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An ElevenLabs exec says he’s planning to double his team size — and he warns candidates about the ‘huge amount of hours’

April 13, 2026

by cintianmenecucci with No Comment Xpandfy

The vice president of sales at a hot AI startup said he gives candidates a warning before they sign on: Prepare to work hard.

On an episode of the “20VC” podcast released on Saturday, Carles Reina, the fourth employee at AI voice cloning startup ElevenLabs, said he filters candidates by warning them about how tough the job is.

“When I make an offer, I tell every single person ElevenLabs is going to be extremely difficult,” Reina said. “We are a hard company to work for because we have extremely high expectations.”

He said that he tells them they would have to work a “huge amount of hours” and he expects “full commitment.”

While the warning keeps some candidates out, Reina said it has led to fewer staff leaving.

In a February interview, Reina talked about the sales quotas his employees are expected to hit.

“So if I pay you $100,000 a year, your quota is $2 million. That’s it. If you don’t achieve your quota, then you’re going to be out, right?” Reina said. “And we’re ruthless on that end.”

In February, ElevenLabs announced that it raised $500 million in a Series D round, bringing its valuation to $11 billion. The startup, which was founded in London, had 350 employees as of November, according to investor Andreessen Horowitz.

Reina’s team is nearly doubling its head count by hiring 120 more sales employees this year, he said.

The sales VP added he’s worried that bringing on all these people may water down the culture.

“If you’re not upfront about the expectation, I think you end up diluting because people come with different expectations, they essentially behave in a specific way that is not the way that you wanted,” he said.

Reina’s pre-offer heads-up echoes how another European-origin startup filters for top talent.

On a podcast appearance in January, the CEO of Swedish legal tech startup Legora said that he asks every candidate one question to gauge whether they are up for the challenge.

“I still interview everyone, so I ask quite brutal questions about, ‘Why take a hard job? You could go work somewhere else,'” Max Junestrand said.

“I try to create missionaries, not mercenaries,” Junestrand said, referring to an analogy coined by Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist John Doerr years ago. “And I think we’ve successfully done that.”

The two names are among a short list of European startups reviving excitement in the region’s entrepreneurship and venture capital scene.

Compared to their American counterparts, European companies have traditionally faced investor skepticism for being slow, overcommitted to work-life balance, and heavily tied by tech regulation.

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I’m representing Team USA in the Paralympics. It feels like the world is finally paying attention to us.

March 15, 2026

by cintianmenecucci with No Comment Xpandfy

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation Dani Aravich, Paralympian and cofounder of Culxtured. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I grew up in Boise, Idaho, playing all the typical sports — soccer, basketball, softball — and eventually got recruited to a Division I school to compete in track and field.

After college, I worked for an NBA team. And while working there, I learned about the Paralympics for the very first time. It had never really been on my family’s radar growing up, so it never felt like an option for me as a kid.

Learning about the Paralympics also meant being introduced to the disability community in a way I never had before. I hadn’t grown up around many people with disabilities, and suddenly I was meeting all these athletes who, like me, had disabilities and were fiercely competitive in sport.

It was a little overwhelming at first, but also really exciting.

I started thinking about the Paralympic Games

I started diving into everything I could find about the Paralympics and eventually learned that I actually qualified for a classification.

That’s when the dream began to form. Maybe I could make the Trials for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.

In 2019, I started running again, mostly training on my own while working full-time. I went to my first para track meet that year and met other women who were missing a hand or had arm impairments like mine. For the first time, it felt like I might truly be competing on an even playing field.

But that same day, I nearly walked away from it all.

I was running well until I fell on the track with 10 meters left in the race. I remember thinking maybe that was my sign to quit and go back to the traditional career path I had been on.

My mom — who had actually been hesitant about me stepping away from my business career in the first place — was the one who told me I had already put months of work into this goal. I owed it to myself to at least see it through and not let one fall end the dream.

So I kept going.

