Traffic to Wikipedia, the world’s largest online encyclopedia, naturally ebbs and flows with the rhythms of daily life—rising and falling with the school calendar, the news cycle or even the day of the week—making routine fluctuations unremarkable for a site that draws roughly 15 billion page views a month. But sustained declines tell a different story. Last October, the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that oversees Wikipedia, disclosed that human traffic to the site had fallen 8 percent in recent months as a growing number of users turned to A.I. search engines and chatbots for answers.

“I don’t think that we’ve seen something like this happen in the last seven to eight years or so,” Marshall Miller, senior director of product at the Wikimedia Foundation, told Observer.

Launched on Jan. 15, 2001, Wikipedia turns 25 today. This milestone comes at a pivotal point for the online encyclopedia, which is straddling a delicate line between fending off existential risks posed by A.I. and avoiding irrelevance as the technology transforms how people find and consume information.

“It’s really this question of long-term sustainability,” Lane Becker, senior director of earned revenue at the Wikimedia Foundation, told Observer. “We’d like to make it at least another 25 years—and ideally much longer.”

While it’s difficult to pinpoint Wikipedia’s recent traffic declines on any single factor, it’s evident that the drop coincides with the emergence of A.I. search features, according to Miller. Chatbots such as ChatGPT and Perplexity often cite and link to Wikipedia, but because the information is already embedded in the A.I.-generated response, users are less likely to click through to the source, depriving the site of page views.

Yet the spread of A.I.-generated content also underscores Wikipedia’s central role in the online information ecosystem. Wikipedia’s vast archive—more than 65 million articles across over 300 languages—plays a prominent role within A.I. tools, with the site’s data scraped by nearly all large language models (LLMs). “Yes, there is a decline in traffic to our sites, but there may well be more people getting Wikipedia knowledge than ever because of how much it’s being distributed through those platforms that are upstream of us,” said Miller.

Surviving in the era of A.I.

Wikipedia must find a way to stay financially and editorially viable as the internet changes. Declining page views not only mean that fewer visitors are likely to donate to the platform, threatening its main source of revenue, but also risk shrinking the community of volunteer editors who sustain it. Fewer contributors would mean slower content growth, ultimately leaving less material for LLMs to draw from.

Metrics that track volunteer participation have already begun to slip, according to Miller. While noting that “it’s hard to parse out all the different reasons that this happens,” he conceded that the Foundation has “reason to believe that declines in page views will lead to declines in volunteer activity.”

To maintain a steady pipeline of contributors, users must first become aware of the platform and understand its collaborative model. That makes proper attribution by A.I. tools essential, Miller said. Beyond simply linking to Wikipedia, surfacing metadata—such as when a page was last updated or how many editors contributed—could spur curiosity and encourage users to engage more deeply with the platform.

Tech companies are becoming aware of the value of keeping Wikipedia relevant. Over the past year, Microsoft, Mistral AI, Perplexity AI, Ecosia, Pleias and ProRata have joined Wikimedia Enterprise, a commercial product that allows corporations to pay for large-scale access and distribution of Wikipedia content. Google and Amazon have long been partners of the platform, which was launched in 2021.

The basic premise is that Wikimedia Enterprise customers can access content from Wikipedia at a higher volume and speed while helping sustain the platform’s mission. “I think there’s a growing understanding on the part of these A.I. companies about the significance of the Wikipedia dataset, both as it currently exists and also its need to exist in the future,” said Becker.

Wikipedia is hardly alone in this shift. News organizations, including CNN, the Associated Press and The New York Times, have struck licensing deals with A.I. companies to supply editorial content in exchange for payment, while infrastructure providers like Cloudflare offer tools that allow websites to charge A.I. crawlers for access. Last month, the licensing nonprofit Creative Commons announced its support of a “pay-to-crawl” approach for managing A.I. bots.

Preparing for an uncertain future

Wikipedia itself is also adapting to a younger generation of internet users. In an effort to make editing Wikipedia more appealing, the platform is working to enhance its mobile edit features, reflecting the fact that younger audiences are far more likely to engage on smartphones than desktop computers.

Younger users’ preference for social video platforms such as YouTube and TikTok has also pushed Wikipedia’s Future Audiences team—a division tasked with expanding readership—to experiment with video. The effort has already paid off, producing viral clips on topics ranging from Wikipedia’s most hotly disputed edits to the courtship dance of the black-footed albatross and Sino-Roman relations. The organization is also exploring a deeper presence on gaming platforms, another major draw for younger users.

Evolving with the times also means integrating A.I. further within the platform. Wikipedia has introduced features such as Edit Check, which offers real-time feedback on whether a proposed edit fits a page, and is developing features like Tone Check to help ensure articles adhere to a neutral point of view.

A.I.-generated content has also begun to seep onto the platform. As of August 2024, roughly 5 percent of newly created English articles on the site were produced with the help of A.I., according to a Princeton study. Seeing this as a problem, Wikipedia introduced a “speedy deletion” policy that allows editors to quickly remove content that shows clear signs of being A.I.-generated. Still, the community remains divided over whether using A.I. for tasks such as drafting articles is inherently problematic, said Miller. “There’s this active debate.”

From streamlining editing to distributing its content ever more widely, Wikipedia is betting that A.I. can ultimately be an ally rather than an adversary. If managed carefully, the technology could help accelerate the encyclopedia’s mission over the next 25 years—as long as it doesn’t bring down the encyclopedia first.

“Our whole thing is knowledge dissemination to anyone that wants it, anywhere that they want it,” said Becker. “If this is how people are going to learn things—and people are learning things and gaining value from the information that our community is able to bring forward—we absolutely want to find a way to be there and support it in ways that align with our values.”

Civilian travel to the Moon remains years away, but a California startup is already making plans to host overnight guests there. GRU Space, founded by 22-year-old entrepreneur Skyler Chan, is taking deposits ranging from $250,000 to $1 million for a lunar hotel that has yet to be built.

“If we solve off-world surface habitation, it’s going to lead to this explosion. We could have billions of human lives maybe born on the Moon and Mars,” Chan told Observer. He founded GRU last year after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, and previously interned at Tesla.

The hotel, which the company expects to open by 2032, will initially consist of an inflatable structure designed to accommodate up to four guests for multi-day stays. Over time, it would evolve into a brick building inspired by San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts. More ambitiously, GRU argues that the project could do more than jump-start space tourism—an industry it sees as essential to sustaining a future lunar ecosystem—and instead lay the groundwork for entire cities beyond Earth.

Chan founded GRU with the goal of building the first permanent structure off Earth. His team includes founding technical staff member Kevin Cannon, a professor at the Colorado School of Mines, and advisor Robert Lillis, who also serves as associate director for planetary science at UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory. The startup has received seed funding from Y Combinator, joined Nvidia’s Inception Program and counts SpaceX and Anduril among its investors.

GRU’s initial target customers include adventurers, repeat spaceflight participants and couples looking to elevate their honeymoon plans. While final pricing has not been set, the company said a stay would likely cost more than $10 million and require a $1,000 non-refundable application fee.

The project’s first milestone is slated for 2029, when GRU plans to launch an initial lunar mission to assess environmental conditions and begin early construction experiments. Two years later, another payload will land near a lunar pit chosen for its protection from radiation and temperatures, with initial hotel development targeted for 2032.

Chan acknowledged that GRU’s timelines are estimates, but argued that bold ambition is necessary to make progress. “We need to really shoot for the literal moon,” he said.

According to Chan, today’s space industry is dominated by two forces: governments and billionaire-backed companies. He hopes space tourism can become a third pillar. “Lunar tourism is the best first wedge to spin up the lunar economy,” he said.

