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Aashna Doshi, 23, started a podcast while working at Google before leaving to build an AI startup. Aashna Doshi Aashna Doshi started a podcast while working as a software engineer at Google. The podcast helped her build relationships with founders, executives, and tech leaders. She left Google in May to pursue an AI startup because staying felt scarier than leaving. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Aashna Doshi, a 23-year-old former Google software engineer based in New York City. The following has been edited for length and clarity. I took a big risk to get my Google job. Now I'm taking another one by leaving it. Around February 2024, months before graduating from Georgia Tech, I received a full-time job offer from Google. But there was one problem: The offer was for an engineering role based in California, and I really wanted to work in New York City. In a tech job market that had become more challenging for many of my peers, no opportunity could be ignored. Even so, I decided to place my bets and turn the offer down. The risk paid off. Two months later, I accepted a software engineering role at Google based in New York City. I didn't realize I'd take an even bigger risk when a side project I started around the same time would eventually push me to leave Google altogether. I wanted something creative outside of coding Overall, I really enjoyed my experience at Google. I was learning every day and meeting a lot of smart people from diverse backgrounds. But working as a software engineer is a heavily technical job, and I wanted something more interactive and creative outside of sitting at my desk. I loved meeting people, hearing their stories, and learning from them, which eventually sparked the idea of starting a podcast. In early 2025, while still working at Google, I started the "0 to 1" podcast with my cohost, a software engineer in Big Tech. The name for the show, in addition to being a nod to our backgrounds in software engineering, came from the idea that there's so much value between zero — where someone started — and one — who they are today. My cohost and I believe that a lot can be learned from people's journeys, and that there's sometimes too much focus on where people are rather than how they got there. We decided to start the podcast because we wanted a creative outlet outside of engineering — but also to expand our networks and connect with people in roles much more senior than us. Business Insider is speaking with workers who've found themselves at a corporate crossroads — whether due to a layoff, resignation, job search, or shifting workplace expectations. Share your story by filling out this form. The podcast helped us "network up" A lot of the early guests came through cold DMs, our network, and people we were close with. We interviewed founders, engineers, executives, and creators about the journey from where they started to who they are today. Things picked up much faster than we expected. Within the first year, the podcast crossed 100,000 YouTube views. Eventually, it became easier to reach people, and we were able to bring on leaders from large companies like Amazon and Microsoft. Without the podcast, it was hard to imagine how we might go about connecting with someone high up in a big company. It felt like the right time to leave Google At a Big Tech company, you're one piece of a very large machine, and I craved the ability to make decisions, move fast, and see the direct results of my work. On top of that, the AI tools available to builders right now are unlike anything we've had before. I had a strong conviction around a specific idea, and I didn't want to look back and wish I had taken the shot when the timing was this good. In May, I left Google to go all-in on building my AI startup, Bounty, with my podcast co-host. It's an outcome-based AI marketplace where companies can post specific tasks — like sourcing candidates, running outreach, or generating leads — and only pay for verified results. Having the podcast helped give me the confidence to make the leap. We're living in a world where media and distribution are everything for a startup, and having a podcast with a built-in audience of founders and operators — the exact people our business is being built for — is the perfect distribution channel for what we're building. Leaving Google was a financial risk I'm willing to take Even though leaving Google made sense from a personal and business perspective, giving up my Google paycheck wasn't an easy decision. We're still pre-launch and not generating revenue yet. I'm taking a founder salary, but it's definitely a fraction of what I was making at Google. The podcast isn't generating any income yet, but we're hopeful it will soon through sponsorships. Leaving Google was a risk, but I've always believed that if you feel a strong enough pull toward something, you have to be willing to walk away from good in pursuit of something that could be great. Financial security is comfortable, but it can also be a trap. The scarier version of this decision wasn't leaving Google. It was staying and always wondering what could have been. Do you have a story to share about how you're navigating a career crossroads? If so, please reach out to the reporter via email at jzinkula@businessinsider.com, or via Signal at jzinkula.29. Read the original article on Business Insider

