The Bureau of Labor Statistics published new consumer price index data last Wednesday, showing the inflation rate held steady at 2.4% in February as expected. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, also held steady at 2.5%.
However, that report was based on data mainly gathered before the start of the Iran war, which could heat up inflation and jeopardize progress toward the 2% goal. Economists expect to see the effects of the oil shock from the Iran war as soon as the next report.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics published new consumer price index data last Wednesday, showing the inflation rate held steady at 2.4% in February as expected. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, also held steady at 2.5%.
However, that report was based on data mainly gathered before the start of the Iran war, which could heat up inflation and jeopardize progress toward the 2% goal. Economists expect to see the effects of the oil shock from the Iran war as soon as the next report.
Oil prices remain elevated as the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed off. Gas prices are up from a month ago, and there are other factors affecting what consumers pay at the pump, such as higher demand in the spring.
Alexandra Wilson-Elizondo, global co-chief investment officer of multi-asset solutions at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, said February data “was collected before the conflict in Iran sent crude oil surging roughly 30%, with natural gas, aluminum, fertilizer, freight rates, and shipping insurance moving higher with it.”
“The Strait of Hormuz remains the wildcard, and if disruption is sustained, the inflation improvement embedded in today’s print could reverse quickly,” Wilson-Elizondo said in commentary following the CPI report.
Sure, ChatGPT could help a board member write up a memo ahead of a meeting. But OpenAI’s chairman says there’s value to going old-school.
Bret Taylor, OpenAI’s board chair, said in a recent appearance on the “Uncapped with Jack Altman” podcast that he prefers concise but detailed written documents from board members over slide presentations. And he doesn’t want them relying on AI.
“I really like written documents for boards over presentations,” Taylor said. “You end up letting people synthesize information ahead of the board meeting, so you end up with more substantive discussions in the board room.”
Taylor, the former co-CEO of Salesforce and cofounder of AI startup Sierra, said that writing without AI is a worthwhile thinking exercise and helps board members clarify their thoughts.
His expectation for the boards he runs is that members have read the written material ahead of time, which helps keep things focused and substantive during the actual meeting.
“The main thing is it’s been read — and it’s been read ahead of time,” he said. “You end up with a meeting about the actual meat and potatoes of the topics, and you’re not staring at a bunch of sales numbers for the first time.”
Amazon cofounder Jeff Bezos is famously a big fan of meetings focused on a single memo prepared ahead time, but while Bezos preferred dense, 6-page memos, Taylor specifically favors concise material, arguing that brevity is a sign of careful thought — and respect to stakeholders.
“It’s like what’s that famous line — if I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter,” he added. “Like, spend the time because that’s actually how you can show respect to your stakeholders that you’re thinking about the strategic issues going on in your business.”
And while Taylor might not be a fan of leaning on AI for board meeting prep, that doesn’t mean he is dismissing the technology’s potential to be valuable in high-stakes situations.
“If you want a hot take, I think my intuition is regulators will start asking for agents,” he said. “The idea that you have a human set of controls over a regulated process will start to feel like a risk, rather than the risk being AI.”
Applause broke out during an Oklahoma man’s speech at a city council meeting on Tuesday to discuss a proposed data center. A minute later, shouts of disbelief rang out across the room.
“Disgusting!” one woman shouted as Claremore Police Department officers handcuffed and escorted Daniel Blanchard out of the room.
Authorities said they arrested Blanchard, whose speech exceeded the three-minute time limit, for trespassing.
Over 100 people, including Blanchard, had gathered in a ballroom at Rogers State University in Claremore to voice their opinions about the large data center project. The developer, Beale Infrastructure, is proposing a campus in the Claremore Industrial Park that includes data centers, supporting infrastructure, and office space.
Blanchard was among the residents who opted to speak during the public comment portion, which limits each person to three minutes. In his speech, Blanchard spoke about what he considered compliance issues related to the potential data centers.
“The Claremore Industrial Economic Development Authority has a fiduciary responsibility to the public, not to build infrastructure. And this act of overreach is putting the health and safety of members of this community at risk,” he said.
AI is driving a data center construction boom across the United States. While companies like OpenAI argue that building new data centers will reindustrialize the US economyand create jobs, residents of towns where developers are proposing new data centers worry about their impact on power grids, water resources, pollution, and overall quality of life.
In an investigation published in September, Business Insider reported that over 1,200 data centers had already been built or were approved for construction across the country.
The proposed data center in Claremore, a suburban hub of Tulsa home to about 20,000 people, has divided the town. During the three-hour meeting on Tuesday evening, dozens of residents spoke both in favor and against the project.
Blanchard exceeded his three minutes by about 30 seconds before police officers approached him. He gathered his notes and calmly followed the officers to the front of the hall, where town officials were sitting.