I decided to focus on Nordic skiing

Not long after that, I was invited to try Para cross-country skiing at a camp. I had downhill skied before, but cross-country skiing is a completely different sport.

In 2021, I competed in the T47 women’s 400m at the Tokyo Paralympic Games (which were delayed a year because of COVID). Just six months later, I competed again at the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games.

After that, I made the decision to step away from track and focus fully on Nordic skiing, leading into the 2026 Paralympic Winter Games in Italy.

Dani Aravich is competing in Italy.

Mark Reis/Mark Reis

And here I am now.

The dream of becoming a Paralympian came much later in life for me than it does for a lot of athletes. Mostly because I didn’t even know it existed growing up. I had never seen it in the media, never heard about it as a possibility.

This year, I’ve been in Europe since early January, first for the World Cup season, now the Paralympics.

One of the things that’s made these Paralympics especially meaningful is being able to invite friends and family to come watch in person. Four years ago, that wasn’t possible because of Covid restrictions.

I love seeing kids watch us race

For Nordic skiing, we’re based in a tiny town in Italy, which is pretty remote from some of the other venues. But the town has completely embraced the Games. One of my favorite moments has been watching local school kids come out to watch us race.

And it really does feel like the Paralympics are growing.

More people are watching. The media is paying attention to the drama and intensity of the competition. Online engagement is growing. It finally feels like the world is starting to see these athletes the way we’ve always known them to be — elite.

Once people watch the Paralympics, they realize the competition is just as intense as the Olympics. And once they see that, they’re hooked.

More broadly, I think society is shifting in a really positive direction when it comes to diversity and inclusion. Humanizing disability and making it something we talk about openly — rather than something hidden away — is incredibly important.

Not just for the Paralympics. But for society as a whole.

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From NFL team owners to computer-science researchers: Meet the 12 billionaires who have won Oscars

March 14, 2026

by cintianmenecucci with No Comment Xpandfy

Updated

2026-03-14T13:42:01.230Z

These 12 billionaires are also Oscar winners.
Some are the famous filmmakers behind some of the most commercially successful movie franchises.
Others are billionaires who have accumulated their wealth through other avenues.

When thinking about Oscar winners, NFL team owners and computer-science researchers might not immediately come to mind.

But some of these icons of their industries have joined other, more famously creative billionaires to accept Hollywood’s highest honors.

Out of the hundreds of Academy Award winners each year, only a tiny minority have net worths comparable to those of tech and industry leaders who define the ultrawealthy class.

The “Avatar” and “Titanic” director James Cameron recently became the newest member of the exclusive club, with Forbes reporting that the filmmaker surpassed the $1 billion net worth mark in December.

Cameron, whose films have earned an estimated $9 billion at the box office, is joining the minds behind some of the biggest box-office hits, including director Steven Spielberg, “Star Wars” creator George Lucas, and “Lord of the Rings” creator Peter Jackson.

In February, Forbes also crowned Spielberg, who has a net worth of $7.1 billion, as the world’s wealthiest celebrity in 2026.

As you start getting ready for your Oscars’ watch party, see which 12 billionaires have won Academy Awards, and see the movies, documentaries, and short films they’ve worked on as directors, producers, writers, executive producers, or in other capacities.

We’ve ranked them on their estimated net worths, as reported by Forbes as of March 12.

Steven Rales

Rales has worked closely as a producer in Wes Anderson films since 2006.

Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images

Estimated net worth: $7.8 billion

Rales, the chairman and cofounder of medical manufacturer Danaher, founded the film production company Indian Paintbrush in 2006 and has worked closely with director Wes Anderson ever since.

Rales also owns film distributors Janus Films and The Criterion Collection and has a 20% in the NBA Indiana Pacers.

He won the best live-action short film award in 2024 with Anderson’s “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” which he produced.

Jeffrey Lurie

Estimated net worth: $7.6 billion

The Boston businessman purchased the Philadelphia Eagles for $185 million in 1994 and has won two Super Bowls since. But Lurie has a background in film, and has produced and executive-produced more than a dozen movies.

