Category: Tech

• The lives and working routines of billionaires fascinate those who want to understand their success.
• Past colleagues discussed working with Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Sara Blakely.
• They shared lessons they’d learned from the four well-known billionaires.

The lives and working routines of billionaires fascinate those hungry to understand their success. Their eccentricities and rules for life are the subject of books, podcasts, and countless articles.

Their close colleagues know these captivating figures well. Here, people who’ve worked alongside Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Sara Blakely talk about what it was like.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Bill Gates could tell when someone had ‘slung the bull’

Chris Williams will never forget the “grilling” he says the billionaire Microsoft cofounder Gates gave him when they first met in 1992.

After buying their company, Gates interrogated Williams and his colleagues about why their product was better than its Microsoft rival’s. In eight years of meeting regularly one-on-one with Gates as a Microsoft executive, Williams learned how Gates’ questioning was a way of exposing who “slung the bull.” He’d keep pressing until the person under questioning would either admit they didn’t know or start inventing things.

“It was hard to be in those rooms many times and not pick up some of that skill,” Williams wrote for Insider, adding: “In time I could recognize the face of someone who, it seemed, would rather die than say, ‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out and get back to you.’”

Williams also recalled Gates’ ability to absorb “miles of data and dozens of opinions on the correct path” at a meeting and immediately identify what mattered and what to do.

Read more: I worked closely with Bill Gates for 8 years as an executive at Microsoft. Here are the 3 lessons he taught me that I’ll never forget.

aul Ellis – Pool/Getty Images

Jeff Bezos insisted on a ‘deliberately inefficient’ meeting

Colin Bryar, a former Amazon vice president and chief of staff to Bezos, listed 13 insights he gained in the 12 years of working closely with him.

These included the importance of reacting quickly to trends, doubling down on initiatives that bear fruit to minimize risk, and accepting that “getting a team on the same page is a lot of work.”

On the last point, Bryar described how Bezos would hold a weekly four-hour meeting with his direct reports instead of one-to-one meetings with each of them. They would all attend regardless of whether the agenda touched on their responsibilities. Bezos wanted them to learn one another’s responsibilities to help them work together as a team “when the inevitable crisis would arise,” Bryar wrote.

He added, “I’ve seen many dysfunctional executive teams that just are not used to working together and something like a deliberately inefficient weekly meeting getting them together would help.”

Read more: I’m a former Amazon VP who was there for 12 years and also served as Jeff Bezos’ chief of staff. Here are the top insights I learned from him that have helped me in my career.

Reuters

‘Girl next door’ Sara Blakely was a ‘creative genius’

Lisa Magazine and Kenya Graham were personal and executive assistants, respectively, to Blakely, the Spanx founder. Magazine described Blakely as “the girl next door” but also “one of the most creative geniuses I’ve ever met.” She told the podcast “Reach” that she was the 13th Spanx employee, joining when it was working out of a windowless basement in an Atlanta hotel.

She and Graham would plan Blakely’s day, covering every aspect of her life to make Blakely “feel like a million dollars” whenever she stepped into a meeting. “There were so many times that Lisa and I would go over to the home, print out Sara’s calendar, and sit with her husband’s assistants and the house staff,” Graham said. The pair often also collaborated on calendars and cc’d each other on emails and texts to ensure they were on the same page.

After Blakely gave the keynote at the Nordic Business Forum in 2019, the organizers told her that their team was the most prepared group they’d ever worked with, Magazine said.

Read more: Billionaire Sara Blakely’s 2 assistants explain what it takes to keep her life running smoothly — and how there’s no room for egos

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Elon Musk could be ‘fun’ — but was also quick to fire people

During his early days at Tesla, Carl Medlock was in a meeting in which someone disagreed with Musk. Medlock, then a territory manager at Tesla, says he never saw the employee again. Musk is “not one for people back talking — he’ll just let you go,” Medlock told the podcast “The Iced Coffee Hour.”

“When Elon stands up at the end of a meeting and says, ‘This is the direction we’re going to go,’ you stand up from your chair, and you better head that direction,” Medlock continued.

He said that despite this, however, Musk could be “fun” if you were on his good side and “for a guy who wasn’t from the car industry, he asked some very good questions” of Medlock during his final interview for the role.

Medlock said he never saw his boss socialize or joke around with employees.

“He’d talk to you if he needed to talk to you, but he didn’t just go BS with people at all,” Medlock said. Even in meetings, he added, Musk didn’t waste time chatting and got straight to the point.