In a video of the meeting posted by the town on its YouTube channel, Blanchard appears to hand his notes to a council member. At that point, police arrested Blanchard, placing him in handcuffs. The crowd hollered in shock.
In a statement, the Claremore Police Department said officers aren’t responsible for enforcing city council rules and only become involved in city council meetings when an official orders them to remove an individual.
“The man’s position on the issues, what he said, or his unwillingness to follow rules of the meeting played no part in the officer’s decision to arrest him,” the statement said. “He was arrested for trespassing in compliance with the law and with the hope of restoring order to an important meeting.”
A local politician fighting the data center project posted to X on Wednesday that Blanchard has been released from jail. The next council meeting is scheduled for March 2.
Jake Paul was a firebrand YouTuber. Then he was an NFT merchant, and a betting site operator. Now, Paul is a professional boxer — and venture capitalist. And he’s learning from one of the biggest names in tech.
On “Sourcery,” Paul said that he met OpenAI CEO Sam Altman while sitting next to each other at President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
“Sam likes fast cars, and so do I,” Paul said. “So, we just started talking about cars, and then we got along, and that was really it.”
Paul’s Anti Fund — which is also led by his brother Logan and longtime founder Geoffrey Woo — invested in OpenAI in 2025. The biggest lesson he’s learned from Altman is efficiency, Paul said.
He described the quick-and-tidy meetings that Altman runs. The OpenAI CEO “walks into the room, sits down, let’s get right into the conversation, boom boom boom,” he said.
In 15 minutes alone, Altman was “hella productive,” Paul said. Then, Altman can go on to his next meeting and do it all over again.
“We’ll do hourlong meetings or calls and just waste time,” Paul said. “I think that was inspiring because time is the most valuable thing, and it’s the only reason you can’t accomplish more.”
Indeed, Altman has long opted for the 15-minute meeting. In a 2018 blog post, he wrote that the ideal meeting time is either around 15 to 20 minutes or 2 hours, but “the default of 1 hour is usually wrong.”
Paul has worked closely with OpenAI in the last year, beyond participating in fundraising.
Remember all of those strange Paul memes running around the internet during the Sora 2 launch? They were by design. Paul said he helped consult on the project and was one of the first to sign over his name, image, and likeness.
Woo also appeared on the podcast, and spelled out the thinking behind those far-out memes (such as an AI Paul declaring he was gay). “It was not something that was like, ‘Hey, Jake Paul is now gay.’ Jake was thoughtful in terms of why we were part of that launch.”
Woo also said that he had formed a good friendship with Altman and Mark Chen, OpenAI’s chief research officer.
For the Sora 2 launch, Paul said that he had “regular calls” with OpenAI and offered “super detailed consulting.”
“Me and my brother have however many years combined of social media experience since the beginning,” Paul said. “We were there when the term ‘influencer’ was even made up.”
This background, Paul said, helped him give good advice on what OpenAI’s social media-like interface should look like. He advised on both what creators and audiences wanted, he said.
Anti Fund closed its $30 million fund in September. Other investments include defense tech startup Anduril and prediction market Polymarket.
Woo said their ties to OpenAI remain strong. “We were just at OpenAI for three hours looking for other ways to collaborate,” he said. “Things might be cooking.”
New US Army warfighting software is speeding up and simplifying the command job, a commander said recently, sharing that it lets him scrap the “hourlong staff meetings” to make decisions.
The Army, like other services, believes that future wars will be determined by the speed of decision-making. That’s where the new Next Generation Command and Control, or NGC2, program is expected to make a substantial impact and modernize how the service fights.
At Fort Carson, Colorado, the Army’s 4th Infantry Division has been testing NGC2 in a series of exercises. The most recent one, Ivy Sting 4, added more components to the system, with different types of sensors and weapons on the battlefield feeding into one system that everyone can access.
“So it’s all in one place, and it’s there very, very quickly, so that the staff can see it across their functional systems,” said Maj. Gen. Patrick Ellis, commander of the 4th ID, at a recent media roundtable, explaining that “the fires person can see what the logistician sees, can see what the intel person sees.”
“I don’t have to have the hourlong staff meeting anymore,” the general said.
Every time Chris publishes a story, you’ll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Stay connected to Chris and get more of their work as it publishes.
The Army’s new NGC2 system is predicting supply needs and simulating enemy actions.
US Army photo by Pfc. Thomas Nguyen
“If we’re actually using the technology as the tool that we’re prepping on and that we’re also fighting on,” he said, “I could sit there, I can look at it, I can make decisions, I can say, ‘Hey, here are my priorities for this or that.’ We all agree on it, we click save, and that’s done.”
The Army has facilitatedthe development of NGC2 with both the 4th ID and 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii and industry teams, including Anduril and Lockheed Martin, pursuing a Silicon Valley-style approach aimed at moving faster and rapidly integrating soldier feedback, delivering fixes immediately rather than months or years later.
