Is SpaceX planning to end its Transporter program?

In the final installment of our series on the state of venture investment to Black-founded startups, six investors offer their advice for overlooked founders and explain how the venture industry can broaden access to capital by rethinking sourcing, networks and long-held investing patterns.

Giulia Segreti / Reuters: Italy is investigating Microsoft 365's price hike, saying Microsoft failed to inform users that AI tools like Copilot were being integrated into the service  —  Italy's antitrust authority said on Friday it had opened an investigation into Microsoft (MSFT.O) over alleged unfair commercial practices linked …

The Ziegler family is selling their private island in Connecticut for $35 million. Modern Media LLC A family that got rich selling baking powder has sold a private island priced at $35 million. The Ziegler family has owned Hay Island, just off the Connecticut coast, for over a century. Family members have moved to other spots in the US, so they no longer need such a large property. Many families dream of having a private island to call their own. In Connecticut, a new family just made that a reality. Hay Island, an 18-acre piece of land off the coast of Connecticut, was sold for $26.5 million. The last owners owned it for over 100 years. The Zielgler family acquired the island over 100 years ago, according to property records. The family is descended from industrialist William Ziegler Sr., who cofounded the Royal Baking Powder Company in the 1800s. The island remained in his family as a summer cottage but was most recently used as a full-time residence by Cynthia Ziegler and her husband, Renfrew Brighton, according to Mansion Global. The earlier summer cottage has been replaced with an 8,684-square-foot New England colonial home. The property also includes a two-bedroom guest house, an infinity-edge pool, and two beaches. Property records show the island was sold in two transactions in November 2025 to Hay Island CT II LLC, one for $6,360,000 and the other for $20,140,000. While this wasn't the first island the Ziegler sold, it was the last. In 2023, the family sold their other island, Great Island — just across Ziegler Cove from Hay Island — for $85 million to the town of Darien. The town plans to turn it into a public park. The Ziegler family's current net worth is unclear, but Forbes estimated it to be $2.8 billion in 2015, due in part to investments in a cigar company. Take a look around Hay Island to see where the Zieglers once lived and vacationed. Hay Island was in the Ziegler family for over 100 years. Modern Media LLC William Ziegler Sr. amassed the family's wealth in the late 1800s after cofounding the Royal Baking Powder Company. The current house on the property was built in 2010. Modern Media LLC The island was used as a full-time residence. Before the construction of the current house, it was used as a summertime retreat. The 8,684-square-foot home was designed by architect Austin Patterson Disston. The island eventually sold for $26.5 million. Modern Media LLC Leslie McElwreath of Sotheby's International Realty's Greenwich brokerage had the listing. The Zielger family has relocated and no longer regularly visits the Connecticut home. Modern Media LLC Helen M. Ziegler, an heiress to the baking-powder fortune, sold a home in Palm Beach for $15.9 million in 2024, Palm Beach County property records show. [does she still live in palm beach? where is she now?] The family also owned other islands in Connecticut, and this is the last of their collection. ChiChi Ubina The Ziegler family listed Great Island, a 60-acre island across Ziegler Cove from Hay Island, for $100 million in 2022. Darien, a small town known for its wealthy residents, bought Great Island for $85 million with plans to turn it into a public park. Most rooms in the home have views of the Long Island Sound. ChiChi Ubina The home has six bedrooms and seven bathrooms. The Ziegler family once gathered in the family room. ChiChi Ubina The family room offers indoor and outdoor seating, with access to a screened-in porch. The library — like most rooms in the house — has water views. ChiChi Ubina According to the listing, the library includes custom bookshelves, window seats, a wet bar, and a fireplace. The chef's kitchen gets plenty of light from several windows facing the water. ChiChi Ubina While there are plenty of water views, the island is accessible by road to the mainland. "You get the benefits of an island, the privacy and 360-degree water views, but you also get the ability to come and go freely," McElwreath told Mansion Global. The breakfast room has its own fireplace — one of six fireplaces in the home. ChiChi Ubina According to a document from the county's Planning and Zoning Commission, the new owner proposed to construct additions onto the main house. Hay Island is 18 acres. Modern Media LLC The island has two beaches. The rest is a rocky shoreline. The infinity pool also overlooks the Long Island Sound. Modern Media LLC The outdoor terrace also includes an outdoor fireplace and a built-in barbecue. The property also has a two-bedroom guest house. Modern Media LLC The guest house has a fully equipped kitchen, a private office, and a fireplace. Read the original article on Business Insider