Emotionally mature kids grow up to be resilient, creative, and flexible — all important for navigating the AI age. Jordan Siemens/Getty Images The AI age is bringing disruption to the work world, particularly for younger generations. Psychologist Lindsay C. Gibson said it no longer pays as much to be an obedient, straight-A student. She said emotionally mature kids will have the flexibility and resilience to pivot in their careers. When Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson's son first brought up job-hopping, she worried about how it would look on his resume. Fresh out of college, he'd only worked at one job for a year when he considered switching to a new role. Gibson was surprised to hear that, unlike for her generation, remaining too long in one position could be a liability and make it harder to get promoted. "That was when it dawned on me; I've reached the limit of what I'm teaching about the work world because it's not the same as it was before," Gibson, a psychologist who wrote "How to Raise an Emotionally Mature Child," told Business Insider. Since then, the workforce has undergone more disruption. Gen Zers and younger generations are especially at risk, given how many traditional entry-level roles are disappearing due to AI. Gibson says there are simple ways for parents to prepare kids to meet this moment of uncertainty. Entering the AI age, she shared why raising resilient kids matters more than pushing for straight-As — and how parents can help their kids be more flexible and adaptable to change. A tough time for ladder-climbers Gibson said previous generations valued obedience and straight trajectories because they guaranteed more stable careers. George Marks/Getty Images Compared to growing up in the mid-to late-20th century, younger people in the workforce are much more likely to be frequently changing jobs. Now, the old parenting standards, such as striving for a pristine education or meticulously planned career trajectory for their kids, can actually set some kids back. "If you raise your child to be obedient to authority and always looking for external validation, they have one foot on a banana peel when they're going out in the world," she said. For example, highly critical parents might foster a strict, overly structured home environment, leading kids to believe that if they follow all the rules and yield to authority, they will have perfect control over their futures. Once they're out of the house, they might not be able to weather the instability of the work world. "If you get upset and incapacitated, it's going to be very difficult for you to surf these waves of change that are not going to stop coming," she said. Instead of looking for solutions, these kids might cling to their rigid vision of success, to their own detriment. Employers value creativity and adaptability Employers want employees who have flexible mindsets. Tom Werner/Getty Images Business leaders continually emphasize an important skillset for those navigating the emerging AI world: the ability to think for yourself. If a child grows up with one goal in mind — graduate college with a perfect GPA — they might be tempted to use ChatGPT to write their essay. But dependence on AI may make them more susceptible to being replaced by it — one 2025 Wharton School survey found that nearly 43% of business leaders feared skill atrophy due to AI. "You are trying to show people that you can reset, pivot, be creative, see things differently," Gibson said. "All these flexible qualities are based on an ability to tolerate complexity." Raise emotionally mature kids Emotionally mature kids feel secure in trying new things and risking failure. skaman306/Getty Images While parents might understandably be worried about the future, Gibson said one parenting goal can set their kids up for the greatest success: raising them to be emotionally mature adults. They can do this by: Patiently guiding and correcting their kids instead of punishing them Apologizing to their kids when they make mistakes Fostering a consistently safe, nurturing home environment Over time, this style of parenting helps kids feel securely attached to their caregivers, knowing that they can take risks and accept temporary failure because they have a solid base at home. "That's why I think they will have more success than children who are raised in a more traditional manner to have black-and-white thinking," Gibson said. Emotionally mature adults will notice when they're stuck in their career and use the opportunity to invent a new role for themselves, turn a side-hustle into a full-time gig, take additional courses, or use AI to vibe-code their website. To them, a career dead-end is just their cue to pivot. Read the original article on Business Insider

OpenAI introduces Patch the Planet, a Daybreak initiative helping open-source maintainers find, validate, and fix vulnerabilities with AI and expert review.

OpenAI introduces new Daybreak tools, including Codex Security and GPT-5.5-Cyber, to help organizations find, validate, and patch vulnerabilities at scale.

L’Oréal has announced a collaboration with OpenAI that will bring Maybelline New York’s virtual makeup try-on feature into ChatGPT. The announcement was made at VivaTech 2026. The partnership covers consumer-facing shopping tools, product discovery, advertising pilots, research, and internal content production. The collaboration also covers L’Oréal’s internal use of AI in research, formulation, content production, […] The post L’Oréal brings Maybelline virtual try-on to ChatGPT appeared first on AI News.