On the heels of Ivy Sting 4, more than two weeks of field testing that involved live-fire exercises and an electronic warfare jamming scenario, Ellis and others said that NGC2 was making planning and executing battlefield missions more effective.
“We are no longer fighting with the network; we are now fighting using the network,” Ellis said.
During the Ivy Sting 4 testing event, 20 different types of sensors, such as drones, electronic warfare systems, artillery, and Stryker vehicles, were linked together.
The latest live-fire exercise included a variety of systems, weapons, drones, and capabilities.
US Army photo by Staff Sgt. Dane Howard
Data and artificial intelligence capabilities provide real-time information on the sensors. Soldiers can see how much ammunition they’ve got left or whether a Stryker will need maintenance or fuel soon. Simulations can predict what resources will be needed for certain tactics or actions, including different ways an enemy might attack.
As different platforms are brought onto NGC2, broadening what the platform can do, Army command and soldiers can see and communicate using the same data. The system is breaking down the silos that have previously hindered information flow.
“I’m feeling empowered as a commander to make more, better, and faster decisions because I’ve got access to all that data,” Ellis explained.
Many NGC2 components are being built with off-the-shelf technology and standard commercial software practices, and the vendor teams involved are working on the ground with soldiers. The closer working relationship means soldier feedback is being incorporated more quickly.
“We work through these obstacles, and we learn how to do something, and once we run into a roadblock, we figure out a way to solve that problem, and then that problem is now solved for the Army,” he said. “We’re not relearning these lessons over and over again.”
It’s the first Fed day of 2026, and Chair Jerome Powell is in the hot seat.
Central bank leaders will announce their January interest rate decision at 2 p.m. ET. The meeting follows weeks of political pressure from the Trump administration and a recently announced Department of Justice probe.
Business Insider will be covering projections from economists, the Fed decision, and market moves all day. Check back here for updates.
Meta’s Chief Technology Officer and head of Reality Labs, Andrew Bosworth, has called an all-hands meeting for January 14, describing it as the “most important” of the year.
Bosworth is also strongly recommending that Reality Labs employees attend the division’s meeting in person, two Meta employees told Business Insider.
The emphasis on in-person attendance is unusual for the division, which oversees the company’s wearables, virtual and augmented reality initiatives, and a nascent robotics unit, these employees said. Some managers have told employees to “drop what they’re doing” to attend the all-hands in person, one employee told Business Insider.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the meeting.
While the division has seen some success, such as its Ray-Ban smart glasses, Reality Labs has been a costly venture for Meta, incurring losses of more than $70 billion since 2020.
Last year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shifted the company’s strategic focus toward AI and away from the metaverse. In 2025, Meta invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI and hired its CEO, Alexandr Wang, as part of the major reset of the company’s AI efforts. Meta then embarked on a multibillion-dollar hiring spree, poaching top-tier AI researchers and engineers from rivals such as OpenAI and Google DeepMind.
Reality Labs has faced repeated rounds of cuts over the past year. In December, Business Insider reported that Meta was planning budget cuts up to 30% and considering job cuts in Reality Labs.
Last April, Meta laid off employees in Oculus Studios, its in-house gaming division, and the team behind Supernatural, the VR fitness app Meta acquired for over $400 million. Those cuts followed Meta’s broader January 2025 layoffs that eliminated nearly 4,000 roles companywide, with at least 560 affecting Reality Labs employees.
In a memo obtained by Business Insider earlier last year, Bosworth referred to 2025 as “the most critical” year in his eight-year tenure at Reality Labs.
“This year likely determines whether this entire effort will go down as the work of visionaries or a legendary misadventure,” he wrote.
Have a tip? Contact Pranav Dixit via email at pranavdixit@protonmail.com or Signal at 1-408-905-9124. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.
Fed leaders have kept monetary policy moderately restrictive in recent months, holding rates steady until September before introducing two quarter-point cuts.
Chair Jerome Powell said in the last meeting that a rate change in December is “not a foregone conclusion, far from it” and “policy is not on a preset course,” though on Wednesday morning, CME FedWatch is showing a roughly 90% chance of another quarter-point reduction.
Fed leaders have kept monetary policy moderately restrictive in recent months, holding rates steady until September before introducing two quarter-point cuts.
Chair Jerome Powell said in the last meeting that a rate change in December is “not a foregone conclusion, far from it” and “policy is not on a preset course,” though on Wednesday morning, CME FedWatch is showing a roughly 90% chance of another quarter-point reduction.
Investors and consumers are hopeful for more cuts. Americans could see more affordable mortgage, auto, and credit card rates in the new year, and businesses would be able to borrow money more easily — a move that could juice the sluggish job market.