Aziz Aslan owns Turquaz, a Turkish restaurant in San Francisco. Gabriela Hasbun for BI Typically, only 5 to 10% of diners at the Turquaz restaurant in San Francisco are Turkish. Turkey's World Cup appearance in the city has brought a surge of Turkish fans through the doors. Turkish diners are ordering traditional dishes rarely requested by local diners. This as-told-to essay is based on an interview with Aziz Aslan, 45, the owner of Turquaz, a Turkish restaurant on Mission Street in San Francisco. It has been edited for length and clarity. I opened my Turkish restaurant, Turquaz, in San Francisco in February 2025. Typically, most of our customers are locals, and Turkish diners make up a small minority. But Turkey's World Cup appearance in San Francisco has brought a different type of customer through our doors. Over the past week, we've had far more Turkish customers dine with us. Reservations are up, walk-in traffic has increased, and we've hired additional staff to keep up with demand. Turquaz's owner says reservations to the restaurant are up. Gabriela Hasbun for BI Turkey qualifying for the World Cup changed my business As soon as we heard that San Francisco would be one of the World Cup host cities, we were thrilled. We knew it would bring visitors to the city, and potentially new customers to our restaurant. At that point, we didn't yet know whether Turkey would qualify. Aziz Aslan started preparing for the World Cup in March, when Turkey qualified. Gabriela Hasbun for BI In March, Turkey secured its place in the tournament, and we later learned the team would be playing at the San Francisco Bay Area Stadium on June 20. That's when I knew we needed to start preparing for the tournament. Over the last few weeks, we launched targeted advertising campaigns on social media. One Instagram post was written in Turkish. In another, we told visitors that wherever they were traveling from, if they were looking for good food, they should come to us. It helped spread the word about our restaurant. Turquaz customers are not Turkish, the owner says. Gabriela Hasbun for BI Most of my customers aren't usually Turkish I'm originally from Istanbul, although I've been in the Bay Area for about 10 years. Compared with places like New York and New Jersey, there aren't as many Turkish people in this part of California. Usually, our customers come from a wide range of backgrounds, with Turkish people making up only 5% to 10% of those who dine with us. With our usual customers, our most popular dishes are chicken kebabs and lahmacun, a flatbread topped with minced meat, vegetables, and herbs. We're a traditional Turkish kitchen, and our pastry section is popular as well, especially our fresh baklava. Aziz Aslan says the restaurant's pastries are popular with customers. Gabriela Hasbun for BI In recent weeks, however, we've had a lot of Turkish customers, which is unusual for us. Some have come from places like New Jersey and Texas, while others have flown in from Istanbul, all to watch Turkey play. Turkey's World Cup match in San Francisco has changed who our customers are and what they're ordering. Dishes like beans and braised meats aren't as popular with our usual clientele, but we're selling a lot more of them now because of our Turkish customers. Aziz Aslan says they have a good inventory and have not ran out of any dishes so far. Gabriela Hasbun for BI They've been ordering foods like white beans with pilaf, braised meat with pilaf, and salads, all of which are really traditional dishes. Turkish customers can be tough critics because they're comparing our food to what they have back home, but I feel confident in our food, and we've received compliments so far. It hasn't really affected our stock, thankfully. We have good inventory management, and my warehouse for the wholesale food business is only a short drive away, so we can pick up products whenever we need. We've hired extra staff to meet demand To prepare for the World Cup, we've had to hire additional employees. On top of the 24 staff members we already had, we added three more because of increasing demand. The staff is also working longer hours than usual. The restaurant had to hire additional staff to keep up with demand. Gabriela Hasbun for BI For Turkey's first match, against Australia, we didn't do anything special, other than create a football-shaped cake. We decided to host watch parties for Turkey's second and third matches because customers kept asking for them. We set up a big screen for fans to watch together. I think the World Cup is giving Turkish people a reason to gather, reconnect, and talk about soccer. I hope the World Cup leaves a lasting impact The first few months of opening a restaurant are never easy. We spent them getting things set up, perfecting our recipes, and building awareness. We're still a relatively new restaurant, so it's been encouraging to see this positive momentum from the World Cup. Aziz Aslan says San Francisco feels busy. Gabriela Hasbun for BI The city feels busy. You can see it on the streets. There's an energy in San Francisco right now that's having a positive effect on businesses like ours, and I hope we can keep that going. Of course, the World Cup is a one-time event, but we'll do our best to serve these customers well. If we can meet their expectations, I hope they'll come back. And who knows? Maybe the Turkish national team will stop by for a meal before the tournament is over. I'm still holding out hope. Read the original article on Business Insider