The feud between OpenAI Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei started long before the viral photo of them refusing to join hands in unity. Ludovic MARIN / AFP via Getty Images Sam Altman and Dario Amodei's feud has fueled the rivalry between OpenAI and Anthropic. Now, the two leading AI companies are marching toward hotly anticipated IPOs. Here's a brief history of the AI labs' fierce rivalry. AI's biggest rivalry has only gotten more public this year. Ever since Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei left OpenAI in December 2020, the two startups have found themselves at loggerheads. Amodei's feud with OpenAI Sam Altman has now expanded far beyond his icy relationship with his onetime colleague. Now, the staff for two of the world's largest AI companies is joining the fray. "Should a loving ensouled machine God watch over humanity? Vote Anthropic," OpenAI's chief futurist Joshua Achiam recently wrote on X. "Should humanity be entrusted with the tools of its own progress and destiny? Vote OpenAI." As their rivalry marches toward Wall Street and highly anticipated IPOs, it's a good time to catch up on how Altman and Amodei went from colleagues to the face of AI's cold war. July 2015: Decisions happened over dinner Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and the New York Times financial columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin speak onstage during "What Will They Think of Next? Talking About Innovation" at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on October 6, 2015, in San Francisco, California. Michael Kovac/Getty Images In July 2015, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Altman, and a group of elite AI researchers all gathered at the swanky Rosewood Hotel in Menlo Park, California. According to The New York Times, Musk had a falling out with then-Google CEO Larry Page. Weeks later, Musk, Altman, Amodei, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and others discussed the formation of a new AI lab to ensure Google had a worthy competitor in the AI space. Musk invited Amodei, per tech journalist Alex Kantrowitz. Their vision became OpenAI, though Amodei initially elected not to join the startup research lab. Roughly a year later, he changed his mind and joined OpenAI as "Team Lead for AI Safety." September 2018: Amodei rises up Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Markus Schreiber/File/AP Amodei quickly moved up the ranks at OpenAI. In September 2018, the startup named him its research director. Altman, who cofounded OpenAI while still serving as president of Y Combinator, began to devote more time to the startup. In March 2019, Altman stepped down as YC's leader. He then became CEO of OpenAI and led the startup's pivot to a capped for-profit structure. In November 2019, OpenAI released GPT-2, which Amodei played a major role in developing. A month later, OpenAI named Amodei as its Vice President of Research. June 2020: OpenAI releases GPT-3 In June 2020, OpenAI began to show just how far the technology had come with the release of GPT-3, considered to be the first highly capable Large Language Model (LLM). Amodei told The New York Times that the model had "this emergent quality." Independent researchers told the publication that GPT-3's capabilities surprised them, even as the model still showed signs of struggle. To address safety concerns, OpenAI initially controlled access through a private beta. December 2020: Amodei goes his own way Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei at The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Fortune via Reuters Connect The release of GPT-3 solidified OpenAI's standing, but behind the scenes, tensions were rising. The rifts began when Amodei successfully lobbied to keep Greg Brockman, an OpenAI cofounder, off the team that developed GPT-3, according to Keach Hagey's biography of Altman, "The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future." Hagey wrote that Amodei's stunning power within OpenAI had started to ruffle feathers. Differences continued to escalate over Amodei's long-held views on safety, Hagey wrote, especially regarding slowing the pace of updates to prevent malicious uses of the AI models. Amodei told friends that he "felt psychologically abused by Altman," Hagey wrote. Altman, in turn, was telling colleagues that the tension "was making him hate his job." On December 29, 2020, OpenAI made it official. Amodei was leaving, and a "handful" of other colleagues were leaving. Amodei has since suggested that his vision became incompatible with OpenAI's direction. "It is incredibly unproductive to try and argue with someone else's vision," Amodei told podcaster Lex Friedman in 2024, when asked why he left OpenAI. Early 2021: Anthropic is created Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images With seven other former OpenAI employees, Amodei founded Anthropic in early 2021. The group was extremely close and included Daniela Amodei, Dario's sister. Daniela Amodei later said the name was chosen to emphasize their company's focus on humans. Only one of Anthropic's initial employees hadn't worked at OpenAI, according to AI Business. Despite starting from scratch, Amodei said that by the summer of 2022, the company's chatbot, Claude, had finished training. Amodei said he was worried about what the release of a powerful AI could mean. Anthropic held off on a release. "I suspect it was the right thing to do," Amodei told Time Magazine in 2024. "But it's not totally clear-cut." Months later, OpenAI released ChatGPT, kicking off the AI race and making Amodei's former employer a household name. May 2024: Amodei takes a shot … or did he? As Anthropic began to establish itself in its own right, Amodei began to use his public appearances to take what were widely viewed as implicit shots at OpenAI. During an appearance at a Bloomberg event, Amodei noted how Anthropic had kept its leadership intact. "We have 7 cofounders," he said, Gizmodo reported. "Three and a half years later, we're all still at the company." While never calling out by name, OpenAI was experiencing upheaval at the time. Months earlier, Andrej Karpathy, an OpenAI cofounder, had left the company. And in November 2023, Altman was briefly pushed out of OpenAI, an effort fellow cofounder Ilya Sutskever assisted. (Sutskever later expressed regret over his role. He formally left OpenAI just days after Amodei's jab, though there had been months of speculation surrounding Sutskever's standing.) December 2025: 'We don't have to do any code reds' OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Justin Sullivan/Getty Images By the end of 2025, OpenAI's lead in the AI race was slipping. When presented with the opportunity, Amodei seized the moment to troll his rival. Journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Amodei about OpenAI's decision to declare a "code red" to marshal resources for ChatGPT amid Google's rising strength. "We have a little bit of a privileged position where we can just keep growing and just keep developing our models, and we don't have to do any code reds," Amodei told Sorkin during an appearance at The New York Times' DealBook summit. Earlier in their conversation, Amodei appeared to take another swipe at Altman when he talked about some players "who are YOLOing" by making too risky bets on future demand based on their current revenue. "Who