His grandfather founded the General Cinema movie-theater chain, which operated 1,500 screens at its peak in 1991 before it was acquired by AMC in the early 2000s.

Lurie has won three Oscars for best documentary as executive producer of “Inside Job” in 2011, “Inocente” in 2013, and “Summer of Soul” in 2022.

Steven Spielberg

Estimated net worth: $7.1 billion

The film director and producer has worked on some of the most successful films of the past 30 years, including “Jurassic Park,” “Jaws,” and “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”

He’s regarded as the most commercially successful film director of all time and a pioneer of the modern blockbuster, with his films amassing a box-office total of over $10.7 billion over 37 films, as reported by The Numbers.

He won the Oscar for best director in 1999 with “Saving Private Ryan” and in 1994 with “Schindler’s List,” which also won best picture that year.

In February, he also achieved EGOT status when he took home a Grammy for best music film for “Music by John Williams,” which he produced.

Jeff Skoll

Estimated net worth: $5.3 billion

Skoll, who was eBay’s first president from 1996 to 1998, founded film production company Participant Media in 2004 to create films that increased awareness of social issues.

He won best picture as executive producer of “Spotlight” in 2016 and “Green Book” in 2019.

In total, Participant Media won 21 Academy Awards over 86 nominations, including best international film for “Roma.” The company shuttered in 2024.

George Lucas

Estimated net worth: $5.1 billion

The creator of the “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” franchises founded the film production company Lucasfilm in 1971 and sold it to Disney for $4 billion in 2012.

In 1992, he won the Oscars’ Irving G. Thalberg Award, which awards “creative producers whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production.” He was also nominated for best director and best original screenplay for “American Graffiti” and “Star Wars” in 1973 and 1977, respectively.

Oprah Winfrey

Estimated net worth: $3.2 billion

The TV host and media mogul has often been regarded as the most powerful woman in media and was once the world’s only Black billionaire.

She won the Oscars’ Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, which recognizes “outstanding contributions to humanitarian causes” in 2011. She was also nominated for best supporting actress in 1985 for “The Color Purple.”

Steve Tisch

The New York Giants co-owner (right) has produced over 40 films, including “Forrest Gump.”

Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

Estimated net worth: $2.2 billion

The chairman, co-owner, and executive vice president of the New York Giants has produced over 40 films and has worked closely with Columbia and Sony Pictures.

He won the Oscar for best picture in 1995 with “Forrest Gump.”

Peter Jackson

Estimated net worth: $1.9 billion, per Forbes

The “Lord of The Rings” and “Hobbit” filmmaker has written, directed, and worked on over 20 films and is the fifth highest-grossing director of all time, with his films surpassing $6.5 billion at the box office, per The Numbers rankings.

In 2004, he won Oscars for best director, best adapted screenplay, and best picture for “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.”

Pat Hanrahan

Estimated net worth: $1.6 billion

The computer graphics researcher, founding Pixar Animation Studio employee, and computer-science and electrical-engineering professor at Stanford University has worked on groundbreaking animation software that led to films like “Toy Story.”

He won a scientific and engineering Academy Award in 1993 and two technical achievement Oscars in 2004 and 2014.

Richard Anthony Wolf

Dick Wolf attends Variety Power of Law presented by City National Bank. — The “Law & Order” producer won best short film as a producer for “Twin Towers” in 2003.

Araya Doheny/Variety via Getty Images

Estimated net worth: $1.5 billion

The film producer, best known for creating the “Law & Order” franchise, founded Wolf Entertainment in 1988. It has become one of the most prolific companies in the television business.

He won the Academy Award for best short film as a producer with “Twin Towers” in 2003.

Tyler Perry

Estimated net worth: $1.4 billion

The filmmaker and playwright created the Madea character in 1999 and founded his own production company, Tyler Perry Studios, in 2006. In 2019, he unveiled the new 330-acre studio grounds in Atlanta. His films have made over $765 million at the box office.

He received the Oscars’ Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 2021.