Read more: Elon Musk was a ‘fun’ boss but fired people on the spot if they disagreed with him, former Tesla manager says

• Hackers backed by North Korea have stolen $3 billion of crypto in five years. 
• They use a variety of elaborate schemes, including posing as employment recruiters, to get access to sensitive info. 
• The stolen crypto is funding 50% of the dictatorship’s ballistic missile program, WSJ reported. 

Hackers employed by North Korea have stolen a massive of sum of cryptocurrency in the last five years, using a range of clever tactics to dupe their targets. 

The dictatorship has amassed a trove of about $3 billion of crypto in recent years. Among its biggest wins was 2021’s Axie Infinity hack, which saw North Korean crypto thieves make off with $600 million from players of the platform’s digital pets game. 

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that the hack was pulled off by someone posing as a recruiter, who contacted an employee of Axie Infinity parent Sky Mavis. The hacker shared a document with the potential recruit, which was loaded with malware that enabled access to the candidate’s computer. 

The scheme is just one example of how North Korea is becoming more sophisticated in how it targets and executes these hacks, which are helping it fund its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program. According to the Journal, stolen crypto accounts for 50% of the funding for the country’s missile program. 

The hackers in recent years have also posed as IT employees and government officials. They’ve masqueraded as Japanese blockchain developers and Canadian IT workers, representing what the Journal calls a “shadow workforce” that can sometimes pay people up to $300,000 a year. 

In some cases, the hackers will even try to get hired by the firms they’re targeting, using Westerners to sit through the interviews. Once employed, they will make small changes to products that allow them to be hacked.

Overall, North Korea’s hacks have been getting more and more advanced, and their scams more difficult to detect, with one source telling the Journal that companies are locked in an “arms race” with the criminals. 

• The US Army and Navy are facing a severe recruitment shortfall.
• US military recruiters are targeting immigrants to fill their ranks, offering a path to citizenship.
• As part of its marketing, the US military is relying on current recruits with immigrant backgrounds.

When Esmita Spudes Bidari was a young girl in Nepal, she dreamed of being in the military, but that wasn’t a real option in her country.

Last week, she raised her right hand and took the oath to join the U.S. Army Reserves, thanks in part to a recruiter in Dallas who also is Nepalese and reached out to her through an online group.

Bidari, who heads to basic training in August, is just the latest in a growing number of legal migrants enlisting in the U.S. military as it more aggressively seeks out immigrants, offering a fast track to citizenship to those who sign up.

Struggling to overcome recruiting shortfalls, the Army and the Air Force have bolstered their marketing to entice legal residents to enlist, putting out pamphlets, working social media and broadening their outreach, particularly in inner cities. One key element is the use of recruiters with similar backgrounds to these potential recruits.

“It is one thing to hear about the military from locals here, but it is something else when it’s from your fellow brother, from the country you’re from,” said Bidari, who was contacted by Army Staff Sgt. Kalden Lama, the Dallas recruiter, on a Facebook group that helps Nepalese people in America connect with one another. “That brother was in the group and he was recruiting and he told me about the military.”

The military has had success in recruiting legal immigrants, particularly among those seeking a job, education benefits and training as well as a quick route to becoming an American citizen. But they also require additional security screening and more help filling out forms, particularly those who are less proficient in English.

Both the Army and the Air Force say they will not meet their recruiting goals this year, and the Navy also expects to fall short. Pulling more from the legal immigrant population may not provide large numbers, but any small boosts will help. The Marine Corp is the only service on pace to meet its goal.

The shortfalls have led to a wide range of new recruiting programs, ad campaigns and other incentives to help the services compete with often higher-paying, less risky jobs in the private sector. Defense leaders say young people are less familiar with the military, are drawn more to corporate jobs that provide similar education and other benefits, and want to avoid the risk of injury and death that service in defense of the United States could bring. In addition, they say that little more than 20% meet the physical, mental and character requirements to join.

“We have large populations of legal U.S. residents who are exceptionally patriotic, they’re exceptionally grateful for the opportunities that this country has provided,” said Air Force Maj. Gen. Ed Thomas, head of the service’s recruiting command.

The biggest challenges have been identifying geographic pockets of immigrant populations, finding ways to reach them and helping any of those interested navigate the complex military recruiting applications and procedures.

Last October, the Army reestablished a program for legal permanent residents to apply for accelerated naturalization once they get to basic training. Recruiters began to reach out on social media, using short videos in various languages to target the top 10 countries that recruits had come from during the previous year.

