazy long hours, so I wanted to take another break, which some might call a micro-retirement.
I was next encouraged to apply at Meta
My plan was to take six months off and travel around South America. I was just about to leave Sydney when an old boss, now working as a creative strategist at Meta, took me out to lunch.
He said I should apply for a creative strategist role. I explained I was about to go traveling, but he said that was fine, as it'd take me about six months to get the job.
While traveling, I had nine interviews with various staff members. I was nervously waiting for my final interview on the last day of my trip when I received a call from HR stating that no further interview was necessary.
I was hired at Meta in May 2017
I would be based in Sydney, but I had to attend a boot camp at the campus in SF. I was given an airplane ticket to San Francisco and watched Zuckerberg do a Q&A session right in front of me. It was quite a shift.
I was excited because I knew it was the beginning of something quite different. It wasn't like going to another advertising agency. I'm still at Meta now.
My role is to showcase the creative potential of various platforms, including Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, Meta Quest, and Ray-Ban Meta. I show brands how they can be utilized for modern storytelling and brand building. I act more as a consultant, working closely with the brands' creative teams to help them navigate the platform.
Everything at Meta changes so rapidly
You also don't follow a traditional advertising promotional route. For instance, at an ad agency, you'll move from a junior creative to a midlevel creative, up to a creative director. If you get a promotion at Meta, you could be an IC6 versus an IC5, and that doesn't mean anything to someone outside the company.
Since I joined, AI has become an integral part of everyone's world. Meta offers Meta AI integration and Gen AI tools in the ad creation process. I'm very excited about the road map the company has for the future rollout in this space.
I'm using AI in my role in many ways
In-house at Meta, we use the AI tool Metamate for anything from writing emails to creating presentations. It's incredible for efficiencies, but I'm still trying not to use AI for idea generation.
AI will always be quicker than I am, but I believe there's so much to be gained by generating an idea. Whether it's writing copy or taking a photo, there's a real sense of fulfilment from that. I worry it'll be something that'll be eroded.
I use the Meta Ray-Bans. They're phenomenal. As they're hands-free, I use them when riding my motorbike to make calls, get directions, or play music.
I moved to Singapore with Meta
After six years with Meta in Sydney, I applied to work in Asia as a creative strategist, and I'm now based in Singapore, working across eight markets.
My favorite part about working for Meta is that I've found a company where I can truly embrace my work-life balance. I could never have done my birthday tradition in traditional advertising agencies.
I had my Mad Men days, but I've learned to prioritize.
Zoe Hawkins is seeing more AI slop come across her desk. It's changing how she gives feedback.
Courtesy of Zoe Hawkins
Zoe Hawkins, a content marketer in Arizona, said she's seeing traces of AI in the work she edits.
She tells the people she manages that it's fine to use AI, but that they still have to think.
"If I wanted slop, I would generate it myself," Hawkins told Business Insider.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Zoe Hawkins, 40, who lives in Anthem, Arizona, and is the director of content marketing and thought leadership at Sumo Logic, a software company. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
In the last year or so, some of the content coming across my desk for edits has started to slip in quality. I began seeing stuff that didn't fit. I would be like, "Did you write this?" They would say, "Well, I helped write it."
I recently had someone hand in a piece of content that they had been sitting on for weeks. Before that, I had asked about it. "Oh, I'm working on it. I'm just sitting with it." I said, "OK, take as much time as you need."
Then I got the draft, and thought, "This was written in three minutes with AI." I went through the version history of the document, and I could see that it just was copy-pasted in one go. Then, I could see the AI tells being edited out. There were things like weird mixed metaphors and a perfect three bullets for every example.
I thought, "This is not OK." I am not going to wait for something and then I get slop. If I wanted slop, I would generate it myself.
I use AI, and I'm a believer that AI can be great and accelerate all sorts of good work. As managers, we need to figure out how to take people who give us slop and not just say, "You're fired." Because if we did that to everybody, we'd have no employees or agencies left.
How do you coach people on how to use AI effectively? We have to work with the humans who are working with AI to get better results, or we're just going to lose our minds.
Did you read this?
I'm definitely seeing people lean on AI much more. I will sometimes get a document to review, and someone will say, "This looked really good to me." And I'm like, "Did you read this before you gave it to me?" They'll say something like, "Well, I had AI summarize it for me." So, someone had AI write it, and you had AI summarize it. Am I the first reader of this document, including the writer and this reviewer?
As long as the thinking is still done by a human and isn't outsourced, some of the grunt work can be done by an AI. You still need someone to read the final version and say, "Yes, that's what I meant."
I can Slack all day, but ask me to send an email, and I get anxiety. So, I'll have AI read my email and I'll ask, "Did I say anything awkward in here? Does this read OK?" Often, it'll just be like, "You're good to go. Hit send." All I needed was a hype-AI.
Sometimes the AI will say, "You could adjust this to sound more professional." But it doesn't seem like me. AI is always going to suggest things to sound more like bland autocorrect — what it thinks is the average or the normal. You still have to have a moment where you say, "No, this is my voice. These are my thoughts."
If I'm coaching people on using AI, I'll say, "Talk me through your thinking." That often makes them realize, "Oh, I didn't actually think here." Then they might reassess, "If I were to be writing this from scratch, what would be the things I would want to include?" I'm like, "Great. Let's include that in your prompt."
