Author: Editor

After landing an entry-level position at a PR firm specializing in hospitality, I eagerly awaited my start date, which was just weeks after my graduation from UC Berkeley.Seven months later, I joined a Zoom call with my manager, expecting to discuss my growth, coming prepared with questions about my performance and future with the firm. Within minutes, the tone had shifted completely: my role was being eliminated with budget cuts.The devastation, confusion, and frustration held me captive for days. I understood their reasoning, but couldn’t shake the helplessness of feeling sucker-punched by the decision.While I worked all those months, I…

A sign hangs above the front of a Pizza Hut restaurant on Feb. 9, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois. Scott Olson | Getty ImagesYum Brands on Tuesday announced it is selling Pizza Hut to private equity firm LongRange Capital for roughly $1.5 billion.The deal excludes the pizza chain’s locations in mainland China; Yum China will acquire those in a separate transaction for about $1.2 billion. The deals cap off years of struggles for Pizza Hut, which has weighed on Yum’s overall financial performance. In the U.S., the pizza chain has transitioned from the sit-down format and salad bars of yore to…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tony Latham, the 53-year-old President of Bacardi North America, based in Miami. It’s been edited for length and clarity.I’m from Australia, and I’ve worked in consumer goods at well-known companies such as SC Johnson, Danone, and Unilever.The US is the eighth country I’ve lived in in the past 25 years; I moved around a lot with those companies. I spent about 10 years in Asia, about eight in Europe, and when I joined Bacardi in 2019, I was the global CFO, based in Bermuda. Business Insider’s Power Hours series gives readers…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with David Selinger, the 48-year-old CEO of Deep Sentinel, based in Pleasanton, California. It’s been edited for length and clarity.I went to Stanford but didn’t finish my degree, so I went back in 2000 to finish. In 2002, I got hired at Amazon through on-campus interviews while still in college.I worked at Dutch Bros, now a publicly traded coffee company, then. I was running their tech side.I didn’t initially want to work at Amazon, but I considered it because I was bored. I had a great job at Dutch Bros, worked very…

Kevin Warsh is stepping up to the plate.The Wall Street executive turned Federal Reserve chair will lead his first interest rate decision Wednesday. CME FedWatch, which predicts rate decisions based on market activity, showed a near-total chance of a hold as of June 15.This month’s rate call comes on the heels of oil price pressure from the Iran war pushing inflation to its highest level since 2023 and a dip in consumer sentiment. On the flipside, the May jobs report showed continued strength in the labor market. All eyes will be on Warsh as he shares the Fed’s economic outlook…

Sometimes, the US government’s concerns that a powerful new tech product could fall into the wrong hands can be a marketing opportunity. Just look at Steve Jobs and Apple back in 1999.In August of that year, Jobs, who was then Apple’s interim-CEO, took the stage to unveil the company’s new desktop “supercomputer”: the Power Mac G4. Jobs called it “the most powerful personal computer ever brought to market,” CBS News reported at the time.The only issue was all that computing power technically meant that the device crossed the threshold that would trigger US export controls limiting which countries Apple could…

Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin speaks during a June 11 press conference. Oliver Contreras/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Oliver Contreras/AFP via Getty Images Gary Berntsen is convinced Venezuela stole the 2020 U.S. election. That myth has been debunked numerous times, including as part of Fox News’ 2023 $787 million settlement with voting machine company Dominion, but Berntsen, a former CIA operative, has been pushing it for years. “One of the things that we learned is there’s 14 different technical ways that you can steal an election,” Berntsen explained in an interview in the fall with conservative…

Perplexity’s CEO shared two unusual pieces of advice he learned from the leaders of two of the world’s biggest companies.On an episode of the “20VC” podcast released on Monday, Aravind Srinivas said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Tesla CEO Elon Musk taught him two important entrepreneurship lessons that stuck with him.Srinivas cofounded AI search engine Perplexity in 2022 after working as a researcher at Google’s DeepMind and OpenAI. In August, Business Insider reported that the company was seeking fresh funding at a $20 billion post-money valuation. The startup’s investors include SoftBank, Nvidia, and Jeff Bezos.On Monday’s podcast, he said that…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Charlie Fang, 31, who works for an American tech company in China as a strategic partner manager. Fang left the US in 2024 after three failed attempts to obtain an H-1B visa.His words have been edited for length and clarity.I grew up in China and attended a school in Nanjing, where studying abroad was common. More than half of my classmates planned to leave China for college, so from a young age, overseas education felt normal to me.Before college, I briefly lived in the US with a family in Portland, Oregon.…

Aldi is betting that shoppers’ love of mystery boxes extends to the grocery aisle.The discount grocer, known for its low prices and private-label products, announced Monday that it will give away free “Aldi Blind Boxes” for four days, with a limited number of mystery grocery packages available daily through AldiBlindBox.com.A different themed box will drop each day from June 22 through June 25 at noon ET, and shoppers can claim one while supplies last.The giveaway arrives as many Americans remain focused on stretching grocery budgets while also seeking foods that align with popular nutrition trends. Aldi’s four themes include protein,…