The Air Force effort began this year, and the first group of 14 graduated from basic training and were sworn in as new citizens in April. They included recruits from Cameroon, Jamaica, Kenya, the Philippines, Russia and South Africa. As of mid-May there were about 100 in basic training who had begun the citizenship process and about 40 who had completed it.

Thomas said the program required changes to Air Force policy, coordination with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and a careful screening process to ensure there are no security risks.

“We have to take exceptional measures to be able to thoroughly vet and go through the security clearance investigation,” he said, adding that in many cases the immigrants are not immediately put in jobs that require top secret clearance.

Under the new program, recruits are quickly enrolled in the citizenship system and when they start basic training, an expedited process kicks off, including all required paperwork and testing. By the time Air Force recruits finish their seven weeks of training, the process is complete and they are sworn in as American citizens.

The first group of 14 included several who are seeking various medical jobs, while another wants to be an air transportation specialist. Thomas said Airman 1st Class Natalia Laziuk, 31, emigrated from Russia nine years ago, has dreamed of being a U.S. citizen since she was 11, and learned about the military by watching American movies and television.

“Talking to this young airman, she essentially said, ‘I just wanted to be useful to my country,’” he said. “And that’s a story that we see played over and over and over again. I’ve talked to a number of these folks around the country. They’re hungry to serve.”

For Bidari, who arrived in the U.S. in 2016 to attend college, the fast track to citizenship was important because it will make it easier for her to travel and bring her parents to the United States to visit. Speaking in a call from Chicago just a day after she was sworn in, she said she enlisted for six years and hopes that her future citizenship will help her become an officer.

In Chicago earlier this year, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth heard from a number of recruiters about the increased outreach to immigrant communities and how it helped them meet their numbers. In the 2022 budget year, they said, the Chicago recruiting battalion enlisted 70 legal permanent residents and already this year they have enlisted 62.

More broadly across the Army, close to 2,900 enlisted during the first half of this budget year, compared with about 2,200 during the same period the previous year. The largest numbers are from Jamaica, with 384, followed by Mexico, the Philippines and Haiti, but many are from Nepal, Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Colombia and the Dominican Republic.

“As a little girl, looking at the soldiers, I always had admiration for them,” said Bidari, recalling British troops in Nepal. “Yesterday, when I was able to take that oath … I don’t think I have words to really explain how I was feeling. When they said, ‘Welcome future soldier,’ I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is happening.’”

• An angler caught a 9-foot-long “monster” catfish in an Italian river after a 40-minute battle.
• The enormous wels catfish is likely “world record” breaking in length.
• But Alessandro Biancardi did not want to “stress” the rare specimen by weighing it, he said. 

A huge wels catfish reeled in by an angler in an Italian river is believed to be the largest ever caught in a river.

It is likely a “world record” breaking in length, coming in at 9.3 feet long, but the fisherman chose not to also weigh the “monster” to see if it was the heaviest catfish ever for fear of harming it.

The gigantic fish was caught by life-long Alessandro Biancardi late last month in the Po River in northern Italy.

“When we measured the fish on the mat. Under the incredulous eyes of many anglers, the meter stopped at 285 centimeters. It was the new world record catfish,” Biancardi wrote on his fishing team’s Madcat’s blog. 

Madcat creates and sells fishing equipment in Europe and supports anglers who catch large fish.

Describing the battle to land the amazing creature, Biancardi wrote on Madcat’s website, “I calmly managed to fight what I felt to be a prehistoric fish.”  

“In silence, I approached the first spot, and after a few casts, a powerful bite arose. The fish stood still some seconds before starting a very complicated fight.”

After “40 endless minutes,” Biancardi realized when the fish finally surfaced, he had “hooked a monster,” he wrote, saying it almost caused him to panic that he was “alone facing the biggest catfish I had ever seen in 23 years .”

However, Biancardi said he never imagined it would likely be the longest catfish ever caught. 

Ten people witnessed the official measuring of the fish on a mat, Madcat said, and documentation was sent to qualify for the International Game Fish Association catch-and-release length record. 

This fish will beat the International Game Fish Association’s current wels catfish length record by 1.57 inches if confirmed by the association. 

The current all-tackle record for a wels catfish for weight is 297 pounds and nine ounces caught in the River Po in 2010, USA Today reported. The heaviest catfish ever recorded was a Mekong giant catfish that weighed 646 pounds in Thailand. 

Even so, the fishermen let the beast go without weighing it, saying he “feared to stress” the rare specimen. 

“I decided to safely release it, hoping it could give another angler the same joy he gave to me,” he said.