is YOLOing?" Sorkin asked. "I'm not going to answer that," Amodei replied. February 2026: A snarky Super Bowl ad gets a response A still from Anthropic's ad is set to air during the Super Bowl. The ad features a scrawny man who wants to get a six-pack quickly, but a helpful trainer gives him more than just the advice he needs. Anthropic Anthropic used the biggest stage available to take its most direct shot yet at OpenAI. Ahead of the Super Bowl, Anthropic revealed it was spending millions on an advertising campaign to denounce ads in AI chatbots. While OpenAI was not named directly, it was clear who the intended target was, given that just months earlier, OpenAI had said it would begin testing ads on ChatGPT. The ads featured real human actors mimicking the voice of product-pushing AI chatbots when asked questions like how to get a six-pack quickly or how to better connect with your mom. "First, the good part of the Anthropic ads: they are funny, and I laughed," Altman wrote in a lengthy post on X." But I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest." Altman wasn't done. "Anthropic serves an expensive product to rich people," he continued. "We are glad they do that and we are doing that too, but we also feel strongly that we need to bring AI to billions of people who can't pay for subscriptions." Days later, the companies went head-to-head again. This time, with the release of major updates to their coding-focused model within minutes of each other. February 2026: We (don't) want to hold hands In a moment before the viral photo, Altman holds hands with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his back facing toward Amodei Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images A who's who of AI and tech elite gathered in India for a major summit on artificial intelligence. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the opportunity to orchestrate a classic image of unity: competing CEOs with their hands raised together. (It's something Modi has done before with other world leaders, and politicians have been doing forever.) Modi almost got his moment. While Altman held the prime minister's hand, the OpenAI CEO didn't grasp Amodei's hand, who was positioned to his other side. Amodei grasped the hand of the other person next to him, but not Altman's. The internet, predictably, had a field day. And the world got a perfect encapsulation of one of AI's bitter rivalries. February 2026: Opposite sides of the Pentagon Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth standing in front of a Department of War sign DoW photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Madelyn Keech Anthropic refused to back down in a standoff with the Pentagon. Hours later, OpenAI struck a deal with the Defense Department, an agreement Altman later said was "definitely rushed." "If we are right and this does lead to a de-escalation between the DoW and the industry, we will look like geniuses, and a company that took on a lot of pain to do things to help the industry," Altman wrote on X on February 28 during an AMA on the platform centered around the deal. "If not, we will continue to be characterized as rushed and uncareful." Amodei said he and Anthropic remained firm in their "red lines" that any usage agreement must contain safeguards against "the mass domestic surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons." The Pentagon argued that current laws prevent misuse, but the two sides ultimately couldn't agree. Users pressed Altman on how the Trump administration treated Anthropic after talks fell apart. Namely, they asked about Hegseth's statement that he would formally designate Anthropic as a supply chain risk, potentially banning any business with Pentagon contracts from working with Anthropic. Altman said the designation was wrong, but added that Anthropic also bore some responsibility, too. "I think it is an extremely scary precedent and I wish they handled it a different way," he wrote on X. "I don't think Anthropic handled it well either, but as the more powerful party, I hold the government more responsible." Yes; I think it is an extremely scary precedent and I wish they handled it a different way. I don't think Anthropic handled it well either, but as the more powerful party, I hold the government more responsible. I am still hopeful for a much better resolution. — Sam Altman (@sama) March 1, 2026 The entire episode provided the most direct example yet of how far-reaching the rivalry has become. April 2026: Altman's home is attacked Daniel Moreno-Gama is accused of attacking Sam Altman's house DOJ In the early hours of April 10, a man traveled from Texas to California, where he threw a Molotov cocktail at Altman's palatial San Francisco home. Police later arrested Daniel Moreno-Gama after a suspected attack on OpenAI's headquarters. The incidents jolted the AI and tech community. Altman later blamed a number of factors for fueling the violence, including a critical New Yorker exposé (though he did not name the publication directly). Asked about the attack weeks later, Altman suggested Anthropic's rhetoric contributed. "I think the doomerism talk hasn't helped. I think the way certain other labs talk about us hasn't helped," Altman told the "Core Memory" podcast in an episode filmed not long after the attack, adding, "I think the way Anthropic talks about OpenAI doesn't help." June 2026: Dueling first steps toward an IPO Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images OpenAI and Anthropic have previously released major AI model updates on the same day. In early June, their race entered a new arena: the Securities and Exchange Commission. On June 1, Anthropic released a statement saying it had confidentially filed a draft S-1 with the SEC, the first official step toward going public. One week later, OpenAI did the same thing. It remains to be seen if the companies will actually IPO within the same window. Regardless, they'll be playing catch-up to Elon Musk's SpaceX. Musk's firm, which controls xAI, made its Nasdaq debut on June 12. June 2026: Amodei adds some summer shade Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the public will have a say on who comes out ahead in his company's rivalry with OpenAI. Jason Henry/Bloomberg via Getty Images It's fitting that, days after the S-1 announcements, Amodei gave a blunt answer when asked why he left OpenAI. "At the end of the day, why argue with someone when you don't have the same vision and you don't trust them?" Amodei said in an apparent jab at the OpenAI CEO during a lengthy Bloomberg interview for "The Circuit with Emily Chang" published on Wednesday. Amodei didn't offer much of an explanation for the viral moment when he and Altman refused to hold hands. "Look, I don't know what to tell you, OK? There was like Narendra Modi up there suddenly telling everyone to hold hands," Amodei said. The Anthropic CEO also downplayed the narrative that the biggest names in AI don't get along, pointing to his collaboration with Google DeepMind CEO TK. "I've known him for 15 years. We've worked together on a number of issues," Amodei said. "We buy compute from Google. We swap safety ideas all the time. So my view of this is that one, there are some players who are more trustworthy than others, and I think there are players outside Anthropic who I trust, who I see as trustworthy." Read the original article on Business Insider