It's really encouraging people to reclaim their own thoughts because otherwise, we all sound the same, and it doesn't serve the business. I'm not creating blogs or case studies for fun. I'm doing it because there are goals and KPIs, and we're trying to build a connection with our audience.
Learning new ways to give feedback
If I just said no AI across the board, people would be like, "Yeah, yeah, OK," and then do it anyway. It's really about saying, "We accept the fact that you have a tab open with your AI of choice. Let's make sure you're either using one with an approved model or one that has our brand guidelines built in."
There needs to be a human in the loop at some point in the drafting stage and at some point in the editing stage.
I spent much of my career learning to give feedback to people's fragile egos about writing. Now, everybody is super confident that they're great writers because the AI wrote it. It's a new skill to learn how to give feedback to people when their content was written by AI, or when their planning was from AI.
I'll say, "I could ask ChatGPT myself. I want to know what you think." Probably what will change the most in the coming years is how to manage people who are relying on AI.
Job seekers line up at the TechFair conference in Los Angeles
Reuters
Indeed reports a sharp decline in tech job postings, especially in data and analytics.
There are 40% fewer data and analytics job postings compared to before the pandemic boom.
Rising applications and generative AI make this part of the job market highly competitive.
Indeed, the world's largest job site, just released its big annual study. The data on tech jobs is pretty gruesome. The outlook for data and analytics jobs is particularly grim.
Let's start with the overall job market. This chart, which includes Indeed's Job Postings Index, shows a steady decline in available jobs since the pandemic boom of 2022.
A chart from Indeed
Indeed
Dig deeper, and you can see that the tech job market has done a lot worse than some other sectors. Indeed's Tech Job Postings Index peaked above 200 in 2022 and has since plunged to 67.
A chart from Indeed
Indeed
Data and analytics jobs really stand out, though. This sector had a Jobs Posting Index of 60, the lowest of all sectors Indeed tracked as of the end of October. That means there are 40% fewer data and analytics job openings than before the pandemic.
Even worse: There is still a rising number of applications per job in this sector, according to Indeed.
These types of roles include business analyst, data analyst, data scientist, and business-intelligence developer. Indeed's data shows a clear mismatch between employer demand and worker supply here. Years of investment in data-science training have left a glut of skilled candidates just as hiring appetite cools.
"Workers who received that training are likely to continue to look for jobs that match their skills, regardless of the pullback in postings, because it is often difficult, costly, and time-consuming to change careers," said Cory Stahle, a senior economist at Indeed.
The pullback in data & analytics jobs has been more dramatic than in other occupations. Employers went on a hiring spree during the post-pandemic boom. Since then, many firms simply haven't needed to replace these workers as much.
Adding to the chill: the rise of generative AI, which is making it easier for more people to analyze data with less formal training.
"AI is not yet capable of replacing workers, but it may be helping workers and businesses do more with less," Stahle said.
For job seekers, that translates into a fierce market.
"This combination of fewer postings and more applications suggests that the market is competitive," Stahle warned. "Finding the right job may take some time, and your wage growth is likely to be weaker than it was a few years in these roles."
But for years, Beller was entrusted with managing some of the most delicate parts of Epstein's financial life.
Beller was part of a tight-knit team working for Epstein, who killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. He worked under the direction of Richard Kahn, Epstein's top in-house accountant.
Congressional investigators interested in how Epstein made and spent his money — and whether banks ignored red flags that should have alerted them to sex-trafficking — now have Beller in their crosshairs.
In lawsuits involving Epstein, Beller comes across as something of a financial Forrest Gump — turning up repeatedly in the paper trail. He hasn't been named as a defendant in any of the lawsuits, but his name crops up on incorporation papers for Epstein's web of companies, on Ghislaine Maxwell's tax forms, on checks, and on cash withdrawal records for Epstein's bank accounts, which for years were held by JPMorgan Chase.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee want to subpoena banks for their financial records about Beller and other people who did business with Epstein. Sen. Ron Wyden asked both the Treasury Department and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon to produce records from Epstein-related accounts, including those opened by Beller.
Beller hasn't been accused of any crimes and there is no record of a federal agency pursuing an enforcement action against him. Through his attorney, Jonathan Sack, Beller declined to comment for this story.
A foot soldier in Epstein's financial life for 22 years, Beller could help shed light on Epstein's vast fortune — how he amassed it, and what he did with all his money.
The 69-year-old accountant personally handled some of the cash withdrawals from Epstein's account, which became a catalyst for Epstein's messy breakup with JPMorgan years after the financier pleaded guilty to sex crimes in 2008.
Those cash withdrawals should have been a bright red flag for potential financial crimes, such as money laundering, according to Martin Sheil, a former IRS criminal investigator. Beller's perspective might help explain what Epstein was doing with the money, and what JPMorgan may have known about it at the time.
"Rich folks generally don't deal in cash, and banks know that," Sheil told Business Insider.
Beller was often the person who physically withdrew the cash from Epstein's accounts, recently unsealed court records show.
He worked for Epstein between 1992 and 2014, and his withdrawals of large amounts of cash from Epstein's accounts with the bank were the subject of at least four federally mandated Suspicious Activity Reports, or SARs, for concerning transactions. The earliest SAR was filed in 2002 — long before Florida police began investigating Epstein's abuse of girls.