• CNN obtained a transcript of a recording of Donald Trump talking about a classified document he kept after leaving the White House.
• “Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this. This was done by the military and given to me.” 
• Trump was discussing a classified Pentagon document about attacking Iran, per CNN.

CNN on Friday reported that it has a transcript of a recording of former President Donald Trump in 2021 discussing a secret military document that he’d kept after leaving office. “Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” Trump actually said on the recording. “This was done by the military and given to me.” 

Trump was discussing a classified Pentagon document about attacking Iran, according to CNN. 

Based on the transcript, Trump may have kept the document and shown it to an associate as a sort of insurance policy against anyone who might cross or criticize him. In this case, the antagonist was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, whose concerns about Trump attacking Iran had just been revealed in a New Yorker story.

“Well, with Milley – uh, let me see that, I’ll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack Iran. Isn’t that amazing? I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him,” Trump said, according to the transcript. “They presented me this – this is off the record, but – they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him. We looked at some. This was him. This wasn’t done by me, this was him.”

Trump was indicted by the Department of Justice Thursday night on seven counts related to his mishandling of classified documents. It’s his second time being indicted this year. Both facing federal charges and being indicted twice are historic firsts for a former president. 

Our experts answer readers’ credit card questions and write unbiased product reviews (here’s how we assess credit cards). In some cases, we receive a commission from our partners; however, our opinions are our own. Terms apply to offers listed on this page.

• Four Marriott credit cards are offering elevated welcome bonuses for a limited time. They’re among the best we’ve ever seen.
• You can earn up to 200,000 Marriott points, but to unlock the most points you’ll need to stay six nights at Marriott Bonvoy properties.
• These are good offers if you have paid stays coming up at Marriott hotels anyway.
• Read Insider’s guide to the best hotel credit cards.

If Marriott is your hotel chain of choice, you have a great opportunity to stock up on points for future award stays. Four Marriott credit cards from American Express and Chase are offering up to 200,000 points for a limited time, and these offers have a unique twist that’s extra valuable for folks who have paid Marriott stays coming up.

Here’s what you can earn:

• Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card: 150,000 Marriott Bonvoy bonus points after spending $6,000 in purchases on the card within the first six months and earn 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy bonus points after you stay 6 eligible paid nights at hotels participating in Marriott Bonvoy through 1/31/24 (offer ends 8/9/23) ($650 annual fee)
• Marriott Bonvoy Bevy™ American Express® Card: 125,000 Marriott Bonvoy points after spending $5,000 in purchases on your new card within the first six months and earn 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy bonus points after you stay 6 eligible paid nights at hotels participating in Marriott Bonvoy through 1/31/24 (offer ends 8/9/2023) ($250 annual fee)
• Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card
  : 75,000 bonus points after you spend $3,000 on eligible purchases in the first six months of account opening plus 50,000 bonus points after you stay 6 eligible paid nights at hotels participating in Marriott Bonvoy® through 1/31/24 ($95 annual fee)
• Marriott Bonvoy Bold® Credit Card
  : 50,000 bonus points after you spend $1,000 on eligible purchases in the first six months of account opening plus 50,000 bonus points after you stay 6 eligible paid nights at hotels participating in Marriott Bonvoy® through 1/31/24 ($0 annual fee)

While we’ve seen a few higher offers in the past, these come pretty close — but only if you can unlock the full bonus by staying six eligible paid nights at participating Marriott Bonvoy hotels by January 31, 2024.

Here’s what to know about each card to help you decide if it’s worth applying for a new Marriott credit card.

We’re focused here on the rewards and perks that come with each card. These cards won’t be worth it if you’re paying interest or late fees. When using a credit card, it’s important to pay your balance in full each month, make payments on time, and only spend what you can afford to pay.

Marriott Credit Card Offers: Earn up to 200,000 Points

Two of these cards (the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card and Marriott Bonvoy Bevy™ American Express® Card) are from American Express, and two (the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card and Marriott Bonvoy Bold® Credit Card) are issued by Chase.

These offers are only available for a limited time, but have slightly different end dates. The American Express Marriott card offers end on August 9, 2023, but on the Chase Marriott cards, the end date is August 10, 2023. Be sure to apply before those dates if you’re interested in any of these offers.