The concept aligns with broader government goals. Lunar tourism has emerged as a focus of U.S. space policy, with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman recently outlining the nation’s plans to construct a permanent base on the Moon by the end of the decade. NASA wants “to have that opportunity to explore and realize the scientific, economic and national security potential on the moon,” he told CNBC last month.

GRU says it is well positioned to contribute to those ambitions, with plans that extend far beyond a single hotel. After completing its lodge, the company plans to build roads, warehouses and other infrastructure—first on the Moon, then on Mars. Eventually, it hopes to reinvest profits into resource utilization systems on the Moon, Mars and asteroids.

“If we’re able to understand how to use resources on the Moon and Mars and beyond, that is going to enable us to not be tethered to Earth, and start being interplanetary,” said Chan. “It’s a Promethean moment.”

Glen Taylor, the founder of printing company Taylor Corp., is the wealthiest person in Minnesota. His roots, however, trace back to humble beginnings on a dairy farm just outside Comfrey, Minn. Now, the 84-year-old billionaire is looking to spread his wealth across his home state—and beyond—through a new $100 million donation aimed at supporting rural communities.

Taylor is transferring farmland and securities valued at nine figures to the Taylor Family Farms Foundation, a philanthropic initiative supporting rural areas in Minnesota and Iowa. “With this latest gift, I can give back for years to come and make a positive impact on the lives of others in a region that I love so much,” said Taylor in a statement.

Taylor currently has an estimated net worth of $3.4 billion, according to Forbes. He is also the owner of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the former majority owner of both the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Minnesota Lynx.

This isn’t the first time Taylor has used his fortune to give back. In 2023, he launched the Taylor Family Farms Foundation with roughly $173 million worth of farmland. The foundation supports three nonprofit partners: the Mankato Area Foundation, Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation and Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation. It also awards grants in Taylor’s key areas of interest, including child care, food insecurity, emergency medical services and outdoor recreation.

Those earlier farmland gifts have already generated millions in income, which the foundation has directed toward a range of community needs. Past donations include $100,000 to fund a new ambulance at Buena Vista Regional Medical Center in Storm Lake, Iowa, $15,000 for firefighter radios at the Storm Lake Fire Department, and $25,000 to help the Pipestone Economic Authority create a child care center in Pipestone, Minn.

Taylor’s latest farmland contributions will not simply be liquidated, but instead used to benefit local residents directly. The farmland will be made available to farmers and rented out, according to the Star Tribune, which noted that Taylor once owned nearly 18,000 acres of farmland across Minnesota and Iowa.

Taylor is not alone in channeling billionaire wealth toward rural communities. Investment banker Byron Trott, who hails from the small town of Union, Mo., last year committed $150 million to a network of universities aimed at boosting enrollment from rural students. This effort has already increased applications by 20 percent. And last December, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated $36 million to rural North Carolina schools like Robeson Community College and Bladen Community College.

For Taylor, the motivation is deeply personal. He credits much of his success to his upbringing in southern Minnesota, where he worked on farms and raised chickens. “The children and families of rural communities will always hold a special place in my heart because I have shared their experiences,” he said. “I can think of no better way to create opportunities for them than by working in partnership with these amazing nonprofit organizations.”

Bill Gates is well known for his unfailing optimism. A tough 2025, however, has put cracks in that trademark outlook. “These days, my optimism comes with footnotes,” the philanthropist wrote in an annual 2026 letter posted to his website, Gates Notes, on Friday (Jan. 9). Much of Gates’ newfound negativity stems from a troubling reversal in global child mortality, an area long central to the work of the Gates Foundation. Over the past 25 years, child deaths have more than halved from 10 million. In 2025, however, the figure climbed to 4.8 million, from the previous year’s 4.6 million—marking the first increase this century.

Gates, who described this reversal as “the thing I am most upset about,” highlighted the issue in his foundation’s annual Goalkeepers Report in December. The report linked the uptick in child deaths to aid cuts from wealthy nations such as the U.S., warning that an additional 12 million more children could die by 2045 if global health funding continues to fall by roughly 20 percent.

Unsurprisingly, restoring aid budgets is one of Gates’ central goals for 2026. While conceding that spending cuts “won’t be reversed overnight,” he described budget growth as “critical” and said he plans to spend much of the year advocating for more global aid by engaging with health care workers, religious groups and community leaders.

Another one of the billionaire’s priorities this year is applying A.I. to advance global solutions and reduce inequality. In climate change, for example, the technology could help provide impoverished farmers with top-tier advice on weather patterns, pricing, crop disease and soil health. The Gates Foundation has pledged $1.4 billion to this area.

A.I. could also improve health care by accelerating both the development and delivery of medical innovations, while education could become more personalized through wider use of the technology. Along with climate, these areas stand to benefit from the “right government focus,” according to Gates. “This year I will spend a lot of time meeting with pioneers all over the world to see which countries are doing the best work so we can spread best practices,” he added.

Yet, even as he touts A.I.’s potential, Gates remains deeply concerned about its risks. Some of its most alarming threats include potential use by bad actors, according to the Microsoft founder, who said that he considers a non-government group using A.I. to design a bioterrorism weapon to be a greater risk today than another pandemic.

Gates also used his annual letter to caution about job disruption tied to A.I.’s rise, especially in software development, warehouse work and phone-based support roles. As the labor impact of the technology intensifies over the next five years, he argued, governments must begin preparing with policies addressing wealth distribution and the evolving role of work in society.

Still, the letter ends on a familiar note of guarded hope. Despite his newly tempered optimism, Gates reaffirmed his belief in humanity’s ability to anticipate challenges, prepare for them and act collectively for the greater good. “As hard as last year was, I don’t believe we will slide back into the Dark Ages,” he wrote. “I believe that, within the next decade, we will not only get the world back on track but enter a new era of unprecedented progress.”

Abercrombie & Fitch is making a comeback from an image crisis and prolonged sales slump under CEO Fran Horowitz. The secret formula is listening to customers. Employees at the retailer regularly accompany shoppers to football games, drinks and even weekend trips to cities like Nashville in order to gather firsthand data on what their clientele is interested in. “We talk a lot in this industry about being close to the customer, but you really have to do it. My team does it better than most,” Horowitz said while speaking at NRF 2026: Retail’s Big Show today (Jan. 12) in New York.

Horowitz joined Abercrombie & Fitch in 2014 as president of the Hollister brand and has served as CEO for nine years. Her tenure has been defined by a sharp reversal of fortune for the once-dominant mall brand, whose sales plunged in the 2010s after years of popularity built around heavy logos and shirtless male models.

Under her leadership, however, Abercrombie & Fitch’s stock has soared by 333 percent in the past five years. That momentum continues to grow. The company’s most recent earnings report marked three consecutive years of quarterly sales growth, with revenue for the August-October period rising by 7 percent year-over-year to $1.3 billion.

One of Horowitz’s first major moves was to clearly differentiate Abercrombie & Fitch from its subsidiary, Hollister. The CEO believed the two brands had blurred into one. “They really had become kind of one, just in two different stores with different price points and different labels,” said Horowitz.

To distinguish the two brands, Horowitz repositioned Hollister squarely toward teenagers while aging up Abercrombie & Fitch to focus on Millennials. The pivot helped the company’s employees better understand and, therefore, target the consumers of each brand. “It was honestly a 180-degree turn,” said the CEO.