Banks are typically wary of large cash transactions, since they can exchange hands without clear oversight. "Know Your Customer" rules require financial institutions to monitor where clients' money is going to ensure it's not tied to fraud, money laundering, or human trafficking.
Internal JPMorgan communications and copies of the SARs the bank filed with the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network show that Beller sometimes withdrew tens of thousands of dollars at a time.
An undated photo of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein entered into evidence during her criminal trial.
US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York
Since JPMorgan believed Epstein was a financial advisor for billionaires, those cash withdrawals should have raised more severe alarms, according to Sheil, the former IRS criminal investigator.
"His business is to provide tax or investment advice to rich, wealthy clients," Sheil told Business Insider. "And to have this account come in to make these large cash withdrawals? Well, what's the basis for that? That's not normal business for an investment advisor."
In the flagged transactions, Beller always went to the same JPMorgan location: 270 Park Avenue, the bank's headquarters, which CEO Jamie Dimon recently razed to the ground and replaced with a new office tower for employees.
The repeated visits to the same JPMorgan location should have also raised questions within the bank, said Sarah Krissoff, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor.
"The first time something happens, or the second time, it is going to draw less scrutiny," said Krissoff, now a white-collar defense attorney at Cozen O'Connor. "As something becomes a pattern, it should be raising more red flags."
In the 2002 report, JPMorgan flagged for the Treasury Department that Beller had withdrawn substantial amounts of cash over the span of about three months. The report shows the bank was concerned the withdrawals from Epstein's accounts could be part of a money laundering operation.
According to the 2002 report, Beller made 16 different cash withdrawals of about $9,800 each (the maximum allowed was $10,000) and cashed one $40,000 check from one of Epstein's accounts.
Beller — but, not Epstein — was the subject of the 2002 SAR, which a former FBI special agent hired by the US Virgin Islands to analyze the report flagged as unusual.
"If the intention on the part of JPMC was to adequately report the activity, then the SAR would have been filed against Jeffrey Epstein himself, not only against Beller," the former FBI agent wrote. "Beller was Epstein's accountant."
Harry Beller withdrew cash from accounts associated with Jeffrey Epstein's private jet,
US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York
Court records show JPMorgan taking issue with Beller's cash withdrawals a decade later. An email exchange between bank employees in 2012, obtained in the lawsuit, shows them expressing concern over $100,000 in cash withdrawn from Hyperion Air, a corporate entity that held Epstein's private jet.
Beller signed the checks for the withdrawals, one employee said. In response, a JPMorgan executive wrote that Epstein said the cash was taken out to pay for fuel in foreign countries, and that the bank ought to check that with Beller.
"Perhaps the next best step is for us to speak with Harry, who we know, and ask Harry about the cash withdrawals," John R. Duffy, then the CEO of JPMorgan's private banking division, wrote. "Agree? Concerns?"
It's not clear from the court documents whether any of the JPMorgan employees ultimately spoke to Beller about the transactions. A separate 2023 report, commissioned by the US Virgin Islands and written by a forensic accountant with access to internal JPMorgan documents, said there's no evidence the bank ever asked for receipts or other documentation to say the cash was used for fuel.
JPMorgan filed three additional SARs after cutting ties with Epstein in the wake of media reports about the pedophile. In 2015, the bank flaggedtransactions between 2006 and 2007, the years Florida law enforcement investigated his sexual abuse of teenage girls. The bank filed two other SARs in August and September of 2019, after Epstein's arrest on federal sex-trafficking charges and death. They covered transactions between 2003 and 2019 in accounts belonging to Epstein as well as several of his associates, including Beller.
"We regret any association we had with the man, but wouldn't have kept him as a client had we known of his heinous crimes," JPMorgan Chase spokesperson Patricia Wexler told Business Insider. "The Federal government had much more information on his activities that they did not share with us at the time."
A pair of lawsuits filed earlier this year by Epstein victims against banks allege Epstein used HBRK to set up fake companies, send hush money and other illegal payments to his sex-trafficking victims, and "otherwise develop false schemes to protect the operation and control the victims."
The suits say HBRK stands for Harry Beller and Richard Kahn, its "founding members" and longtime Epstein accountants. Like Beller and HBRK, Kahn is not named as a defendant in those lawsuits.
Kahn has managed the affairs of the $630 million estate Epstein left after his 2019 death, along with the financier's longtime personal lawyer Darren Indyke. An attorney for the co-executors didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment for this story.
Prince Andrew attends The Royal Meeting, a British social event at the Ascot Racecourse outside London.
Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images
Beyond Epstein's operations, testimony from Beller could give the public a glimpse of the kind of financial advice Epstein gave to his handful of billionaire clients.
On his LinkedIn page, Beller described his time working for Epstein — which is listed as from 1992 to 2014 — as work for "New York Strategy Group LLC." Court records describe the company as Epstein's money management firm. On Beller's LinkedIn page, it's described as "a financial advisory firm servicing high net worth individuals with assets in excess of 1 billion dollars." Beller, who retains a CPA license and lives in upstate New York, now works at a small NYC-based accounting firm.