There are some rules to keep in mind if you plan to take advantage of the six-night stay requirement to earn the full bonus on any of these cards:

• The earning period for the six nights is from your card open date until January 31, 2024, and you’ll automatically registered in this 50,000-point promotional offer
• Eligible paid nights include all paid stays, including pre-paid stays and bookings paid with Marriott eGiftCards that are booked using the eligible cardmember’s Marriott Bonvoy account
• Award nights including Cash + Points awards, free night awards, or a points redemption don’t qualify, nor do stays booked through third-party online retailers and travel agencies, or stays at Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy, Marriott Executive Apartments, and owner-occupied weeks at Marriott Vacation Club, Marriott Grand Residence Club, Sheraton Vacation Club, Westin Vacation Club, The Ritz-Carlton Club, St. Regis Residence Club, and Luxury Collection Residence Club
• Only one room at one property per night will count toward the promotional offer
• The six eligible paid nights don’t need to be part of the same stay; they can be achieved over multiple stays
• You’ll receive the 50,000 bonus points in your Marriott Bonvoy account up to 12 weeks after the sixth eligible paid night is completed

Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant: Earn up to 200,000 points

The Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card is the best choice for folks who stay with Marriott a lot — if you’re just an occasional traveler, you’ll likely do better with other Marriott cards. Because it’s a premium credit card, it’s got a hefty $650 annual fee.

The impressive welcome bonus of 150,000 Marriott Bonvoy bonus points after spending $6,000 in purchases on the card within the first six months and earn 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy bonus points after you stay 6 eligible paid nights at hotels participating in Marriott Bonvoy through 1/31/24 (offer ends 8/9/23) is worth around $1,400 according to Insider’s estimate of Marriott points value. Plus, the card earns Marriott points in some great categories:

• 6 points per dollar at participating Marriott Bonvoy hotels (this is in addition to up to 10x points for being a Marriott Bonvoy member and up to 2.5x points for having Gold elite status from the card)
• 3x points on dining at US restaurants (including takeout and delivery)
• 3x points on flights purchased directly from airlines
• 2 points per dollar on all other eligible purchases

Although the card’s annual fee is high, it’s quite easy to offset that cost by maximizing the card’s vast range of benefits. These include: 

Here’s our Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Amex card review for all the details.

Marriott Bonvoy Bevy: Earn up to 175,000 points

The $250-annual-fee Marriott Bonvoy Bevy™ American Express® Card is one of the newest additions to Marriott’s card lineup. It’s offering 125,000 Marriott Bonvoy points after spending $5,000 in purchases on your new card within the first six months and earn 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy bonus points after you stay 6 eligible paid nights at hotels participating in Marriott Bonvoy through 1/31/24 (offer ends 8/9/2023), which is worth around $1,225 in stays based on Insider’s points and miles valuations.

Most recently, it was offering 85,000 points after meeting minimum spending requirements, so this offer is a definite improvement. That said, the card’s $250 annual fee might be offputting for some, especially considering the card doesn’t come with an automatic award night on each anniversary like the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card and Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card.

That said, if you want to earn Marriott points quickly from your everyday spending, this card is a solid option. Cardholders earn 6x points on hotel purchases at participating Marriott Bonvoy locations, 4x at restaurants globally and at U.S. supermarkets on the first $15,000 in combined purchases per year (then 2x), and 2 points per dollar on everything else.

You’ll also get substantial benefits from this card, including:

• Automatic Marriott Bonvoy Gold elite status
• 1,000 points per eligible stay
• 15 elite night credits each calendar year
• Free night award at hotels that cost up to 50,000 points after spending $15,000 in a calendar year
• Secondary car rental insurance
• Baggage insurance plan
• Trip delay insurance
• Purchase protection
• Extended warranty
• Global Assist Hotline
• No foreign transaction fees

Read our Marriott Bonvoy Bevy credit card review to learn more.

Marriott Bonvoy Boundless: Earn up to 125,000 points

The Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card is Marriott’s mid-tier card, with a $95 annual fee. The offer to earn 75,000 bonus points after you spend $3,000 on eligible purchases in the first six months of account opening plus 50,000 bonus points after you stay 6 eligible paid nights at hotels participating in Marriott Bonvoy® through 1/31/24 is good (worth around $875 in stays). But past offers to earn three or even five free night awards (worth up to 50,000 points each) after meeting minimum spending requirements were potentially more valuable.

This is the overall best Marriott card for most travelers. Cardholders receive a valuable array of benefits, the most notable of which is a free night certificate worth up to 35,000 points each card anniversary. That perk alone is more than enough to justify paying the annual fee.

