Tag: News

• Retirees are moving to warmer cities in Arizona, Texas, and Tennessee, many for lower living costs.
• Mesa, Arizona had the highest net movement of retirees, according to a SmartAsset analysis.
• Cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago saw a significant net loss of retirees in 2022.

Retirees are flocking to cities in Arizona, Texas, and Tennessee — and fleeing New York and California.

A new analysis from SmartAsset shows that in 2022, using the most recent Census Bureau American Community Survey data, the city of Mesa, Arizona had the most Americans of retirement age move in and the highest net movement of retirees. Out of 182 cities SmartAsset analyzed, every city in the top 10 for net movement of Americans aged 60 and older was in the South.

Many retirees are moving to warmer cities with lower living costs — some citing fears that they won't have enough saved for a comfortable retirement — and strong access to health and entertainment resources. Some retirees previously told Business Insider they've downsized to quieter communities, some of which more closely align with their political beliefs.

Florida gained a net 77,290 retirees in 2022, losing 94,053 but adding 171,343. This was followed by Arizona at 23,515 and South Carolina at 20,895.

Mesa, a city of over 500,000 just east of Phoenix, saw nearly 7,000 people move in, compared to about 2,500 moving out. Mesa had 50% more net influx of retirees than any other city — and the second-fastest rate of retirees moving in when adjusting for relative size. Last year, Mesa topped SmartAsset's study of where seniors are the most financially secure.

Data reveals Mesa had the highest percentage of homeownership among retirement-aged citizens. It also had the second-lowest percentage of senior poverty and the lowest percentage of older adults on food stamps.

San Antonio ranked second for net movement at 2,936 — 4,102 moved in, while just 1,166 moved out. Texas cities Houston and Fort Worth, which had net influxes of 1,139 and 1,130, respectively, were ranked 7th and 8th.

Perhaps expectedly, Florida had three cities in the top 11: St. Petersburg in fourth, Clearwater in 10th, and Cape Coral in 11th. However, Miami lost 1,134 retirees net, while Tallahassee lost 527. Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa, and Gainesville were also in the negatives.

Other cities in the top 10 for net movement include Henderson, Nevada, Atlanta, and the Tennessee cities of Murfreesboro and Chattanooga.

Conversely, 28,969 retirees moved out of New York City, while only 6,194 moved in. Los Angeles had a net loss of 5,549, while Chicago's retiree population fell by 3,251. Still, retirees have comparable or higher retirement incomes in some of these cities experiencing net losses compared to those with high net gains.

Have you recently moved to a new state for your retirement? Reach out to this reporter at nsheidlower@businessinsider.com.

• Dell has initiated the next phase of its return-to-office mandate.
• Employees' on-site attendance is now being monitored, according to a memo seen by Business Insider.
• The system will then give employees different colored flags depending on their attendance level.

Dell is pushing ahead with its return-to-office mandate.

The tech giant has told US employees who opted to classify themselves as hybrid workers that it has started monitoring their in-office attendance by tracking badge swipes, according to an internal memo seen by Business Insider.

Dell started monitoring attendance on May 6 and will make the data visible on each hybrid employee's profile on HR platform Workday this week.

The data will then be used to categorize employees with a blue, green, yellow, or red flag every quarter.

Business Insider spoke to 10 current Dell workers, all of whom asked to remain anonymous as they are not permitted to speak to the media.

Most opposed the policy, and many complained it felt unnecessarily strict, with one staffer telling BI that some employees feel they are being "tracked like kindergarteners and scared that their names might end up on some list."

Dell's memo states: "As the next step in implementing our Hybrid Work Policy, we will track onsite presence using badge swipes for hybrid-designated team members."

"Beginning Monday, May 13, you will be able to see your weekly site visit data. At the end of the quarter, site visits will be cumulated and reflected using category ranges."

Blue flags, reflecting Dell's corporate colors, are the highest rank and are given out for "consistent on-site presence," meaning 39 days or more in the office per quarter, while green flags are allocated for "regular onsite presence."

Yellow flags reflect "some onsite presence," and red flags will be handed out for "limited onsite presence."

The color by their name will be considered for performance evaluations, rewards, and compensation, Dell told employees.

Staff who opted to remain remote during the company's overhaul of its hybrid work policy, which was first announced in February, will not be monitored. However, by choosing to stay remote, they are no longer eligible for promotion or able to change roles.

Dell employees who were classified as remote and hybrid told Business Insider they were disappointed with how the company was implementing this new policy.

"Dell is not the place it used to be where employees were respected and valued. There are so many people that are demoralized and will be hurt by this policy," said one Dell worker, who requested to remain anonymous.

"Dell is in a state of dictatorship," another declared.

'Lack of flexibility'

Other staffers who spoke to BI raised concerns about the "lack of flexibility" in the new monitoring system. One said that for a company dedicated to tech innovation, Dell's internal "technologies and approaches are totally outdated."

According to an internal FAQ about the policy seen by BI, the attendance monitoring solution is solely based on data from badge swipes.

That means that if an employee forgets their badge, goes on a work trip, or takes an approved annual leave, the system marks them as absent.

The FAQ confirms that regularly turning up without a badge means you will show up as "red" on the system.

According to Dell, workers will not be penalized for that.

"We do not have a way to systematically account for onsite attendance where no badge reader is available, so we will use the honor system and trust that you are adhering to the policy."

Dell told staff that by reporting attendance in ranges, the system can account for the odd "days that a team member has Dell-approved time off, business travel, corporate holidays, etc."

It is not clear what happens if an employee regularly falls out of a positive attendance bracket for legitimate reasons. This lack of clarity has caused "a lot of frustration," according to a senior manager at Dell.

"No one really knows what it means if you're designated hybrid but fail to meet 3 days a week."

When contacted by BI, Dell did not respond to specific questions about the system's flexibility but confirmed that staff in hybrid roles were expected to be on-site at least 39 days per quarter — on average, 3 days a week.

"In today's global technology revolution, we believe in-person connections paired with a flexible approach are critical to drive innovation and value differentiation," the company told BI.

Dell is among a growing list of major corporations mandating more in-office work after years of working from home spurred by the COVID pandemic.

After initially embracing working from home, tech giants like Google, Meta, and Salesforce have all moved away from remote work and now mandate employees spend a certain proportion of their time in the office.

Many firms have faced an internal backlash over these policies. In February, financial giant Deutsche Bank faced staff criticism after mandating three days a week in the office despite complaints that there wasn't enough space to house all employees.

In the hands of managers

Dell is placing responsibility for tracking workers with individual managers, and any future action based on low attendance "will be at the leader's discretion, not driven centrally or by HR," according to the FAQ document.

"It isn't as iron-fisted as it sounded when the announcement was first made, we can work with our management for abnormal exceptions," said one employee, who viewed the manager-by-manager approach positively.

However, others see the new system as more work for already-stretched leaders.

"Its an additional time sink in an environment where more keeps being pushed onto a smaller set of people," said one manager at Dell.

The leniency of managers will also differ across teams, BI's sources said.

One staffer who works under senior management said their boss told staff that he will be satisfied as long as "he sees a 3 in the count towards 39 days."

