Good morning. Baby boomers’ hopes for a comfortable retirement could be at risk if the stock market keeps falling. Financial experts shared key strategies with BI to help protect their savings.
In today’s big story, female executives are fed up with alpha male CEOs acting like “billionaire boys in the sandbox.” Now, they’re fighting back.
What’s on deck
Markets: Faith-based investing is having a moment. (And we don’t mean confidence.)
Tech: Cybersecurity researchers are role-playing with ChatGPT.
Business: The rich are taking to the skies for their commutes — Ubers be damned.
But first, deprogramming the bro-code.
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The big story
Female executives are fed up
Lately, boardrooms are brimming with the bro-ish bravado you’d expect to find in a locker room.
A buff Mark Zuckerberg wants Meta to celebrate a culture of “aggression.” He also likes martial arts and butchering his own meat. 200 push-ups while wearing a weighted vest? No problem.
Jeff Bezos (also now buff) laid down the hammer at The Washington Post, demanding editors give him a “hell yes” to affirm they’re all in on “personal liberties and free markets.”
Let’s not forget Elon Musk, who over the last several years, has been challenging anyone from Zuckerberg to Vladimir Putin to single combat.
Not in the least surprised by all this chest-thumping: women in business.
The return of the alpha male CEO has engendered a new opponent, BI’s Amanda Hoover writes. Female executives are fed up with the “billionaire boys in the sandbox,” as one sociologist put it — and instead of waiting to be let in, some are building their own arenas.
Fabrik founder Jaclyn Pascocello told BI that she is seeing a collective of women coming together and starting to build companies to address issues sometimes ignored by men.
When companies won’t offer the flexibility that working parents need, it can embolden people to become more entrepreneurial and build under their own terms. “Oftentimes the easiest way to find that is to build it yourself,” Pascocello said.
Amanda spoke with female founders, psychologists, and sociologists about the resurgent machoism in corporate America — and how female executives are fighting back.
3 things in markets
1. Praying for returns? Look no further than religious ETFs. Faith-based investments are a small part of the ETF world, but rising religious fervor and President Trump’s leadership are driving interest. However, these funds can be picky about what to include.
2. President Trump could be making the same mistake as Biden. Trump’s economic policies have some worried about a potential recession, and the stock market has taken a hit. With the 2026 midterms not far off, Trump risks political damage by continuing to ignore the elephant in the room.
3. Has bitcoin already peaked this year? Betting markets seem to think so. They expect the cryptocurrency to reach $110,000, barely above its record price. Wall Street bulls beg to differ.
3 things in tech
1. Jensen made a joke, but who’s laughing? At Nvidia’s big AI conference, CEO Jensen Huang joked that new Blackwell GPUs would render the company’s older chip models obsolete. Its cloud giant customers might not find that very funny, though, since it would cost them billions.
2. You can get ChatGPT to make password-stealing malware. Just play pretend. Researchers cracked some LLMs’ security features to generate code that could breach Google’s password manager. The key? Make the chatbot pretend to be a superhero.
3. A former Point72 exec’s new data startup wants to level the playing field. Kirk McKeown’s Carbon Arc allows small funds and businesses to purchase private data by the megabyte — sometimes for less than $1. The startup’s goal is to make it more accessible for anyone looking to trade or feed AI models.
3 things in business
1. Out: Ubering. In: Blading. The wealthy are ditching hired cars for helicopter services like Blade, where a nine-minute ride from Manhattan to JFK airport starts at $95. When a rush-hour Uber in the city can cost more than $100, that sounds like a deal.
2. Law firms split over Trump’s attack. Elias Law Group rebuked Trump’s Friday memo that warned firms against “frivolous” suits against his administration. Marc Elias said in a statement on Saturday that there would be “no negotiation” about the clients his firm represents. Meanwhile, after Paul Weiss struck a deal with Trump on Friday, its chairman, Brad Karp, sent an email to staff addressing their unease over the decision.
3. Freebies for federal workers. DC businesses are offering perks like free workout classes and financial planning sessions to federal employees as they navigate the uncertainty around their jobs. BI heard from five businesses on why they’re stepping up.
In other news
What’s happening today
- Supreme Court hears Louisiana gerrymandering case.
- Census Bureau releases quarterly financial reports for retail trade, manufacturing, mining, wholesale trade, and selected service industries.
- NATO Dynamic Mariner exercise held in Spain.
The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York (on parental leave). Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York. Ella Hopkins, associate editor, in London. Elizabeth Casolo, fellow, in Chicago.
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