Tag: Business

• Starbucks shared with Business Insider what its holiday drink menu looks like around the world.
• The holiday season is a key driver of foot traffic and global sales for the coffee giant.
• This year, it's also a test of the brand's ongoing turnaround effort, analysts told Business Insider.

For Starbucks, its rotating menus of festive flavors are a carefully crafted global strategy to define what the holidays taste like.

Each November, the world's largest coffee chain rolls out limited-time menu offerings designed to spark both joy and revenue — from Latin America's Hazelnut Caramel Latte to gingerbread classics featured across the Asia Pacific region.

Underneath the whipped cream this year is a clue to how the brand's turnaround effort is going, analysts told Business Insider.

Starbucks shared with Business Insider what its 2025 holiday drink menu looks like around the world, featuring 12 regional drinks meticulously curated to ring in the new year.

"Starbucks' holiday menu is designed to reflect the traditions and preferences of the communities we serve around the world," Brady Brewer, chief executive of Starbucks International, said in a statement about the holiday launch. "By localizing our menu, we celebrate our customers' tastes with global holiday traditions reimagined with a local twist."

Global holiday flavors, reimagined

In Tokyo, the holidays this year taste like creamy milk tea poured over strawberry pulp. In Havana, they come steeped in hazelnut, cranberry, and cinnamon. And in London, red cups are brimming with matcha and red velvet.

In addition to holiday staples like the Peppermint Mocha and Gingerbread Latte, this year, Starbucks debuted its Hazelnut Praline Mille-Feuille Oatmilk Latte in the Asia Pacific region, along with an Iced Sugar Cookie Matcha Latte in Canada, and a Strawberry & Joyful Medley Tea in Japan and Thailand.

The 2025 seasonal menu also includes:

• New Toffee Nut Cream Matcha Lattes and Gingerbread Matcha Lattes in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa
• The return of Caramel Brulée Lattes in the US, Canada, and their debut in Latin America and the Caribbean
• The return of Cranberry White Mocha, Hazelnut Caramel Latte, and Holiday Cinnamon Latte in Latin America and the Caribbean
• A Toffee Nut Cheesecake in China, and a Pistachio Chocolate Mille-Crepe in Taiwan

The seasonal drinks, which launched on November 6, aren't just a festive tradition; they're a key driver of sales for Starbucks.

Foot traffic data from Placer.ai shows that, on November 13th's Red Cup Day, visits to US Starbucks locations spiked 44.5% above the year-to-date daily average. The Red Cup Day, during which customers receive a free reusable holiday cup with their purchase, reached a higher traffic peak than that seen on November 6, when the company launched its Bearista collectible cup.

CEO Brian Niccol previously described November 6 as the official start of the company's holiday season, as Starbucks' biggest sales day ever in North America.

A key season in Starbucks' broader turnaround

"Holiday is really important to Starbucks' business; seasonally, it's an important quarter," Sara Senatore, managing director of global equity research and senior analyst covering restaurants at Bank of America, told Business Insider. "Starbucks is intrinsically kind of part of American holidays."

Michael Della Penna, chief strategy officer at the digital advertising research firm InMarket, framed Starbucks' holiday rollout as a multi-layered strategy: one that builds its global brand identity, satisfies local tastes through its regional offerings, and captures multiple forms of consumer spending — from beverages to merchandise to gift cards.

In prior years, Starbucks gift cards have been so ubiquitous that as many as one in seven Americans received them as a gift during the holiday season. Last holiday season, Starbucks' Q1 earnings report revealed that its US gift card sales reached $3.5 billion, maintaining its position as the #2 brand in the US by gift card sales.

In Della Penna's view, the holiday season exemplifies how personalization options and seasonal momentum can converge for Starbucks to "own the moment" globally.

"The holiday season at Starbucks is part of the zeitgeist, and really, really embedded into our annual rituals, in many respects," Della Penna said. "There's something for everyone on a global basis, which makes this much bigger than a domestic promotion."

Innovation beyond the holidays

While Starbucks has successfully embedded itself in seasonal rituals, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, president of the strategic design agency, Shikatani Lacroix Design, told Business Insider the next phase of the company's continued "Back to Starbucks" effort will have to be about rediscovering — but not repeating — its roots, in order to keep customers interested.

"Where they were no longer exists," Lacroix said. "They need to reinvent themselves, not just go back."

Experimenting with new regional flavors is a good start, and the holiday season presents the perfect opportunity to do so while remaining culturally relevant, Lacroix said.

This year's holiday marks the first one that will carry the full weight of Niccol's influence since he became CEO last September, and the peak season presents a major test of his leadership and innovation strategy as part of his broader turnaround plan, Senatore said. It will also stress-test Starbucks' Green Apron Service model, which was introduced this year with the specific goal of improving service.