"He personally believes the new policy is ridiculous," the source said. "He has better things to do than count people's days in the office."

But a friend on a different team was told by their manager that they expected everyone to be blue each week, the source said.

"The effectiveness is definitely going to depend on the manager. There will surely be managers who aren't tracking time off as well as they should and chastising employees for not being in the office despite vacation days," agreed another source at Dell.

These changes are "really making people turn on Dell as an employer," the source added.

Are you a worker at Dell or another company pushing staff back to the office? Contact this reporter at pthompson@businessinsider.com

• I got into Yale University after submitting a successful college application.
• I included my SAT score and high GPA in the application, along with an essay about my culture.
• Ultimately, I tried to highlight all the ways I would be a benefit to the Yale community.

I recently reviewed my Yale admissions file after being a student there for three years. It was strange but enlightening to read what the admissions officers really thought of my application.

Since then, many people have respectfully requested to hear about my stats, extracurriculars, and essays.

I believe that everyone's college application journey is unique and that mine is just one sample, but I equally understand the urge to hear about other people's experiences. I devoured hundreds of college decision reactions on YouTube just three years ago, hoping to find that secret formula.

So, I'm now sharing a deeper look into my college application. But I want to first emphasize that as complicated and stressful as the process of applying to college may be, the best application you can ever show others will be the one you enjoy writing the most. I know I enjoyed every second of writing mine.

My GPA and standardized test scores were important factors in my application

With colleges such as Yale and Dartmouth reinstating standardized testing requirements, the reality is that academics will always be the first line of assessment for admission.

The GPA I submitted to Yale was 98.23/100. An admissions officer commended my GPA in the context of my financially underprivileged upbringing.

I also tried to take the most rigorous workload possible while also prioritizing my mental health, ultimately sending in six AP test scores. My SAT score was 1590.

I credit a lot of my academic achievements to the fact that I surrounded myself with peers who were very serious about their education.

My pre-calculus teacher's recommendation — the one that the admissions team rated higher — emphasized that I held the second highest grade in her class over her 20-year teaching career.

I tried to highlight my passions in my extracurriculars

My activities were a confusing mosaic of interests and impulses, but one that perfectly captured this 17-year-old boy who was still very unsure about who he was and what he wanted.

I researched human visual perception at a local community college, I performed spoken word poetry, and I hit about 80% of the notes in the choir (on a good day).

My primary extracurricular, however, was the one I connected with most. At the start of the pandemic, I founded a language-learning program for children called "Spanish Meets You." I used the proceeds I made from the program, which featured tutoring and pen-palling services, to host community giveaways of essential health supplies — such as masks, face shields, and hand sanitizer.

"Spanish Meets You" evolved from my experience growing up in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, which was predominantly Hispanic and Asian. I loved going to cookouts and finding a diligent spread of both spicy tamales and fried rice. Despite our cultural differences, the two groups were united in our challenges and our respect for each other.

When I submitted my application, I worried that I didn't have a coherent theme for my extracurriculars, nor enough leadership — but based on the admissions team's comments, my genuine passion for one or two activities mattered in the end.

I wanted to capture who I truly am in my college essay

When I started drafting my essay, I knew I wanted to capture what was unextractable from my résumé: my curiosity, thick skin, and mistakes.

I decided to make the topic of my college essay about Chinese New Year, a holiday I celebrated with my 14 floormates in this tiny Brooklyn apartment building that we all called home for two decades. Every year, I would wait for my father by the door with mandarins, only to be disappointed by his absence.

Ultimately, however, I learned to enjoy this holiday — even if my celebration was unorthodox. My 14 floormates and I are unrelated by blood, but I remember we would gather over food every holiday, tell stories, and play a game of JENGA. Their laughter still ricochets in my ears hundreds of miles away as I now sit in my college dorm room, wrapping up my junior year.

I tried not to overthink the other essay questions

I would jot down whatever came to mind in the first 30 seconds, asking myself: "How would 7-year-old Brian answer this?"

Whenever I took too long to craft a response, it was a sign that I was probably sacrificing genuineness to make a false good impression.

One of the essays asked about my favorite intellectual concept. Instead of showing off by detailing some obscure scientific theory, I moved forward with writing about the diversity of motherhood in the animal kingdom, tying it back to my close relationship with my own mother.

My application was focused on proving how I would fit into the Yale community

Colleges are searching for those who will enrich the lives of their peers in different ways.

Therefore, in my application, I tried to highlight all the parts of me that would prove to Yale I would benefit their campus and their students. In doing so, I was accepted and met students doing just that.

One of my friends, for instance, is studying law. She also loves to rap and surprise her friends with midnight ice cream. Another is a science journalist who gives the best dating advice.

I would say Yale wouldn't be home even if one of them were missing. Everyone is here; everyone ends up where they are.

For students applying to Ivy League schools, I implore you to tell your dynamic, unique story — to think about how your rhythm will fold into a community's song.

• Matthew Bennett and his wife, Brooke, increased their income from $67,000 to $180,000 in three years.
• The couple has multiple cars and lives in a condo in Austin where they're enjoying life as DINKs.
• They plan to buy a house and start a family once they reach a combined income of $350,000.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Matthew Bennett, a 25-year-old mining equipment brokerage representative in Austin. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Before my wife, Brooke, 26, and I married in August 2021, we made about $67,000 in combined income from our data entry and construction jobs, respectively. We both graduated during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, so the jobs we wanted were hard to come by at the time.

We've now been married for almost three years and have a combined income of $180,000, thanks to both of us finding higher-paying jobs and sticking to our long-term financial goals. I'm a mining equipment brokerage representative, and Brooke is an administrative manager.

We have multiple cars but save money in other ways

2022 was a year of growth for us financially. I got a new job as an inside sales coordinator for a major construction company and Brooke's salary also increased as an administrative manager.

Although we do enjoy going out to eat on the weekends, during the week we always try to cook healthy meals at home and make our own coffee.

Cars are a passion to both of us — I have a BMW M2, a Mercedes GLA class, one Range Rover, and a Saab 9000, and then we have a Toyota Corolla that we split with a friend for our side hustle on Turo, a car rental site.

We also have the Range Rover listed on Turo. It's a fun way to make the cars pay for themselves. We make about $1,250 a month from the Turo side hustle.

We were able to afford a luxury trip for our 2nd anniversary

We've been contemplating moving to California in the future, so I planned a trip to Los Angeles to celebrate our two-year wedding anniversary.

The weeklong trip cost roughly $6,800. It was our first luxury trip as a married couple, and we stayed in four-star hotels, rented a luxury car to drive, and enjoyed fine dining at upscale restaurants.

The cost was incomparable to the overall experience for us.

We have a financial marker to meet before considering children

We've never been in a major rush to have kids. Financially, our goal was always to make at least $150,000 annually from our combined incomes before our first child. Now that we've met our initial financial goal, I'm aiming a bit higher.

I'd like to make around $350,000 by the time our first child is born. Our other goal is to buy a house.

