Category: Tech

• Warren Buffett and his wife Astrid attended the very-rich-people gathering in Sun Valley, Idaho.
• Apparently, Astrid was grumbling about a $4 coffee — and that’s not even the most relatable part.
• A bunch of Warren’s old quotes are popping up on social media now, and I feel seen.

Astrid Menks is not impressed with the rising price of coffee, apparently.

According to a report from the New York Post, Menks, whose husband is Warren Buffet, the seventh-richest person in the world, was charged $4 for a cup of coffee while at a conference known as “summer camp for billionaires.” And grumbles were heard.

The report was disappointingly sparse on details but that’s OK, I’ve written the entire scene in my head as fan fiction. And you cannot convince me that Warren wasn’t grumbling along with her.

That’s because Warren Buffett is all of us, except with $115 billion in his bank account (sort of). And I’m not the only one who thinks so.

While he hung out in Sun Valley, Idaho, wearing athleisure and presumably chatting to Bill Gates about whatever billionaire besties chat about, Twitter was cheering up our timelines by resurfacing a bunch of his most relatable moments.

In one clip, which is apparently quite famous, he compared bad communication skills at work to “winking at a girl in the dark.” We’ve all been there.

—Stephen Davies (@stedavies) July 17, 2023

Another quote reminds us to prioritize keeping our work profitable and enjoyable. As a journalist, this is only 50% relatable, but reading through billionaire quotes is not a bad day at the metaphorical office. Now I just need to crack the making-billions-of-dollars part…

—Investment Wisdom (@InvestingCanons) July 17, 2023

As someone with a bad habit of forgetting that I have a three-glasses-of-wine maximum on a schoolnight if I want to be semi-human the next day, this one, about what we don’t learn from our past mistakes, really spoke to me.

—Investment Wisdom (@InvestingCanons) July 17, 2023

This factoid, about a six-year-old Warren Buffett starting a business selling chewing gum, is maybe less relatable in its details, but who among us has not at some point worked in retail?

—Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman) July 11, 2023

And finally, the most relatable of them all. Baby Buffett read everything he could find about how investing works, and still got it wrong.

It turns out you shouldn’t be trying to predict stock fluctuation, but instead just buy a whole business. Who knew!

—Matt Allen (@investmattallen) July 11, 2023

In a sea of wildly unrelatable billionaires, Buffett is bucking the trend. And I’m now learning he’s been doing it for a while: apparently, he still lives in a modest house in Omaha that he bought in 1958 for about $31,500. 

Here’s hoping he’s not planning to take up cage fighting any time soon.

• Ron DeSantis’ campaign has spent nearly half of its raised funds for the Republican primary.
• At the same time, the campaign has had to lay off members of their large 90-person staff.
• Now, the DeSantis campaign has roughly $9 million left for the primaries, the New York Times reports.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination is burning through cash, campaign finance documents reveal, forcing his team to lay off staffers.

DeSantis initially amassed an impressive $20 million in donations during the first six weeks of his campaign. But The New York Times reports that the campaign has already spent about $8 million of that — leaving the team with just $9 million left to spend on the primary. The remaining $3 million can only be spent in the general election in the event DeSantis wins the Republican nomination, according to the Times.

While DeSantis can continue raising money, $14 million of that total came from large donors who gave the maximum legal amount to his campaign and can’t donate again, NBC News reports. And with small donations proving to be a challenge for several Republican candidates, according to NBC News, future fundraising efforts may not be as fruitful for DeSantis.

The Times called DeSantis’ finances and team downsizing an “ominous” sign for his chances in the Republican primary, especially as he trails candidates like former President Donald Trump in public polls.

With only a little more than half his funds left, DeSantis’ campaign laid off several employees. While the Times reports the exact number is unknown, one staffer told the outlet it was fewer than 10 people. Payroll is one of the campaign’s largest expenses, coming in at $1 million to pay about 90 staffers.

Other costly expenditures include DeSantis’ travel budget, which came in at $1.3 million, as well as expenses for an online donation-processing company, which cost almost $1 million. 