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Local college students participate in SharkNinja's recent hackathon, called "Jailbreak." Tony Luong for BI The team was stuck. Someone called over a recent hire from another team — one of SharkNinja's emerging AI power users. Within about 90 minutes, he had built an AI tool that automated a cumbersome process for tracking projects and holding teams accountable. Word of the worker's feat spread beyond the group gathered around him in an office at the company's headquarters near Boston, said SharkNinja CEO Mark Barrocas. For Barrocas, who has spent nearly two decades helping transform the company from an infomercial-era curiosity into a consumer-products juggernaut, the moment captured something larger happening inside the company. "AI is the great equalizer," he said. "It doesn't matter if you're a college kid or a senior vice president. You actually can contribute at a similar level." Yet earlier this year, Barrocas worried that too few employees were experiencing that AI breakthrough. Some workers had gone all in on the technology, while others seemed to be hanging back. To close the gap, he decided to "shock the system" by largely pausing normal work and immersing the company in a four-day AI hackathon. The shutdown was an unprecedented move at the company behind the TikTok-famous Ninja Creami ice cream maker and Justin Bieber-backed Shark ChillPill personal cooler. Four days in, it felt like the company was hurtling toward a deadline. "We're in uncharted territories," Barrocas said during the hack. "We have no idea what's going to work." 'If it ain't broke, break it' At SharkNinja's headquarters, where vacuum handles poke above cubicle walls like reeds in a marsh, leaders assembled teams of roughly 10 to 15 employees from across the company to tackle about 20 major initiatives. The springtime event, called "Jailbreak," was a bigger version of the hacks the company began hosting a decade ago. Bosses encouraged employees whose work didn't require much coordination across teams to come up with challenges for their own departments, resulting in about 400 additional projects, Barrocas said. To mark the week, a giant banner hanging in a two-story lobby atrium declared: "If it ain't broke, break it." A banner at an entrance to SharkNinja's headquarters hit on the week's hack theme. Tony Luong for BI Employees from different parts of the business worked side by side on projects, sometimes with colleagues they had never met. Dozens of college students from the Boston area also joined in a related event designed to develop participants' skills and help SharkNinja spot potential recruits. The idea was to identify practical ways the company could weave AI into its business, from product development and marketing to supply chain planning. One group demonstrated tools that could mine consumer feedback from around the world — including from social media — and sort it by country or demographic group. Another team spent part of the week using AI to generate ideas and prototypes — and then build — two new products, connect them to the cloud, and build accompanying apps populated with recipes. "What used to take months and quarters, in some cases, is now taking a matter of days," an employee said. On one conference-room table, laptops crowded around a cluster of water bottles. Down the hall, Shark fans and air purifiers hummed at full blast inside a packed meeting room. One project brought together product developers and marketers to focus on what makes products go viral. Tony Luong for BI One group worked on an AI tool that could rate product concepts and suggest improvements by analyzing factors such as consumer demand, manufacturing feasibility, and business potential. That matters because the company, whose sales rose to nearly $6.4 billion last year, typically introduces 25 products a year, including the viral hits Shark FlexStyle hair-styling gadget and the Ninja Slushi frozen-drink maker. The week's AI push wasn't limited to product design. For Kaitlyn Hebert, CMO of global brands, a key project focused on nailing down what makes products break through on social media. For her group's hack, that meant bringing together product developers and marketers to build a repeatable playbook. "A lot of people believe virality is luck, but I think here we know how to design virality," she said. A hackathon instead of consultants About a year ago, Barrocas said, he kept hearing the same advice: Bring in consultants to help develop an AI strategy. Like many other leaders, he met with consulting firms and CEOs of tech companies. In those conversations, he joked, he would hear the word "agentic" several times in the same sentence. The more Barrocas listened, the more skeptical he became that an army of consultants could tell SharkNinja how to use AI. SharkNinja CEO Mark Barrocas said the company's job is to avoid leaving any worker behind when it comes to AI know-how. Tony Luong for BI "Odds are that strategy is outdated, you know, three months later," Barrocas said. Around the same time, he started noticing that managers or senior managers were sharing different ways they were using AI to solve problems. "I would say, 'Who told you to do this?'" Barrocas said. "They would say, 'Nobody.'" They weren't waiting for a corporate AI road map. That observation became the foundation for Jailbreak. "We already had this culture here — what we call 'finding problems, fixing problems,'" Barrocas said. The difference now, he said, is that employees suddenly have a new set of tools. "A year or two ago, you would say, 'Oh, well, IT has to fix the system,'" Barrocas said. "Now it's like, 'I have a problem. I can fix the problem.'" The goal of Jailbreak wasn't simply to build tools using AI. It was to get the company's roughly 4,000 workers to adapt and move in the same direction, he said. "Our job," Barrocas said, "is to not leave anyone behind." Tech-startup energy, appliance-company roots During the week, the atmosphere became festival-like: Balloons climbed stair railings and framed doorways. In a common area, a display that looked like a massive Lite-Brite glowed with the word "Jailbreak." Near a lobby, beauty teams offered touch-ups using SharkNinja products to workers who wanted a professional photographer to take their headshots. Workers had opportunities to play mini-golf and other games during Jailbreak. Tony Luong for BI Around lunchtime, some workers drifted outside to food trucks brought in for the event, while others filed into Sharkcuterie, a cafeteria named after an employee's winning contest entry. Huge Connect Four, Jenga, and chess installations stood in hallways and in common areas. In one, handfuls of workers traversed a mini-golf setup. The atmosphere was lively, yet the stakes were high. SharkNinja is awarding $1 million in prizes in 2026 to workers or groups of workers who develop big AI ideas. It's already cut $20,000 bonus checks for several workers. Beyond dozens of product-development labs off-limits to visitors, in a central hallway, a coffee maker and a bladeless tower fan sat on pedestals under spotlights, like exhibits in a museum devoted to home gadgets. For a company that sells blenders and vacuums rather than software, the atmosphere felt closer to that of a tech giant than to a traditional consumer-products manufacturer. Barrocas said he doesn't want AI expertise concentrated among a handful of enthusiasts. He wants thousands of employees to experiment with the technology and figure out how it could improve their work. "We're not a tech company," Barrocas said. "We're a problem-solving company." Read the original article on Business Insider