The great thing about having the income we've steadily grown over the years is that it will allow us to have kids and still enjoy our current lifestyle. We don't want our kids to worry. We want them to have nice clothes, afford to go on outings with friends, and have a quintessential growing-up experience.

Even though we've worked hard enough to be well off, we want our kids to understand the value of a dollar and ensure they know we got to where we are now because we worked hard for years.

Before we have kids and lose our DINK status, we wanted to experience life in Austin

We used to pay $2,400 to rent a home in San Antonio. When our lease was up in March, we decided to finally take the leap and rent a condo in Austin with a stunning view. Our rent has increased to $3,475, but our water and power bills have decreased. Our grocery and gas expenditures haven't changed, but we've been able to increase our going-out budget.

Although we're paying significantly more in rent, it's worth every penny for the experiences we've had so far in Austin. We love the outdoor hiking opportunities, the dynamic food and drink scene, and the ability to meet other couples and friends our age.

We have one other goal before we have kids: To open a coffee shop. It's still a work in progress, but it's high on our list of life priorities. For now, we're enjoying DINK life in Austin.

• A new Deloitte survey found that a third of Gen Z and millennials chose to skip higher education.
• The key reasons come down to cost and preference for careers that don't require degrees.
• It comes as over half of Gen Z and millennials are living paycheck to paycheck, per the report.

Younger workers are foregoing higher education as costs continue to remain top of mind — and the value of a college education isn't what it used to be.

On Wednesday, Deloitte released a survey on Gen Z and millennial attitudes toward the world and their financial conditions. Using responses from 14,468 Gen Z and 8,373 millennials across 44 countries, the survey found that a third of Gen Z and millennials chose to forego higher education, with the primary reasons being financial barriers, family or personal circumstances, and seeking careers that don't require college degrees.

"Cost of living is their top societal concern. The financial constraints of higher education are the number one reason that Gen Zs and millennials are not pursuing it," Deloitte Global Chief People & Purpose Officer Elizabeth Faber told BI.

That comes as over half of Gen Z and millennials are living paycheck to paycheck, per the report — a continued trend among younger workers. For both Gen Z and millennials, the cost of living is their top concern, with Gen Z also concerned about potential unemployment. About a third of both generations reported that they don't feel financially secure. At the same time, many might be seeking out careers that bring stability and don't necessarily require a degree.

"They are looking for roles that are making them less prone for disruption, less vulnerable to automation," Faber said.

It's a trend that's been gaining more prominence over the past few years. As student debt loads remain high and more jobs become available that do not require degrees, more Gen Z are deciding that college just isn't worth it.

For example, a July survey from Business Insider, in partnership with YouGov, found that just 39% of Gen Z said advancing their education was important to them, and 46% of them did not think going to college was worth the cost.

One 22-year-old previously told BI that she decided to drop out of college after just a few months because she saw that the business courses she was paying for were topics she could teach herself, and she hasn't looked back since.

"It has been amazing for me to not be in debt," she said. "I have no student loans, like so many of my friends are in $100,000 in debt and student loans just to get a job that pays $60,000 a year."

Still, younger adults' perceptions toward higher education seem to skew away from overall attitudes toward a postsecondary degree or credential. A new report from Gallup and the Lumina Foundation on the state of higher education in 2024 found that "adults' interest in pursuing some form of higher education is at the highest level" the organizations have ever recorded.

Per the report, which used a sample of over 14,000 adults who are either enrolled in a postsecondary program, were previously enrolled but had not completed a degree, or have never enrolled in a program, nearly all adults without a college degree say that having at least one type of credential is "extremely" or "very" valuable. Of course, cost remains one of the main barriers to obtaining that degree, the report said.

Still, higher education can be important for workers — both in their careers and the opportunity to learn. Deloitte found, per Faber, that the types of jobs held by respondents with higher levels of education tend to provide longer-term job security; those respondents are also less likely to have secondary sources of income. Women are also more likely than men to cite financial constraints as a reason for not pursuing higher education, even though they're less likely to lack interest in getting one, per Faber. That potentially points to continued inequities, especially as workers with higher education feel more confident they'll be able to retire comfortably.

And a higher education might have its own trickle-down effect on daily work life.

"Those with higher levels of education do feel like they have more purpose and impact within their organization," Faber said. "They can drive more change and they have had more agency in choosing to reject assignments or employers that are not aligned with their personal beliefs."

Are you a Gen Zer or millennial opting out of college? Contact these reporters at asheffey@businessinsider.com and jkaplan@businessinsider.com.

Alyssa DeOliveira followed a well-worn path: go to college, get a degree, find a white-collar job. Her mother always told her she'd grow up to be a doctor, lawyer, or politician, so she tried nursing and accounting before settling on criminal justice, landing a job at a law firm. For a little over a year she arrived every morning at about 8. She listened to voicemails and checked emails. If she was lucky, she left at 5. But she yearned to work with people. Nearly three years ago, she started looking for something less tedious that didn't happen almost entirely in front of a computer screen.

Today, should you find yourself in Boston riding the T's green line, DeOliveira might be your conductor. Sometimes she's at work at 4 a.m.; other times she's there until 1 a.m. Some days she drives the up-front train — her favorite model has a foot brake, so it's almost like driving a big car — and other days she drives broken trains into the yard for repairs. One thing is consistent: She loves her job. And benefits-wise, her job loves her.

"I'm making almost double what I was making at the office job," she said. "My office job didn't give me a 401(k), but with the T, I have the pension, I have healthcare."

DeOliveira is part of an ascendant shift: Blue-collar work — officially defined as jobs that handle or move material goods, and colloquially thought of as jobs that don't require sitting in front of a screen — has once again assumed a competitive position within the American labor market. Demand is high, opportunities abound, and companies like Walmart and UPS offer six-figure salaries and lucrative benefits. In White-Collar World, meanwhile, campuses have cheaper snacks, remote work is a career trap, layoffs loom, and AI robots circle like vultures.

DeOliveira said that outside Boston, where she grew up, the thinking was if you do blue-collar work, "you're not as smart as someone who went to college, you're not as dedicated." Now, she told me, blue-collar work is an oasis in the fake-email-job desert, with a newfound social cachet. "For my family, they look at it differently now," she said. "I tell my cousins that are still in school, look into the trades if you don't know what you want to do."

Across America, it's getting hot under the blue collar.

Chris Collins has been a plumber for two decades. After finishing high school, he moved to eastern Tennessee in search of pretty much any type of work. But with no college degree and visible tattoos dotting his arms, he found that prospective employers sidelined him. Then he heard about a plumber looking for help. He showed up the next morning, and the rest is pipe-fixing history: He got trained, got licensed, and, in 2008, struck out on his own. Business, he said, never skipped a beat, even when the market crashed.

"I remember telling my parents that I was getting into the trades, and they were just like: 'This is awful. Go to college, go to college, be an IT guy or a doctor,'" Collins told me. He believes they wanted more for him. But as they watched his career take off, they came to understand that plumbing did offer more.

If Instagram incentivized a still-life aesthetic pleasure neatly tucked into a square frame, TikTok incentivized action.