Sigrid McCawley, an attorney at Boies Schiller Flexner who brought the lawsuits against the banks on behalf of Epstein victims, said Beller was someone who "knows the inner workings" of how Epstein used the financial system.
"He was the accountant part of that enterprise, with Khan, whose hands are all over this," McCawley told Business Insider. "So I do think he is a significant person of interest in this."
Beller was forced to testify last year in a deposition in another lawsuit brought by McCawley, against Indyke and Kahn.
When asked about HBRK, he "invoked the Fifth Amendment instead of responding to document subpoenas or substantively answering questions," McCawley wrote in one court filing.
Forty-five thousand dollars: That's our best estimate of what the first year of cancer costs in your mid-30s. It's the equivalent of a first-time down payment on a house, a master's degree, or two years of childcare in an expensive city.
Business Insider has spent a year investigating how a surge in young cancer is upending careers, family planning, andhousehold budgets. We found thereare fewreliable estimates for how much a diagnosis actually costs.
We started with medical bills. Even with insurance, the out-of-pocket costs for surgery, chemotherapy, and specialist visits can run into the thousands of dollars.
And that's just the beginning. As dozens of adults with cancer have told us, the true cost of a diagnosis goes far beyond itemized hospital bills and prescription receipts.
"I have to spend a lot of money on specialized toothpaste," said JJ Singleton, who was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer at 27. "My mouth is so raw that I can't use any of the normal flavors."
Rick Rivers, a 43-year-old father of three, takes vitamins and supplements daily after being diagnosed with colon cancer at 30 and kidney cancer at 37. "I spend close to $400 a month just on the holistic end of it," he said.
Business Insider consulted with five surgeons and oncologists across the country to map out a typical treatment protocol. We then teamed up with health economists at GoodRx, a drug pricing platform, to estimate out-of-pocket treatment costs for the average patient based on national health survey data. We took into account other costs, such as IVF and physical and mental health therapy, as well as the numerous hidden expenses, from travel back and forth to appointments to the cost of wigs after chemotherapy.
To lay this all out in the simplest possible terms, we created a case study. We're calling her Jane.
Meet Jane: A 35-year-old with stage 3 colon cancer
Jane's costs reflect the average out-of-pocket expenses for a working-age patient with colon cancer who has some form of insurance coverage.
Colon cancer is one of the fastest-rising cancers for people under 50 — a statistic that triggered Business Insider's initial reporting on the topic — and it's often caught at stage 3 or later, when the cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes.
That's because the early symptoms of colon cancer are subtle and can be mistaken for other digestive issues, like irritable bowel syndrome. While the recommended age for colonoscopies was recently adjusted down to 45, it's less likely to be on the radar of someone in their 30s.
Since chemotherapy typically leads to fertility issues, we have factored in the cost of egg freezing. It's one of the factors that distinguishes young cancer from cancer in older adults: People in their 20s and 30s often still want children.
We also accounted for the hit cancer will take to Jane's career and long-term finances.
The direct, tangible expenses
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For a diagnosis like Jane's, doctors generally recommend surgery to remove all or some of the colon. Most patients will need to stay at the hospital for two to seven days after the procedure. A small number will require a temporary or permanent ostomy, a surgical intervention that diverts the flow of waste to a bag outside the body, which brings long-term medical supply costs.
The next step will be chemotherapy. The typical chemo treatment runs for three months, with drugs administered every two or three weeks. Some patients with more invasive tumors will need six months of chemo. A patient with a colon cancer diagnosis like Jane is unlikely to need radiation.
Patients will typically be prescribed other drugs, like prochlorperazine to alleviate nausea, and oxycodone to ease pain. Here,Jane's relative youth is a benefit: Young people tend to tolerate chemo better and recover faster than older adults with cancer.
Jane will also need to keep up with her insurance, which significantly reduces patients' out-of-pocket burden. A 30-day supply of the chemo drug fluorouracil will cost $5.81 with insurance, or $853.53 for a patient who is uninsured or whose insurance doesn't cover it, GoodRx's analysis shows.
However, maintaining that insurance can be expensive. The average American with employer health insurance spent $1,440 in premium costs for individual coverage in 2025. That jumped to $6,850 for family coverage — on top of baseline deductibles and copays. Premiums for both private and public health insurance are set to increase in 2026.
Overall, Jane will incur $5,787 in out-of-pocket healthcare costs, based on our analysis of the average expenses for a working-age adult with her diagnosis. Some of the core cancer costs included in that estimate would be:
Inpatient surgery and a hospital stay: $550
Follow-up tests, scans, and outpatient appointments: $0 (Covered by insurance)
Specialist visits: $576, which will cover six total appointments
Cancer drugs like chemotherapy: $45
Family planning expenses
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Most adults who go through chemo will lose their fertility.
Jane may decide to freeze and store her eggs — preserving the option of having kids via IVF in the future — before starting cancer treatment. That requires more medications and doctors' visits, and could cost her $20,000 because many insurance plans don't cover fertility procedures.
Over the next few years, Jane could owe thousands more for longer-term egg storage and IVF cycles.
Men with cancer may choose to preserve their fertility via sperm banking, which can have an initial cost between $500 and $1,000.