The first innovation that debuted entirely under Niccol's purview was the September rollout of its protein milks and cold foams. In October's earnings report, Starbucks said that the new protein offerings were behind a 1% rise in its fourth-quarter comparable sales — the first time in seven quarters that the coffee chain has reported an increase.

"Now, the innovation flywheel, if you will, is starting to spin faster," Senatore said. "I think there's certainly an expectation that we'll continue to see that trajectory: more consistent innovation, better marketing, and all of those components of better operations coming together."

• VC partner Shaun Maguire outlined key traits that help people succeed at an Elon Musk company.
• He also named another tech CEO who has a lot in common with Musk.
• Maguire has led investments in several Musk companies, including SpaceX.

If you want to succeed at one of Elon Musk's companies, you might try listening to Shaun Maguire.

As a partner at Sequoia Capital, Maguire has led investments in several of Musk's companies, including The Boring Company, xAI, and SpaceX. He said that three key traits help people excel at Musk's businesses on an episode of "Relentless," which aired on November 17.

Anyone who works for Musk can volunteer to take on a task, said Maguire, who The Information has dubbed the "Musk Whisperer." Continuously raising your hand and delivering will help you move up.

"Being extremely competent and being willing to bet on your own competence, and always delivering," Maguire said on the podcast. "And knowing your limit."

It's OK, he said, to admit when you can't do something, or when someone else might be better for the task.

"The next thing is very, very quickly learning that you need to go five levels deep," Maguire said. "You need to be able to handle five levels of questions or so in anything."

Lastly, Maguire said that loyalty is crucial — but that doesn't mean "blind loyalty." Instead, he said it's about trusting the system and that Musk "sees things other people don't see."

Though Maguire said Musk as an individual is hugely impressive, he added that part of the billionaire's strength lies in "Elon the collective." He didn't name the group, but said it includes around 20 people who have worked for Musk for years and built tremendous trust.

"They can almost read his mind, and they know what he would want to have done in some situation," Maguire said of the group.

Beyond that inner circle, Maguire said Musk looks for certain traits in capital investors: being willing to work hard, not letting information slip, and being there through good and bad.

"Most investors are leaky," Maguire said. "This is a very low bar, but just not leaking things."

Musk is famous for his work ethic and warned Tesla engineers last year that they might have to sleep on the manufacturing line at the Texas factory.

In turn, Maguire said Musk is good at attracting investors through marquee events, like when Optimus robots took center stage at an event last year.

For all that sets him apart, Maguire said Musk has "a lot in common" with another tech leader: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Maguire said that he bought Nvidia stock in 1999 as a 13-year-old, but "underestimated" Huang at first.

"He's really pushed his advantage in an incredible way, and he's been so aggressive," Maguire said. The podcast aired just one day before Nvidia reported blowout earnings.

Maguire came under fire earlier this year for comments he made calling New York City mayoral elect Zohran Mamdani an "Islamist." Musk was among those who came to Maguire's defense as other tech leaders criticized him.

• Western soldiers are using Xbox controllers to fly interceptor drones.
• The drones, part of the Merops system, have been used in Ukraine and are now being deployed by NATO.
• A US soldier training on Merops said the Xbox controller makes it easy to work the system.

NOWA DĘBA, Poland — Western soldiers are using off-the-shelf Xbox controllers to pilot $15,000 interceptor drones that are combat-proven in Ukraine and now part of NATO's toolbox for battling a growing threat.

The Merops system, an American-made air-defense setup that comes with an Xbox controller for the operators, launches interceptor drones capable of destroying enemy drone threats midair. US, Polish, and Romanian troops have been training on it as NATO rushes to field affordable air defenses across Eastern Europe.

A US soldier who pilots the interceptors told Business Insider that the Xbox controller is an ideal choice.

"It's compact and easy to pack and store, and Xbox controllers are very rugged," Army Sgt. Riley Hiner said on the sidelines of a Merops demonstration in southeast Poland this week.

'Very intuitive'

The US and other global militaries have long used Xbox-style controllers to support operations, including those involving drones. The practice has expanded to the war in Ukraine and is now being applied to the Merops system.

Controllers akin to those of Microsoft's Xbox or other video game systems have been increasingly integrated into military systems. The controls are often easier for soldiers who grew up playing with something similar to operate. They adapt right away, something that might not happen with an overly engineered system built to meet specialized military specifications.

Microsoft didn't respond to Business Insider's request for comment on the use of its gamepad in a military system.

Hiner said that he has experience playing video games on Xbox and believes that being a gamer can translate into being a good pilot. With the Merops system, there's already a level of familiarity with the controls.

"I feel like a lot of soldiers nowadays do play Xbox," he said. "It's very intuitive. Once you learn the scheme of the controls, you just send them out, and you can fly."