Collins traced the shift around blue-collar work back to 2018 or 2019, when social media became a way for people to peek behind the trades curtain. As Steven Kurutz wrote for The New York Times, early influencers focused on curating the most aesthetically pleasing lives possible. Then people began to wonder who crafted that pretty finery. Who catches the lobster that ends up on that hand-painted porcelain platter? Who builds that cavernous house packed with Eames chairs? As the wild popularity of "day in the life" vignettes made clear, people loved what that peek afforded. If Instagram incentivized a still-life aesthetic pleasure neatly tucked into a square frame, TikTok incentivized action — and the people who spend their lives moving or building things were rewarded with views.

At the same time, millennials and younger workers wrestled with a snowballing amount of student-loan debt for degrees that didn't seem worth the price tag. The median wage for recent college graduates with a bachelor's degree actually fell to $52,210 in 2017 from $54,593 in 2016 — and it stayed below that 2016 level through 2019. (It has since zigzagged.) Surveys have indicated that Gen Zers view college degrees with even more suspicion than millennials, which may suggest a long tail for the blue-collar boom.

These years were crucial for other reasons, too. Bernie Sanders, long a champion of working people, leapt from Congress to the national presidential stage. As blue-collar companies struggled to staff up, they turned toward raising wages. Then came the pandemic — and a radical shift in how many Americans viewed work. White-collar workers saw the sun set on the zero-interest-rate phenomenon and watched how easily their roles could disappear. Many blue-collar workers, meanwhile, were deemed "essential." They were put in harm's way, often at the hands of bosses who didn't care about their health. Suddenly there was a consensus that they deserved to be paid more — or at the very least, respected. In a survey conducted in late 2021, 67% of blue-collar workers said they believed the pandemic changed how people viewed their jobs, and 75% of white-collar workers agreed. And while 62% of blue-collar workers said they believed that society generally looked down on them, 60% indicated they believed that having a blue-collar job was respected more than it was 10 years ago.

While blue-collar work still tends to pay less than white-collar professions, ADP found that last year new hires in the construction industry had a median salary of $48,089, while new hires in professional services made a median salary of $39,520. And in March, construction and mining wages were up 6.3% year over year — well above overall wage growth of 5.2% in the same period.

Between 1979 and 2019 "there was pretty much zero growth in terms of real wages for this group," said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. But over the past four years she's found that wages have increased for low-wage workers, and it's not a coincidence. It was partly a result of pandemic-era economic policy that stood in contrast to the more austere measures taken during the Great Recession. The money pouring into unemployment benefits and Americans' wallets — alongside protections like checks for parents and eviction moratoriums — meant that lower earners had not only a cushion, but more opportunities to job hop. Those increases for the bottom 10% were beating out inflation and meaningfully improving people's living standards, Gould said.

Now, the economy is adding blue-collar jobs at a rapid clip. Since April 2020, industries like construction, manufacturing, and transportation and warehousing have added 4.5 million jobs, compared with 4.1 million jobs in the professional services and information sectors, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The trend is pointing upward: In their most recent employment accounting, blue-collar sectors well outpaced white-collar sectors.

"I used to always tell friends who need a job — I'm like, hey, why don't you work at Walmart?" Frankie Giambrone, a Walmart manager outside New York City, told me. "And they're like, no, no, no." But over the past two years, he said, their tones have changed. "Now I have the same people that are like, hey, can you get me a job there?" he said. Giambrone started working as a cashier at 15, making $8.25 an hour. Today he makes six figures and has a robust 401(k) and stock options. The company — which has had its own checkered history with its workers — even paid for him to get his bachelor's degree in business.

"I never thought Walmart to be my career," he said, "but now that I'm in this position, there's nowhere else I would want to be."

It also doesn't hurt that the country has a vocally pro-union president. "Prior to President Biden coming to office, there had been several decades in which there was a very strong emphasis on getting a four-year degree as the pathway to a middle class," Lael Brainard, the director of the National Economic Council, told me. "That's not how the president thinks."

Take Scott Gove, 57, who has worked for UPS for 30 years. He believes that the public has been slowly piecing together that union jobs — UPS workers are represented by the Teamsters Union — can provide a solidly middle-class life. "You take a drive through a UPS location and just look at the parking lot of what's parked there," he said. "That'll tell you the type of financial stability that the union has given its members."

Between the job stability and the ability to work with your hands, blue-collar work is sexy. Look no further than the extremely popular TikToks about bagging a blue-collar boyfriend or girlfriend. Or the people trying to find their next date on the apps.

"In February there was a 116% increase in mentions of blue-collared jobs on OkCupid profiles compared to the same month last year," Michael Kaye, the director of brand marketing and communications at OkCupid, told me. "The bottom line is an honest living is hot."

My wife will tell you the reason she married me was for my healthcare benefits.

Still, Giambrone said that when he tells prospective matches on dating sites that he works at Walmart, they'll often unmatch or ghost him — a sharp contrast to how his friends and relatives see his work. But he knows that down the line he'll find his person.

"We make good money. I'm stable," he said. "I love the fact that ultimately I work and I don't have to worry about a bed. I don't have to worry about living somewhere. I don't have to worry about food. I am comfortable. I live by myself. I have my two cats, and I'm happy."

Gove, the UPS driver, said there's a long-running family joke about his relationship. "My wife will tell you the reason she married me was for my healthcare benefits."

Collins, the plumber, said that when he started out, clients tended to be dismissive when he showed up. Now he's met with gratitude, especially as it becomes more difficult to find workers in short supply. When Alyssa DeOliveira changed careers, she was met with incredulity from some friends: Are you sure you want to drive a train? Are you scared? But her job expanded her friend group. "I have friends who are 60," she said. "It's all over the place. There's people from every ethnic background, all ages, any gender, any sexuality. My friends can fit any kind of group there is out there." That's on top of her old friends who have stuck by her during the career transition.

There is a tendency — particularly among white-collar workers — to look at blue-collar work through rose-colored glasses, to romanticize the hard work and skills it requires. The labor market hasn't completely reversed course; blue-collar jobs may be booming, but a bachelor's degree is still often a prerequisite for roles with high pay and numerous benefits. And even with prominent labor actions like those from United Auto Workers members and Teamsters, union membership in the US is at a record low.

"The reality is this is a slow-moving tide, and it has been the case for a very long time that there's been stigma and a general sense that these kinds of industries and this kind of work is somehow less than," Sam Pillar, the CEO of Jobber, a software company that services small blue-collar businesses, told me. "Obviously we think that's total horseshit."

Jeff Goldalian, an electrician who owns two brick-and-mortar stores and runs a YouTube channel that teaches people how to become electrical contractors, believes that just posting about the merits of blue-collar jobs might elide the hard work required to make it sustainable.

"There's a dark side to the trades if you don't know it," he told me. "As an electrician, if you don't know how to get proper training, where to get training or licensing, you're setting yourself up for failure."

Blue-collar work is, at the end of the day, work. There are bad bosses, difficult coworkers, and shareholders who value their profits over the workers generating them. Americans increasingly want more from their work, but they don't have the leverage to truly change their conditions — yet. The appeal of blue-collar work might lie in the fact that, to some extent, it satisfies the conditions economists say are required for worker power: Employers need this work, it's not easy to replace, and many of these jobs have the backing of a union. All those things, though precarious, are now more visible.