Apple and Microsoft's Xbox hiked prices on the same day due to a global shortage in memory chips driven by AI demands. Reuters Apple increased MacBook and iPad prices by 20% due to worldwide demand for AI-related chips. Xbox raised prices by up to $150, citing a memory chip shortage driven by AI infrastructure needs. Here is what leaders in business and tech are saying about the price hikes, from Dan Ives to Elon Musk. Apple and Xbox are raising prices on consumer devices as the AI boom has caused a global shortage of memory and storage chips, pushing up costs across the electronics industry. Apple on Thursday said it would increase the prices of some MacBooks and iPads by up to 20% worldwide, citing an "extraordinary surge" in demand for chips used in AI data centers. Hours later, Microsoft-owned Xbox announced its second console price increase in less than a year, raising prices by up to $150 from August as it cited the same memory and storage crunch. The moves are the clearest sign yet that the race to build AI infrastructure is starting to hit consumers' wallets. Here's what smart people in business and tech are saying about the price hike. Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities Ives said that the WWDC "was an impressive event that did not disappoint." $ORBS via Getty Images In a note on Thursday, the tech megabull wrote that while Apple is known to secure low prices because of its bulk purchases, memory price increases have "forced" it to raise prices. "We believe the company is in a strong position to increase prices without sacrificing hardware performance and risking increasing customer churn given the company's increasing focus on the higher-end consumer," Ives wrote. Daniel Ahmed, director of research and insights at Niko Partners Ahmed said on X that the most important part of the announcement is that Xbox said console storage and memory prices have increased more than twofold — and that the company expects another doubling by the fall of 2027. "This is also why I'm expecting another price increase for the Switch 2 in 2027 at this point," Ahmed said on Thursday. "The delayed price increase this year is to help build up the install base in the Switch's 2nd year," he added. Nabila Popal, senior director of International Data Corporation's data & analytics team Popal said on a LinkedIn post that the latest Apple price hikes were higher than she had expected, and that might be a signal for Apple's next possible move: iPhone hikes. "The up to $500 hikes on MacBooks will only make the likely $100-$200 hikes on the iPhones seem relatively 'reasonable,'" wrote Popal. "Apple's Genius timing and strategic move to get the consumers used to the idea and announce it come after the increases to the MACs." "I think the days of $50 price increases are over," she added. Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management Brian Ach/Getty Images for LocationWorld 2016 In a Thursday post on X, Munster said that, for the most part, a large price change leads to little change in Apple consumer demand. "Apple's 1.5B consumers (my estimate) are locked into the ecosystem and, more importantly, get a ton of value out of the products even with the most recent price bump," he wrote. He added: "Average life of a Mac is 4.5 years before it's traded in which means a $200 increase adds $3.70 a month to the cost of ownership." Sawyer Merritt, tech influencer and investor Merritt wrote in a post on X on Thursday that he doesn't think this will be the last price hike for Apple. "Xbox is increasing console prices by 25% in August, saying that console storage and memory prices have increased by more than 2.5x and that they expect another doubling by the fall of 2027," Merritt added. Alex Cheema, cofounder of EXO Labs Cheema posted on X on Thursday that the 128 gigabyte M5 Max MacBook Pro just saw a 29% price hike. "No new products, just higher prices," said the AI startup cofounder. "A customer of ours bought 42 of these just before the price increase - they saved $67,200," Cheema added. "If you want to run local AI, you need to secure hardware ASAP." Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty Images The world's richest man also chimed in on the price hikes on his X account. Musk posted Tim Cook's comments that the memory chip shortage had led to the biggest jump in costs "in any area in over 40 years." "Biggest price jump in anything I've ever seen too," the Tesla CEO wrote. Musk said that the industry was suffering from an "insane" memory chip production shortfall in the face of spiraling demand. "MUCH higher production is needed," he wrote. Marques Brownlee, YouTuber Tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee Rick Kern/Getty Images for Vox Media Marques Brownlee said that Apple's Mac Mini price hike in May was a "warning shot" for the current wave of increases — and warned that the new prices could be here to stay. "If I was guessing, this is a temporary price increase for as long as this memory shortage lasts, but we also have no idea how long this is going to be, so I would just consider this the new price for everything — and you can thank AI for that," the tech YouTuber said in a video posted on social media. Mark Gurman, Bloomberg chief correspondent Mark Gurman, Bloomberg's chief correspondent covering Apple, said that it might be some of Apple's lesser-known products that are hit hardest by the price increases. "I don't think the Mac or iPad price increases are going to be shocking or incredibly deterring to customers," wrote Gurman in a post on X. "But the smart speaker and TV box markets are so commoditized that these HomePod and Apple TV price hikes could drive people to cheaper Google and Amazon alternatives," he said. Read the original article on Business Insider

Anna Bawden / The Guardian: A study of 408 teens in Australia finds 80%+ were still using social media three months after a ban came into force, citing inadequate age verification checks  —  Experts say law not enough to stop children accessing harmful content online and more ‘convincing strategy is required’