Other American soldiers, as well as Ukrainian operators, have said gamers make good drone pilots, and Hiner agreed, saying that troops with experience playing video games tend to have few problems handling the Merops system. The biggest challenge is just figuring out the best course for interception.

The first-person-view (FPV) drones that dominate the battlefield in Ukraine tend to require similar equipment to video games — controllers, screens, and headsets — but Ukrainian operators have stressed that the real missions are far more complicated with serious consequences. It's often life or death.

For the Merops system, it's a similar situation. A failed intercept means the target threat is likely to fly on to find its mark, potentially delivering death and destruction, as many Shahed-type drones in Ukraine have done.

Merops, developed by the American initiative Project Eagle, consists of a ground control station, launch platforms that are capable of firing from the bed of a pickup truck, and the "Surveyor" interceptor drone. It is operated by a team of four, including a commander, a pilot, and two technicians.

Ready in weeks, not months or years

Merops has been used extensively by Ukraine to intercept Russian strike and reconnaissance drones; US military officials said Kyiv has logged over 1,000 kills of the Shahed-type one-way attack drones Russia uses to bombard Ukrainian cities.

Now, NATO forces are training on the Merops system after Poland and Romania decided to purchase and deploy it to defend their airspace following a string of Russian drone incursions. The US is involved with the training program but has not procured the technology.

Merops, like other interceptor drone systems, comes delivered to the buyer with the necessary Xbox controller, the same exact system someone somewhere is using to play Call of Duty. If it breaks, soldiers can just purchase another off the shelf; they sell for as little as $30 on Amazon.

Soldiers training on the Merops system undergo a two-week course, a significantly expedited commitment compared to what's required for other weapons. Part of the process involves simulated operations and drawing from lessons learned in Ukraine.

US Army Brig. Gen. Curtis King, the head of the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, described Merops as a user-friendly system and said some of the NATO soldiers involved in training have never flown a drone before.

"Within days, they're able to figure out how to operate the capability," King said on the sidelines of this week's technology demonstration. Within two weeks, soldiers will be able to "demonstrate how to effectively kill a drone. So this doesn't take six months, it doesn't take a year."

• Goldman Sachs says that trillions of private wealth assets are eager to invest in hedge funds.
• Hedge funds long favored pensions and endowments over private wealth.
• With institutions tied up in illiquid private funds, the wealthy could be hedge funds' new fundraising focus.

The $5 trillion hedge fund industry is backed by some of the biggest pools of money in the world — pensions, endowments, and sovereign wealth funds.

But those big-name institutions are facing a cash crunch thanks to capital tied up in illiquid private equity and venture funds. For hedge funds looking to grow, there are trillions of dollars outside the institutions wanting in on the action, according to Goldman Sachs.

Private wealth — which refers to money held on platforms run by the private banking divisions of places like Goldman as well as wealth advice giants like Merrill Lynch, independent advisors, and family offices — is eager to invest in hedge funds and has plenty of capital to put to work.

Goldman's report estimates that less than $500 billion of the $50.7 trillion of private wealth assets are in hedge funds. If this segment of capital followed the recommendation of chief investment officers from these platforms and family offices for hedge fund exposure, there would be more than $4 trillion in hedge fund investments — close to the industry's total assets.

"Even closing 10% of this gap would double the current assets" that private wealth has in hedge funds, Goldman's report states.

There have been big-name managers that have already tapped this space. Millennium has sold LP stakes in its flagship fund via private bank advisors and offered a piece of its business to wealthy clients of banks like Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and UBS. Jain Global tapped the private wealth channel for capital before launching in mid-2024. Coatue and Tiger Global count platforms like JPMorgan's private bank as investors.

The channel is hungriest for more hedge fund exposure, according to Goldman's report. A survey done by the bank's capital introduction team found that 68% of private bank advisors and RIAs wanted to increase their hedge fund bets this year, while only 4% intended to cut them. Meanwhile, only 31% of pension and insurance investors wanted to put more into hedge funds. For endowments, foundations, and sovereign wealth funds, it was even worse — 30% wanted to increase hedge fund exposure while 14% wanted less.

Hedge funds thrive in chaos

For years, private wealth managers shunned hedge funds, which were perceived to have high fees and middling performance.

But choppy markets and higher interest rates since the pandemic have led to an "improved image" of the industry in the eyes of the rich and their advisors, Goldman's report states.

It helps that firms have made money too: Goldman notes that the average fund has returned 9.4% annually from 2020 through June of 2025, while a 60/40 stocks-bonds portfolio was up only 6.6% annually over the same period.

The question for managers is, where do all these assets go? The industry is as big as it has ever been, and plenty of well-known firms are closed to new capital or returning money to investors to avoid becoming too bloated. Marshall Wace is the latest, according to Bloomberg, with plans to give $3.1 billion back to investors in its two largest funds.

