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A colleague of Alanna Silver in the HR department where they worked was stumped about what to get as a gift. Loading audio narration… Silver asked about the person she was buying for and searched for clues about their preferences before suggesting the perfect present.”My career in HR helped me figure out people’s personalities and how they like to be recognized,” Silver told Business Insider.It turned out that her colleague’s gift was so appreciated that it led her to take on clients as a professional gift advisor with her new company, The Gift Strategist.She said that many struggle to come…

Mike Massimino is a former NASA astronaut and veteran of two Space Shuttle missions.Massimino began his career as an engineer working at IBM and McDonnell Douglas Aerospace after earning degrees from Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He applied to NASA three times before being selected as an astronaut in 1996. He went on to fly two Space Shuttle missions, in 2002 and 2009, both focused on servicing the Hubble Space Telescope. During these missions, he performed multiple space walks and was part of a team that set a record for total spacewalking time on a single shuttle…

In 2026, the affordability crisis is touching every aspect of daily life. At the grocery store, inflation has driven up the costs of products like beef, while people around the world have been feeling the strain of the war in Iran at the gas pump and in other parts of their lives.People are struggling with the cost of living when it comes to housing, too. Business Insider’s James Rodriguez recently reported on the “new homeowner penalty” in the US, a phenomenon in which new homeowners are paying a larger share of their income on housing than previous generations.From 2019 to…

A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Olick. Property Play covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large public companies. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. Anyone who has bought or sold a home knows how long and tedious the closing process can be. It involves antiquated paperwork requiring multiple signatures from various parties, disclosures and a heap of compliance forms. Some of the process has been digitized, but mostly not. One…

Laurene Powell Jobs, founder and president, Emerson Collective, speaks during the 29th annual Milken Institute Global Conference at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California on May 4, 2026. Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty ImagesA version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.Investment firms of ultra-wealthy families stepped up their deal-making in April after a slowdown the month prior triggered by the outbreak of the Iran war. Family offices made 55 direct investments in companies…

The Peloton Tread+ and Bike+ during a media preview at Peloton headquarters in New York, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025. Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesPeloton posted fiscal third-quarter earnings results Thursday that beat Wall Street expectations on revenue but fell slightly short on earnings per share.The company touted growth in equipment sales and subscription revenue as helping to drive its sales and profitability, with free cash flow up nearly 60%.”The first order of business in earnings is reporting how you did financially, and we feel like that was a pretty good quarter in terms of where we…

Let’s give McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski some credit — and maybe some absolution for his tiny bite of the Big Arch. One thing he got absolutely right was a prediction he made for this year: “You’re going to see a lot of beverage innovation.” Loading audio narration… Chris, my friend, you may bite a burger in a way that insults my humanity, but I must commend you on your soothsaying. We are absolutely living in the most interesting times for beverages — and I love it.To immerse myself in the sugary, iced world of beverage innovation, I tried out some of…

Default, disappear, and then due again. That’s the confusing journey some private student-loan borrowers are facing. Loading audio narration… Dozens of borrowers, lawyers, and industry experts spoke to BI’s Ayelet Sheffey about the uncertainty and lack of transparency that can occur when private student loans move toward default.It’s the first story in a new BI series on the spiral that student debt can send borrowers into.Multiple borrowers told Ayelet they were notified that their loans had been paid off and that their accounts showed a balance of $0. Only later would they learn that the loans had actually been transferred…

After years in private equity’s shadow, Wall Street’s biggest banks are reclaiming their status as some of finance’s top-paying employers. Loading audio narration… A new report from compensation consultancy Johnson Associates found that major banks are projected to increase bonuses by 39% from 2022 levels, outpacing wealth management and hedge funds, which are expected to increase bonuses by 29% and 24%, respectively. Alan Johnson, the firm’s founder, said that banks’ M&A, equity underwriting, and trading units are doing particularly well.The big banks’ luster marks a change from a few years ago, when private equity firms were considered the most lucrative…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sajani Lokuge, a 26-year-old AI content manager at an industrial AI software company. She is based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her identity and employment have been verified by Business Insider. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Loading audio narration… I studied software engineering and started my career as a UX designer. I worked my way up to lead UX designer. I used to work in a very technical role involved in making the product — and now my job is mostly about broadcasting AI.Roughly 10 months ago, I…