Juliana Kaplan is a senior labor and inequality reporter on Insider's economy team.

• The mental health market is due for more deals as startups contend with a tight funding environment.
• Some startups appear to be preparing to go public, while others may be clamoring for a buyout.
• Analysts predict these startups could get bought, make acquisitions, or IPO in the next year.

This year could bring a reckoning for mental health startups.

It's been three years since the mental health market surged to all-time highs. Behavioral health startups grabbed $5.1 billion in 2021, $3.3 billion more than any other clinical indication in healthcare that year, according to Rock Health.

Investor interest in mental health hasn't abated since then. But as customer acquisition costs surged and funding slumped, some startups have struggled to grow into sky-high valuations, especially in a now-crowded landscape.

Today's market is a mixed bag: large late-stage players preparing for public market debuts, early-stage companies grabbing funding for specialized behavioral healthcare, and a cluster of generalist midstage startups in between.

Analysts think more consolidation in mental health is inevitable this year as startups adapt to the new market realities and battle it out for continued growth.

Tom Cassels, senior advisor at Rock Health, said generalist mental health startups should be considering their options now, especially those struggling with patient retention or that aren't profitable.

"The test is, can you meet the new market expectations, and I'm confident that with everyone in the market, several will not," he said.

These are the 13 mental health startups most likely to go public, make acquisitions, or get bought in the next year, according to healthcare analysts.

Headspace Health: Acquirer

Headspace Health has made several acquisitions since its 2010 founding, and analysts expect it to look for more deals this year.

Headspace merged with Ginger in October 2021, a deal that valued the combined company at $3 billion. Headspace's meditation and mindfulness exercises for consumers, plus Ginger's therapy and psychiatry provided to companies and health plans, have allowed Headspace Health to care for a wide range of patients.

This year, it's been notching deals to provide those services all in one to give employees access to Headspace's mindfulness content alongside Ginger's clinical care. It's also moving to bring more mental health services like coaching directly to consumers.

As Headspace Health looks to expand its offerings, Pitchbook senior healthcare analyst Aaron DeGagne said the company may look to partner with specialty mental healthcare providers or make more acquisitions.

The startup last bought Shine, a mental health app focused on BIPOC patients, in September 2022.

DeGagne wrote in a January Pitchbook note on healthtech unicorns that Headspace could consider deals in areas including "AI chatbots, substance use, youth mental health, and/or specialty care."

Modern Health: M&A target

Modern Health provides personalized mental health treatment to employers, including coaching and therapy. DeGagne and CB Insights lead healthcare analyst Alexander Lennox-Miller said Modern Health could be a good acquisition target for the right buyer.

Lennox-Miller said it's unlikely Modern Health could snag the same valuation from its last fundraise in a deal today. The startup's February 2021 fundraise, a $73 million Series D, valued Modern Health at $1.17 billion.

Lennox-Miller pointed to Modern Health's headcount, which he said isn't growing, and noted the company hasn't any made acquisitions or raised fresh funding since 2021.

In statements sent to BI for this story, Modern Health executives argued its headcount isn't indicative of its performance.

"We believe Modern Health is in a better position than any other company in its field. The growth-at-all-costs mindset is no longer valid, and successful companies are focused on building sustainable and profitable businesses, which is what Modern Health is doing," Modern Health CEO Alyson Watson said.

"While others in our industry are struggling to raise capital due to burning unsustainable levels of cash every year, we expect to become profitable with what's on our balance sheet without requiring additional funding. Our growth speaks for itself, with a remarkable 600% growth rate from 2020 to 2023 and achieving cash flow positivity in Q1 of this year. As a result, we expect Modern Health to be the first in our space to reach profitability."

DeGagne said employer-focused mental health startups such as Modern Health have the potential for more profitable growth with "stickier" recurring revenue models.

He said pharmacy giants Walgreens or CVS Health might seek to pick up a mental health asset like Modern Health. However, as retailers like Walmart step out of healthcare entirely and Walgreens and CVS' healthcare businesses struggle, that possibility appears to be waning.

DeGagne suggested that other healthcare players, including public behavioral health companies like Talkspace or Teladoc's BetterHelp, could consider buying Modern Health to expand their employer businesses.

Modern Health made its first and only acquisition back in February 2021, therapist-matching startup Kip, just before announcing its Series D fundraise.

In a statement provided by Modern Health, Forrester senior analyst Jonathan Roberts said, "Modern Health is certainly a partner with its finger on the pulse. With triple-digit growth over the last 3 years and its recent cash flow positive quarter, Modern Health is well positioned to take on employee mental health at scale."

Lyra Health: IPO

Investors and bankers identified Lyra Health in January as one of the seven healthcare startups most likely to IPO when the public markets reopen, Business Insider previously reported. And Lennox-Miller agreed that Lyra is a prime candidate for the next wave of healthcare IPOs.

"Their last valuation was almost six billion. It's time," he said.

The startup provides mental health services, including teletherapy and medication management, to employees at companies like Salesforce and eBay. Lennox-Miller noted that Lyra has seen solid traction and growth with its employer clients.

Lyra last raised $235 million in a Series G funding round in January 2022 at a $5.58 billion valuation, making the company too expensive for nearly all potential buyers, Lennox-Miller said.

He noted that Lyra doesn't have much of a history of buying other companies, either — the startup has only announced one public acquisition to date, snapping up employee assistance provider company ICAS World in January 2022.

Lyra has raised more than $900 million to date, more than any other mental health startup.

Lyra declined to comment for this story.

BetterHelp: Acquirer

Acquired by Teladoc in 2015, BetterHelp has seen stunning growth over the years that's recently dulled.

The company's revenue decreased by 4% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the prior year's, to $269 million, and lost 11% of paying users relative to 2023's first quarter.

It's struggled with rising customer acquisition costs, plus a deluge of criticism after the Federal Trade Commission found last year that BetterHelp had sold users' health data to advertisers.

BetterHelp fits the bill of a generalized mental health provider that could benefit from M&A right now, Lennox-Miller said.

As its organic growth slows, BetterHelp could buy another company to tack on some inorganic growth while expanding its user base or specialty care areas, he said.

BetterHelp didn't respond to a request for comment for this story.

UWill, Joon, and Cartwheel: M&A target

DeGagne, Lennox-Miller, and Cassels all said they're watching the pediatric mental health market as more startups caring for kids and teens grab investor cash.

The incidence of mental health disorders like anxiety and depression in young people has been rising for years, reaching crisis levels in 2021. With a dearth of pediatric mental health professionals equipped to care for kids and teens, a number of startups are picking up steam to elevate those clinicians and connect children with more accessible care.

That environment also presents an opportunity for profitable growth, Cassels said, which will make these startups especially attractive to potential buyers.

Last year, Lennox-Miller said, about two-thirds of early-stage telepsychiatry funding went to pediatric and student-focused startups. Many rely on per-member or per-student contracts rather than direct insurance reimbursement, which makes patient volumes, and thus profits, more predictable, he said.