FieldAI builds software for all kinds of robots. FieldAI FieldAI says it has topped $100 million in revenue and customer contracts. The startup's software helps robots operate in mines, on construction sites, and in factories. Investors, including Bezos Expeditions, Nvidia, and Khosla Ventures, back FieldAI. The robotics startup FieldAI has hit a $100 million milestone. The company, which builds software to help robots navigate challenging environments such as mines and construction sites, said it has grown to over $100 million in revenue and in customer contracts. The contracts come from 30 customers across Europe, Asia, and the US, CEO and cofounder Ali Agha told Business Insider. "We have seen very, very fast growth in the last several months," Agha said. Founded in 2023, FieldAI is building a "universal general-purpose brain" that works across robots, tasks, and environments. Its software can run on a range of machines, from humanoids and robot dogs to drones and industrial rovers, to help them operate safely and autonomously in unpredictable environments. Last year, the startup raised $405 million from investors including Jeff Bezos' family office, Laurene Powell Jobs' Emerson Collective, Khosla Ventures, and the venture arms of Nvidia, mining giant BHP, and Intel. The round valued FieldAI at $2 billion. FieldAI is headquartered in Irvine, California, and the Bay Area, and it has hired robotics and AI talent from Google DeepMind, Waymo, Tesla, Nvidia, Boston Dynamics, and Amazon. Its customers include construction firms, data center operators, defense companies, and more. Before FieldAI, Agha spent seven years at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory developing autonomous systems for exploring difficult environments, including Mars. FieldAI's software works on robots ranging from humanoids to industrial rovers. FieldAI FieldAI's robotics software is used in the real world FieldAI is among a small group of robotics startups with paying customers using its software to operate robots in the real world. Many companies are still in development or pilots with their robots because of a shortage of real-world training data. While AI chatbots are trained on vast amounts of text and images from the internet, no comparable trove of data exists yet for robots. Agha said FieldAI's advantage comes from building software called Field Foundation Models that do not require huge amounts of training data for every task. Instead, the company uses physics and probability to build AI that is "risk-aware" and can make safe decisions in uncertain situations. That has allowed FieldAI to deploy robots with customers more quickly than competitors. At first, robots equipped with a FieldAI "brain" performed basic tasks and collected data from real-world work. FieldAI used that data to improve its software, which helped robots handle more complex situations. "If you don't have this architecture, it's a chicken and egg problem," Agha said. "You cannot deploy because you need data to have a model that works, and you need a brain to deploy to collect the data in the real world." In construction, for example, FieldAI's robots can walk sites and take photos that update digital copies of construction projects. Usually, people walking around sites perform this work, and a robot is better suited because it can do it 24/7 and produce more detailed and accurate notes, Agha said. The data that robots collect on-site helps improve FieldAI's software and enables it to add more robot capabilities over time. Investors like Khosla Ventures backed FieldAI Kanu Gulati, a partner at Khosla Ventures and an investor in FieldAI, first met the startup when Agha visited the firm's Menlo Park office with an early prototype. The robot navigated from the backyard to the garage on its own, created a 3D map, and found its way down a steep flight of stairs. "It was impressive," Gulati said. After speaking with potential customers in construction, mining, and nuclear sites, Gulati said it became clear how large the market could be for robots in those industries. She said FieldAI has an advantage because its robots are already deployed and collecting data from doing real work. That gives the company "probably the best shot at doing the next level of complicated tasks," Gulati said, including moving materials and handling larger objects. While FieldAI is still early in its development, Agha sees a future where robots of many shapes and sizes work across the economy. "We are going to see robots in almost every aspect of our lives, starting on the industrial side and coming to the consumer side," he said. Agility Robotics is another company with real-world deployments, including in Amazon warehouses and GXO logistics facilities. The humanoid company plans to go public in a deal valuing it at about $2.5 billion. Read the original article on Business Insider

John Collison cofounded the fintech company Stripe with his brother. Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images Stripe cofounder John Collison said double majors will excel in the AI era. He said "multidisciplinary thinkers" will do "incredibly well." The number of students double-majoring at US universities is also on the rise, according to data analysis. Good news, students who have decided to double-major in college: Stripe cofounder John Collison predicts that the late nights, schedule juggling, and meticulous planning will be worth it in the age of AI. Collison, who also serves as Stripe's president, said he's "bullish" on double majors and they "will do incredibly well over the next 10 to 20 years." "If you understand software and understand marketing, you now can go massively improve the entire marketing funnel for your company," Collison said earlier this spring on the tech talk show TBPN. "Now, one person can do what would have taken 20 people dredging through all these systems." Collison referenced the late Charlie Munger, who served as Berkshire Hathaway's vice chairman for over four decades and was Warren Buffett's business partner. "Charlie Munger talked about the importance of being multidisciplinary and multidisciplinary thinking," Collison said. "He thinks getting a functional understanding of many disciplines is not that hard. You can just go read the books now or you can talk to your AI about it. I think multidisciplinary thinkers are going to do incredibly well." The number of students choosing to double major is on the rise at many US universities amid job-security concerns, according to analysis published in The Hechinger Report in November. A chart compiled by The Hechinger Report examining the increase in double-majors at many US universities. Marina Villeneuve/The Hechinger Report Collison also said "high-agency people" would also do well over the coming decades. "The people at Stripe who have been talking to customers and know exactly what we should do. It's the people who have that pep in their step and want to go make Stripe better. They are so much more empowered thanks to AI," he said. Advancements in AI are reshaping the workforce, changing how companies approach hiring and the skillsets employees are expected to have. While AI optimists have said the technology can create new jobs and spur economic growth, a vocal segment of critics believes the opposite. AI can automate basic, repetitive tasks, raising concerns that entry-level jobs typically performed by humans will be overhauled by technology. Slowed hiring rates and layoffs earlier this year have also left some new college graduates in a lurch. One major area of concern has been software engineering, which has been transformed as AI allows people to create code and programs faster than ever. However, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. TrueUp, a tech job marketplace and recruiting platform, told Business Insider that tech job openings have risen almost 14% so far in 2026. Collison, for his part, said people who think AI will herald the death of software engineering are mistaken. "I think those people are high, honestly," Collison told TBPN. Read the original article on Business Insider

