Posts

Showing posts from October, 2025

We moved to Spain before having kids. It was the best thing we did for our marriage.

Image
The author and her husband moved to Spain after getting married. Courtesy of the author After getting married and before having four kids, my husband and I lived in Spain for a year. Being away from everyone we knew pushed us to lean on each other. I'm thankful we got to explore the world a little bit before becoming parents. Every Wednesday, I pedaled downtown Madrid to my Spanish immersion class, pulling out my travel coffee mug as I sat next to friends from Russia and Thailand to practice our mediocre "¿Cuánto cuesta?" together. On Sundays, we traipsed through the booths at El Rastro , a flea market filled with colorful scarves and discount underwear. After our wedding (and before we had four kids), my husband and I quit our jobs and moved to Spain for a year. He took a contract teaching position at a local middle school, allowing us to get a visa and a flat. I wrote remotely for companies in the US and Australia. During that year, I enjoyed churros in piazz...

Glasgow-based Chemify, which combines AI with robotics and chemistry to rapidly make novel molecules for pharmaceutical companies, raised a $50M Series B (Alex Scott/Chemical & Engineering News)

Image
Alex Scott / Chemical & Engineering News : Glasgow-based Chemify, which combines AI with robotics and chemistry to rapidly make novel molecules for pharmaceutical companies, raised a $50M Series B   —  Scottish firm will use the cash to advance its AI platform and robotics system to rapidly make novel molecules from Techmeme https://ift.tt/w6yQYSf

Sequoia partner Jess Lee shares the system she uses to evaluate employees

Image
Polyvore CEO Jess Lee Jess Lee / Polyvore Sequoia partner Jess Lee shared some tips for evaluating partners and employees. Lee said her system measures someone's emotional, intellectual, political, and judgmental ability. No one is good at all of them, she said, so it's all about finding people who complement each other. The world's top leaders often say they can read people better than anyone else — a trait that has long intrigued psychologists and management experts. Some call it an art, others say it's a science. Sequoia partner Jess Lee — a Silicon Valley veteran who previously worked at Google and Yahoo, and founded the e-commerce company Polyvore, which Yahoo acquired for $200 million in 2015 — shared some of her secrets on a recent episode of "The Library of Minds" podcast. Lee said she now relies on a process to evaluate workers beyond quantifiable metrics, which she learned from her Sequoia colleague Shawn Maguire . He told her there are...

The JD: tutoring a 1-year-old for $240,000 a year. The response: virality, criticism, and an 'outstanding application field.'

Image
Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI A $240,000-a-year job to tutor a one-year-old baby has gone viral. Part of the job description calls for helping the child grow into an "English gentleman." The head of the tutoring agency says "it's never too early" to start preparing babies for success. When Adam Caller, the owner of Tutors International, posted a job listing last week for a tutor for a one-year-old, he didn't expect it to go viral. The job pays £180,000, or $240,000, but he had advertised roles before that pay considerably more. "What has grabbed the press's attention here is not the amount of money, but it's the fact that it's a one-year-old," he told Business Insider. The listing, published in the Times Educational Supplement on October 17, was placed on behalf of a wealthy international family based in London. The family is seeking an experienced tutor to prepare their baby for elite schools like Eton or Harrow — and t...

Netflix shuts down Boss Fight Entertainment, the game studio behind mobile game Squid Game: Unleashed, after acquiring it in March 2022 (Jay Peters/The Verge)

Image
Jay Peters / The Verge : Netflix shuts down Boss Fight Entertainment, the game studio behind mobile game Squid Game: Unleashed, after acquiring it in March 2022   —  More than three years after acquiring Boss Fight Entertainment, Netflix is closing it. … Netflix acquired Boss Fight in March 2022 … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/UnHAz1Q

Healthcare company Ensemble Health has tapped JPMorgan as it eyes a $13 billion sale or IPO in 2026

Image
Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images Ensemble Health has hired JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs for a sale or IPO early next year, BI learned. The PE-backed healthcare company is aiming for a $13 billion valuation in the deal. Ensemble Health is booming as investors bet on AI tools to boost hospital revenue. Ensemble Health, a major player in healthcare revenue management, is seeking a potential $13 billion sale or IPO next year, Business Insider has learned. Ensemble, owned primarily by private equity firms Warburg Pincus and Berkshire Partners, has tapped JPMorgan to pursue a sale, five people with knowledge of the deal told Business Insider. At the same time, Ensemble is considering an IPO and has pulled in Goldman Sachs to support the dual-track approach, three of the people said. It's aiming for a valuation of around $13 billion in either deal, according to those people. Ensemble is the latest PE-backed healthtech company to plan a major sale or IPO for early next y...