He highlighted UWill, Joon, and Cartwheel as startups providing mental healthcare to kids and teens, either directly or through schools, that could see buyer interest right now.

"That's a space I would expect to see activity, whether regular M&A, whether it's PE — there's too much opportunity there, and it seems like there's a lot of enthusiasm for those solutions right now," Lennox-Miller said.

In a statement to BI, Joon CEO Emily Pesce said the startup remains focused on building evidence-based care for teens and young adults.

"We find it inspiring to see strong interest from many angles — investors, healthcare partners, parents and young people," she said. "At Joon we listen closely to best understand how to partner, work with or serve all those who can help broaden our impact and effectively meet this need. 

Uwill and Cartwheel didn't respond to requests for comment for this story.

Spring Health: IPO

Spring, with its approach of applying AI to personalized mental healthcare, is a top pick by investors and bankers for the healthcare startups most likely to IPO, as BI reported in January.

The company sells its services to employers including Microsoft and The Hershey Company, as well as health plans. Its algorithms help match its patients to care like coaching, psychotherapy, and psychiatry.

Spring last raised a $71 million Series D round in April 2023, valuing the company at $2.5 billion and bringing its total funding to more than $370 million from top VC firms like Tiger Global.

Since its founding in 2016, Spring has made two public acquisitions, most recently buying self-guided mental health app Bloom in March.

While Lennox-Miller said Spring is more likely to be acquired than Lyra Health — Spring boasts a significantly lower valuation, plus a tech model that Lennox-Miller said scales more easily — the startup is still expensive enough to put it out of reach for most buyers, he said.

Spring declined to comment for this story.

Holmusk: M&A target

Holmusk sits in an unconventional place in the behavioral health market — but its unique focus on data analytics could turn heads, Lennox-Miller said.

Based jointly in Singapore and the US, Holmusk is building a real-world data platform for behavioral health, bringing together disparate sources of mental health data with analytics tools for better research and patient care.

That's a hot area right now for investors and potential buyers alike, Lennox-Miller said. Holmusk has raised about $113 million to date, according to Pitchbook, most recently grabbing a $30 million strategic investment from electronic health record system provider Veradigm in October after landing a $45 million Series B in January 2023.

"The value of the data, by itself, could make them a potential acquisition target," Lennox-Miller said. "I think we're going to see a real rush to locking down that data."

Pharma and biotech giants, as well as large real-world data vendors, could be interested in snapping up Holmusk, Lennox-Miller said.

He said cloud-focused EHR players like Veradigm or even Big Tech players could also consider a deal like this to gain access to large behavioral health datasets to train new AI technologies.

Holmusk didn't respond to a request for comment for this story.

SonderMind: Acquirer and M&A target

SonderMind, which matches patients to therapists for virtual or in-person counseling, could be one of the generalist mental health startups to struggle in a tighter market, Cassels suggested.

The startup hasn't publicly announced more funding since July 2021, when it raised $150 million Series C at a valuation "well north" of $1 billion. SonderMind has also conducted at least two rounds of layoffs since then, most recently slashing 17% of its workforce, or 49 of its 281 employees, in January.

Lennox-Miller said SonderMind might be forced to reset its Series C valuation according to new market standards, and could even seek a buyout.

He suggested that Amazon could buy SonderMind, or a company like it, to augment its purchase of One Medical with mental health services.

SonderMind has also made a few acquisitions, most recently buying tech assets from the now-defunct mental health startup Mindstrong in March 2023. CEO Mark Frank told Axios in 2022 that the company sees itself as a "natural consolidator."

SonderMind didn't respond to a request for comment for this story.

Big Health and Freespira: M&A targets

Digital therapeutics startups have particularly struggled in the market downturn with issues such as provider adoption and insurance reimbursement. Some of these companies may look to merge with competitors or get bought right now to push forward without investor cash, DeGagne said.

He pointed to Big Health and Freespira as potential M&A candidates. Big Health provides software for conditions including insomnia and anxiety, while Freespira's tech treats panic attacks and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"It just doesn't make sense to have 20 different digital therapeutics vendors with one to two products each," DeGagne said.

Akili, whose stock has been on a rollercoaster ride since the ADHD-focused digital therapeutics company went public in August 2022, might seek to make an acquisition or merge with another company in the longer term, DeGagne said.

Cassels pointed to OxfordVR's merger with BehaVR in December 2022. OxfordVR was developing therapeutics for several mental conditions including psychosis, but ultimately struggled with a small total addressable market for its tech, said Cassels, who was an investor in OxfordVR.

"I think the folks who are most likely to need to consolidate are folks working in serious mental illness because, from an investment perspective, they're still battling," he said.

In a statement to BI, a Big Health spokesperson wrote, "Big Health has established itself as one of the leading digital therapeutics companies, and we are operating in a dynamic and still nascent space. We have a strong path forward based on our evidence-based portfolio of offerings, including Sleepio and Spark for depression, as well as our recently established partnership with Grow Therapy to further drive adoption."

"We've seen mounting interest from health plans as they recognize the need for broader behavioral health solutions that address the barriers many patients face in accessing care," said Freespira CEO Joseph Perekupka in a statement to BI. "Sector consolidation creates an opportunity for payers to provide a comprehensive platform of enhanced behavioral health solutions to their members from a single partner."

Eleanor Health: M&A target

Demand for addiction care is surging, and a crop of early- to mid-stage startups focused on substance use stands to benefit.

DeGagne said larger mental health players like Headspace Health could look for an acquisition among smaller substance-use startups to meet that growing need. Lennox-Miller suggested private-equity firms might look to make acquisitions in substance use too, potentially even rolling up multiple smaller startups to create a larger care network.

Eleanor Health is one of the best-funded startups in the space, last grabbing a $50 million Series C led by General Catalyst in January 2023.

It's had some hiccups in the past year, however. Eleanor's founder, Corbin Petro, announced in August that she was stepping down as CEO. And Lennox-Miller said the startup's headcount has fallen since its Series C raise.

He said that the challenges confronting substance-use startups could dissuade potential buyers. Those challenges mirror the struggles faced by digital therapeutics companies, he said, such as Pear Therapeutics, which went bankrupt in April 2023 after failing to secure significant insurance reimbursement.

"Those issues about reimbursement, payment, and showing value to their customers are there for all of them," Lennox-Miller said. "All of the factors leading to an acquisition are the factors that could dissuade other companies from buying them."

Eleanor Health didn't respond to a request for comment for this story.

Virtual addiction treatment clinic Pelago is another player buyers could be interested in. The startup may be less likely to consider a buyout, however, after nabbing a $58 million Series C in March.

• Silicon Valley, it's time you noticed how one of your boys is looking more and more like a Rap God.
• Mark Zuckerberg showed up to his 40th birthday bash in what looked like an Eminem-inspired outfit.
• The billionaire has been wearing similar rapper-style outfits in recent public appearances.

Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to really love channeling his inner Eminem — but how much rapper Zuck is too much rapper Zuck?