Serving customers doesn’t mean telling them what they want, but listening closely to what they say. Often, she noted, the solutions are straightforward. She pointed to the company’s decision to add zippers to its jeans, which had once been dominated by button-flies, after repeated customer feedback. Since the change, the brand has seen “record sales” in denim, according to the CEO.

There’s no clear endpoint to Horowitz’s turnaround. Looking ahead, she plans to adopt A.I.-powered productivity tools and further expand Abercrombie & Fitch’s global business. International markets currently account for about 20 percent of the business, a figure the company aims to grow by investing further in London and Shanghai.

“What I love the most about this industry is that it just continues to evolve and evolve over time,” said Horowitz. “Retail is a journey—there is no finish line.”

When Chris Callison-Burch first started teaching an A.I. course at the University of Pennsylvania in2018, his inaugural class had about 100 students. Seven years later, enrollment has swelled to roughly 400—excluding another 250 students attending remotely and an additional 100 to 200 on the waiting list. The professor now teaches in the largest classroom on campus. If his course grew any bigger, he’d need to move into the school’s sports stadium.

“I would love to think that’s all because I’m a dynamic lecturer,” Callison-Burch told Observer. “But it’s really a testament to the popularity of the field.”

Demand for A.I. courses and degrees has soared across higher education as the technology plays an increasingly central role in daily life and begins to encroach on once-popular fields like computer science. Amid uncertainty about the future of the labor market, students are seeking to prepare for an A.I.-dominated economy by immersing themselves in the field.

Universities have followed suit. Schools like Carnegie Mellon and Purdue University are among a number offering undergraduate or graduate degrees in A.I., a trend expected to accelerate in the coming years. The University of Pennsylvania recently became the first Ivy League school to offer both undergraduate and graduate A.I. programs. Its graduate curriculum includes courses in natural language processing and machine learning, in addition to required classes on technology ethics and the broader legal landscape.

The demand is widespread. The University of Buffalo’s A.I. master’s program enrolled 103 students last year, up from just five in its inaugural 2020 cohort. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, undergraduate enrollment in A.I. has jumped from 37 students in 2022 to more than 300. Miami Dade College has seen a 75 percent increase in enrollment in its A.I. programs since 2022, while its other programs have remained relatively steady aside from a “slight decrease in computer science,” the school told Observer.

Callison-Burch, who also serves as faculty director of Penn’s online A.I. master’s program, has noticed a similar decline. “There’s an interesting trend at the moment where it looks like computer science enrollment is dipping,” he said, pointing to increased A.I.-powered automation across the field. More than 60 percent of undergraduate computing programs saw a decline in employment for the 2025-2026 year compared to the year prior, according to a recent report from the Computing Research Association.

That decline comes as A.I. reshapes some of the professions most exposed to its advances. In fields like coding, early-career workers have already experienced a 13 percent relative decline in employment, according to an August research paper from Stanford.

A.I. leaders’ advice for students

Experts have offered a range of advice as the technology they helped develop begins to reshape the labor market. Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, has advocated for an immersion in A.I. tools, while acclaimed researcher Geoffrey Hinton suggests prospective students focus on a well-rounded education that pairs mathematics and science with liberal arts.

Yann LeCun, Meta’s former chief A.I. scientist, advises young people to become adept at learning itself, as their job is “almost certainly going to change” over time. “My suggestion is to take courses on topics that are fundamental and have a long shelf life,” he told Observer via email, pointing to mathematics, physics and engineering as core areas of focus.

It’s not just students grappling with these shifts. Callison-Burch noted that professors, too, are trying to adapt and determine how best to integrate A.I. into their classrooms. One thing, he said, is certain: the technology will only become more pervasive. That makes it all the more important for young people to familiarize themselves with its tools.

Even so, he acknowledged that predicting how A.I. will reshape the labor market remains extraordinarily difficult, making it hard for students to bet confidently on any one path. “I don’t think there’s an easy way of picking something that’s going to be future-proof, when we can’t yet see that future,” he said.

The founders of Moderna, Canva and Craigslist are among a new wave of ultra-wealthy figures pledging to give away the bulk of their fortunes. The Giving Pledge, a philanthropic campaign that just marked its 15th anniversary, has long attracted billionaires inclined toward large-scale giving, and this year was no exception. In 2025, 14 new signatories joined the pledge, bringing its total membership to nearly 260 and ushering in a new cohort of influential figures shaping global philanthropy.

The Giving Pledge began in 2010 with just 40 signatories, including founders Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Its core commitment encourages members to donate at least half of their wealth over the course of their lifetimes. Over the years, the roster has expanded to include prominent figures such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Steven Schwarzman.

Despite its star power, the initiative’s real-world impact remains a subject of debate. In many cases, the wealth of members has grown faster than their giving, according to a recent report from the Institute for Policy Studies that found the combined wealth of original U.S. members has surged 283 percent over the past 15 years, with much of their philanthropy flowing into private foundations rather than direct charitable giving.

Still, the pledge continues to attract the world’s wealthiest individuals. The philanthropic priorities of this year’s new signees—ranging from cybersecurity and education to mental health and gender equality—feel particularly timely as the nonprofit sector grapples with reduced federal funding and a broader pullback in global aid.

Here’s a look at how the newest signees of the Giving Pledge say they plan to distribute their wealth in the years ahead:

Connie and Bob Lurie

• Source of wealth: commercial real estate 
• Philanthropic interests: health, education and California causes 

Bob Lurie’s fortune is tied to real estate, with his family’s Lurie Co. having at one time owned iconic San Francisco properties like the Mark Hopkins Hotel and Curran Theatre. But he is best known for his one-time ownership of the San Francisco Giants, which he acquired in 1976 to prevent the team from moving to Toronto and sold in 1992. Bob and his wife Connie have since funneled much of their wealth into philanthropy. The couple has focused heavily on early-career scientists through gifts to grantees like the Gladstone Institutes. Last year, they gave seven-figure gifts to California organizations like WeHope, San Jose State University and the Monterey Bay Aquarium through the Connie and Bob Lurie Foundation.

Craig and Eileen Newmark

• Source of wealth: Craigslist
• Philanthropic interests: veterans, cybersecurity, journalism and bird rescue 

Craig Newmark, who founded Craigslist in 1995, has shifted his focus to charity since stepping away from the classified advertisements website in 1995. By signing up for the Giving Pledge, Craig and his wife, Eileen, are doubling down on their donations to causes such as veteran support and cybersecurity. The entrepreneur has also previously funneled his wealth into journalism efforts, such as the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York, and is an avid supporter of pigeon rescues.

Seemay Chou and Jed McCaleb

• Source of wealth: cryptocurrency 
• Philanthropic interests: science and technology 

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that science and technology are at the forefront of Seemay Chou and Jed McCaleb’s philanthropic interests. McCaleb, who has an estimated net worth of $2.9 billion, is the entrepreneur behind cryptocurrency firms such as Mt. Gox, Ripple and Stellar. Meanwhile, Chou co-founded the life sciences company Arcadia Science. The couple’s joint work has included running the A.I.-focused nonprofit Astera Institute and funding areas such as scientific research and digital sentience through their philanthropic vehicle, the Navigation Fund, which is partially funded by GPU rentals to A.I. companies.

Jay and Michaela Hoag

• Source of wealth: technology investments
• Philanthropic interests: health, education and Bay Area causes 

In addition to supporting higher education institutes like Northwestern University and the University of Michigan, Jay Hoag—co-founder of investment firm Technology Crossover Ventures—and his wife Michaela have funneled funds into local Bay Area organizations like Second Harvest of Silicon Valley. One of the couple’s largest passion areas, however, is Alzheimer’s research, with Michaela having helped raise millions to look for a cure.