The firms that have become the largest in the industry are the multistrategy behemoths that now have headcounts in the thousands and teams based around the world. These managers, especially those with established track records, such as Millennium, Citadel, and Point72, are often able to raise assets quickly but are constrained by a lack of talent.

Still, for funds seeking capital and willing to hire fundraisers focused on the needs of the private wealth channel, there are trillions of dollars available for the taking.

"The wealth segment offers both a new frontier and a formidable — but surmountable — challenge for managers. Those who invest in understanding the landscape, building the right capabilities, and fostering long-term relationships will be best positioned to capture this wave of growth," Goldman's report reads.

• Deep Shah has been a Google employee since 2018.
• Support from mentors and peers helped him transition from India to the US at Google.
• Having a clear agenda with mentors maximizes learning and growth in tech and AI careers.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Deep Shah, a 30-year-old senior software engineer at Google, based in Mountain View, CA. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Since I joined Google in 2018, it has been amazing to see the impact I've had.

I started at Google Bangalore in India, where I was part of a team using machine learning and AI on Google Maps. After spending a few years there, I moved to the US in 2021 to work at the Google Mountain View location in California.

I've been at Google Mountain View for around four years, and over my career, I've learned that mentors are one of the greatest things to have. Good mentors have changed the way I approach problems and have impacted the engineer I've become.

Older peers became my first mentors

Growing up, I played computer games a lot and wanted to develop my own games. That was the main reason that I chose computer engineering in the first place.

I also learned through conversations with peers older than me, who were already working on their bachelor's. They told me this field involves a lot of logical reasoning and automating machines to do things on my behalf, which was very intriguing.

During my bachelor's, I became involved in competitive computer programming. That helped me get reach-outs from leading tech companies in India, and was one of the main reasons I got my first job.

A friend helped me decide to pursue a role at Google

At my first job out of school, I was part of an AI and machine learning team that helped advertising clients. During that time, I learned a lot of the fundamentals about how AI and machine learning work.

I was there for almost a year and a half, and then I had the opportunity to apply for a position with Google. Fortunately, I also had a friend who worked at Google, so I was able to talk to him and ask whether it would be a good fit for me.

After talking to him, I was convinced that Google could be the right place for me. I went through a standard Big Tech interview process, and then I landed my job at Google.

My network helped me transition from India to the US

Moving to the US was a big transition, but I wanted to be involved in improving the way users use Google search. The team working on that project was based in Mountain View, and my skill set was a very good match, so I decided to relocate here in 2021.

Google India has a culture very similar to that of Google US, making for a smooth transition. Outside work, I needed to get used to a lot of different things. Searching for housing is very different here, and so is setting up healthcare. I also had to get a car.

However, I had a couple of more senior peers and friends here who were able to guide me through these transitional things, which I was very thankful for.

Mentorship can determine what kind of engineer you are

I've been fortunate to have had a lot of great mentors throughout my career, as well as in my undergrad, who actually supported me and gave me good ideas.

College students should try to be involved with a professor or someone who can give them exposure to any machine learning or AI problems that they're excited about, no matter how small or large.

You can always start small, but as time passes, more and more things will naturally become attached to a project, and your ownership and confidence with it will evolve. That will also be a great addition to your résumé, demonstrating that you already possess the skills and experience required to succeed in a working environment.

Having a clear agenda with your mentor makes a big difference

My mentors taught me how to navigate organizational dynamics and influence stakeholders — skills that are rarely learned just by doing the core work.

It should be very clear what specific things you'd like to use your mentor for, and I recommend having a proper agenda to go over together. It helps them give you the right advice, and you can have clearer expectations.

Each mentor will teach you different things, and the person doesn't necessarily need to be a professor. They could be an alumnus or someone who's more senior at your college. It doesn't matter how you find them, but they should be someone who you think is a good role model.

Do you have a story to share about mentorship in Big Tech? Contact this reporter, Agnes Applegate, at aapplegate@businessinsider.com.

• Google's dominance is facing new challenges as search habits shift.
• Social apps like TikTok and AI chatbots like ChatGPT are changing how we look for information.
• This story is one of a five-part series exploring the changing online search landscape.

It's never been easier to ditch Google search.

Just ask Mohamed Mura, a 37-year-old professional based in London, who began pulling back from the search engine during the pandemic.

Instead of typing into Google, he turned to TikTok for questions like "how to change a watch band." With the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, Mura's Google usage dropped further. He said the AI chatbot felt like a "second brain or agent" he could bounce ideas off of.

He now uses a mix of tools for search, like ChatGPT, Grok, TikTok, Reddit, Perplexity, and yes, still sometimes Google. He's not alone. AI search tools are becoming daily habits for many.

When presented with a list of tools to use when considering a purchase, US consumers said they preferred AI chat interfaces to traditional search engines, according to an August survey of about 2,000 respondents by the consulting firm McKinsey.