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. baselessly claimed COVID-19 may have been “ethnically targeted” to spare certain groups.
• He said Caucasians and black people were most susceptible, and Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people were most immune.
• RFK Jr., who is running for president, is a long-time vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. baselessly claimed that COVID-19 may have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.

The long-time vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist, who is running for president as a Democratic primary challenger, made the comments during a press event in New York City on Tuesday, per The New York Post.

“COVID-19, there is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy said.

“COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

“We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not, but there are papers out there that show the racial and ethnic differential and impact,” Kennedy claimed but did not cite any specific sources.

He further claimed that China was spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing “ethnic bioweapons,” and said the US was also developing similar weapons.

The origins of COVID-19 are still unknown, with one hotly contested theory being that the virus might have escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. Whether or not that theory is correct, there is no known evidence suggesting the virus was made to target specific ethnicities.

Kennedy built a reputation as a prominent anti-vaxxer long before the pandemic, but his impact reached new heights when the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020.

One report identified him as being one of 12 people who were responsible for the spread of most disinformation about COVID-19 online.

He has also baselessly promoted a range of conspiracy theories, including that Wi-Fi causes cancer and that antidepressants are to blame for school shootings.

Members of the Kennedy dynasty previously told Insider that they would not support Kennedy’s long-shot bid presidential campaign due to his anti-vaccine views.

The Anti-Defamation League responded to Kennedy’s claims about COVID-19 being ethnically targeted in a statement to The Post.

“The claim that COVID-19 was a bioweapon created by the Chinese or Jews to attack Caucasians and black people is deeply offensive and feeds into sinophobic and anti-semitic conspiracy theories about COVID-19 that we have seen evolve over the last three years,” they said.

• Civil rights groups warn that Threads will “become as toxic as Twitter” without better moderation.
• In a letter, the groups urged Mark Zuckerberg to implement more rigorous moderation standards. 
• They said hateful speech and disinformation has already been rising on the brand-new platform. 

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg needs to better moderate his new Threads platform, or it could “become as toxic as Twitter,” civil rights, digital justice, and pro-democracy groups warned in an open letter to Zuckerberg and the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri.

The letter — led by Free Press, Accountable Tech, and Media Matters for America — says the groups have already seen indications that “new users have been testing the boundaries of the platform’s moderation and enforcement.”

The letter cites “neo-Nazi rhetoric,” “election lies,” “bigoted slurs,” “COVID-19 conspiracies,” and more as examples of hateful speech that they have seen rising on Threads, which launched last week. 

Meta’s press team did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment. 

“Meta must implement basic moderation safeguards on Threads now or the platform will become as toxic as Twitter,” Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at Free Press, said in a press release about the letter.

She added that it’s imperative for Meta to establish better content moderation in the lead-up to the 2024 election to prevent the spread of hateful speech and disinformation. 

The civil rights groups also accused Meta of “purposefully not extending Instagram’s fact-checking program to the platform and capitulating to bad actors.” 

• You can already buy followers for Instagram’s Threads.
• Insider viewed several websites offering to sell followers for Threads accounts.
• Instagram has long battled troves of fake followers, purchases likes, and bots. 

We are now a week into the existence of Threads and there’s already a robust menu of followers you can buy on the internet.

From an offer of $7.50 for 100 followers, to $1,900 for 50,000 followers on Instagram’s Threads app, paid engagement services and bot farms are pouncing on a new market, according to a review of a handful of sites by Insider.

Instagram has long battled bots and juiced engagement on the app. The platform has been deleting fake followers and likes for years, and Instagram even has a section about this behavior in its community guidelines. 

“Help us stay spam-free by not artificially collecting likes, followers, or shares, posting repetitive comments or content, or repeatedly contacting people for commercial purposes without their consent,” Instagram’s community guidelines page reads.

According to the influencer-marketing platform HypeAuditor, on average, about 13.8% of influencers’ Instagram followers are categorized as “suspicious” accounts. HypeAuditor defines suspicious accounts as any Instagram page that appear to be bots or “use specific services for likes, comments, and followers,” the company told Insider.

While the follower count metric still holds some weight, especially when it comes to securing and negotiating brand deals as an influencer, it isn’t so clear how important follower count will be for Threads.