The unexpected expenses
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As a 35-year-old woman, Jane's chemo treatments will likely push her into early menopause. To manage her symptoms, she may opt for hormone replacement therapy, which can run up to $500 for a three-month supply.
Beyond medical bills, Jane will have to contend with all the hidden costs of her diagnosis.
DoorDash for dinners she's too tired to cook, mental health therapy to cope with medical trauma, physical therapy to rebuild strength, clothing and mobility aids to fit a body changed by treatment, vitamins, supplements, and so much more.
She may need to stay at a hotel or an Airbnb near the hospital, or budget for the gas she burns driving back and forth to appointments. Then there are small comforts — manicures, craft kits, a Netflix subscription to boost morale during painful procedures.
"All of this adds up and can be pretty devastating," says Dr. Krista Terracina, a colorectal surgeon at the University of Florida.
Career costs
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Throughout her treatment and recovery, it's likely that Jane will need to take sick days and reduce her work commitments. GoodRx's analysis estimates that the average working-age colon cancer patient misses the equivalent of 26 days of work due to cancer and loses an average of $5,104 in annual wages.
The data also shows that younger patients tend to miss more days of work and lose thousands more in wages compared to older patients, since more adults under 50 are working, and they tend to be at a point in their career where they are working more demanding jobs.
It's possible that Jane will have to scale back to part time, pass up a promotion that comes with a more demanding workload, or stop working altogether.
Each option limits her income, puts her insurance coverage at risk, and could hinder her future goals. Several patients have told Business Insider they nearly drained their savings and 401(k) accounts to afford care.
Elective treatments
Jane may choose to undergo experimental treatments, and it's likely she'll have to pay for them in full.
Medicine often needs to be on the market for years, through a series of trials and government approvals, before insurers will cover the cost. The out-of-pocket costs range so widely that we left this out of our estimate.
Immunotherapy, for example, can help destroy cancer cells and reduce the risk of recurrence, and is sometimes used if the baseline course of treatment isn't effective.
A T-cell transfer, which uses a patient's own immune system to develop individualized medicine, can cost $373,000 per infusion. Scalp cooling, another emerging treatment used to preserve patients' hair during chemo, typically costs about $2,000.
Clinical trials are also an option for some patients. If Jane qualifies for one, she might still be responsible for copays, travel, and hospital costs — even if the medicine used in the trial itself is free. Still, volunteering to test drugs and procedures not yet on the broader market is sometimes the only way patients can afford this kind of care. Experimental treatments might bring Jane's out-of-pocket medical cost to six figures, but they could be lifesaving.
The true cost of young cancer
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Jane's case is hypothetical. Every patient's experience — and cost — is different. Some Americans have generous insurance coverage, others have limited plans or none at all. Whether or not Jane is a parent, is able to share costs with a partner, or lives near a hospital will also impact what she owes. It may be more or less than Business Insider's $45,000 benchmark.
After that first year of treatment ends, the bills don't. Jane will need years of follow-up scans, colonoscopies, and possibly prescriptions to prevent recurrence — each with its own copay. Mental health therapy, too, can become a lifelong expense.
A cancer history can shadow her financial life. While health insurance companies can't charge patients more for a pre-existing condition, a cancer history can spike Jane's life insurance premium, or make her ineligible for coverage. Medical debt lingers; roughly half of cancer patients owe money long after remission. It could also drag down her credit score, making it harder to get a loan and rent or buy a home. A young diagnosis will cost the average person $250,000 over their lifetime, one 2021 Deloitte report found.
Because she's young, Jane faces a higher lifetime risk of recurrence or other cancers. "Secondary malignancy risk is a real thing," Dr. Andrea Tufano-Sugarman, a gynecologic oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, said. "Our young cancer patients have a fourfold increase in their risk of getting another cancer compared to the general population."
But the most profound costs can't be measured in dollars.
"The hidden cost to the epidemic of cancer in younger people is the lost years of productivity, socialization, and family formation," Terracina said. "It's all being sucked into a struggle to stay alive."
The Tiger Cubs are hedge funds with connections to the late Julian Robertson
Zhang Chunxiang/Xinhua via Getty Images
Asset managers like Coatue, D1, Tiger Global, and more are diving into the private markets again.
This cohort of funds, known as the Tiger Cubs, helped fuel private market valuations in 2020 and 2021.
After a tough 2022, these funds are once again allocating big money to private companies.
The Tiger Cubs are on the hunt — and they're ready to pounce on private market opportunities.
Big-name asset managers such as Tiger Global, Coatue, and D1 — a group collectively known as Tiger Cubs, given their connections to the late Julian Robertson's Tiger Management — are back to investing in private markets, talking about start-ups, and fundraising for non-public strategies.
These managers, once burned by the 2022 tech market rout, when soaring interest rates and plunging valuations forced them to retreat, are now riding the artificial intelligence boom in big-name tech stocks and late-stage private companies alike. In private markets specifically, there's been a slight uptick in the number of deals these crossover investors have done in 2025 compared to the last two years, and a significant jump in the size of checks they've been writing.
PitchBook data shows that the median valuation of private companies in which Tiger Global has invested so far in 2025 is more than $2 billion, compared to roughly $300 million in 2022. The venture rounds and private deals these funds have done this year are, on average, significantly larger than what they were doing three years ago, according to PitchBook.