James Cameron

Estimated net worth: $1.1 billion

The director of “The Terminator,” “Titanic,” and “Avatar,” has directed three of the top five highest-grossing movies of all time, as listed by Box Office Mojo. Despite having directed only 10 feature films, Cameron is the second-highest-grossing director of all time.

He won the Academy Award for best director and best picture with “Titanic” in 1998.

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Meet the billionaire owners behind every NFL team

February 4, 2026

by cintianmenecucci with No Comment Xpandfy

The New York Giants were founded in 1925 by Tim Mara and have been part of the Mara family ever since.

Team ownership was passed to Tim’s sons, Jack and Wellington Mara, in 1959, and now the team is run by principal owner, CEO, and president John Mara, who took over in 2005 after his father, Wellington’s, death. John Mara had been with the organization since 1991.

However, while John Mara is listed as the team’s principal owner, he’s actually shared ownership with Steve Tisch since 2005.

Steve Tisch’s father, Preston Robert Tisch, purchased a 50% stake in the Giants in 1991, and after his death, Steve became chairman and executive vice president.

Together, Mara and Tisch helped plan and build MetLife Stadium, and the team has won two Super Bowls (2008 and 2012) under their leadership. However, the team has struggled in recent years, winning just four games last season.

Still, the Giants are the fourth most valuable team in sports, worth $10.1 billion. Tisch has an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion, Forbes reported, while Mara reportedly has an estimated net worth of $500 million.

Tisch was not named in the 2025 report card; Mara was given a C+ ownership ranking by the NFLPA.

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I embedded myself in a vibe coding team at Gemini’s AI hackathon in Singapore. Building an app in 7 hours takes real work.

February 2, 2026

by cintianmenecucci with No Comment Xpandfy

2026-02-02T05:07:11.748Z

I spent seven hours with a vibe coding team at Google’s Gemini 3 hackathon in Singapore.
Watching from the sidelines was intense.
From prompting and debugging to filming the demo — here’s how it all unfolded.

Just after sunrise, four vibe coding enthusiasts from Malaysia crossed into Singapore with a loose idea — and a bet that AI could build most of their app.

Hours later, they were racing to prototype it at Google’s Gemini 3 Hackathon in Singapore.

The four friends, all in their late 30s to 40s, came from different professional backgrounds. Chan Wei Khjan is an accountant. Chan Ler-Kuan lectures on AI at a private university. Loh Wah Kiang works in IT. Lee How Siem, who goes by Benny, is the chief technology officer of a Malaysian startup.

Their initial idea was a “feng shui” app to analyze properties in Singapore — a potentially lucrative use case in a market obsessed with housing and wealth accumulation. Feng shui is a traditional Chinese practice that evaluates how a person’s surroundings, along with birth factors, influence luck and well-being.

I embedded with the team at Google’s developer space in Singapore in January to observe how a vibe-coding project comes together — or nearly falls apart — in seven hours.

9:30 a.m.: The brief

Thorsten Schaeff from Google DeepMind welcomed the participants.

Lee Chong Ming/Business Insider

The assignment: Teams of up to four people had to build a working demo, publish a public repository with code, and submit a short video explaining their project by 5:30 p.m.

Each project had to fit into one of six tracks, including generative media, deep research, and enterprise orchestration.

Organized by Google DeepMind and 65labs, Singapore’s AI builder collective, the hackathon featured a 100,000-credit Gemini API prize pool, with first place getting 30,000 credits.

By the end of the day, 189 participants had built 76 projects.

10:30 a.m.: Getting started

Hackathon team getting started — The team discusses how to prototype their idea.

Lee Chong Ming/Business Insider

The team had pivoted to a new idea due to time constraints: a feng shui app that could analyse a user’s outfit and workspace through the phone camera in real time and assess how “lucky” they were.

Wei Khjan took the lead on prompting. He typed the first instructions into Claude, asking it to generate the workflow and code. Ler-Kuan focused on whether the AI’s output aligned with feng shui concepts. Wah Kiang and Benny hovered over the codebase, refining ideas and flagging issues.