Young people, in particular, are also looking beyond Google to social apps like TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest, or Instagram to find information. Nearly half (46%) of Gen Z users prefer to search on social media rather than Google, according to a survey last year from Forbes Advisor and Talker Research. That figure generally lines up with Google's own data on Gen Z's search preferences.

"Social search is definitely a hot topic," Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf, a senior analyst at Forrester, told Business Insider, especially as "search behaviors fracture or distribute among a broader array of platforms aside from just Google." In fact, more US consumers are turning to social media platforms than to AI options, such as ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot, according to a recent survey from EMARKETER, Business Insider's sister company.

Google is still king among traditional search engines and AI search tools, controlling around 90% of the global market, according to network services firm Cloudflare. Google has also responded to competition by adding AI overviews to many of its search results.

In its earnings report last month, Google's parent company Alphabet said quarterly sales from Google search rose 15% from a year ago to $56.6 billion, making up more than half of the company's overall revenue.

Google's market dominance in traditional search doesn't factor in searches on video apps like TikTok or e-commerce tools like Amazon, however. And Google's grip on the overall search landscape could loosen as the internet splinters into smaller communities.

Beyond AI chatbots and video apps, a slew of new search-focused startups, including Lore, a fandom-focused search engine, and Daydream, an e-commerce AI search tool for shopping, have emerged to support the demand for something new.

So, where are the best places to go if you want to try a new way of searching? It depends on what you're looking for.

Here are some search tips and tricks:

Finding new recipes or places to visit

AI tools like ChatGPT or Anthropic's Claude are great at concocting original recipes with ingredients you already have at home. Video apps like TikTok or Instagram let you search for a recipe and actually see the cooking process before you try it.

Finding new recipes was the most common use case for TikTok's search engine, a 2023 survey from Adobe found, with people saying they were looking for "video tutorials," "product or service reviews," and "personal stories or anecdotes" on the app.

Video reviews are also handy when planning a trip, allowing you to see a hotel or destination before deciding to visit. TikTok released a product this year that lets users book hotels directly from videos in the app.

Young people "are looking for product or service recommendations and they're looking for restaurants to eat at," Mitchell-Wolf said. Social platforms are a "flourishing environment" for this category of search, she added.

Finding new outfits or things to decorate your home

If you're looking for inspiration, Pinterest can be a first stop in the search journey.

Design, particularly, is the top search use case (62%) for the moodboarding platform, according to a March survey from Adobe. Fashion advice was also popular.

A recent example: In August, Pinterest shared that searches for "vintage fall aesthetic" were up 1,074% year-over-year, and that there were upticks in searches around thrifted outfits, kitchen accessories, and interior decorating.

Social platforms like Instagram and TikTok can also be places to find inspiration. And for fashion specifically, there's a wave of new startups building shopping search tools, from personalized e-commerce search engines like Daydream to more niche platforms helping people find secondhand items, such as Beni.

If you already have a product in mind to buy, you might turn to the giants Amazon and Walmart. EMARKETER found that 56% of US consumers go to Amazon for search and 45% to Walmart.

"Amazon has become a major destination for product search," said Sky Canaves, a principal analyst at EMARKETER. "They've taken share from Google in that space over the years because they have so many products that Prime members can typically start a search there, and then maybe they go to Google next."

Searching the web without prying eyes

Google, famously, is a data-collection machine. When you're searching in its app, Chrome, Gmail, or some other Google-owned product, you're helping the company build a detailed advertising profile on who you are and what you're looking to buy.

Search engines and browsers like DuckDuckGo and Brave offer tools for privacy-conscious users who don't want their search habits tracked.

"We know that people are tired of being exploited online by scammers and by data-hungry companies who essentially have made it their business model to sell users out to the highest advertising bidder," said Beah Burger-Lenehan, SVP of product at DuckDuckGo.

Finding answers from real people

Sometimes websites don't have the answers we're looking for. We want answers from everyday people.

Have you found yourself typing "[insert search topic here] reddit" into Google? You're not alone.

"Particularly with Gen Z or younger users, if they want to see what other people are saying, maybe they don't start on Google, they will start on TikTok or go to Reddit," Canaves said.

Reddit told investors that in the third quarter, over 75 million people searched on its platform each week.

The top search categories on Reddit are tech, news, and personal finance, according to a 2024 Adobe survey. However, a good chunk of people are also turning to the platform for career or relationship advice, as well as product recommendations.

In December, the company launched a chatbot search tool called Reddit Answers that summarizes user recommendations and discussions in a conversational manner. Daily query volume for the feature is up over 20% since last quarter, the company told Business Insider.

If you just don't want to use Google, try these

If you're simply tired of staring at the Google search bar and want something that's similar, but not owned by Google, there's always Microsoft's Bing.

You can also try out AI-powered browsers like OpenAI's Atlas and Perplexity's Comet, which allow you to search conversationally or use an AI agent to complete certain tasks.