Qatar has become the place where FIFA experiments with the next generation of football technology. The results are already visible across this year’s World Cup.

OpenAI previews GPT-5.6 Sol, a next-generation model with stronger capabilities in coding, science, and cybersecurity, paired with its most advanced safety stack.

Dabarti CGI/Shutterstock Investigative interviewing – the process of obtaining accurate and complete accounts from victims, witnesses and suspects – is the lifeblood of the criminal justice system. When a crime occurs, someone usually knows something. But the way a police interview is conducted doesn’t simply determine whether information is obtained. It shapes the reliability and completeness of that information – and the credibility of everything that follows in the criminal justice process. For much of the 20th century (and in many places still today), police largely used accusatory, non-evidence-based interrogation methods that heighten the risk of false confessions. Research examining police interviews with suspects – notably John Baldwin’s 1992 study of over 600 interviews in England and Wales, commissioned by the UK Home Office – showed that officers routinely relied on assumption and confirmation-seeking, rather than genuinely open-minded information gathering. False confessions were occasionally extracted from innocent people, witness accounts were shaped by the questions put to them, and the reliability of evidence was often compromised from the moment of its collection. AI has long been discussed as a threat to jobs and livelihoods. But what’s the reality? In this series, we explore the impact it is already having on different occupations – and how people really feel about their AI assistants. At the core of investigative interviewing is the often underappreciated, but scientifically accepted, view that human memory is not a recording. Rather, it is a reconstructive process, fallible to distortion from details that a person encounters after witnessing an event – including leading questions, media coverage and input from other witnesses. This has implications for how police interviewers conduct interviews. The “misinformation effect”, whereby exposure to inaccurate post-event information alters a witness’s recall, is among the most robust findings in cognitive psychology. Co-witness contamination is a related challenge, because witnesses who discuss an event can inadvertently synchronise their accounts – sometimes importing details they had never actually witnessed. In 2001, a national evaluation conducted by one of us (Rebecca Milne) with Colin Clarke found significant deficits in police interviewing practices in England and Wales. More recent research has found that this gap is not simply down to lack of training, but also time pressures, organisational priorities favouring generalists over specialists and institutional culture within different police forces. Sir Brian Leveson’s independent review of the UK criminal courts in England and Wales highlighted these concerns in 2025. He proposed greater use of AI in policing as a potential solution – including in investigative interviewing. So, could AI make a positive difference – and what are the potential pitfalls? Use of AI in investigative interviews The UK government is keen to explore the full potential of AI in policing. In June 2026, it launched the country’s first AI centre for policing, promising to “accelerate responsible use of AI across all 43 forces in England and Wales”. There are three key aspects of investigative interviewing where AI could, in theory, prove useful: information gathering, interview honing, and officer training. In the initial stage of information gathering following a suspected crime, conversational AI agents (chatbots) capable of conducting initial interviews at scale could free up officers from this time-consuming work. Automated transcription tools can also help at this stage. Then, as the investigation’s focus narrows, real-time prompts could help interviewers ask witnesses and victims open, non-leading questions. AI tools could also be used to generate fresh lines of inquiry. In addition, AI-enabled avatars such as EchoMind and Innsikt could be used to train officers in the best approach to investigative interviewing. However, all of these areas require further research. As the criminal psychologist Julia Shaw notes, AI can introduce post-event misinformation into witness memories. Our ongoing research shows that exposure to sycophantic AI sytems which validate and elaborate accounts, rather than passively receiving them, can lead to significant decreases in recall accuracy and increases in recall errors. What we are seeing empirically is that AI can weaken memory. Witnesses who interact with AI remember differently and, potentially, inaccurately. The effects on vulnerable witnesses including children, trauma survivors and people with cognitive disabilities represent a particularly urgent unknown. We also don’t yet know how AI contamination scales across investigative workflows, or whether contamination compounds as information passes through multiple AI-mediated stages. There is already a documented risk of automation bias – the tendency to defer to algorithmic outputs over independent human judgment – in criminal investigations. When AI systems present confident, well-formatted outputs, expert decision-makers rely more on AI rather than trusting their own assessments. The AI evidence gap AI systems used in live investigative interviews can produce unexpected behaviour and patterns of influence not easily observed in controlled laboratory settings. Any issues in how AI-generated interviews with witnesses affect juror reasoning, for instance, will only show up in the courtroom, long after the interviews have been done. In response to such concerns, our upcoming (as yet not-peer-reviewed) paper will present a systematic taxonomy (or playbook) of potential AI large language model errors in different aspects of law enforcement. These include factual errors (the AI stating something that is untrue), faithfulness errors (creating material that does not accurately reflect the information given) and task-specific errors (failing at a specific task despite getting the facts right). Research has also modelled how such errors propagate across decision systems. Science-based investigative interviewing took decades to develop, empirically validate and (albeit imperfectly) implement. This is reflected in England and Wales by Achieving Best Evidence, the Ministry of Justice’s official guidance on how victims and witnesses should be interviewed, so that their accounts hold up as evidence in court. In contrast, we believe AI is now being integrated into investigative processes at a fast pace without acceptable scientific standards. The concerns we raise are not arguments against innovation. They are a call for AI use consistent with the scientific standards that have long guided the field of investigative interviewing. Decades of research has shown us what robust evidence looks like. We should insist on it. The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