To start, followers aren’t as prominently showcased on Threads as they are on Instagram (or Twitter, for that matter). The number itself is at the bottom of the bio and appears muted when stacked with other vibrant buttons and text. And when it comes to algorithms, ranking on Threads is more dependent on what content someone interacts with.

“We do rank posts lightly and show recommendations (posts from accounts you don’t follow) in feed, which is particularly important for a new app before people follow enough accounts,” head of Instagram Adam Mosseri wrote in a recent Thread reply.

Buying an influx of spam followers on Threads could very well do nothing to help an account grow or find success as a creator.

Meta did not respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Our experts choose the best products and services to help make smart decisions with your money (here’s how). In some cases, we receive a commission from our partners; however, our opinions are our own. Terms apply to offers listed on this page.

Overall bank rating

Pros and cons

The Sallie Mae High-Yield Savings Account pays a competitive interest rate, with a $0 minimum opening deposit and no monthly service fee. It’s a good option if you want an online high-yield savings account from a well-known company.

The Sallie Mae SmartyPig Account pays a high interest rate — just not quite as high as the Sallie Mae High-Yield Savings Account. Still, it’s a good choice if you want a savings account that helps you actively save. You can save for individual savings goals within the account, such as “Emergency Fund” or “Vacation,” and set a deadline for each.

Although Sallie Mae doesn’t have a checking account, you can set up automatic transfers from an external account to this one, so you’ll stay on top of your savings goals.

You’ll need at least $2,500 to open a CD with Sallie Mae. If you don’t have that much money, you can find a bank that requires less.

Sallie Mae’s CD rates are pretty competitive, but the best CD rates are still at other online banks.

Sallie Mae pays a competitive rate on its money market account, and unlike most banks, there is a $0 minimum deposit.

The main draw of a money market account over a savings account is that the former makes it easier to access your savings. Sallie Mae does this by sending you paper checks, but it doesn’t send you a debit or ATM card as some banks do. 

How Sallie Mae Bank works

Sallie Mae is an online bank that offers savings accounts, a money market account, and CDs. Sallie Mae doesn’t have a checking account, which can make it difficult to access your savings quickly.

The Sallie Mae mobile app has received 4.5 out of 5 stars in the Apple store and 3.8 out of 5 stars in the Google Play store.

You can speak with a live customer service representative Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET. Sallie Mae doesn’t offer customer support on weekends, and there’s no live online chat feature.

Your deposits are FDIC insured for up to $250,000, or $500,000 for a joint account.

Is Sallie Mae trustworthy?

The Better Business Bureau gives Sallie Mae an A+ rating. A strong BBB score indicates a company responds effectively to customer complaints, is transparent about business practices, and is honest in advertising.

Sallie Mae doesn’t have any recent public scandals, so you may decide you’re comfortable keeping your money with this bank.

Sallie Mae vs. Ally

If you’re planning on opening a checking account in addition to a saving account, Ally will be your strongest option. Ally is the only one out of the two that offers a checking account. 

The Ally Savings Account also has the benefits of both the Sallie Mae High-Yield Savings and SmartyPig accounts. It pays a little more than SmartyPig, but it also lets you save for individual goals through Savings Buckets.

If you want to open a CD, the better choice may come down to which term length you open.

Sallie Mae vs. Marcus

If you’d like to open a money market account, Sallie Mae will be your default choice because Marcus doesn’t have one. 

Marcus has lower minimum deposits for CDs than Sallie Mae, as well as more CD variety — you can open a Marcus No-Penalty CD or a Marcus 20-month Rate Bump CD, which gives you the option to increase your rate once during your term.

• Some major corporations are limiting their employees’ access to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. 
• Companies like Amazon and Apple have expressed concerns that AI may put them at-risk of data leaks.
• Here are 14 companies that have issued bans or restrictions around the buzzy AI chatbot. 

Workers are using OpenAI’s ChatGPT to write code, generate marketing materials, and create lesson plans to save time and boost productivity. But some big companies are restricting its employees from using the AI chatbot. 

While some companies are hiring employees with ChatGPT expertise, others are putting the brakes on integrating the AI into their employees’ workflows because of privacy concerns over feeding the tech confidential data. 