OpenAI acquires Software Applications Incorporated, which is building an AI-powered user interface for macOS and raised $6.5M from Sam Altman and others (Shirin Ghaffary/Bloomberg)

Image
Shirin Ghaffary / Bloomberg : OpenAI acquires Software Applications Incorporated, which is building an AI-powered user interface for macOS and raised $6.5M from Sam Altman and others   —  OpenAI has acquired Software Applications Inc., a startup building an AI-powered user interface for Mac desktops … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/g0e5qWm

Meta's Alexandr Wang says why the AI team just laid off 600 workers

Image
Meta chief AI officer Alexandr Wang shared a memo announcing job cuts. Fortune/ Reuters Images Meta is laying off 600 employees in its Meta Superintelligence Labs division. Meta's chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, addressed the cuts in an internal memo. Wang said the cuts would help the company to make decisions more quickly. Meta is laying off 600 employees in its Meta Superintelligence Labs division, a spokesperson confirmed. Meta's chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, shared a memo, which was seen by Business Insider, on Wednesday, announcing that the company cut jobs within the unit. "By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact," Wang wrote. Wang also wrote that affected employees had been notified. Meta didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. The restructuring comes as Meta fine-tunes its spraw...

Reddit files a lawsuit against Perplexity, SerpApi, and two other data scraping companies, accusing them of unlawfully scraping Google for Reddit data (Mike Isaac/New York Times)

Image
Mike Isaac / New York Times : Reddit files a lawsuit against Perplexity, SerpApi, and two other data scraping companies, accusing them of unlawfully scraping Google for Reddit data   —  In a lawsuit, Reddit pulled back the curtain on an ecosystem of start-ups that scrape Google's search results and resell the information to data-hungry A.I. companies. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/V9fJ2Qu

The best Dyson vacuums of 2025, plus a sneak peek at what's coming next

Image
When you buy through our links, Business Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more We evaluated the various Dyson vacuums and their features to help you find the best model for your needs. Dyson Dyson makes some of the most innovative and premium vacuums on the market, and we frequently name them as top picks in our guide to the best vacuum cleaners .   Essentially a household status symbol for those who love to keep their home spic and span, Dyson vacuum cleaners are the creme de la creme of floorcare products with a lineup of cordless and upright vacuums to decide from, plus dedicated hard floor cleaners for mopping and a robot vacuum. All offer powerful cleaning performance across various surfaces, good battery life, hygienic bin emptying, and advanced filtration. Dyson vacuums are all built to resist hair tangling, making them a great option among the best vacuums for pet hair .  I've spent the last two years familiarizing myself with the Dyson range...

Google Fi plans an AI call quality feature to filter out background sounds like wind next month, and will bring full RCS support on the web in December (Ryan Whitwam/Ars Technica)

Image
Ryan Whitwam / Ars Technica : Google Fi plans an AI call quality feature to filter out background sounds like wind next month, and will bring full RCS support on the web in December   —  Google's Fi cellular service is getting an upgrade, and since this is 2025, there's plenty of AI involved. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/MC1q5o0

Apple Vision Pro M5 review: everything looks sharper, especially virtual desktop mode, and the Dual Knit band is comfortable, but the headset still costs $3,500 (Lance Ulanoff/TechRadar)

Image
Lance Ulanoff / TechRadar : Apple Vision Pro M5 review: everything looks sharper, especially virtual desktop mode, and the Dual Knit band is comfortable, but the headset still costs $3,500   —  New Apple silicon and a new headband level up the experience  —  TechRadar Verdict … Why you can trust TechRadar … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/LvTbIAz