An otherwise mundane NYC bodega has some blingy new decor: a billboard promoting a star-studded lineup of celebrity investors. Ben Shimkus/Business Insider There's a Coachella-like ad in NYC for the Series A round raised by Phoebe Gates' startup, Phia. Kleiner Perkins gets top billing, but Khloe Kardashian, Jessica Alba, Paris Hilton, and Ice Spice are among the celeb features. The shop connected to the ad is an everyman's bodega, selling sandwiches and cigarettes. A laundromat. A sushi roll chain. A neighborhood bodega with a billboard featuring a Coachella-esque lineup of celebs who invested in a fashion-meets-AI startup. These are all things you can find right now on Kenmare Street in Manhattan. Phia — the online shopping startup cofounded by Stanford grads Phoebe Gates (yes, the daughter of Bill Gates) and Sophia Kianni — is advertising its $35.5 million Series A funding round in the windows of Mott Corner, a deli and convenience store in Nolita. The blue-and-black ad showcases an "Investor Lineup," including a who's who of entertainment, media, and investing titans: Khosla Ventures, Khloé Kardashian, Mindy Kaling, Shaboozey, Bobbi Brown, Ice Spice, Jay Shetty, and even The Chainsmokers. Inside and around the bodega, the scene is far less glitzy. When Business Insider visited the shop, a group of construction workers in hard hats and neon-orange vests were eating lunch. The menu offered New York bodega staples, including chicken fingers and deli meat sandwiches. There were four rain-splattered white chairs — three plastic and one wood — chained to the side of the building. A rainbow-colored rolling ticker sign listed what customers could buy inside the shop: "WE HAVE SODA," "breakfast, lunch, dinner," and "CIGARETTES," it read. Phia is advertising its $35.5 million funding round at a NYC deli. Ben Shimkus/Business Insider The store manager said Phia's ad had been up since mid-June. Other companies have advertised in the shop's windows for years, the manager said, but nobody had ever asked him about the ads. Absent from Phia's ad is any explanation of Phia's consumer product. The startup, which has raised $43.5 million in two rounds, is positioning itself to consumers as a sustainability-minded AI tool for finding better prices and secondhand alternatives online. During a spot on "Good Morning America," Gates and Kianni called the app a "companion that sits in your browser [that] answers the questions that every consumer asks: 'Should I actually buy this?'" For fashion brands, the company says it "drives high-intent discovery and connects users to products from brands they're most likely to buy from," according to its website. Carol Spieckerman, a retail consultant, said the ad may look like a consumer-facing billboard, but she sees a more specific pitch. "This is business-to-business marketing masquerading as out-of-home advertising," Spieckerman told Business Insider. "The audience isn't random passersby; it's decision-makers at brands and retailers who work in or frequent that neighborhood. "Phia is essentially saying: 'Look at who believes in us,'" Spieckerman said. The ad caught the eye of at least one VC in the area. "Why is there a series A announcement on a deli in Nolita?" wondered Eniac Ventures founder Hadley Harris, who posted a photo of it on X. Read the original article on Business Insider