Some AI search tools offer voice assistants, which can make searching more seamless.

"It's a lot less friction if you're speaking to an AI assistant versus having to type a long query," Canaves said. "The output that you get will be a lot more nuanced than what you would get from typing in three or four keywords into a Google search bar."

• A version of this story originally appeared in the BI Tech Memo newsletter.
• Sign up for the weekly BI Tech Memo newsletter here.

Data guru Hakeem Shibly recently dug into every US software engineering pay package shared with Levels.fyi in the past year.

His goal: Figure out which cities pay engineers the best after adjusting for the cost of living.

The Greater Seattle Area tops the list, followed by Austin — ahead of the big dog, Silicon Valley, which ranked third.

A few surprises: Denver and Boulder edge out bigger, older hubs such as Chicago. The Raleigh-Durham research area in North Carolina ranks pretty high, offering solid compensation along with a reasonable cost of living.

Want more options beyond Big Tech hubs like Silicon Valley and the Seattle area? San Diego, Dallas, and Atlanta offer software engineers a solid combination of pay and manageable living expenses, according to Levels.fyi data.

If you want to know which tech jobs pay what kind of money, check out Business Insider's salary data here.

And here's the data from Levels.fyi, in a handy chart from BI's awesome graphics crew:

Sign up for BI's Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.

• I visited the New York Meta Lab pop-up. It got me excited for the future of Meta's in-person retail.
• The pop-up was artfully designed and loaded with different use cases for the company's AI glasses, which you can demo.
• Meta staff dwarfed the number of customers, but it may have been a quiet period at 11:30 a.m. on a weekday.

For years, Meta has built its businesses online. Now, it's also expanding to brick-and-mortar — including a new two-story location in NYC that I visited this week.

As it continues to launch new gadgets, including its popular Ray-Ban and Oakley AI glasses and VR headsets, Meta is accelerating its in-person pop-ups. In 2022, Meta opened its store in Burlingame, California, near the company's Reality Labs campus. Pop-ups expanded to Los Angeles in 2024 and Las Vegas in October 2025. The recently opened pop-up in New York is smack in the middle of 5th Avenue's shopping hub.

In-person retail could send new customers to Reality Labs products. Meta's AI glasses and VR headsets have been available at major retailers for some time, but the Meta Labs pop-ups are the company's first stand-alone glasses stores.

Are these pop-ups the future of Meta's retail presence? I visited the New York location to find out.

The warning signs were there.

Long before guests found themselves abruptly kicked out of their "Sonder by Marriott" stays this month, Sonder, the Airbnb rival, was battling sloppy accounting, a litany of lawsuits, and a stock price so low it was nearly delisted from the Nasdaq.

Bankruptcy filings and SEC records show just how stark the signs were — and raise questions about why Marriott, the world's biggest hotel chain, got into bed with the one-time unicorn.

The San Francisco startup, founded in 2014, leased apartments and hotel rooms in bulk, redesigned them with a minimalist aesthetic, and rented them to travelers. It's the brainchild of Canadian Francis Davidson, who is the ideal of a 2010s founder: VC-backed, college dropout, Forbes 30 Under 30. He offered a "revolutionary" promise: Goodbye, poorly decorated Airbnbs with quirky hosts. Hello, streamlined rentals managed with modern technology.

In August 2024, he unveiled his pièce de résistance: a deal between Sonder and blue-chip Marriott, which was heralded as a way to bring that vision into the future.

"Making this deal happen — along with the multi-party, complex capital raise I orchestrated — was the hardest thing I've ever done," former CEO Davidson wrote in June.

At the time, analysts lauded the deal, noting that it would add 9,000 rooms to Marriott's portfolio — a key figure for the hotel giant's valuation. Sonder said after the deal closed it would reduce costs by as much as $50 million.

Looking back, the Marriott deal was maybe less of a legitimization and more of a Hail Mary. Since going public at a $2 billion valuation in 2021, Sonder had faced layoffs, lawsuits, and a slew of executive departures, including Davidson.

"Marriott, no lie, they saved the company last year with their agreement," Logan Ford, who worked in sales at Sonder before being laid off last week, told Business Insider.

The $76 billion hotel giant didn't come to Sonder's rescue again. In court filings for Sonder's bankruptcy case, Marriott said that after it helped cover about $1.5 million in payroll, Sonder pressed the company for as much as $50 million to pay for shutdown operations. Marriott declined, and shortly afterward, signs appeared on the doors of Sonder properties telling guests to vacate.

Thousands of customers were suddenly left with no place to sleep.

Now, some in the industry are questioning how Marriott missed the warning signs. "I don't know how anyone with any iota of business sense could have thought that this was a good idea," said Alan Reay, president of Atlas Hospitality Group, a California brokerage firm that tracks hotel ownership and financing trends.