Lisa and Matt Sonsini

• Source of wealth: real estate
• Philanthropic interests: inequality 

The Giving Pledge is a family affair for Lisa Sonsini, the daughter of real estate billionaire John Sobrato, who first signed up for the campaign alongside his son in 2012. Now Lisa and her husband Matt are joining the pledge in an effort to boost their philanthropic efforts through the Sobrato Family Foundation, which focuses on areas like income inequality, housing and sustainability, and earlier this year promised to dole out more than 25 percent of its $1 billion in assets.

Jim and Anna McKelvey

• Source of wealth: Block
• Philanthropic interests: education, technology and health

Jim McKelvey notably co-founded Block, formerly known as Square, alongside Jack Dorsey in 2009. But the businessman’s interests go beyond fintech—he’s also a supporter of glass blowing and coding-focused career programs. Jim, who has an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion, and his wife Anna additionally partner with a variety of health-focused funds through Alpha Epsilon, their primary philanthropic vehicle.

Xin Liu

• Source of wealth: electronics
• Philanthropic interests: mental health and climate change 

In her Giving Pledge letter, Xin Liu pledged to spend down the Enlight Foundation, a philanthropic organization she founded in 2004, which focuses on supporting and empowering young people. Liu, who is married to Duan Yongping, founder of the BKK Electronics Group, said that her foundation’s primary funding areas going forward will include mental well-being and climate change, which she described as “two of the biggest challenges facing young people today.”

Joseph Deitch

• Source of wealth: financial services
• Philanthropic interests: education and social impact

In the late 1970s, Joseph Deitch co-founded broker-dealer Commonwealth Financial Network. But his interests don’t stop there. Deitch has also ventured into real estate, Broadway producing and philanthropy. Some of his most notable charitable efforts include founding the Deitch Leadership Institute at Boston Latin School and establishing the Elevate Prize Foundation, which annually awards millions of dollars to recognize and support social impact leaders.

Bharat Desai and Neerja Sethi

• Source of wealth: IT consulting 
• Philanthropic interests: education and economic mobility

Bharat Desai and Neerja Sethi are a power couple in IT consulting. The duo, who have an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion, launched Syntel in the 1980s while working from their Michigan apartment. Now, they’re partnering up to join the Giving Pledge and continue their philanthropic support of education, economic mobility and aiding underserved youth through organizations like the Desai Sethi Foundation and Ds Foundation.

Glen Tullman

• Source of wealth: health care 
• Philanthropic interests: health and education

The philanthropic interests of Glen Tullman, CEO of digital health startup Transcarent, remain closely tied to the office. Donations from the executive, who also formerly led health company Livongo, have been primarily channeled into health care thus far, alongside investments in education. His most recent charitable commitment will see Tullman pledge $100 million to boost diabetes research, as announced in his Giving Pledge letter.

Noubar Afeyan and Anna Afeyan Gunnarson

• Source of wealth: biotech
• Philanthropic interests: humanitarian causes, education, science and health

Biotech company Moderna, co-founded by Noubar Afeyan, gained mainstream recognition a few years ago when it developed a COVID-19 vaccine. Afeyan is also the founder of the life sciences-focused venture capital firm Flagship Pioneering and has an estimated net worth of $1.9 billion. Alongside his wife, Anna, the billionaire is now preparing to increase his donations to causes such as science and technology, education and health care. The duo is also a major backer of humanitarian causes through efforts such as the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, which highlights the work of humanitarian leaders worldwide and awards the annual $1 million Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity.

Drew and Erin Houston

• Source of wealth: Dropbox
• Philanthropic interests: science and technology

Drew Houston is the co-founder and CEO of Dropbox, a file-sharing service whose popularity has helped grow his fortune to an estimated $2.1 billion. By becoming members of the Giving Pledge, Drew and his wife Erin are now committed to funneling some of that net worth into areas like STEM research and open-source tech initiatives. The couple’s former philanthropic activity has included supporting the Dropbox Foundation, which was founded in 2018 to support human rights organizations globally.

Cameron Adams and Lisa Miller

• Source of wealth: Canva
• Philanthropic interests: environment

The $3.8 billion fortune of Cameron Adams largely stems from Canva, the software design maker he helped found more than a decade ago. His wife Lisa Miller, meanwhile, leads the Australian couple’s nature-focused investment fund, the Wedgetail Foundation, which primarily supports causes like biodiversity. The environment will remain at the forefront of their philanthropic focuses going forward as Adams and Miller commit to halting and reversing the decline of nature. “Through the Giving Pledge, we are directing the majority of our wealth toward this, because the alternative—inaction on a dying planet—is unacceptable,” said the duo in their pledge letter.

Muna Easa Al Gurg

• Source of wealth: Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group
• Philanthropic interests: gender equality and education

Muna Easa Al Gurg, a businesswoman from Dubai, serves as vice chairperson and director of retail for her family business Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group, a UAE conglomerate. Expect gender equality to be one of the philanthropic areas she supports in the years ahead. In addition to launching a scholarship for female MBA students at London Business School, Al Gurg is a supporter of initiatives like the 30 percent Club, an organization promoting gender balance in leadership roles.

MacKenzie Scott keeps her giving largely out of the public eye—allowing recipients to decide whether to disclose funding amounts, awarding mostly unsolicited grants, and acknowledging her philanthropy only through annual or semi-annual online posts. The one thing that isn’t subtle about her donations? Their size.

Scott gave a staggering $7.2 billion in 2025, the philanthropist revealed in a blog post earlier this month. The annual update brings her total giving over the past six years to more than $26 billion. It also places her just behind fellow billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates in lifetime philanthropic giving.

Scott, whose estimated $30 billion net worth is largely tied to her Amazon stake from her former marriage to Jeff Bezos, pledged in 2019 to donate the bulk of this fortune to charity. If this year’s totals are any indication, she is accelerating toward that goal: her 2025 giving far outpaced the $2.6 billion and $2.1 billion she donated in 2024 and 2023, respectively.

“This dollar total will likely be reported in the news, but any dollar amount is a vanishingly tiny fraction of the personal expressions of care being shared into communities this year,” Scott wrote in her blog post. She pointed to the $471 billion donated to U.S. charities in 2020, nearly a third of which came from gifts under $5,000, as evidence of the power of collective philanthropy.

Of the nearly 200 organizations supported by Scott in 2025, roughly 120 were repeat grantees. The largest single grant went to Forests, People, Climate (FPC), a collaborative charitable effort focused on reversing tropical deforestation, which received $90 million—boosting its total funding to more than $1 billion. “Now is the time for climate philanthropy to take action with vision and courage: to embrace the potential of forests and back the bold leaders best suited to protect them,” said Lindsey Allen, executive director of FPC, in a statement announcing the gift earlier this month.

The second-largest donation went to another environmental organization, Ocean Resilience & Climate Alliance, while a slew of other major gifts flowed toward education. She donated $70 million to both UNCF and Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which support historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and also gave $63 million each to Prairie View A&M University, Morgan State University and Howard University. Other notable education-focused recipients included the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and Native Forward Scholars Fund, which received $70 million and $50 million, respectively.

As a result, education emerged as the largest beneficiary of Scott’s 2025 giving, accounting for 18 percent of the total. Organizations focused on economic security and funding and regranting each received 13 percent, while environmental causes accounted for 12 percent. Additional funding went to groups working in equity and justice, democratic processes, health, and arts and culture.