Zuckerberg celebrated his 40th birthday on Tuesday with friends and family. He was seen donning a rapper-style outfit, complete with a gold chain and an oversized T-shirt.

"Grateful for my first 40 years! Priscilla threw me a little party and recreated a bunch of places I lived in the early days," Zuckerberg wrote in an Instagram post that included multiple photographs of the birthday bash organized by his wife, Priscilla Chan.

Besides the gold chain, the billionaire's black shirt had the Latin phrase "Carthago delenda est" emblazoned on it.

The phrase is commonly associated with a Roman politician, Cato the Elder, who is said to have uttered it at the end of his speeches as a call to arms.

The Latin-inscribed shirt is also in line with Zuckerberg's own intellectual interests.

Zuckerberg has a long-standing interest in the Roman Empire and studied Latin in high school. He also named all three of his daughters — Maxima, August, and Aurelia — after Roman emperors.

Zuckerberg wasn't the only one trying to unleash his inner rapper. His spouse, Chan, showed up in a matching outfit — wearing a plain white t-shirt and a pair of gold chains.

"Here's to the next 40!" Zuckerberg signed off at the end of his post.

This isn't the first time Zuckerberg has put on a rapper-style outfit. He had a similar get-up on April 13, when he took his wife to a UFC 300 event.

Then, just a week later on April 18, Zuckerberg would make a similar fashion choice when he announced Meta's latest AI products.

This time, Zuckerberg paired his chain necklace with a navy blue t-shirt.

Zuckerberg's evolving fashion sense appears to be part of an emerging trend amongst business executives to be more flamboyant with their outfit choices.

While the late Apple founder Steve Jobs might have been happy with his black turtlenecks, tech titans like Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos are now busy experimenting with the "mob chic" aesthetic with their wives.

But Zuckerberg's fashion glow-up isn't just about touting his rapper swag and sensibilities. In recent years, the social media mogul has also demonstrated a newfound focus on his looks and dressing in what appears to be his bid to appear more relatable.

Besides getting adventurous with his clothing style, Zuckerberg got swole when he picked up mixed martial arts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

When Zuckerberg traveled to Japan this year, he ditched his uniform of gray t-shirts and hoodies for a shearling brown jacket.

He would later trade that coat for Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's black leather jacket when the pair met in March.

"Jersey swap," Zuckerberg said of his meeting with Huang in an Instagram post.

Representatives for Zuckerberg at Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

• Ukraine was too slow to build strong defenses in areas like Kharkiv, critics said.
• They said that Ukraine should have had defenses two or three lines deep, instead of one.
• Construction companies are racing to build more before Russia can advance further.

Ukraine was too slow to build the crucial fortifications that could hold back advancing Russian troops, according to critics.

Recent reports have shown Ukrainian soldiers complaining about the lack of defenses in two regions where Russia is gaining ground.

The first is Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, which has been the scene of some of the most intense fighting. The second is the area near the city of Kharkiv, which had been relatively quiet until recently.

One Ukrainian commander complained on Sunday that promised defenses in Kharkiv were missing. The result was that Russian soldiers "just walked in," per the BBC.

Further south in Donetsk, a Ukrainian soldier described a rout that left 100 dead or missing as their position had hardly any fortifications, the Associated Press reported.

Opposition lawmakers put the blame on Zelenskyy's government for not acting sooner.

Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, an MP for the opposition European Solidarity party, said they "finally" started building fortifications in February — too late, she said, per Politico Europe.

Rostyslav Pavlenko, another European Solidarity MP, told the outlet they had been urging the government to build on an "industrial" scale since last summer.

John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told BI that Ukraine "certainly" should have started digging in "far" sooner.

He said the role of defensive lines was all the more important given Ukraine's well-known issues finding enough soldiers.

"With proper fortifications, you can defend with fewer men," he said.

A race against time

Last November, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for faster construction of fortifications on all major fronts, and the government formed a new group meant to get it done quickly.

However, it doesn't seem to have worked.

Construction companies that agreed to work under dangerous conditions were hard to find, the AP reported earlier this month.

Those that did take on the work had to work fast and navigate multiple levels of bureaucracy to get paid, the report said.

A construction company director in one area of heavy fighting said Ukraine started way too late — the fortifications should have been put up a decade ago, when Russia first began to attack, he said.

"This is all a big question for our leadership: Why didn't they purchase the equipment that military engineers needed to do their jobs? Why did they wait until they just gave it to us?" he told the AP, which granted him anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

Oleg Syniehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, was more blunt, telling the AP: "There was no time."

Ukraine's Agency for Reconstruction and Development of Infrastructure did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Manpower may trump fortifications

Some experts dispute the significance of deep fortifications on the battlefield, arguing that manpower is the real deciding factor.

According to Sergej Sumlenny, founder of the European Resilience Initiative Center, a German think-tank, Ukraine's defensive line in Kharkiv has held up reasonably well despite only being one later deep.

He said building a defensive line all along Ukraine's 745-mile front would not be realistic, so Ukraine has to pick its spots.

Tim Willasey-Wilsey, a visiting professor at the War Studies department of King's College London, said the vastness of the front meant the pivotal factor would be how fast and well each side could rush defenders to areas that needed them.

• Larry Page cofounded Google with his Stanford graduate school classmate Sergey Brin.
• Page served as CEO of Google from its founding until 2001 and again between 2011 and 2015.
• Page helmed Google's parent company, Alphabet, from 2015 to 2019, when Sundar Pichai took over.

Larry Page is the founder of one of the most influential tech companies in the world.

The quirky, soft-spoken computer scientist cofounded Google with Sergey Brin in 1998. As Google evolved into a multi-billion-dollar juggernaut, Page stayed at the helm, first as Google's CEO and later running its parent company, Alphabet.

In 2019, Page stepped down from his role at Alphabet and handed over control to Sundar Pichai. (He remains a board member and controlling shareholder of the company.)

In the years since stepping down, Page has become a virtual recluse. He spent much of the pandemic holed up on his private Fijian island, Tavarua, and burned through hundreds of millions of dollars on a futuristic car company called Kittyhawk, which shut down in 2022.

So who is Larry Page and how did he get to where he is today? Here's his story.

Page's early life

Page was born on March 26, 1973, the second son of Gloria and Carl Page — who both taught computer science at Michigan State University.

The Pages filled their home with computers and tech magazines that enthralled Larry from a young age.

They enrolled Page in a Montessori school, a program that fosters independence and creativity.

Page now credits "that training of not following rules and orders, and being self-motivated and questioning what's going on in the world" as influencing his attitude and work.

At 12, Page read a biography about the brilliant inventor Nikola Tesla, who died in debt and obscurity. The ending made him cry and inspired Page not only to want to build world-changing technologies but to have the business sense to know how to promote them.

"I figured that inventing things wasn't any good," he has said. "You really had to get them out into the world and have people use them to have any effect."

Besides tinkering with electronics, Page also played saxophone while growing up and has said his musical training contributed "to the high-speed legacy of Google."

Page and Sergey Brin create Google

During his time as an undergrad at the University of Michigan, Page started mulling the future of transportation, something he's still interested in.