"The Marriott partnership is what essentially kept the company afloat for the next year," Ford said — and when it ended, there was nothing left.

A unicorn that survived the pandemic

At the height of COVID-19, Sonder laid off a third of its staff and had been sued for allegedly bailing on leases, a claim that Sonder denied and for which litigation is ongoing.

In 2021, the company, which gained unicorn status two years earlier, announced it was going public via a SPAC at a $2.2 billion valuation. SPACs — or special purpose acquisition companies — offered what many startups saw as a quicker, less scrutinized path to going public than a traditional IPO.

Sonder had survived while competitors like Lyric folded, and was now on its way to becoming an "iconic 21st-century brand," then-CEO Davidson told Business Insider at the time.

"This kind of financial discipline, with a really rapid response to the pandemic, has meant that we've been able to outperform a lot of the competition and be in a relatively strong position," Davidson said.

Its public market debut was lackluster. On its first day of trading, Sonder's stock dipped 8%.

Its downward spiral continued. Shares traded under $1 for much of the following year, leading the Nasdaq to threaten a delisting.

There was another round of layoffs — this time 17% — in 2024, and Sonder was hit with lawsuits accusing it of not paying rent or properly managing its buildings.

One New Orleans hotel that Sonder managed, the 100-year-old Jung Hotel, alleged that the startup had tarnished its reputation. There wasn't enough security, which led the hotel to become a "magnet for violent crime" and a "warzone," the landlord said in the lawsuit. The hotel was also not properly cleaned, with toenails in the bed sheets and blood on the linens, the complaint said.

Sonder disputed the claims, and the lawsuit was settled, as was a 2022 lawsuit Sonder filed against the Jung Hotel's owner at the time.

"SCAM- NOT AN OPERATING HOTEL," one online review read, according to the Jung Hotel's 2023 complaint. "Just another short term rental place poorly taken over by Sonder. You've been warned."

A hotel in San Francisco sued, saying Sonder wasn't paying its rent and owed more than $1.2 million as agreed upon in a lease termination agreement. Sonder denied the claims, and the lawsuit was settled.

The company's accounting also had problems. In 2024, Sonder revealed in an SEC filing that its financial records since its debut as a publicly traded company could not be trusted after being reviewed by an auditor.

The stock fell 38%, and Sonder said in filings that it was asking lenders not to call in loans or otherwise punish the company for the errors.

Despite that, Marriott took a chance. Six months after its announcement of two years of unreliable financial reporting, Sonder announced its deal with Marriott. All of Sonder's properties would now fall under the "Sonder by Marriott Bonvoy" branding.

"When we did the deal back in August 2024, everyone around the table was aligned that plugging into Marriott's distribution should increase revenues for Sonder," Davidson told Business Insider this week. "The fact that in the end there was seemingly a decline comes as a great surprise, I think, for all parties involved."

Sonder declined to comment on the record.

Sonder's rooms allowed Marriott to boost its "net unit growth," or the number of rooms it can rent, a key metric followed closely by investors and Wall Street analysts. The Sonder deal allowed it to add 9,000 units to its portfolio, it said when it announced the deal.

For Sonder, it provided desperately needed cash. Marriott would pay Sonder $15 million in "key money" as part of the deal.

Some in the hotel industry said they were surprised at the deal. Reay of Atlas Hospitality Group said it "absolutely made no sense."

"Whoever did the due diligence, whoever did the underwriting on this, if they're still at Marriott, I'd be surprised," he said, comparing Sonder to a WeWork-style implosion waiting to happen.

Robert Rauch, a hotel consultant and Marriott franchisee, said the company's confidence in its own brand perhaps clouded its judgment. He called Marriott "a great company" that is "vertically integrated better than any company I've seen," but said its deal with Sonder was "a bad risk."

A Marriott spokesperson declined to comment.

Multiple people with familiar with Sonder's said the Marriott deal sustained the company.

"The Marriott agreement a year ago is actually what kept us from bankruptcy," Ford, the sales employee, said.

Even still, Sonder was in a precarious position.

"Management has concluded that there is substantial doubt, which is not alleviated, about the Company's ability to continue as a going concern for at least one year," it wrote in a November 2024 filing. One year after the filing, Sonder was out of business.

Final days of Sonder

By this November, Sonder was drowning in debt, nearly out of cash, and out of options, according to legal filings.

Sonder had been negotiating for emergency financing and a potential buyer to take over its assets in bankruptcy, but the bidder abruptly pulled out on November 2, the filings said.

Three days later, Marriott agreed to provide Sonder with about $1.5 million in funding to cover one week of US payroll, the hotel chain said in filings in Sonder's bankruptcy case, calling it a short-term move to help keep thousands of guests housed.