AI agents are making a solitary job even lonelier. Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images Anthropic's engineering leader, Fiona Fung, says Claude Code allows her team to ship way more code. She said it has also made her employees, who now work mostly with AI agents, lonelier. Fung said the antidote is to create more opportunities for engineers to collaborate. Coding is famously a solitary job. AI agents have only made it worse. Fiona Fung, an engineering leader at Anthropic who runs the teams behind Claude Code and Claude Cowork, said her team noticed that as engineers relied more on AI agents, they became more isolated. "The thing that we found interesting on the Claude Code team is, after a while, we felt it could start being a lonely experience because we all started just working with our agents so much," Fung said on the latest episode of "Lenny's Podcast." To address the problem, Fung's team tried to restore some of what agentic coding had begun to erase. They began organizing programming lunches, hackathons, and blocks of shared "maker time" so engineers could work near one another and learn from each other's AI workflows. "Everybody uses Claude Cowork. Everybody uses a flow so differently," Fung said. "When we do pairwise programming, we actually learn so much from each other." Claude Code has quickly become one of the most used products in software development. In a survey conducted by Business Insider of more than two dozen founders and venture capitalists, Claude Code emerged as the dominant AI coding tool inside startups. Some founders say it has become their default for complex engineering work. Engineers are now spending more time directing agents, reviewing outputs, and orchestrating parallel tasks. The rise of vibecoding, where people use natural language to prompt and build software, has also allowed nontechnical founders to create custom tools without hiring traditional engineering teams, giving rise to the "solopreneur." That can get lonely, however, and many founders swear by collaboration. Fung said that is why her team has focused on creating more opportunities for engineers to work side by side, even though they use AI differently. "Every time I watch someone work," she said, "I learn something myself as well." Read the original article on Business Insider