Besides the sheer scale of her philanthropy, Scott’s approach stands out for its unrestricted nature, giving grantees full control over how funds are used. That flexibility has been widely welcomed, according to a recent study from the Center for Effective Philanthropy, which found that nearly 90 percent of surveyed organizations reported improved long-term financial sustainability as a result of Scott’s donations. The median grant size was $5 million.

Scott has attributed her generosity to the kindness she has received from others. “Whose generosity did I think of every time I made every one of the thousands of gifts I’ve been able to give?” she wrote. “It was the local dentist who offered me free dental work when he saw me securing a broken tooth with denture glue in college. It was the college roommate who found me crying, and acted on her urge to loan me a thousand dollars to keep me from having to drop out in my sophomore year.”

The roommate, Jeannie Tarkenton, later founded Funding U, a lending company offering loans to low-income students without the need for co-signers. Scott has since earmarked funds for the company, she noted in her recent blog post, describing how she “[jumped] at the chance to be one of the people who supported her dreams of supporting students just as she had once supported me.”

Scott’s financial contributions to Funding U will take the form of an investment rather than a donation. Alongside her philanthropic giving, she announced last year that she plans to pursue for-profit investments in “mission-aligned ventures” aimed at addressing challenges such as affordable housing and access to health care.

Elliott Hill, a longtime Nike executive, came out of retirement last year to take the helm of the footwear giant. So far, his turnaround plan is showing progress—at least in most markets. Even as the company posts solid global results, its grip on China continues to weaken.

Hill’s renewed focus on product innovation and a return to Nike’s sporting roots helped the company beat Wall Street expectations on both revenue and profit for the second quarter of fiscal 2026. Total sales reached $12.4 billion for the September-November period, up 1 percent year over year, though net income fell 32 percent to $800 million.

Still, Nike’s stock sank more than 10 percent on Dec. 19 as investors zeroed in on persistent weakness in China. Sales in the region dropped 17 percent to $1.4 billion, marking the sixth consecutive quarter of declining revenue there.

“We see China as a big opportunity,” said Hill during Nike’s earnings call yesterday (Dec. 18). “With that said, it’s clear that we need to reset our approach.”

Nike’s once-dominant sneaker business has stumbled in recent years amid an overreliance on lifestyle franchises. The company needed new leadership to regain momentum in specialized sports categories such as running. Hill, who spent more than three decades at Nike before retiring in 2020, was tapped for the role last October.

Nike’s ‘Win Now’ turnaround plan

Under a reorganization Hill has dubbed “Win Now,” Nike has reshuffled leadership roles to streamline operations and reduce management layers. The strategy centers on reclaiming authority in sports performance by emphasizing products designed for running, basketball and football, while pulling back from oversaturated lifestyle staples such as the Air Force 1 and Dunk.

The approach is already delivering gains, particularly in North America, where sales jumped 9 percent in the most recent quarter to $5.6 billion. “I’d say we’re in the middle innings of our comeback,” said Hill.

China, however, remains a major obstacle. Efforts to roll out “Win Now” initiatives in key cities like Beijing and China—ranging from upgraded in-store presentations to stronger product storytelling—have struggled amid declining foot traffic and elevated levels of aging inventory. “What we’ve done is a start, but it’s not happening at the level or the pace we need to drive wider change,” said Hill.

Looking ahead, Nike plans to tailor its strategy to China’s increasingly digital-first retail environment. As the company ramps up investment in the region, executives also stressed the need to improve store fleets within China’s “monobrand footprint,” where single-brand stores dominate over third-party retailers.

At the same time, Nike is balancing market-specific challenges with the effects of tariffs. The company, which manufactures much of its footwear and apparel in Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia and China, has also been forced to absorb costs and raise prices due to levies on imports. Nike is facing a $1.5 billion tariff hit for the year in what Hill described as a “significant headwind.”

A yearslong saga over the future of TikTok in America is nearing its end. The U.S. division of the popular social media app, which is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, will soon be majority-owned by a coalition of U.S. investors that includes Oracle.

The agreement was detailed in an internal memo from TikTok CEO Shou Chew, first reported by Axios. Oracle, alongside private equity firm Silver Lake and the Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX, will own 45 percent of TikTok’s U.S. operations. ByteDance will retain a stake just below 20 percent, and affiliates of existing ByteDance investors will own the remaining roughly one-third.

MGX did not respond to requests for comment from Observer. Oracle and Silver Lake declined to comment.

The development follows years of concern over ByteDance’s access to data on U.S. citizens, an estimated 170 million of whom use TikTok. Efforts to either ban the app in the U.S. or force a sale to American owners began last year under the Biden administration, with deadlines later extended multiple times by President Donald Trump.

The terms of TikTok’s new deal appear to closely mirror a framework laid out by the White House in September to place the company’s U.S. division in domestic hands. Under that proposal, Oracle would be responsible for recreating TikTok’s algorithm by retraining a new version for the U.S. market and protecting American user data in a secure cloud. At the time, Trump said Chinese President  Xi Jinping had expressed approval of the plans.

Oracle will play a similar role in TikTok’s new agreement, which is expected to close on Jan. 22. The American owners of the division will oversee “retraining the content commendation algorithm on U.S. user data to ensure the content feed is freed from outside manipulation,” according to the Chew’s memo, which also notes that Oracle will serve as a “trusted security partner” upon the deal’s completion.

Austin-based Oracle, co-founded by billionaire Larry Ellison, has emerged as the winner among a crowded group of U.S. players—including MrBeast and Perplexity AI—bidding for ownership of TikTok. The deal is set to further deepen ties between TikTok and the tech company, which already helps the platform store U.S. user data. Oracle’s shares are up by more than 7 percent today (Dec. 19).

The new deal is expected to value TikTok at approximately $14 billion, according to Axios. After it closes, TikTok’s U.S. operations “will operate as an independent entity with authority over U.S. data protection, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurance,” the memo said, while “TikTok global’s U.S. entities will manage global product interoperability and certain commercial activities, including e-commerce, advertising and marketing.” The U.S. venture will be governed by a seven-member, majority-American board.

The agreement, which is still pending approval from Chinese regulators, would resolve a longstanding point of contention between Washington and Beijing. Not all lawmakers, however, are convinced that it goes far enough to safeguard national security or protect the data of U.S. citizens.

“This deal won’t do a thing to protect the privacy of American users,” said Senator Rob Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, in a statement.”It’s unclear that it will even put TikTok’s algorithm in safer hands.”

A blockbuster IPO from an under-the-radar health care company is reviving hopes for a strong year of stock offerings. Medline, a medical supplier, raised nearly $6.3 billion earlier this week in the largest IPO this year and the largest since Rivian’s public debut in 2021. The company’s stock jumped 41 percent after opening at $35 on Nasdaq on Wednesday (Dec. 17). “The huge demand for Medline’s IPO in the last week is a strong market to end the year with,” Sam Kerr, head of global ECM at Mergermarket, told Observer in a statement.

So far this year, 204 traditional U.S. IPOs have raised more than $46.5 billion, according to Dealogic data, signaling a rebound after years of slowdown driven by macroeconomic uncertainty and the pull of private capital. The total already surpasses the $31.7 billion raised in 2024 and makes 2025 the strongest year for U.S. IPOs since the peak in 2021.

Founded in 1966 and based in Northfield, Ill., Medline supplies hospitals with medical and surgical products. The company, which bills itself as “one of health care’s best-kept secrets, was acquired for $34 billion in 2021 by Blackstone, Carlyle and Hellman & Friedman.

The IPO market has remained resilient this year despite challenges, including the longest-ever U.S. government shutdown and shifting tariff policies. That momentum could accelerate in 2026, with several high-profile listings on the horizon. Elon Musk’s SpaceX is reportedly eyeing an IPO as soon as 2026 that could raise more than $30 billion, potentially making it the largest public offering in history.