It also comes with impressive travel and shopping perks, including:

• 15 elite night credits each calendar year
• One elite night credit for every $5,000 spent on the card
• Automatic Marriott Bonvoy Silver elite status
• Car rental insurance (secondary in the US, primary car rental insurance otherwise)
• Lost luggage reimbursement
• Trip delay insurance
• Baggage delay insurance
• Purchase protection
• Extended warranty
• Travel and emergency assistance services
• Visa Signature concierge
• Complimentary one-year DoorDash DashPass membership (activate by December 31, 2024)
• $10 per month in Gopuff credits through December 31, 2023
• No foreign transaction fees

The Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card is also a good pick if you want to earn Marriott points on your everyday spending, because it earns 6x bonus points on eligible purchases at participating Marriott Bonvoy hotels (on top of what you’d normally earn from your stay), 3x points at grocery stores, gas stations, and on dining (on up to $6,000 in combined purchases per year), and 2x points on all other eligible purchases.

Here’s our Marriott Bonvoy Boundless credit card review for a deeper dive into the card’s benefits.

Marriott Bonvoy Bold: Earn up to 100,000 points

The Marriott Bonvoy Bold® Credit Card charges a $0 annual fee, so as you might expect, it comes with fewer benefits than other Marriott cards. Right now it’s offering 50,000 bonus points after you spend $1,000 on eligible purchases in the first six months of account opening plus 50,000 bonus points after you stay 6 eligible paid nights at hotels participating in Marriott Bonvoy® through 1/31/24. That’s worth about $700 in stays according to our valuations.

Most casual travelers will do better opening the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card, but if you don’t care about extra frills (or are totally opposed to paying an annual fee), the Marriott Bonvoy Bold® Credit Card isn’t bad for a no-annual-fee travel credit card.

Normally, the card offers 30,000 points after meeting minimum spending requirements, so this new bonus is more than double the usual offer if you can meet the six-night stay requirement. You won’t get a free anniversary night or as many travel perks, and the card only earns 3x points at participating Marriott Bonvoy hotels (on top of what you’d already earn from a stay), 2x points on other eligible travel purchases, and 1 point per dollar on all other eligible purchases.

As for benefits, cardholders receive a handful of travel protections and other perks, including:

• 15 elite night credits each calendar year (enough for Silver elite status)
• Lost luggage reimbursement
• Baggage delay reimbursement
• Trip delay reimbursement
• Purchase protection
• Visa Signature concierge
• Complimentary one-year DoorDash DashPass membership (activate by December 31, 2024)
• $10 per month in Gopuff credits through December 31, 2023
• No foreign transaction fees

You can find out if this card is right for you in our Marriott Bonvoy Bold credit card review.

Alternatives to Marriott credit cards

If you’re interested in earning Marriott points but don’t want to commit to a Marriott credit card, you have other options. Cards that earn transferable Chase Ultimate Rewards® points, like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve®, or Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card are a good choice if you want flexibility. Marriott is a Chase transfer partner, and moving points from these cards is easy. Just keep in mind that other Chase partners, like United Airlines or Hyatt, will typically get you more value from your points.

Marriott is also an American Express Membership Rewards points transfer partner, so you can transfer points from cards like the American Express® Gold Card
and The Platinum Card® from American Express
at a 1:1 ratio.

For a closer look at making the most of your rewards, read our guide to earning and redeeming Marriott points.

• Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is headed to the southern border on Wednesday.
• He’ll be hosting a roundtable on law enforcement, according to a release from his office. 
• The DeSantis administration sent two flights of migrants from Texas to California.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is headed to the US-Mexico border for the first time as a 2024 presidential candidate. 

The trip comes in the wake of the DeSantis administration acknowledging it orchestrated two planes carrying migrants from El Paso, Texas, to Sacramento, California.

DeSantis has yet to speak publicly about the flights, though he appears ready to do so on Wednesday. He’ll be doing a roundtable with law enforcement in Sierra Vista, Arizona, per a press release from his office. 

The event will occur close to the time former Vice President Mike Pence will announce at a rally in Iowa that he, too, is joining the 2024 contest. 

The immigration policy rollout is consistent with how DeSantis operated as governor. He’ll frequently put shocking developments into motion and then hold scripted announcements that trigger the left while drawing amusement and cheers from the right wing.

Often, he’ll hold TV studio-style roundtables with allies, where he will take on the role of interviewer. He held similar events when calling for harsher anti-defamation laws and when he fanned the flames of COVID vaccine skepticism. 

DeSantis is the second candidate running for the GOP nomination heading to the southern border. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, also running for the nomination, was the first to take a trip to the southern border in Texas in May.

Hard-line positions on illegal immigration tend to be popular with the GOP base, particularly after the Trump administration’s anti-immigration rhetoric and actions. But even Democratic mayors, including in New York City, have complained that their resources are strained by the influx of migrants who’ve arrived in their cities. 