“For people who don’t know how to read code, it’s helpful to have people who do,” Wei Khjan said.

While waiting for the code to be generated, Ler-Kuan opened Google’s AI Studio to design the app’s logo. They called their app “Feng Shui Banana.”

11:40 a.m.: The bugs arrive

computer screen with code — The implementation plan was generated by AI.

Lee Chong Ming/Business Insider

After about an hour, Claude generated the initial codebase for the app. It was designed to work with the Gemini Live API, enabling real-time image and text analysis. It ran but was riddled with bugs.

An error message flashed when they tested the camera feature, so Wei Khjan copied the error back into the AI and asked for it to be fixed. Minutes later, the feature worked.

It wasn’t right. The feng shui logic was off, especially where colour analysis intersected with the user’s birth timings. Ler-Kuan manually corrected the underlying dictionary and its mappings.

The team kept prompting to tighten the features: shorter explanations, clearer output, and more streamlined user interfaces.

By 12 p.m., the app was rough, but it existed.

12:20 p.m.: Lunch can wait

Testing the feng shui app — Ler-Kuan tests the camera feature on the app.

Lee Chong Ming/Business Insider

Lunch arrived. The team stayed glued to their screens.

The app didn’t respond instantly when a user changed their outfit, nor did it update its feng shui analysis in real time.

Wei Khjan explained how one prompt matters. Instead of issuing commands, he asked the AI to “discuss it with me.” The shift changed how the model reasoned, and it worked more like a collaborator.

After some prompting, the app updated with a real-time camera analysis. It was striking to watch a feature emerging from a short back-and-forth with AI.

1 p.m.: Putting the app to the test

Screenshot of me testing the app — A screenshot of the feng shui app on my phone as I test its camera feature.

Lee Chong Ming/Business Insider

I helped the team test the app.

The camera correctly identified what I was wearing: a dark green polo, a yellow participant tag, and a white name card hanging from my neck. According to the app, I was already wearing colours aligned with my luck for the day.

The app suggested small tweaks, such as additional accessories, that could enhance the feng shui of my outfit.

1:20 p.m.: Pizza break

They finally had lunch and joked around to ease the tension. Four hours remained before they had to submit their project.

1:40 p.m.: Back to work

Feng shui banana landing page — The landing page for their app.

Lee Chong Ming/Business Insider

Ler-Kuan shifted focus to workspace feng shui, feeding knowledge into the model and refining how the app would evaluate desks and work setups. Wah Kiang and Benny worked on the video demo.

By 2 p.m., they had a landing page that looked animated and 3D. When I asked Wei Khjan how he felt, he smiled.

The team also revisited the app’s tagline. After cycling through suggestions from multiple AI models, they settled on a line that didn’t come from an AI at all: “A wisdom, not a superstition.”

3 p.m.: Filming the demo

By late afternoon, the restlessness was showing. The team snacked and paced, then decided to film the video explaining their project.

They used Gemini to generate a storyboard for the demo video. The model laid out several scenes and drafted the script. The team followed along, filming clips and stitching everything together as they went.

Their workspace feature was also up and running.

4 p.m.: Final touches

Hackathon team scrambling — The team is hard at work as the deadline approaches.

Lee Chong Ming/Business Insider

The app had come together nicely. With some time to spare, they decided to add audio output for users who prefer listening to reading on a screen.

The first attempt to generate a voice using AI fell flat. It sounded robotic.

After debugging and several iterations, they landed on a voice they liked, similar to how a Chinese feng shui master might speak.

5:30 p.m.: Deadline

Finishing the hackathon — Taking a group photo as they submit the project.

Lee Chong Ming/Business Insider

As the deadline approached, the team was still stitching clips for their video and nitpicking the AI-generated presenter voice.

The organizers had urged teams to submit early. With about 15 minutes to spare, they made the call to lock the final cut and hit submit.