A.I. darling Anthropic is also said to be weighing a public debut in 2026, possibly racing rival OpenAI to the public markets. An IPO from either company “would likely lead to an A.I. frenzy” and mark “the stock market event of the year,” according to a recent market outlook report from XTB.

Optimism isn’t limited to the U.S. Investors are also watching potential international listings from companies such as Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein and Australian software firm Canva, XTB said.

That confidence is supported by a broader global rebound in IPO activity. IPOs worldwide raised $151 billion in 2025 so far, according to Dealogic, nearly matching the record $154 billion raised in 2022 and marking the strongest year since.

A recent pullback in Big Tech stocks could further boost interest in diversified companies like Medline, said Kerr. “This could increase demand for listing outside the U.S., like Europe, where there are several investment themes playing to investor demand,” he added, pointing to defense as a particularly promising area, with the expected listings of French-German tank maker KNDS and Czech defense manufacturer CGS, as a particularly promising area.

“After a strong 2025, market participants are confident of an even better 2026,” said Kerr.

The U.S. government’s “Trump accounts” have quickly attracted billionaire backers. Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio is the latest wealthy figure to support the initiative, pledging roughly $75 million to seed 300,000 accounts in his home state of Connecticut. His grant will add an extra $250 to accounts in Connecticut zip codes where the median income is $150,000 or less.

The savings accounts, set to launch next July for children with a U.S. Social Security number, were introduced earlier this year as part of Trump’s tax bill. Babies born between 2025 and 2028 will automatically receive a $1,000 deposit from the U.S. Treasury Department. All children under the age of 18 are eligible to open an account.

The government is encouraging parents, philanthropists and local governments to contribute to the tax-advantaged accounts, which can be invested in stock market index funds and later convert into traditional IRAs when recipients turn 18. Funds can eventually be used for expenses such as education, job training and buying a first home.

Dalio, whose net worth is estimated at $15.4 billion, praised the accounts as a tool for building financial literacy among children. “These Trump Accounts are great not just because they put money into stocks for these young people but also because they draw their attention toward how finance, stocks, companies and capitalism work to improve society and can work for them,” he wrote in a post on X yesterday (Dec. 17).

His announcement mirrors a similar contribution from Michael Dell and his wife, Susan. Earlier this month, the couple unveiled a $6.25 million donation that will place $250 into the Trump accounts of 25 million children aged ten and under who aren’t eligible for the Treasury’s seed deposit.

The Dalios and the Dells have collaborated philanthropically before. In 2020, the Dalios purchased 60,000 Dell laptops to support virtual education during the Covid pandemic. Dalio’s broader charitable efforts also include more than $7 million in contributions to Dalio Philanthropies, his family foundation, as well as roughly $280 million donated to nonprofits in Connecticut.

The Dalios’ support for Trump accounts also ties into a new component of the initiative known as the “50 State Challenge” which aims to encourage philanthropists to expand funding in their local communities. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the program during a press conference yesterday. “Ray has made the first move, but we welcome other donors and foundations in Connecticut and across the country to join him,” Bessent said, adding that 20 state governments are also in talks about supplementing the accounts.

The government has also launched trumpaccounts.gov, a website dedicated to the initiative that highlights “additional support” from at least eight companies nationwide. In most cases, corporate participation has taken the form of matching government contributions, with companies such as Dell, BNY and BlackRock pledging to supplement the Treasury’s $1,000 deposits for their employees’ children.

Not every billionaire, however, is convinced. While calling the accounts a “nice gesture,” Elon Musk took to X yesterday to describe the initiative as unnecessary in light of A.I.’s economic potential.

“There will be no poverty in the future and so no need to save money. There will be universal high income,” Musk wrote, echoing a Silicon Valley belief that technology-driven productivity gains will eventually provide people with steady, recurring payouts.

Seeing the 2026 World Cup in person will be extremely expensive. Tickets for early matches currently range from about $140 to more than $2,700, while the cheapest seat for the final is priced at $4,185. The soccer fan network Football Supporters Europe (FSE) estimates that fans traveling from Europe will spend at least $6,900 to follow their team all the way to the final—nearly five times what it cost during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Those prices are also a far cry from the $21 seats promised by organizers in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. in a 2018 bid document.

After facing backlash over these exorbitant prices, FIFA announced this week that it plans to cap a small portion of seats at $60, but those tickets will make up just 1.6 percent of the total. The move has done little to calm frustrated fans. It is “nothing more than an appeasement tactic,” FSE said in a post on X.

Still, it’s better than nothing. “We take it as a win, but a largely symbolic one,” Ronan Evain, executive director of FSE, told Observer.

How will the $60 seats work?

The $60 tickets will be distributed through the individual soccer associations of participating countries and will be available for all 104 matches of next summer’s World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the U.S.—including the final. Those associations, which are allocated 8 percent of all World Cup tickets, will set aside 10 percent of that allotment for the new low-cost tier.

Each country will decide how to distribute the discounted seats to its most loyal fans. About half of the associations are expected to rely on existing loyalty systems, where supporters earn points for attending home and away matches and backing youth and women’s teams, Evain said. Others may distribute tickets through supporter groups or a lottery.

FIFA, for its part, has defended its pricing by pointing to a variable strategy that adjusts costs “based on a review of demand and availability for each match.”  The governing body also said interest remains strong, noting that 20 million ticket requests have been submitted since the latest sales draw opened on Dec. 11.

Accessible seats not immune to price surges

Fans have also taken issue with the rising cost of accessible tickets for those with disabilities. World Cup tickets are typically divided into four price categories based on seat location. But so far, accessible seats have been restricted to categories one through three. That effectively locks fans with disabilities out of the most affordable tier—a reversal from previous tournaments, FSE said in a letter to FIFA on Dec. 16.

The group also criticized FIFA’s decision to charge for companion tickets, noting that many fans with disabilities cannot attend matches alone. The most affordable options for a combined accessible ticket and companion ticket in the group stage are estimated to run between $280 and $900. In Qatar, by contrast, accessible tickets cost 10 euros (about $12) and included a free companion seat.

“This is clearly the sign of an organization that has lost its mind,” said Evain, who has yet to receive an official response from FIFA on accessible tickets. “I don’t know if it’s an oversight or if it’s pure evil, but it shouldn’t exist.”

For Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, there’s little doubt that parts of the A.I. industry are in a bubble. The harder question, he says, is figuring out which areas are fueled by hype and which truly have the potential to be transformative.

“There are parts of the A.I. ecosystem that are probably in bubbles,” Hassabis said during a recent episode of Google DeepMind: The Podcast. He pointed to the soaring valuations of nascent startups as a particular red flag, noting that companies landing “tens of billions of dollars valuations just out of the gate” are probably not sustainable.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Hassabis doesn’t put DeepMind, co-founded by him in 2010 and still led by him following Alphabet’s 2014 acquisition, in this category. When it comes to investment from Big Tech, he said, “there’s a lot of real business underlying that.” A.I., in his view, is “overhyped in the short term and still underappreciated in the medium to long term.”

Hassabis’ confidence is rooted in firsthand experience, particularly in science. Last year, he won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on AlphaFold, an A.I. system that predicts protein structures. He also leads Isomorphic Labs, an Alphabet subsidiary focused on applying A.I. drug discovery.

Still, Hassabis is clear-eyed about how far the technology has to go, especially when it comes to advanced milestones like AGI. Today’s systems can deliver Ph.D.-level performance in some areas, even earning honors like gold medals from the International Mathematical Olympiad, while still making basic errors. Closing those inconsistencies is essential, he said. “We’ve got to close those gaps.”