But legal trouble could be ahead for the governor or members of his administration. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California and the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, have floated the idea of pressing “kidnapping charges” against DeSantis by invoking a section of the criminal code that penalizes people who forcibly bring people into “the limits of the state.”

DeSantis is scheduled to go to Sacramento for a fundraiser on June 19, according to the Sacramento Bee. 

• Insider built an org chart showing the most senior executives at BlackRock.
• BlackRock has been priming the next generation of management and making changes at the top.
• Our org chart shows where executives said to be in the running to succeed Fink sit.

BlackRock has made a number of top personnel changes and internal structural shifts in the past year at a time when it is also wrestling with who will take over from Larry Fink, its cofounder and chief executive.

To provide a window into the current power structure, Insider has mapped out the roughly 150 most senior BlackRock executives.

BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world, overseeing $9.1 trillion. The New York firm is run by Fink, the only CEO BlackRock has had since he and seven partners, including president Rob Kapito, founded it in 1988.

Fink is now 70, and the firm has been preparing for his and Kapito’s retirements for years.

Our org chart reflects recent changes to the company’s structure. This month, the firm overhauled its alternative-investments business and made changes to the makeup of its Aladdin business, two core BlackRock offerings. Last year, BlackRock formed a new markets unit led by former human resources chief Manish Mehta and a new global client business led by Mark Wiedman.

The chart also shows where influential, longtime decision-makers sit within the firm and who they oversee, including executives viewed by company insiders as possible Fink successors.

Do you have a story about BlackRock? Reach this reporter at rungarino@insider.com, by encrypted email at rungarino@protonmail.com, or at (646) 768-4711.

• Michelle Checchi, 29, has traveled the world while working remotely since 2019.
• She says her lifestyle is “much more affordable” than she’d expect to have in the US.
• In 2021, over 15 million Americans described themselves as digital nomads, up 112% from 2019.

When Michelle Checchi, 29, left the US in 2019, she planned to be gone for only a few months — as long as it took to drain her savings account.

Today, she’s still traversing the globe, working remotely as a freelance writer and video producer and making $4,000 in the typical month while working 15 to 30 hours per week, bank documents reviewed by Insider showed. 

“Instead of just feeling stuck in my one place of living, I live in an international environment that’s international for me, where I am still a traveler and a visitor,” she said.  

She is among a growing number of digital nomads, or remote workers who travel for weeks, months, or — in Checchi’s case — “for the foreseeable future.” Over 15 million Americans describe themselves as digital nomads, up 42% from 2020 and 112% from 2019, MBO Partners’ 2021 State of Independence study found. Driving this trend is the growing flexibility of remote work, a longing to see the world, and the desire to cut costs.

As of June, over 25 countries had introduced digital-nomad visa programs aimed at luring remote workers and their wallets. The World Population Review said that only two countries — Bermuda and Switzerland — have a higher cost of living than New York City, where Checchi grew up. For her, living abroad has been a budget saver.

Making more money than ever

After graduating in 2015, Checchi enjoyed her job as a local news producer for four years, but she had a persistent desire to “travel and experience freedom,” she said. In September 2019, she sold most of her possessions, drove across the country, and hopped on a one-way flight to Tel Aviv, Israel.

In her first months abroad, Checchi traveled to Cyprus, India, and Nepal, where she tried to stretch out her savings for as long as possible, she said. But after about three months, when it looked like her fun was coming to an end,  Checchi had a “spark of an idea”: What if she found a way to make money working remotely? She began browsing Upwork and other platforms for freelance writing gigs. 

“I was thinking, ‘If I’m going to get a full-time job, it’s going to root me down to one place,’” she said. “I really wanted to create a lifestyle where I could maintain my location independence.”

While she found some work, money was “not good” early on — a few hundred dollars here and there, not enough to put off her return to the US for long. But slowly, her workflow began to grow. After about six months, Checchi was making just as much as she had in her news job — which paid about $50,000 per year — while working about half the hours, not to mention traveling the world as she did so.

She surpassed her old salary a few months later, breaking $10,000 in income some months — including $17,000 this past June when she did on-site video production for a convention. Checchi also has over 68,000 followers on TikTok — where she posts her travel highlights and tips — though she said she only recently began to make “a little bit of money” via social media. Checchi said she used to wonder how digital nomads could possibly afford their lifestyle.

“I was really surprised,” she said. “I was like: ‘Oh, OK. So this can be sustainable.’” 