The "ink was barely dry" when Sonder, on November 6, sent Marriott a $50 million proposal for Marriott to cover the costs of winding down Sonder, according to bankruptcy filings. The hotel giant said it rejected that plan, along with two other revised proposals for $28 million and $14 million.

Marriott accused Sonder of trying to "leverage guest safety as a bargaining chip" in order to get money out of it.

Sonder threatened that "unless Marriott financed its wind-down, it would shut down hotel systems and leave thousands of guests locked out of their rooms mid-stay," Marriott alleged in bankruptcy papers.

On November 7, Marriott terminated its 20-year license agreement after Sonder told Marriott it faced an "imminent free-fall liquidation." Marriott said in court filings that this allowed it to take over guest support and begin rebooking travelers.

The move left guests scrambling, forcing many to leave their stays with little warning.

Marriott said Sonder notified customers that it would no longer honor their reservations and advised them to contact Marriott regardless of whether they had booked stays outside Marriott's platforms. Sonder, which reported having over 1,400 employees at the end of 2024, also laid off all staff the same day without severance.

On November 10, Sonder announced its Chapter 7 bankruptcy plans.

In its press statement, Sonder blamed financial strain, technical problems integrating with Marriott's booking systems, and a sharp drop in bookings from Marriott's Bonvoy program. Marriott, in turn, said the collapse stemmed from Sonder's own mismanagement.

"Sonder collected tens of millions of dollars in advance payments for reservations it now admits it will never honor, spent weeks on a failed restructuring without any contingency plan, and failed to reserve sufficient liquidity to support an orderly wind-down," Marriott said in a bankruptcy filing.

The company, Marriott claimed, used guests' advance payments and deposits to bankroll its own operating expenses.

Amid the fallout, Marriott tried to distance itself from Sonder.

"It's important to understand, and I think it's important for the public to understand, that there was a license agreement, and, quite frankly, nothing more between Marriott and Sonder," an attorney for Marriott told a Delaware bankruptcy judge this week.

Sonder managed and operated its thousands of apartment-style and boutique hotel short-term rental units around the globe — not Marriott, the lawyer emphasized.

For Marriott, the end of the deal was a black eye as news stories and social media were flooded with stories of travellers left without options and being given conflicting advice.

For Sonder, it was the end of the line.

• The NTSB says the UPS plane crash in Louisville was caused by metal fatigue in the engine hardware.
• The crash killed 14 people and led to the grounding of the MD-11 fleet by the FAA.
• Metal fatigue-related plane crashes are rare but have occurred in previous airline incidents.

A federal investigation into the crash of a UPS cargo jet that killed 14 people in Louisville, Kentucky, earlier this month found that the engine of the plane came off its wing because of metal fatigue and hardware stress.

A preliminary accident report published by the National Transportation Safety Board on Thursday showed frame-by-frame images of the General Electric-made engine completely coming off and then smashing into the body of the Honolulu-bound plane as the aircraft took off. It also included photos of the wreckage being studied in the NTSB lab.

The probe "found evidence of fatigue cracks in addition to areas of overstress failure" in a part that attached the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 freighter's left engine to the wing, the report said.

The three crew members on the plane and 11 people on the ground were killed, the report said. Another 23 people on the ground were injured. The plane crash left a trail of destruction in an industrial area near Louisville's Muhammad Ali International Airport, satellite images in the report showed.

The report added that the plane initially climbed to about 30 feet above ground and cleared a fence at the end of a runway before its main landing gear hit the roof of a UPS warehouse at the edge of the airport. The plane then hit a storage yard and two other buildings, including a petroleum recycling facility, and was mostly consumed by fire.

Metal fatigue crashes

The MD-11 involved was a 34-year-old tri-engine widebody jet that was first delivered to Thai Airways in 1991, before being acquired by UPS in 2006. Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas in 1997.

The Federal Aviation Administration grounded the MD11 fleet, which UPS and FedEx use, in the wake of the crash.

Plane crashes caused by metal fatigue are rare, but similar accidents have occurred before.

Thursday's report referenced a similar but much deadlier crash in 1979. American Airlines flight 191, a McDonnell-Douglas DC-10-10 aircraft, crashed into an open field at the end of a runway at Chicago-O'Hare International Airport.

During takeoff, the left engine on the left wing separated from the airplane and fell onto the runway. The airplane was destroyed in the crash and subsequent fire, and 273 people, including two people on the ground, were killed.

More recently, in 2018, Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 experienced an uncontained engine failure in the left engine after departing from New York's LaGuardia Airport en route to Dallas. The incident killed a window seat passenger.

In 2016, a Southwest flight blew an engine as it flew from New Orleans to Orlando, and shrapnel tore a five-by-16-inch hole just above the wing. The plane landed safely. The NTSB said a fan blade had broken off because of metal fatigue.

In Thursday's report, the NTSB said its investigation of UPS flight 2976 is ongoing.