Then it was over. The hunger hit immediately, and everyone got in line for some well-deserved food.

Even as an observer, watching from the sidelines was tiring. Seven hours of vibe coding turned out to be anything but effortless.

The team didn’t win a prize, but agreed that the hackathon had been worth it.

“Sometimes, the best experiences come from saying ‘yes’ without overthinking,” said Ler Kuan. “Innovation starts with curiosity and a little bit of spontaneity.”

Do you have a story to share about vibe coding? Contact this reporter at cmlee@businessinsider.com.

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Business Insider’s entertainment team predicts who will take home an award, and why.

January 31, 2026

by cintianmenecucci with No Comment Xpandfy

Grammy’s night forecast: cloudy with a chance of snubs

After covering the Grammy Awards for nearly two decades, there are a few moments I know will happen on music’s biggest night: Someone will go home happy, and someone will go home sad.

Either way, we’ll get Trevor Noah as the host for his sixth and final time, performances you’ll text about, and candid moments between our favorite singers seated inside LA’s Crypto.com Arena on Sunday. It’ll all air on CBS.

Kendrick Lamar leads with nine nominations, including in the major categories such as Record, Album, and Song of the Year, followed by Lady Gaga and producers Cirkut and Jack Antonoff with seven. We’ll also be watching Super Bowl performer Bad Bunny, Sabrina Carpenter, and my personal favorite, Leon Thomas, to see if they go home with trophies after nabbing six nods.

I asked Business Insider’s entertainment team who they thought would go home with a small, 24K gold-plated gramophone. Here’s what they’re betting on:

Jason Guerrasio, Entertainment correspondent: Tucked away in the midst of the 90-plus Grammy categories is Best Album Cover. I hope it goes to Perfume Genius’ “Glory” cover. Google it. It’s instantly eye-catching.

Samantha Rollins, deputy editor of Entertainment: When “Mayhem” single “Abracadabra” debuted during a commercial break at last year’s Grammys, many posited that Lady Gaga’s newest album would take a back-to-basics approach to the edgy electropop that made her famous. What emerged instead was far more interesting. Lady Gaga’s “Mayhem” is an invigorating return to form that proves one of pop’s most famous shape-shifters can still keep us guessing. She’ll take it for Album of the Year.

Callie Ahlgrim, senior pop culture writer: Record of the Year is supposed to honor the most superb blend of production and performance, but since it tends to favor ubiquity, I have to give the edge to the global pop smash “APT.” Bruno Mars has the cross-generational appeal that Grammy voters can’t resist, and Rosé would make history as the first K-pop star to win in a competitive category.

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Phlox Pro - Business 2 Demo

Posts tagged: team

An ElevenLabs exec says he’s planning to double his team size — and he warns candidates about the ‘huge amount of hours’

I’m representing Team USA in the Paralympics. It feels like the world is finally paying attention to us.

I started thinking about the Paralympic Games

I decided to focus on Nordic skiing

I love seeing kids watch us race

From NFL team owners to computer-science researchers: Meet the 12 billionaires who have won Oscars

Steven Rales

Jeffrey Lurie

Steven Spielberg

Jeff Skoll

George Lucas

Oprah Winfrey

Steve Tisch

Peter Jackson

Pat Hanrahan

Richard Anthony Wolf

Tyler Perry

James Cameron

Meet the billionaire owners behind every NFL team

I embedded myself in a vibe coding team at Gemini’s AI hackathon in Singapore. Building an app in 7 hours takes real work.

9:30 a.m.: The brief

10:30 a.m.: Getting started

11:40 a.m.: The bugs arrive

12:20 p.m.: Lunch can wait

1 p.m.: Putting the app to the test

1:20 p.m.: Pizza break

1:40 p.m.: Back to work

3 p.m.: Filming the demo

4 p.m.: Final touches

5:30 p.m.: Deadline

Business Insider’s entertainment team predicts who will take home an award, and why.

Grammy’s night forecast: cloudy with a chance of snubs

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