Discussion | Link

Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have cosmic ambitions for Blue Origin and SpaceX. Getty Images SpaceX's IPO has made some employees millionaires — and left Blue Origin workers cursing their luck. Ex-employees of Jeff Bezos' rocket startup told BI their stock options are now essentially worthless. In an email to staff in 2016, Bezos said the options were "long-term lottery tickets" that were unlikely to pay off. SpaceX's record-breaking IPO has turned former employees into millionaires — and left alums of a rival rocket company with a serious case of FOMO. Three ex-employees of Jeff Bezos' rocket maker Blue Origin told Business Insider that the company's unusual approach to equity left them with stock options that are essentially worthless. Meanwhile, they've watched SpaceX's dizzying rise to a $2 trillion-plus valuation provide a massive windfall for early hires — from engineers to welders to cafeteria workers — who received stock options during their time at Elon Musk's company. Business Insider reviewed documents detailing Blue Origin's historic stock options program, which promised a payout only if the company went public or was sold — and, crucially, expired if those events didn't happen within 10 years. That is an unusual structure for large private tech companies, with other pre-IPO startups like SpaceX, Stripe, and OpenAI allowing current and former employees to sell their vested stock through periodic share sales. Blue Origin introduced a new options plan for current employees in April, which offers additional ways to cash out. Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket lifts off. Manuel Mazzanti/NurPhoto via Getty Images Of course, money isn't everything. Two former Blue Origin employees said that, in their experience, Bezos' company generally offered higher salaries, more work-life balance, and better job security for engineers than SpaceX during the late 2010s. One former Blue Origin employee said they turned down an offer to join SpaceX several years ago, potentially missing out on life-changing wealth. "If I had taken that equity, I would be a millionaire now," they said. "But I don't regret that for a second." Blue Origin declined to comment. 'Long-term lottery tickets' Blue Origin introduced a stock equity plan in early 2016. Employees commonly move between the two companies, and equity plans are often used to help with retention. In a previously unreported email to employees in February 2016, Bezos warned that the options could be "worth a lot in the future, or not much at all," and added he "wouldn't recommend" employees changing their financial plans on the expectation of a major payout. "For me, the right mental model is to view them as long-term lottery tickets that might pay off if a series of things go right," Bezos wrote. A decade later, Bezos' warning has come to pass. Blue Origin's equity program was structured so that employees could exercise their options only through a "liquidity event," defined as an IPO or a sale of the company, according to internal documents. Plus, all options would expire 10 years after the first stock options began to vest, a deadline that, for some, has now passed. One former employee, who joined Blue Origin from SpaceX, said that it was clear to them that Bezos was unlikely to sell Blue Origin or take it public. Their SpaceX position is worth tens of millions of dollars as of the recent IPO, while their Blue Origin options are worth nothing. "You technically hold this document, but it would almost be like telling someone, 'Hey, you have the rights to buy the house in your neighborhood next to you if the sun doesn't rise tomorrow,'" the employee added. The ex-employees all said they joined Blue Origin knowing they could not count on the options paying out, but also said that it provided far less of an incentive than SpaceX's equity scheme, which allowed employees to exercise their options and sell their holdings regularly. "You could call Blue Origin options a lottery ticket, but it's more like a scratcher, whereas I think SpaceX is like playing red or black on roulette," said the former Blue employee who turned down SpaceX. SpaceX employees received stock options when they joined the company, at their annual reviews, and when they were promoted, the former SpaceX and Blue Origin employee said, adding that SpaceX also introduced "retention incentive packages" that awarded new options when employee stock vested to encourage them to stay. Critically, SpaceX's equity scheme wasn't tied exclusively to a hypothetical future IPO. Current and former employees were allowed to sell a portion of their holdings to the company or investors in private liquidity events usually held twice a year. Similar employee share sales are common at major pre-public tech firms, with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Stripe all reportedly allowing current and former employees to sell millions of dollars' worth of shares over the past year. SpaceX's IPO made a lot of employees very rich. Spencer Platt/Getty Images "They made equity a big part of their compensation package. It was a big deal, especially as the stock started to grow — it became a more important thing to people," the former SpaceX employee said. The divergence between the two companies' stock option plans is now painfully large. A SpaceX employee who received 9,000 stock options when they joined the company in 2016 and held them without selling would today be worth at least $1.35 million, while a Blue Origin employee with the same number of stock options would have earned nothing from them. The Blue Origin alumnus who turned down SpaceX told Business Insider that the stock options were a big part of the recruitment pitch when they joined the company in the late 2010s, and they did not realize the opportunities to exercise them would be so restrictive until after they started. Former employees recalled that discussions over the differences between Blue Origin and SpaceX's equity plans among employees were fueled by the high number of workers moving between the two companies. "After a couple of years at Blue, I met some welders who were decamillionaires from previously working at SpaceX. They worked at Blue Origin part-time and had these beautiful houses in the Pacific Northwest, and I was like, 'Man, that's awesome,'" one of the ex-Blue Origin employees told Business Insider. They said that they had been offered a role at SpaceX after working at Blue Origin for several years, but turned it down for family reasons. Another former Blue Origin employee, who joined the company in 2018, said that new employees regularly arrived from Musk's rocket company. "I do remember quite a few conversations with those people along the lines of 'Yeah, if I had not left, I'd be a millionaire,'" they said. Blue plays catchup In recent years, SpaceX has pulled well ahead of its rival in the race to build a sustainable business, with the company's Falcon 9 rocket regularly carrying satellites into orbit and its Starlink internet service growing at a rapid speed. The former Blue Origin employee who turned down SpaceX said they felt the company's approach to equity gave them little incentive to work the long hours needed to keep pace with Musk's rocket company. "I would've worked way harder if I had skin in the game, if I knew that those options were going to be worth something," they added. SpaceX has launched the most powerful rockets ever. Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images In April, Blue Origin unveiled a new stock option plan for employees. Ars Technica's Eric Berger reported that this new program would include more opportunities for employees to exercise their stock options in liquidity events, including potential external funding rounds and company-sponsored tender offers — a model more in line with SpaceX and other tech firms. It comes at a critical moment for Blue Origin. The company's huge New Glenn rocket, which rivals SpaceX's Starship and is a key part of NASA's plan to return to the moon, blew up on the launch pad last month. Blue Origin's employees now face the grueling task of rebuilding, while watching their counterparts at SpaceX buy second homes and yachts with their newfound fortunes. Do you work at SpaceX or Blue Origin and have information to share? Contact this reporter at tcarter.41 on Signal or tcarter@businessinsider.com. Read the original article on Business Insider

