Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. There are many ways to acknowledge your company’s standout workers, but what about giving them a Porsche? How about an all-expenses paid trip? Check out how this company rewards its top employees every year.
On the agenda today:
But first: What it’s like to work over 80.
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This week’s dispatch
Jason Henry, Laura Thompson, Lanna Apisukh, Matt Martian Williams, Brittany Greeson, Cassidy Araiza, Alyssa Schukar, Bridget Bennett, Tim Gruber, Michael J. Fiedler for BI
The older Americans still in the workforce
I’m fascinated by Americans over 80 who are still working — either because they want to, have to, or both.
Older workers long past retirement age are the fastest-growing sector of the US labor market. They’re twice as likely to be in the workforce now as they were in the early 1990s.
For the past year, Business Insider has explored why this cohort is growing. What’s driving it? And what are the repercussions?
My colleague Noah Sheidlower traveled to nine states and spoke to nearly 200 people over 80 years old for this project. He interviewed a range of folks: bookkeepers and lawyers, forklift drivers and Home Depot employees, Uber drivers and substitute teachers, among many others.
Some pieces are heartbreaking: “I’m worried every night when I go to bed that what I have isn’t going to last until I die,” Patricia Willson, a 93-year-old job seeker with a fractured back, told Noah. “For God’s sake, I should have saved every penny I could save.”
Others are inspiring: “As long as I’m physically able to get up, get dressed, and go to work, I’m going to continue that,” says Bill Miller, 82, who works as a real-estate broker and part-time as a forklift driver in North Carolina.
The commonality in all of them is the thought, care, and attention to detail that Noah brings to the subject. “As a 24-year-old journalist wanting to cover these older workers, I heard, ‘You won’t understand’ or ‘You’re too young,’” Noah writes. “The more I wrote, the more people I found who would speak candidly — because someone was finally listening.”
We’ve published more than 20 stories and a documentary on what it really means to keep working past 80 in this economy.
Drop me an email and let me know what you think of the coverage at [email protected].
Bryan Johnson’s long, strange mushroom trip
Magdalena Wosinska
Thousands of people across X, YouTube, and Instagram spent last Sunday watching the longevity influencer and centimillionaire take magic mushrooms on a livestream “for science.” BI’s Zak Jason tuned in to the five-and-a-half-hour production “for journalism.”
Zak watched as Johnson shared how he felt like a newborn baby while peeing, extolled the virtues of longevity science, and was joined by his father, his son, Grimes, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, and other business leaders, all while fearing his grip on reality may now be lost.
“We like you even more on shrooms.”
Millennials have a serious stuff problem
Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI
Yes, there is the baby boomer stuff avalanche, but they’re not the only generation accumulating useless items they can’t get rid of. Gen X, millennials, and Gen Zers are leaving their parents drowning in yearbooks, prom dresses, and Little League trophies.
Many of these storage freeloaders have their own lives and don’t have the time or energy to whittle down their items. Plus, when something lives at your dad’s house, it’s easy to pretend it’s not your problem — even though it very much is.
It’s not just boomers.
Also read:
Salesforce Agentforce
Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
How committed is Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff to AI? He might change his company’s entire name to acknowledge the focus on tech.
The tech giant has rebranded several of its products under the Agentforce name, a nod to its huge bet on AI agents. When BI’s Ashley Stewart asked Benioff if he’d consider changing the entire company’s name, he didn’t shy away from the idea.
“That would not shock me,” Benioff told Ashley.
New name for a new game.
Also read:
Netflix’s not-so-sure thing
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Netflix rocked the entertainment world when it emerged as the winner in the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery. The $72 billion offer would give the king of streaming control of HBO and the iconic Warner Bros. movie and TV studio.
Or will it?
BI’s Peter Kafka unpacks how the deal needs regulatory approval, which is no guarantee. And it’s especially more complicated considering the people behind one of the competing bids, Larry and David Ellison, have close ties to President Donald Trump.
Netflix and chill (until you get regulatory approval).
Also read:
This week’s quote:
“I used to be naive and filled with excitement to work for a tech company, but since the layoff, I just see it as a resource to fund my life.”
— Brittney Ball, a 36-year-old who is struggling to find work after getting laid off from Meta as a “low-performer.”
Timothy Wolfer
The Americans over 80 still working to pay the bills
Four older Americans share why they’re still working. Their stories reveal what it really means to keep going past 80 in an economy with little safety net.
More of this week’s top reads:
- Citi dropped its 2025 managing director class — we have the full list of 276 new MDs.
- Harvey’s $8 billion question: How much money does it actually save lawyers?
- Exclusive: Millennium suffered big losses in one of the $81 billion hedge fund’s favorite strategies last month.
- Economists run a secret prediction game each year. When ChatGPT took part, here’s what happened.
- The wannabe real estate moguls going bust.
- A Hall of Fame quarterback-turned-CEO explains why he interviews everyone he works with — and the red flag he looks for.
- A Ferrari and over 480 takeout orders: FBI details spending spree of Netflix director in $11 million fraud case.
- The number of billionaires is on the rise — and they are richer than ever thanks to AI.
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A 30-year-old lawyer quit Big Law. Days later, she had a term sheet to raise $2.5 million for an AI law firm.
The BI Today team: Steve Russolillo, chief news editor, in New York. Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Akin Oyedele, deputy editor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in New York. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York.