Naked Wines review: We tested the $100 voucher to see if it's actually a good deal

Image
When you buy through our links, Business Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more Nakedwines.com sells affordable bottles that are what I'd call "easy drinking" wines — perfect for casual drinking. Nakedwines If you love discovering new bottles without splurging on a sommelier, Nakedwines.com might hit your sweet spot. The company partners with more than 150 independent winemakers worldwide and uses a direct-to-consumer model that cuts out the middlemen — meaning you get unique wines for less. You may have come across a $100 voucher for Naked Wines and might be wondering if the offer is legit. Good news: it is. Here's my experience trying Naked Wines. How Naked Wines works Angel members get access to special edition wines and wine tastings. Jada Wong/Insider Naked Wines isn't your typical wine subscription . You can order wines as you like (a minimum of six bottles), but the real perks come with becoming an Angel member . Angels invest $40...

An interview with Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz, who expects a 2025 profit of $170M to $200M, about the company's $300M round that pushed its valuation above Rippling's (Matt Durot/Forbes)

Image
Matt Durot / Forbes : An interview with Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz, who expects a 2025 profit of $170M to $200M, about the company's $300M round that pushed its valuation above Rippling's   —  HR software rivals have accused each other of corporate espionage in lawsuits filed earlier this year. from Techmeme http://www.techmeme.com/251020/p25#a251020p25

A look at the Crylock ransomware scheme, orchestrated by a Russian couple who targeted as many as 400,000 victims and earned over €64M in BTC over eight years (Financial Times)

Image
Financial Times : A look at the Crylock ransomware scheme, orchestrated by a Russian couple who targeted as many as 400,000 victims and earned over €64M in BTC over eight years   —  How a mysterious tip-off led investigators to uncover the inner workings of a highly unusual hacking operation from Techmeme https://ift.tt/If7lZnW

OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy says it will take a decade before AI agents actually work

Image
OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy is unimpressed with the state of AI agents. San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images/Contributor/Getty Images OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy is not impressed with the state of AI agents. Karpathy appeared on the Dwarkesh Podcast last week to discuss his observations on AI development. Functional AI agents "will take about a decade," he said. Even in the fast-moving world of AI, patience is still a virtue, according to Andrej Karpathy. The OpenAI cofounder, and de facto leader of the vibe-coding boom , appeared on the Dwarkesh Podcast last week to talk about how far we are from developing functional AI agents . TL;DR — he's not that impressed. "They just don't work. They don't have enough intelligence, they're not multimodal enough, they can't do computer use and all this stuff," he said. "They don't have continual learning . You can't just tell them something and they...

OpenAI's Broadcom deal shows how the AI startup is diversifying its chip suppliers, including Nvidia chips for training and Broadcom chips for inference (Christopher Mims/Wall Street Journal)

Image
Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal : OpenAI's Broadcom deal shows how the AI startup is diversifying its chip suppliers, including Nvidia chips for training and Broadcom chips for inference   —  The maker of ChatGPT and Sora wants to control its destiny, which means controlling the hardware that runs its software from Techmeme https://ift.tt/FfQm91v

Halloween decorations brought my kids and me together. Doing it alone this year made me feel like I've lost them.

Image
The author's home (not pictured) isn't quite as spectacularly decorated as this Halloween house. Wirestock/Getty Images/iStockphoto Our family always bonded over getting the house ready for Halloween. We couldn't wait until decorating season began in October. This year, my kids didn't want to join in. So I did it myself. Halloween is a big deal in our house. Or, as I discovered this year, it used to be. I was never stumped about what to buy for my son's birthday in late September. At the top of his list would be somewhat useless things, such as fake live wires that hiss and shake, or pricey licensed products, including a replica proton pack from the Ghostbusters franchise . He loved to visit the local Spirit Halloween store and pick out his gifts for under a certain amount of cash. It was great to see his face light up when he reached the animatronics section, stamped on the touch pads, and recoiled as a giant spider or demented nun jumped out. But not ...