From fake tickets to cloned websites, AI is magnifying World Cup scams. Can fans distinguish between what’s real and what’s not?

Big Tech is throwing big money into data center buildouts. As national opposition to the facilities grows, some workers are beginning to question whether it’s worth it.

The author said it was difficult to be the mom she wanted to be while navigating her divorce. Courtesy of Amber Campbell. I studied child development partly to give my future children what I didn't have growing up. Then my marriage imploded, and the stress of a high-conflict divorce made me unrecognizable. My daughters are grown now, and I'm trying to be the mom they deserve. As my daughters and I canvassed the neighborhood trick-or-treating, my 8-year-old dressed as a devil and her 5-year-old sister as a superhero, my frustration was growing. My youngest was refusing to say "thank you" as neighbors dropped handfuls of candy into her bucket, and I felt embarrassed. "Say 'thank you,' or Halloween is cancelled," I told her. She stared at me stubbornly while her sister's face dropped, and I instantly realized my mistake. I was engaging in a power struggle with a kindergartner — exactly the opposite of what I learned in college, where I took multiple early childhood education classes. I worked my way through school as a nanny and preschool teacher, aiming to counteract my own tumultuous childhood by learning age-appropriate positive parenting skills to help me give my future children the childhood they deserved. In reality, life took unexpected turns, and I didn't always handle them well. Today, looking back, I deeply regret the mother I temporarily became during my stressful divorce. My divorce changed me After just five years, my marriage imploded, and custody became a question, not a given. I spent the next several years terrified that I would lose my children, making me anxious, depressed, and dysregulated. I never expected to be a perfect parent, but after working hard to give my daughters a better childhood than mine, I felt like a failure. The author said she worked hard to give her children a better childhood than she had. Courtesy of Amber Campbell. At the time, I was physically present but mentally calculating bills, rehearsing court testimony, or wondering how I would pay next month's rent. Even when we were at the playground or curled up reading books together, part of me was usually somewhere else. I was terrified I yelled too much during these years, too. Once, while on a rare-for-us vacation, I let my frustration get the best of me and snapped at one of my daughters when she was just being silly. I feel like the stress I was holding on to ruined our vacation when my kids were 8 and 10. Sure, we still shared many happy memories over the years — sledding in the winter, and enjoying picnic dinners by the lake on long summer days. But certain images from those years still sting, and I know things would have been different had I not been stuck in survival mode. For years, I cringed in shame, remembering the night I fell asleep before exchanging the tooth under my oldest daughter's pillow with a note from the Tooth Fairy. Or the time I ranted about something so insignificant I don't even remember it now, and she said quietly, "Mom, you don't have to get so mad." As I lay in bed that night, I couldn't sleep as her words ran through my mind on a loop. I knew what good parenting looked like. I just couldn't always access that version of myself. My girls deserved a mom who wasn't constantly afraid, and I deserved a life that didn't require me to be. I am choosing to live differently now I will always regret how much of my fear and stress they absorbed during those years. But I also remind myself that it's never too late to be the mom I always dreamed of — calm, present, supportive, and someone whose emotions my daughters don't feel responsible for. I still grieve the life we could've had even as I've watched them grow into smart, capable, and kind young women who I couldn't be more proud of. I can't change who I was then, but I can choose who I am now. I constantly look for ways to make it up to them, knowing that every visit, phone call, and conversation is another opportunity to show up differently than I once did. Like when my oldest daughter called recently and I told her I wasn't busy even though I only had five minutes before I needed to rinse the color out of my hair. She immediately launched into a long, heartfelt story that I wasn't about to interrupt, even as my timer started going off. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. Do you have a parenting regret? Email Jennifer Beck Goldblatt at jgoldblatt@insider.com to share your experience with Business Insider. Read the original article on Business Insider

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It’s cold, it’s very, very noisy, and—if I can be quite honest with you—I’m not feeling super relaxed. I’m currently around 300 meters, or 1,000 feet, beneath the North Sea, in a dark, dank cave. It smells weird. And I am increasingly aware of the pressure from millions of tons of seawater just above my…

Eli Rosenberg / The Information: A profile of Sarah Polcz, the UC Davis law professor that Bernie Sanders' team consulted while developing his AI sovereign wealth fund proposal  —  A couple of weekends ago, Sarah Polcz, a University of California, Davis, law professor, and her husband, Adam Brown, a top scientist at Google's DeepMind …