Even with public equity markets as strong as ever, hitting record highs in late October before a dip at the start of the month, private markets are where hedge-fund stockpickers hoping to distinguish themselves from cheap index investors and run-of-the-mill mutual funds are flocking.
D1 founder Dan Sundheim, who originally made his name in the industry compiling deep dives on potential short bets of public companies in an online investing forum, said "public markets bring distraction and pressure" to top startups.
"Many private companies would do better staying private," Sundheim said on a podcast with Stripe cofounder John Collison last month.
The public markets are desperate for new entrants, but the "IPO market is broken beyond repair," according to Coatue's founder, Philippe Laffont, who invests across both public and private tech companies.
Investing in private companies has become an easier way to bet on long-term potential, he said, thanks in part to the efficiency and number of players in the public markets.
Speaking at CNBC's Delivering Alpha conference earlier this month, Laffont said an investor in a public stock has to ask, "Not only do you believe in the future, but is it already priced in or not?"
Wary of 2022's troubles
In 2020 and 2021, these firms, especially Tiger Global, helped fuel sky-high valuations for startups with a plethora of bets across the board. The pain in 2022 forced these managers to do some soul-searching, and Tiger Global reworked its risk management processes.
Now, even smaller Tiger Cubs have returned to private markets in recent times after a pause.
Mala Gaonkar's SurgoCap was a part of iCapital's $820 million raise this summer. Gaonkar's former firm, longtime Tiger Cub Lone Pine Capital, resumed private-marketing investing last year when it backed Canva and travel platform Spotnana — the manager's first venture bets since late 2021. This year, the firm invested in Singapore payments startup Airwallex.
Meanwhile, Maverick Capital's stand-alone private markets fund focused on AI, Maverick Silicon, has done eight deals since launching in mid-2024.
Funds mentioned declined to comment.
This isn't to say that these managers are selling all of their publicly traded stocks or that these funds just started investing in private AI companies. Tiger Global backed OpenAI in 2021, for example, at a valuation of $15.7 billion; the company is now worth more than 30 times that.
Publicly traded chipmakers and tech giants investing in AI are among the top holdings for most of the Tiger Cubs, regulatory filings show, and Maverick Silicon's head, Andrew Homan, said at October's Robin Hood conference that public chipmakers like Nvidia and SK Hynix would be smart bets in the coming decade.
Valuations for private companies like OpenAI and Anthropic continue to surge, though, and pure-play venture funds and crossover managers, such as the Tiger Cubs, are ready to put their billions of capital to work.
"As we like to say in this industry, it's on," said Tiger Global's founder, Chase Coleman, at the Robin Hood conference.
When a conference in Miami coincided with Sarah LeMoine's 24th birthday, she arranged for a friend to join her and turned the work trip into a mini vacation.
And when LeMoine's job took her to Los Angeles from her home in Canada, LeMoine again added on a few days of personal travel. She spent the weekend exploring the city and creating content for her 57,000 TikTok followers.
"You don't need a man to fly you out for free vacations. You just need to work a corporate job that has travel perks," LeMoine explained in a recent TikTok. "I'm always going to make the most of business trips and traveling for work because it's free travel."
Approaching a work trip as an opportunity to stay at a fancy hotel or enjoy an especially nice meal on someone else's dime is not new to Gen Z. But, in an environment of increasingly relaxed work-life boundaries, supplementing a business trip with some vacation time has become one of the generation's favorite travel hacks.
Nearly two-thirds of Gen Z workers say they bundle business and personal travel, according to a Harris Poll survey conducted for the business travel platform Engine. Meanwhile, Gen Z business travelers are also more likely than other generations to extend a work trip, according to Hotels.com's Business Trip Report.
Compared to the sullen, briefcase-carrying road warriors of old — catching flights to windowless convention halls and drinking alone at the hotel bar — Zoomers are more likely to quietly bring along a plus-one and find ways to extract maximum enjoyment from a trip they'll be making anyway.
For LeMoine's experience-driven generation, a trip's a trip, whether it started out as a vacation or has the potential to become one.
"Younger generations are so experience-oriented and savvy about travel," says Christie Hudson, a travel expert for Hotels.com. They're "posting their upgraded flights, their cute outfits, and hotel room — and then going to the conference. It's definitely a different vibe."
Zoomers, and to a lesser extent millennials, are not only extra-excited at the prospect of a work trip — they're also more likely than older generations to reach into their own pockets to have a more luxurious experience.
Nearly nine in ten Zoomers and seven in ten millennials see work trips as a chance to upgrade their lifestyles, the Hotels.com report found. They're more than twice as likely to pay out of pocket to upgrade a flight compared to older colleagues and roughly two-thirds have personally paid to switch to a nicer hotel, compared to just half of those from older generations.
"If it was a pretty good price, like $300 to $500, I would definitely go for it," says LeMoine. She describes herself as budget-conscious and says she would draw the line at paying over $1,000 for an upgrade.
They're also more likely to extend their stay at a nice hotel and take advantage of their company's corporate rate.
Emily Nasser, 26, works for a company that hosts conferences and travels to luxury venues multiple times a year from her home in Toronto. She adores travel, but now almost exclusively vacations where she has to go anyway for work.