Beyond pushing toward human-level intelligence, Google DeepMind is focused on building so-called world models—systems that understand not just language, but the physical world itself. Through products like its Genie systems, the lab is working on A.I. that can grasp how objects move and interact. That kind of physical understanding, Hassabis said, is crucial for advances in robotics and universal assistants.

World models could also reshape gaming, a longtime passion of the Google DeepMind CEO. Hassabis began his career as a video game programmer, later founding Elixir Studios, a games development company, and serving as lead A.I. programmer at Lionhead Studios. Physical A.I., he suggested, could one day enable “the ultimate game—which of course, was maybe always my subconscious plan.”

Today, Hassabis is one of a small group of leaders shaping the future of A.I. He describes himself as friendly “with pretty much all of them,” referring to fellow tech executives—a level of harmony that isn’t universal in the field. “Some of the others don’t get on with each other.”

Those cordial relationships don’t erase the competitive pressure. Google is racing alongside competitors like OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic to achieve AGI, a contest that has unleashed a wave of investment reminiscent of the dot-com boom. “It’s hard, because we’re also in the most ferocious capitalist competition there’s ever been.”

Company perks can range from commuter benefits and free meals to on-site gyms and pet insurance. At Ken Griffin’s Citadel and Citadel Securities, they also include a program that encourages employees to join nonprofit boards, backed by personal gifts from Griffin himself. The initiative provides nonprofits with checks of up to $20,000 when Citadel employees take on board roles, as first reported by Bloomberg. Griffin’s funding helps cover board donations and is paired with additional resources, including governance training and nonprofit matching.

“Our people are driven to make a difference,” said Julia Quinn, Citadel’s director of philanthropy, in a statement to Observer. “By empowering employees to engage more deeply in their communities and giving them the tools and resources to do it well, we are developing the next generation of civic leaders and strengthening organizations and communities over the long term.”

Citadel’s Community Leaders program, launched last year, has already attracted more than 350 sign-ups and is expanding beyond the U.S. to Citadel’s global offices. To date, Griffin has committed more than $10 million to support the effort.

While the program is designed to encourage employees to deepen their civic and philanthropic engagement, it also addresses a persistent challenge for nonprofits: recruiting active, fundraising board members. More than 70 percent of nonprofit leaders say they struggle to get board members to participate in fundraising, according to a 2024 report from NonProfit PRO.

The initiative adds to Griffin’s long track record of philanthropy. The Citadel founder, whose net worth is estimated at $50.5 billion, has donated more than $2 billion over the past few decades to causes spanning education and medicine. His largest gifts include $500 million pledged to Harvard University, a joint $400 million donation to Memorial Sloan Kettering alongside fellow billionaire David Geffen, and $15 million to the National Constitution Center, a museum dedicated to the U.S. Constitution.

The charitable interests of Citadel employees span universities and local community organizations focused on health, the arts, and anti-poverty efforts. Nonprofits that have benefited from the Community Leaders program include Mount Sinai, the New York Piano Society, Serpentine Galleries, Minds Matter NYC, Lotus House and Harlem Lacrosse.

Griffin’s direct financial involvement makes the program relatively unusual, but Citadel is not alone in using workplace perks to spur philanthropy. Other corporations have rolled out benefits to support employees’ nonprofit involvement.

Microsoft and Apple, for example, match employee donations up to $15,000 and $10,000, respectively. Both companies pledge $25 for every hour an employee volunteers. Chevron allows staff to apply for $500 grants for every 20 volunteer hours served, in addition to offering a matching-gifts program.

Chai Discovery, a San Francisco-based startup backed by OpenAI, is the latest drug discovery company to benefit from a flurry of investments at the intersection of health care and A.I. In its latest funding round, the company raised $130 million to accelerate the development of new drugs. The Series B round, announced today (Dec. 15), was co-led by Oak HC/FT and General Catalyst. It brings Chai Discovery’s total funding to more than $225 million and more than doubles its valuation to $1.3 billion.

Other participants included OpenAI, Thrive Capital and Menlo Ventures. Yosemite, the oncology-focused venture firm founded by Steve Jobs’ only son, Reed Jobs, also joined the round, along with Emerson Collective, the investment firm led by Laurene Powell Jobs.

Founded in 2024, Chai Discovery is led by CEO Josh Meier, a computer scientist who formerly worked at Facebook (now Meta) and OpenAI. The company aims to use A.I. to turn biology from a descriptive science into an engineering discipline. Chai released its latest model, Chai-2, which can design novel antibodies to target disease.

Chai Discovery plans to deploy the new capital to expand its commercialization efforts while accelerating research and product development. “We’re in awe of the rate of progress on the models—what looked like five-year problems just months ago are now getting solved in weeks,” Meier said in a statement.

Chai Discovery is one of a growing number of drug discovery startups drawing intense interest from Silicon Valley. As enthusiasm builds around A.I.’s potential in health care, prominent tech leaders are backing ventures at a rapid clip. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has invested in Formation Bio, while LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman launched his own drug discovery startup earlier this year, Manas.

Among the most well-funded companies in the space is Isomorphic Labs, an Alphabet subsidiary spun out of Google DeepMind in 2021. Led by Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, the company raised $600 million in March in its first external funding round. The capital is aimed at advancing its ambition to use A.I. to help cure many of the world’s diseases.

That optimism has been matched by a surge in investment. Venture funding for seed- through growth-stage A.I.-powered health tech companies has reached $10.7 billion this year, according to data from Crunchbase, representing a more than 24 percent increase compared to the $8.6 billion raised in all of 2024.

Meier is confident the spending will pay off. “We’re standing on the precipice of a new era for the biopharmaceutical industry,” he said, adding that A.I. models “will unleash a new wave of first-in-class and best-in-class therapeutics, and the early adopters in pharma will be the big winners.”

The integration of A.I. into the workforce has fueled widespread fears of job displacement, as workers across industries worry their roles could eventually be replaced by the technology, but those concerns have done little to slow its adoption in U.S. offices. The share of American workers using A.I. “a few times a year” reached 45 percent in the third quarter of 2025, up from 40 percent in the prior three-month period, according to a Gallup survey of more than 23,000 employed U.S. adults.

Employees who use A.I. are  also turning to it more frequently. The proportion using the technology a few times a week or more rose from 19 percent to 23 percent over the same period, while daily use increased from 8 percent to 10 percent.

Adoption varies significantly by industry. A.I. is most prevalent in knowledge-based roles, Gallup found, with more than three-quarters of workers in technology and information systems using it a few times a year or more. More than half of those in finance and professional services reported similar usage.

Meanwhile, rates fall sharply among frontline workers. Just 38 percent of manufacturing employees, 37 percent of health care workers and 33 percent of retail workers said they use A.I. on a regular basis.

The sectors adopting A.I. the fastest are also those facing the greatest labor risks. Earlier this year, Stanford researchers found that early-career workers aged 22 to 25 saw a 13 percent decline in jobs for roles most exposed to the technology, such as coding and customer service, while employment in occupations like nursing remained steady.

The most common use of workplace A.I. is consolidating information or generating ideas, according to the Gallup survey, with more than 40 percent of respondents citing those applications. Other frequent uses include learning new things, automating basic tasks, identifying problems and interacting with customers.

Chatbots are by far the most popular A.I. tool in the U.S. workforce, with more than 60 percent of workers naming them as their primary option. A.I. writing and editing tools came in second at 36 percent, followed by coding assistants and image, video and audio generators.