The men’s football World Cup presents a unique global opportunity to showcase new football technology – from boots and balls to digital systems designed to enhance both officiating accuracy and fan engagement. The process of bringing these technologies to the game often begins in universities and other research institutions. The academic journal Sports Engineering, of which I am editor-in-chief, publishes peer-reviewed studies that are closely monitored by the sport’s global governing body, Fifa. In our two collections of studies so far, prominent research themes include the automatic tracking of players and automated event detection. Another strand focuses on checking how well wearable sensors work within stadium environments. Data obtained from tracking player movements can be used to create virtual avatars. Use of this technology is being explored to further grow audiences for what is already the world’s most popular sport, both in terms of players and fans. Goal three of Fifa’s strategic objectives (2023-27) is to “deliver fan engagement including through eFootball, and to invest in digital technology and artificial intelligence for the next generations”. So what innovations have made it to the current World Cup in North America – and which others are likely to be introduced at future tournaments? Enhanced viewing angles Perhaps the most discussed technological innovation at this World Cup is the frequent use of body cameras by referees. This additional view has been widely praised for giving fans a fascinating new perspective on key moments, including goals and what refs saw when making key decisions. But the revolution in viewing angles doesn’t stop there. An increasingly common aspect of match coverage is 3D recreations – for example, when tight offside decisions are explained following a VAR (video assistant referee) review. These use data on player positions and movements from optical tracking systems to recreate gameplay from new perspectives – potentially giving fans entirely new views of the action, such as from the goalkeeper’s perspective. Official help Goal-line technology was first used in the 2014 men’s World Cup to determine whether the whole of the ball had crossed the goal-line. The 2026 World Cup has gone a step further by using out-of-bounds technology for the first time to determine whenever the ball has left the field of play – whether for a throw-in or corner. Viewers may also notice team officials using a digital substitution tablet in place of handwritten paper notes to explain the player swaps they wish to make. This makes it easier for substitutions to be approved by match officials and rapidly communicated to broadcasters – while also being “less sensitive to weather conditions” in the form of a rain-sodden notepad. Data analytics Fifa has pledged that for this World Cup, all 48 teams should “benefit from the same pre- and post-match analytical capabilities” through its AI Pro system. The system uses “AI agents capable of querying structured match data” to deliver rapid tactical insights, performance analyses and strategic recommendations. Researchers are also exploring how to track players and automatically detect events using broadcast video footage, rather than additional specialist camera technology. Ensuring these capabilities are made available beyond the game’s elite leagues is seen as important for democratising the way the game develops. Video: BBC News. The ball Each World Cup sees the introduction of a new ball. The 2026 Adidas Trionda features four uniquely shaped panels – the smallest number ever used to make a World Cup ball. These panels, made of polyurethane, have grooves and small, raised surface features in the form of eagle, maple leaf and star symbols to reflect the three host nations. Along with the seams, these are intended to give the ball desirable aerodynamics that produces predictable and stable flight behaviour. Like its predecessor, the Trionda also has an internal sensor that can sample data at 500 times per second to measure its movement. This is relayed to match officials in real time, supporting their decision-making. Fifa’s football testing manual even incorporates a balance test for balls with this internal sensor. This is to ensure the internal sensor does cause the ball to behave unpredictably when rolling or in the air. Pitches Some players at this World Cup have complained about the temporary grass pitches used at some stadiums feeling “more like an artificial surface”. There is a huge amount of research on the effect of pitches on player performance, including injury risk. This can be particularly important for female players, for whom knee injuries are more prevalent. The latest football turf testing manual includes a “critical fall height test”. This is designed to ensure surfaces are sufficiently soft and compliant to avoid posing an excessive head injury risk to players falling from a minimum of 0.6 metres. Boot design Academic research continually informs updates in football boot design. For example, it has shown that padding on the upper section of the boot can hinder shooting accuracy. We are now starting to see 3D-printed boots worn by some players. These boots use metamaterials – artificially-made materials with unconventional properties – that promise to improve fit and comfort. While you may see a few of these boots at this World Cup, the inexorable march of technology means you can expect such designs to be a common sight in Morocco, Portugal and Spain in four years’ time – along with many other new innovations currently at the research stage. Thomas Allen has received research funding from FIFA. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Sports Engineering journal.

Seedcamp, one of Europe’s earliest seed investors, has closed on its 7th fund of $220 million and a select fund 2 of $100 million to invest in winners from the core fund.

Clara Murray / Financial Times: Analysis: Anthropic may have talked itself into an export ban, as its 2026 official statements and posts used AI risk-related terms 8x more often than OpenAI  —  FT analysis shows company warned about dangers of advanced AI far more than rival OpenAI this year