He joined the school's solar car team and suggested that Michigan build a monorail-like "personal rapid-transit system" between its campuses.

Google's parent company, Alphabet, has developed self-driving cars through Waymo, the company formerly known as the Google Self-Driving Car project. Alphabet also dabbled in data-driven transportation improvements through Sidewalk Labs, which abandoned its ambitious plan for a high-tech neighborhood in Toronto in 2020.

After graduation, Page headed west to Stanford for his Ph.D., where he met Sergey Brin in 1995.

The two became close friends, geeking out about computer science.

When he was 23, Page woke up from a dream wondering if he could "download the whole web."

So he started working on an idea to rank webpages by their inbound links, instead of by how many times they contained a queried word. He enlisted Brin's help, and they started collaborating on a search engine they initially called BackRub.

Soon, BackRub became Google, a play on the mathematical term "googol" which signifies 1 followed by a hundred zeroes.

The endeavor reflected Page and Brin's mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

Both Page and Brin have been known as "burners," or avid attendees of the free-wheeling art festival Burning Man.

The year after incorporating Google, they created the first-ever Google Doodle to let people know they weren't around to do damage control if the site broke — they had retreated to the Nevada desert for the festival.

Page's leadership roles at Google

In the past, Page has admitted that he's better at big-picture ideas than management, partly because he doesn't enjoy dealing with people. As a leader, he focused on results and has an affinity for ultra-ambitious ideas.

When Page was first CEO, he wrote down the following management rules that guided him:

• Don't delegate: Do everything you can yourself to make things go faster.
• Don't get in the way if you're not adding value. Let the people actually doing the work talk to each other while you go do something else.
• Don't be a bureaucrat.
• Ideas are more important than age. Just because someone is junior doesn't mean they don't deserve respect and cooperation.
• The worst thing you can do is stop someone from doing something by saying, "No. Period." If you say no, you have to help them find a better way to get it done.

Page ran Google as CEO until 2001, when Eric Schmidt was brought in to lead the company as its "adult supervision."

Brin and Page were wary of all the CEO candidates, but they took Schmidt to Burning Man and felt that at least he'd be a good fit for the company.

Page wasn't happy about having to relinquish his CEO spot at first. Eventually, though, he became comfortable being less involved in the company's day-to-day management.

Page remained actively involved in Google's product and vision during that time.

He orchestrated the acquisition of Andy Rubin's company, Android, without telling Schmidt until he'd sealed the deal.

But after 10 years, Page decided to take back the CEO title in 2011.

Page reorganizes Google

Page reorganized the company's senior management, and before the end of 2012, the company had launched several new endeavors.

They included Google Plus, its first Chromebook laptop, Google Glass, high-speed-internet service Fiber, and more.

Page continued leading Google until 2015 when the company blew up its corporate structure, and Page became the CEO of the parent company Alphabet instead. Brin would take over as president.

In a letter to investors introducing Alphabet, Page wrote: "For Sergey and me this is a very exciting new chapter in the life of Google—the birth of Alphabet. We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity's most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search!"

He added that "alpha" itself is an investment return above the benchmark — exactly what they would be striving for with Alphabet.

In his role as CEO of Alphabet, Page spent much of his time researching new technologies, meeting and enlisting really smart people, and imagining what Alphabet's next moonshot bet might be.

In the letter he wrote to investors introducing Alphabet, Page also said, "In general, our model is to have a strong CEO who runs each business, with Sergey and me in service to them as needed." That meant Page was also spending time scouting talent for chief executive roles for Alphabet's many divisions.

Page's personal life

Throughout it all, Page has kept information about his personal life closely guarded. In a rare event in 2013, however, he opened up about having vocal cord paralysis.

The condition makes his voice softer than it used to be and makes long monologues difficult.

In 2007, Page married Lucinda Southworth, a research scientist. The couple rented out a private island in the Caribbean and invited 600 guests. Virgin Group founder Richard Branson was Page's best man.

Page isn't particularly showy with his wealth, but he lives well. He reportedly owns multiple homes in the Palo Alto area.

Page owns a mansion that spans 8,149 square feet, with six bedrooms and six bathrooms that he purchased in 2005 for $7 million. A couple of years later, Page built another, more "eco-friendly" home on the property that is close to 6,000 square feet and includes an elevator, a roof with solar panels, and a rooftop garden.

In September 2021, one of Page's properties caught fire and was partially destroyed by fire.

At the time, it was also unclear who — if anyone — was living in the mansion. The city of Palo Alto issued a violation notice that the home should not be used for business purposes that October.

Page's flashiest purchase is perhaps the 194-foot superyacht called "Senses," which he bought for $45 million in 2011 with a helipad and Jacuzzi on its deck.

Page has since sold the yacht and downsized to an array of smaller vessels, according to people familiar with his activities.

Page, Brin, and Schmidt have purchased at least eight private jets between them.

In 2006, court documents revealed that Schmidt had to help settle an argument between the Google co-founders, who were bickering about what size beds the "party plane" needed. They also wanted to outfit the plane with hammocks and a cocktail bar.

Investments and philanthropy

Page has also dedicated part of his wealth to causes he believes in.

In 2004, he started The Carl Victor Page Memorial Foundation in honor of his father.

Carl Page died soon after Larry left for grad school because of complications caused by polio he contracted as a child.

Page has also spoken out about his father's influence in shaping his career. "My dad was really interested in technology," Page said at Google I/O in 2013.

"He actually drove me and my family all the way across the country to go to a robotics conference," he said. "And then we got there and he thought it was so important that his young son go to the conference, one of the few times I've seen him really argue with someone to get in someone underage successfully into the conference, and that was me."

The persistence paid off.

Alphabet's search engine ads machine pumps out so much money that the company can afford to spend on "other bets" that Page is passionate about, like building smarter home appliances, spreading internet through its Project Loon balloons, and extending human life.

He's also long been fascinated by flying cars and launched Kittyhawk, a mysterious flying-car startup, under the name Zee Aero in 2010. At first, Page would regularly pop into Kittyhawk's office to experiment on the workbench, but as the years went on, he began showing up less often. Then Kittyhawk shut down in 2022.

Life after Google

In December 2019, Page and Brin announced in a letter that they were stepping down from their respective roles as Alphabet CEO and president.

"Alphabet and Google no longer need two CEOs and a President," the pair wrote. They added that it was time for them to "assume the role of proud parents—offering advice and love, but not daily nagging!"

Since stepping down, Page has largely kept out of the public eye, sharing his post-Alphabet endeavors with a small group of confidantes.

He maintains a network of properties and investments through Koop, Page's cloak-and-dagger family office.

Page owns at least five islands across the Caribbean and the South Pacific. He owns a majority stake in the leaseholder corporation of Tavarua, an island in Fiji, where he and his family holed up during the pandemic. Page also bought Cayo Norte, a large private island in Puerto Rico, for around $32 million through a limited liability company, US Virgin Island Properties, that he's been using to buy islands. He also owns an organic farm, Atomic Farm.

As of April 2024, Page's net worth of $143 billion put him at No. 7 on Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.