Despite growing individual use, many employees remain unclear about their employers’ A.I. strategies. Around 23 percent of surveyed workers said they don’t know how their companies are implementing A.I. This group represents nearly half of the employees who are already using A.I. several times a year, suggesting many are adopting A.I. tools without clear insight into their employers’ broader plans.

Lululemon is searching for a new leader as it navigates an increasingly crowded athleisure market, tariffs and renewed criticisms from its founder. Calvin McDonald, the company’s longtime CEO, will step down next year, the company announced yesterday (Dec. 11) along with its latest quarterly earnings release.

Shares of the Canadian retailer, down 44 percent this year, jumped by more than 10 percent today following the news and a stronger-than-expected earnings report for the August-October period. Lululemon beat analyst estimates on both revenue and profit, with sales rising 7 percent year-over-year to $2.6 billion, while net income fell 13 percent to $307 million.

“The timing is right for a change,” McDonald said during Lululemon’s earnings call. He will exit at the end of January and stay on as an advisor through March as the board begins its search for his successor.

In the interim, CFO Meghan Frank and Chief Commercial Officer André Maestrini will serve as co-CEOs, while chairwoman Marti Morfitt will assume an expanded role as executive chair.

McDonald took the helm at Lululemon in 2018 after leading Sephora’s Americas division. Under his leadership, Lululemon more than tripled its annual revenue, but in recent months, growth has slowed amid intensifying competition from activewear brands like Alo Yoga and Vuori.

The company expects sluggish sales to continue into the holiday season. It forecast net revenue of $3.5 billion to $3.58 billion for the final three months of 2025, below Wall Street expectations.

Tariffs cost Lulumen $210 million in 2025

Lululemon is also grappling with the effects of President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff policy and the termination of the ‘de minimis’ exemption, which previously allowed for goods valued under $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free. Lululemon said it expects tariffs to cut its profit by $210 million for the year, with this figure rising to $320 million in 2026.

McDonald’s tenure was defined in part by a rapid global expansion that pushed Lululemon into more than 30 geographies and made China its second-largest market. But sales in its largest market, the U.S., have begun to slip. American revenue fell 2 percent last quarter, compared to a 33 percent jump in international sales.

Looking ahead, the next CEO will be tasked with executing a three-part turnaround plan focused on product creation, improving in-store and online experiences and boosting enterprise efficiency. “We believe these priorities position us well for the near term and will continue to set Lululemon up for long-term sustainable growth,” he told analysts.

McDonald’s departure comes after renewed public criticism from founder Chip Wilson, who launched Lululemon in 1998. In October, Wilson bought a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal accusing the CEO and board of presiding over a “loss of cool,” comparing the company’s trajectory to “a plane crash.” Wilson resigned as the retailer’s chairman in 2013 after making controversial comments about customers’ bodies.

Wilson escalated his critique today. “I am deeply concerned about what appears to be a tremendous failure by the board to competently plan for the future and manage an effective succession process,” Wilson said, denouncing the board as one that has failed “to deliver product innovation and instead has led with complacency.”

Justin McLeod, the founder and CEO of Hinge, tore his company down a decade ago and rebuilt it after realizing the dating app was engineered for engagement rather than genuine connection. Now, ten years later, McLeod says he’s had another revelation—but instead of overhauling Hinge, he’s channeling it into an entirely new venture.

McLeod’s next venture, an A.I.-powered dating company called Overture, will prompt his immediate departure as Hinge’s CEO. He will be replaced by Jackie Jantos, the company’s current president and chief marketing officer.

McLeod acknowledged that technological developments risk harming relationships as users increasingly turn to chatbots instead of human companionship. “A.I. should always stand behind us, not between us,” he said in a blog post announcing Overture. His new company aims to use the technology to create something “less like a social platform” and “more like the experience of working with an all-star personal matchmaker.”

McLeod and a small team within Hinge have been building the project for about a year. The standalone company has support from Match Group, Hinge’s parent company, which participated in Overture’s pre-seed financing, plans to lead its initial funding round early next year and will hold a substantial ownership stake. Match Group CEO Spencer Rascoff will also join Overture’s board.

“We’re proud to have incubated Overtone within Hinge and to now lead its funding round as he builds his next venture,” said Rascoff in a statement. “With a strong foundation and leadership team in place, Hinge is poised for its next chapter under Jackie’s leadership.”

Hinge gets a new leader

Jantos, who formerly worked at Spotify and Coca-Cola, joined Hinge in 2021 and has served as president since March. Her tenure has been marked by Gen Z-focused initiatives like “No Ordinary Love,” a campaign highlighting successful Hinge couples through ads, a Substack and a zine.

As she assumes the CEO role, Jantos will oversee Hinge’s ongoing integration of A.I. The company has rolled out numerous features that use the technology to boost personalization and improve safety. Earlier this week, Hinge introduced a new A.I. tool designed to help users start conversations with each other.

Despite industry-wide challenges in online dating, Hinge continues to grow. Match Group, which also owns Tinder and OkCupid, reported a 5 percent year-over-year decline in paying users in its most recent quarter. But Hinge remains a standout, with paying users up 17 percent.

Hinge will be advised by McLeod through March to ensure a smooth transition. “The company’s momentum, including being on track to reach $1 billion in revenue by 2027, gives me full confidence in where Hinge is headed,” McLeod said, calling his work building the platform “the privilege of my life.”

If Doug McMillon’s reign at Walmart was defined by digitalization, the retail giant’s next chapter under incoming CEO John Furner is set to be dominated by A.I. “When you see somebody who’s ready to run the next lap better and faster than you are, it’s time to hand the baton and get out of the way,” McMillon, who will step down early next year, said on CNBC’s Squawk Box yesterday (Dec. 9) after the company moved its stock listing from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq to align itself with the tech-heavy index.

“Walmart’s changed a lot, and we’re trying to make sure everyone knows it,” said McMillon.

McMillon joined Walmart more than 40 years ago and has served as CEO for roughly a decade. His tenure has been marked by a sweeping e-commerce transformation and major internal investments in wages and development programs. Walmart’s shares increased more than 300 percent during his leadership. Still, the executive insists he simply got lucky. “I drew an ace off the deck.”

The outgoing CEO said he realized it was time to step aside after recognizing that commerce’s next phase will be agentic. “I could start this next big set of transformations with A.I., but I couldn’t finish it,” said McMillon.

Those transformations aim to overhaul the shopping experience with A.I. at the core. Walmart plans to replace its traditional app and website with A.I.-native platforms that are personalized and filled with multimedia content that, in some cases, could even resemble TikTok, according to McMillon. Early pieces of that strategy are emerging in Sparky, Walmart’s A.I. assistant, which offers custom recommendations, compares options and synthesizes customer reviews.

As he steps into the role, Furner will inherit a company that has expanded its e-commerce muscle enough to compete effectively with Amazon. In its most recent earnings report, Walmart beat expectations on both sales and profit, posting a 4.8 percent year-over-year revenue increase to $180 billion.

Much of that growth stems from Walmart’s broad appeal across income groups. Once seen primarily as a haven for bargain hunters, the retailer has recently drawn more affluent shoppers as even wealthier households look for deals in a strained economy. Its core middle- and lower-income customers remain a steady force, though inflation has created “pressure at the bottom end,” McMillon noted, pointing to rising grocery prices as a particularly “sticky problem.”

As for McMillon’s next chapter, he hasn’t settled on a plan yet. He said that it will likely involve some combination of business and philanthropy. For now, though, he’s looking forward to a “blank calendar” for the foreseeable future.