While she continues to do freelance content writing — “ghostwriting blogs, articles, and web copy” — she’s begun skewing more toward her video-production roots. Although her clients vary, she often films and produces content for companies in the tourism industry — projects that typically pay for her travel.

Checchi said it’s strange to look back at her time as a local news producer, when she felt her skills weren’t transferable anywhere else.

“Now I’m like, ‘Wow, there’s so much that I can do with my skills when you think outside the box a little bit,’ she said. 

The challenges of a nomadic life

When she’s not traveling, Checchi has a home base in Tel Aviv, which she chose in part for its accessibility to both Europe and Asia. While Tel Aviv can be quite an expensive place to live, Checchi pays $871 per month to rent an apartment with a couple. She typically sublets her room when traveling for an extended period. She tends to stay in hostels and Airbnbs, which helps her stick to a monthly housing budget of about $900. That’s a big savings compared to the average June rent of $3,100 for a studio apartment in New York, where she previously lived.

Airfare is her biggest expense, but given that she doesn’t cross the Atlantic Ocean often to see her family, she’s able to travel relatively affordably from place to place. There’s also more competition in Europe’s airline industry compared to in the US, which helps keep her flight prices lower. 

But it hasn’t all been roses. During the pandemic, she had to return to the US and stay with her family in Staten Island, New York, for a time. Aside from that, she said, she doesn’t see her family often — though she’s now making an effort to return to the US every three to four months. These flight costs add up, but she said they were well worth it, and that if need be, she could seek out extra work to offset them. While her best friends are in the US, Checchi has friends “all over the place,” she said, adding that traveling alone has been a “great way to meet new people.”

While she doesn’t think a nomadic lifestyle is for everyone, she has no plans to give it up anytime soon: “I’m living for myself at this point in my life.” 

Story was originally published in July 2022.

• Russian schools are introducing programs promoting the military to encourage support for the Ukraine war.
• Russia asked students to knit socks for soldiers and write poems about military history, NYT reported.
• The all-out effort across 40,000 public schools is reminiscent of Soviet-era propaganda.

As Russia enters its 16th month of war in Ukraine, it appears to be preparing for the long haul.

Across its 40,000 public schools, the Kremlin is now promoting programs and materials that celebrate Russia’s military history — an apparent effort to indoctrinate its schoolchildren to support its invasion of Ukraine, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

Russia is now asking its students to knit socks for Russian soldiers, a seemingly antiquated effort that feels like a throwback to the Soviet era. Students are also writing poems celebrating Russian history and are now supposed to attend a morning assembly where students raise the Russian flag and sing the national anthem, The Times reported. They then spend an hour talking about Russia’s military history.

While the directives are coming from the highest levels of government, the exact programs are mostly left up to individual school administrators, creating a vast diversity of efforts. One school used the role of a sniper to illustrate a math lesson, The Times reported.

The school programs first began when Russia annexed Crimea, a southern peninsula in the Black Sea, in 2014. But Russia has ramped up the efforts as its invasion of Ukraine drags on.

In January, Insider reviewed troves of Russian lesson materials posted online that were preparing children as young as 7 to be ready to die for their country. The overall message seemed to be that Russia was liberating the people of Ukraine.

With Russia stagnant on the battlefield, propaganda steps in

Russia first invaded eastern Ukraine in February 2022. It quickly took large swaths of the country’s eastern territory.

But its advances have stalled more recently. Russian forces became bogged down in their effort to take the  eastern city of Bakhmut. Ukraine made it a point to try and hold the city, pouring resources into the effort. Russia claimed victory over the city earlier this month, but at a steep cost to both sides.

Russia’s military far outmatches Ukraine’s. But much of the Russian military equipment is outdated, and soldiers have complained of equipment shortages. Russia has used decades-old tanks and soldiers have said they are relying on Soviet-era gear.

As setbacks mounted for Russia in Bakhmut, the notorious Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary organization, stepped into the fray. It recruited thousands of Russian prisoners, exchanging their freedom for fighting on the frontlines. The arrival of Wagner in Bakhmut created tensions among the various factions of Russian forces.

Russia is now bracing for an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive.

While its indoctrination program is reminiscent of Soviet-era policies, it is this time more muted, The Times reported.

Experts told the newspaper that this appears to be the result of lessons learned during the Soviet era when propaganda touting the success of Communism stood in stark contrast to the reality many Russians saw in their daily lives.

“They want enthusiasm, but they realize if they push too hard it could galvanize an organized opposition,” Alexandra Arkhipova, a social anthropologist, told The Times. “They do not want people to protest.”