Last November, after attending a conference at the luxurious Ojai Valley Inn, Nasser invited a friend to join her for a few extra days to take advantage of the corporate rate. She says they paid $389 for a room that would have cost $800 without the discount.
"It was amazing," Nasser says. "And I wouldn't have been able to do that unless I was sent to that event for my job."
Another time, when a business trip to Orlando included a stay at the Ritz-Carlton, Nasser invited her boyfriend to tag along.
As regular business travellers will attest, a work trip is more likely to take you to Cleveland than the Caribbean. And while most of Nasser's work takes her to California or Florida, she's holding out hope for a more exotic location soon. "Europe is always my dream to go to," Nasser says.
Generally speaking, young professionals are more likely to be up for a long journey if it means reaching a bucket-list destination at the other end. While older professionals welcome a chance to go to London, according to the Hotels.com survey, Tokyo is a top pick among Zoomers.
And one thing business travellers of all ages have in common: it's a points economy.
For a generation of credit card users, business trips can be a lucrative way to build up points, and collect perks to stretch their money as far as it will go. More than half of Gen Z already rely on credit card points and rewards to pay for travel expenses, according to a study conducted by Qualtrics on behalf of Intuit Credit Karma. Almost half of Gen Z business travellers make work travel choices based on maximising rewards and 42% of millennials have cashed them in for cheap hotels or upgraded flights later down the line, according to Hotels.com.
Take a cursory scroll through social media and you'll think that business class is full of 20-somethings sipping champagne and doing their skincare mid-flight.
Gen Z has grown up watching influencers be treated to all-expenses-paid, business-class trips, giving hotel room tours of expensive suites and ordering room service. It makes sense that a new generation of business travellerswant a taste of that for themselves, even if they need to pay for the upgrades out of pocket.
Yet, for a generation deep in the trenches of buy-now-pay-later and drowning in personal debt, keeping up with the Joneses can create problems if Zoomers are upgrading out of pocket for experiences they can't yet afford.
"Here's the real crux of Gen Z," says Grace McCarrick, a keynote speaker focused on soft skills education and bridging the gap between internet and professional culture. "So much of their understanding about the adult world is built on theory and observation rather than experience."
McCarrick notes, "the algorithm makes it feel normal, but in reality, most people are in coach—maybe Delta Comfort."
Still, tacking a vacation onto a trip that your employer has already paid for can be a sensible choice.
And, in the era of side hustles and influencer culture, business trips are also prime content opportunities — which could mean adding on the extra days will pay for itself.
For a generation encouraged to go through life as the "main character" and romanticise their day-to-day life, that's exactly what they are doing. Zoomers post 3 to 5 times more per day on social media than their older colleagues while on work trips, with 75% splurging on high-end dinners and entertainment just to get better content, according to Hotels.com.
"I try showing that I'm grateful, as opposed to, 'Look at me! I get to do this,'" says Nasser, who posts under the name 'THAT Corporate Girl' to over 100,000 followers on TikTok. "I definitely use it to my advantage to post because why wouldn't I if I'm in a beautiful spot in a new city."
While Nasser's company is supportive of her TikTok channel, not all will be. Prolific posting can create tension when it comes to filing the expense reports.
"If people are upgrading hotels or airfare, be smart about it," advises McCarrick. "If you know you're flying with other people and everyone's flying coach, don't be the youngest person on the team upgrading yourself. That looks crazy."
"An attitude of entitlement, "I deserve this", will always be tough for colleagues to swallow," she says.
At the same time, employers who discourage work-vacation bundling might find that potential employees take notice. For a professional cohort who are working to live, rather than living to work, a business trip that's all work and no play may lead younger employees to disengage and seek out more flexibility elsewhere.
"Younger workers do pay attention to how flexible employers are. They might be drawn to companies that encourage experiences and don't micromanage travel," says Hudson. "Younger employees care about time-off policies and work-life balance, and this all fits into that."
Nasser concurs. "I love showing that there are companies out there that do do this," she says. "And, if you're not happy at your company, well, maybe you should look at corporate events or a company that does allow you to travel."
Eve Upton-Clark is afreelance writer covering culture and society.
Wall Street analysts say Nvidia's blockbuster earnings show the AI boom is still accelerating and that fears of an AI bubble are overstated.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
Wall Street says Nvidia's blowout quarter shows the AI boom is far from peaking.
Nvidia posted $57 billion in revenue on Wednesday, topping analysts' $55 billion estimates.
"Fears of an AI bubble are way overstated," one analyst said.
Nvidia's blockbuster earnings just blew a hole through Wall Street's AI bubble anxieties.
Analysts said the chipmaker's third-quarter results prove the AI boom is nowhere near running out of steam.
On Wednesday, Nvidia posted $57 billion in revenue, topping Wall Street's $55 billion estimates. Its data center division generated revenue of $51 billion, surpassing the $49.31 billion analysts had projected. The company reported earnings of $1.30 per share compared to the $1.26 estimate. It also forecast $65 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter, exceedinganalysts' expectations of $61.98 billion.
Nvidia's stock rose about 3% in after-hours trading following the results and climbed about 4.5% after hours as the analyst call wrapped.
"Fears of an AI bubble are way overstated," Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities, wrote after the print. The tech bull called the results a "pop-the-champagne moment" for tech investors.