After all, privacy concerns have been a major pain point for OpenAI. At the end of June, a proposed class-action lawsuit was filed against the ChatGPT-maker over claims the company stole “massive amounts of personal data” to train ChatGPT. The lawsuit claims that Sam Altman’s company “secretly” used proprietary data to train its large language models so that its AI can chat like a human. 

OpenAI has yet to respond to the lawsuit, nor did the company respond to Insider’s request for comment about it.

Despite these concerns, some companies are excited about ChatGPT’s potential to bolster their bottom lines. For instance, Genies, an AI-avatar startup, is requiring its employees to learn how to apply ChatGPT to their jobs — an early sign that businesses are warming up to the idea of AI-assisted work.  

To see which companies are cautious about ChatGPT integration, Insider compiled a list of major ones that have issued bans or restrictions on how its workers can use the AI. 

Here are 14 companies that have imposed restrictions on ChatGPT:

• Django Kroner, 32, started his business, The Canopy Crew, to help people reconnect with nature.
• The business rents treehouses in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge, some for up to $950 a night.
• Take a look at one of the properties with two single-room sheds he refers to as “Cliff Dweller.”

The entrepreneur Django Kroner describes his dream home as a treehouse on a cliff where he can see miles of forest and where tree-dwelling critters can come visit him in the morning. And it’s this vision that motivated the 32-year-old to bring a slate of treehouse vacation rentals from his imagination to reality.

As the owner of The Canopy Crew, which operates in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge, Kroner said he wanted to give people a creative outlet to interact with wildlife the way he does.

“Everyone thinks about children when they think of treehouses,” Kroner said. “But an adult treehouse can bring out your inner child, which is something everyone should harness.”

Kroner moved to the Red River Gorge area in 2009 because of the location’s world-renowned rock climbing. He took a job building timber-frame cabins with a wilderness cabin-rental company called Red River Gorgeous soon thereafter, and he asked the owners whether he could build a treehouse on the property. The owners obliged, and he built his first 10-foot-by-8-foot structure out of scrap material about 45 feet in the air between a tulip tree and a sycamore, he explained. 

That first treehouse was more of a canopy, Kroner added. It didn’t have any walls, but he had a chest for his clothes and slept in a hammock. If he needed to keep food overnight, Kroner said, he used a net rope to lower a basket into the creek running between the two trees that supported the treehouse. Kroner said he slept in that canopy year-round. 

It was after Kroner’s friends began to visit his treehouse when he came up with the idea for The Canopy Crew. Kroner launched the company in November 2013 with just one treehouse that he built for about $10,000, he said. Since then, the company has added nine more treehouses that cost $200,000 to $400,000 to build, some of which rent for as much as $950 a night on Airbnb. The company also employs about 50 people, who are split between its vacation-rental business and the tree-service operation it provides in Cincinnati.

When he’s scouting a new location for a treehouse, Kroner said, he looks for a place in the woods where he’d like to hang out. Sometimes, he finds a few trees that can support one of the designs he’s sketched in his notebook. Other times, the landscape dictates the design, he said.

“Whenever I’m up in a treehouse, all I can think about are suspension bridges and other connections going out into the trees further into the gorge,” Kroner said.

The company’s most recent addition is a treehouse known as “Sky Dancer,” which looks like a pirate ship that was built into a cliff face. There are three separate structures that make up Sky Dancer, each of which is connected by wooden staircases and has its own primary bedroom and bathroom. It also has a giant net that serves as a hammock and unbeatable views of the gorge, Kroner said.

While there are plenty of treehouse builders to choose from, Kroner said The Canopy Crew was one of a handful of companies that could build treehouses into landscapes the way they do. 

The Canopy Crew uses techniques that Kroner picked up during an apprenticeship with an arborist that are meant to protect the trees they build in, including lowering materials into place instead of hoisting them off the ground and taking the time to appropriately prune the branches. This allows The Canopy Crew to build their structures higher off the ground than other treehouse builders.

“I like to think of these treehouses as blunt reminders that we don’t have to live in busy cities or chase material objects all day long,” Kroner said.