Financial Times: Binance tells EU customers that it will stop providing services for them from July 1, after Greece rejected its application for a bloc-wide license last week  —  World's biggest crypto exchange tells customers how to withdraw their money as MiCA rules set to come into force

Julia Dhar is BCG's North America leader of people and organization practice and a fellow at the BCG Institute. BCG BCG's Behavioral Science Lab cofounder says success is linked to having a "high-agency mindset." Julia Dhar said these workers actively seek to understand expectations and are proactive. She said these employees do more than the minimum required. Type A workers, rise up. BCG's North America leader of people and organization practice, Julia Dhar, says that success increasingly boils down to what she refers to as "a high-agency mindset." These are the proactive employees who actively seek to understand what's expected of them. They're also the ones who show up with a positive attitude and a belief that their actions will have an impact. "They have some optimism about the future, even if they're not assured that everything in the future will be good," said Dhar, who co-founded BCG's Behavioral Science Lab and is a fellow at the BCG Institute. While self-starters may have always thrived in the workplace, that mindset may be more critical during a time of rapid technological transformation. BCG's 2026 AI at Work Research report found that 72% of workers say skill expectations in their roles have changed, and 88% believe they will need major upskilling in the next five years. Dhar said that employees who seek clarity about their roles and build new skills may be better positioned to keep up. Employees across industries are grappling with a moment in time when AI disruptions are fueling anxiety about the future of work. Rather than getting stuck in fear, Dhar said high-agency workers focus on what they can control and take action wherever possible. "The more you take action, the more that it ends up expanding the surface area of opportunity," Dhar said. What does that look like in practice? It's the employee who sees a recurring problem and builds a solution before anyone asks, Dhar said. That could mean creating a tool to help remedy a frequent team frustration, she said. Or, it could mean automating a process like organizing customer feedback. It could also take the form of proactively talking to customers about the features or products they want to see next, or taking time to research and understand competitors. What sets these employees apart isn't that they're trying to check a box because they think they're supposed to, she said. They're self-starters and don't need perfect instruction before creating value, Dhar said. She added that high-agency employees progressively improve their instincts by getting feedback on their efforts. "You can think about it as the person who is asking one more question, or doing a tiny little bit more than we might expect as a natural baseline," Dhar said. Her advice comes as AI reshapes the workplace and agentic AI becomes increasingly embedded in day-to-day workflows. While 42% of workers surveyed in BCG's research report said they save a full workday per week with AI, 66% received no guidance on how to use that time. At a time when organizations may not be providing their workers with explicit direction, Dhar said the employees who thrive are those who can identify valuable work, improve handoffs, solve frequent problems, and reallocate time to higher-impact activities. As individual contributors are increasingly expected to act like managers — overseeing agents and automated workflows — the ability to drive work forward without specific instruction is becoming more important. For example, Dan Diasio, EY global consulting AI leader, said that many entry-level hires are now expected to oversee AI workflows, and they need to think more like managers earlier in their careers. Read the original article on Business Insider

Discussion | Link

It’s been hot in London this week. Really hot. A dangerous heat wave has hit Western Europe. Yesterday, the UK recorded its highest ever June temperature at 36.1 °C (about 97 °F). But as the weather app on my phone confirmed, it felt like 39 °C. It’s frightening that we are seeing such temperatures in…