"This is another validation point for the AI revolution," Ives wrote. "We are in the top of the third inning of this AI game."
Other analysts echoed that view.Thomas Monteiro,asenior analyst at Investing.com,said Nvidia's report shows the AI revolution is "nowhere near its peak," with both demand and supply chain scaling continuing.
Despite concerns that ballooning capital expenditures — estimated at more than $400 billion across top cloud platforms — could lead to a slowdown, Monteiro said Nvidia's numbers show that tech companies remain committed to scaling their data centers.
Daniel Morgan, a senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust, said investors remain wary of what he calls the "three C's" — capex sustainability, circular financing, and rising competition.
"While these issues were not put to rest, the recent print does give investors confidence that Nvidia is still executing at a high level," he wrote. Nvidia's results suggest those fears can at least be "punted" into the next quarter, he added.
EMARKETER tech analyst Jacob Bourne told Business Insider that while Nvidia "delivered another blockbuster quarter," investors are increasingly focused on whether physical constraints — including power availability, land, and grid access — may limit how quickly hyperscalers can turn GPU capacity into actual revenue.
'Blackwell sales are off the charts'
During the earnings call, Nvidia reiterated that it has "half a trillion" in Blackwell and Rubin chip revenue through 2026.
Things are "on track" and "the number will grow," Colette Kress, the chief financial officer, said.
"We'll probably be taking more orders," she said, noting that new customers — including Anthropic following its recent deal — would add demand. "There's definitely an opportunity for us to have more on top of the $500 billion that we announced," she added.
Huang drew attention at Nvidia's October GTC conference after revealing that the company has $500 billion worth of AI-chip orders booked for 2025 and 2026, including orders for its Blackwell and Rubin chips.
"Blackwell sales are off the charts, and cloud GPUs are sold out," Jensen Huang said in Nvidia's earnings release.
Jefferies' analysts said that Nvidia's Blackwell GB300 GPU sales, which accounted for two-thirds of Blackwell sales, were "very strong."
"Nvidia answered the bell with GB300 shipments driving healthy upside to estimates," they wrote. They said that Nvidia's results "should help steady the ship" for AI stocks into the end of the year.
"Commentary around cloud service providers being sold out across the board and full utilization for Blackwell, Hopper, and even Ampere should help put the useful life conversation to bed," the analysts added.
The AI bubble chatter
The Nvidia CEO kicked off his remarks on Wednesday by taking aim at the "AI bubble" chatter.
"There's been a lot of talk about an AI bubble," said Huang, who is a longtime AI bull. "From our vantage point, we see something very different. As a reminder, Nvidia is unlike any other accelerator. We excel at every phase of AI, from pre-training and post-training to inference."
Some tech leaders have been warning that AI may be in bubble territory.
"The value is extremely high, just like creating the internet ended up being, in net, very valuable," Gates said in an appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box". "But you have a frenzy. And some of these companies will be glad they spent all this money. Some of them, you know, they'll commit to data centers whose electricity is too expensive."
"There are a ton of these investments that will be dead ends," he added.
Others, like Huang, have pushed back on the AI bubble narrative.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in July that the AI frenzy may resemble a bubble, but that doesn't mean it is one in reality.
"I think it's unlikely, based on my experience, that this is a bubble," Schmidt said during an appearance at the RAISE Summit in Paris. "It's much more likely that you're seeing a whole new industrial structure."
Jane Fonda, 87, says she isn't afraid of aging and feels "better now" that she's older.
"I'm afraid of dying with a lot of regrets. I watched my dad die with a lot of regrets," Fonda said.
Fonda previously said that she hopes to stay strong and healthy for the sake of her grandkids.
Jane Fonda, 87, says her biggest fear isn't aging.
During an appearance on Wednesday's episode of "The Look" podcast hosted by Michelle Obama, Fonda said she found joy and confidence in growing older. The episode also featured guests Bethann Hardison and Jenna Lyons.
"And what is more astonishing is that I'm better now. I wouldn't go back for anything. I feel more centered, more whole, more complete. I'm very happy. Single," Fonda said.
Fonda said she has never been afraid of aging or dying, but turning 60 made her reconsider how she wanted to spend her remaining years.
"This is the beginning of my final act. And I didn't know how to live it. So I thought, well, what am I most afraid of?" Fonda said. "I'm afraid of dying with a lot of regrets. I watched my dad die with a lot of regrets. That was an important realization for me, because if you don't want to die with regrets, then you have to live the last part of your life in such a way that there won't be any regrets."
The actor added that the mantra has guided her for the past three decades.
Living without regret also means caring for her body and staying healthy as she grows older.
Speaking to People in January, Fonda said her workout routine has stayed consistent over the years.
"I essentially do everything I used to do, just slower," Fonda said. "I used to be a runner, but now I love walking. I love being outdoors in the woods, especially up and down hills."
In April, she told The Hollywood Reporter that she wants to be strong and flexible even as she ages because of her family.
"Unless you want to end up in a wheelchair and be totally dependent on others, you have to stay strong, getting in and out of cars, carrying your own luggage, lifting up your grandkids, or looking over your shoulder when you're backing up a car. They all become challenging under any circumstance, but if you're flexible and strong, it gets easier," Fonda said.