When Arinjay Jain turned 50, he was sitting in yet another meeting when it hit him: “What am I doing here?”
Jain hadn’t always questioned the grind.
He had moved from India to Singapore in 2013, when the IT company he worked for opened a local office. After changing jobs a few times, he cofounded a small IT services startup in 2016.
He originally planned to build the company, sell it, and cash out. But as the years passed, the finish line felt increasingly distant.
“I thought, this is looking like several years away still, and I will have to work very hard to make it happen,” Jain, now 53, told Business Insider.
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At that point, he was no longer sure the stress of running his own company justified the reward. Around the same time, several real estate investments Jain had made in India appreciated significantly, giving him the financial security to consider stepping away.
“So then, why am I wasting my years?” he said.
Soon after, he began researching where he might want to spend the next chapter of his life. He knew he didn’t want to go back to India.
Turning 50 led him to rethink his priorities.
Amanda Goh/Business Insider
While researching where to retire in Southeast Asia, a friend encouraged him to check out Chiang Mai, a city in northern Thailand he’d never visited.
In April 2023, five days in the second-largest Thai city sold him on the idea, and he threw himself into research about retirement visas and living costs.
By October 2023, when his lease was up for renewal, he decided against staying in Singapore.
Jain spent a couple of months visiting family and traveling around Asia. In February 2024, he arrived in Chiang Mai.
A new base in northern Thailand
February is often considered the start of the burning season in Chiang Mai, where farmers burn agricultural waste to clear their fields, often causing haze to drift into the city.
“I landed here in the worst possible time, but I still loved it,” Jain said.
Jain arrived in Chiang Mai in February, at the start of the “burning season.”
Amanda Goh/Business Insider
Thailand offers several long-stay visa options, and Jain holds a retirement visa.
While the Thai government publishes overall foreign resident figures, it does not appear to release a regular public count of retirement visa holders.
The latest civil registration data shows that 163,036 foreigners — not just retirees — lived in Chiang Mai in 2024, a level broadly comparable to a decade ago. That amounts to about 9% of the province’s roughly 1.8 million residents.
Jain connected with a real-estate agent through Facebook and viewed several units before choosing his current one-bedroom condo near Nimman, a trendy, cosmopolitan neighborhood known for its café scene, chic boutiques, and international restaurants.
Rent is 14,000 Thai baht, or about $425, each month. His apartment building comes with a pool and a gym.
While many expats retire in Chiang Mai for its lower cost of living, for someone like Jain, who grew up in India, it’s actually more expensive.
Amanda Goh/Business Insider
Jain says he tries to keep his monthly expenses between 40,000 and 45,000 Thai baht. In months when he travels, his expenses can reach around 60,000 Thai baht.
“For a lot of people from Western countries, the cost of living is a major attraction,” he said. “For somebody from India, it’s two or three times what I spent back home.”
Still, Jain said his decision was driven more by lifestyle than money. He’s grown comfortable with Chiang Mai’s slower tempo, its sense of safety, and what he describes as a culture of respect and patience.
Jain says he appreciates the slower pace of life in Chiang Mai.
Amanda Goh/Business Insider
“Everybody likes to avoid stress, right? I’m very happy not to have stress living here,” he said.
Life after the grind
That slower rhythm now shapes his days as a retiree.
Jain starts most mornings at the gym, then prepares a quick breakfast at home and does some household chores. Some afternoons, he plays golf at a nearby driving range. On other days, he joins a hiking group and heads out to explore waterfalls and trails around Chiang Mai.
Jain enjoys hiking, playing golf, and going to the gym.
Provided by Arinjay Jain.
In the evenings, he enjoys going for walks at nearby Chiang Mai University, whose scenic campus is a popular spot not just for students, but also locals across the city.
While he enjoys being around people, building deeper connections with locals has been more challenging, in part due to the language barrier.
Even though the city has a thriving expat scene, many tend to gravitate toward others from their own countries or from similar backgrounds.
Jain says he occasionally joins activity groups to stay social.
“But ideally, what I would like to do is become part of the local communities,” he said. “That takes time, and the effort has to come from my side in terms of learning the language, but it’s not easy.”
He hopes to integrate locally, although he said the language barrier has made that difficult.
Provided by Arinjay Jain.
Jain said he expects to stay in Chiang Mai for the foreseeable future, but he knows there are variables he can’t control.
Visa rules can change, and retiring early means planning for decades ahead in an era of longer life expectancy.
“I have to plan for like 35 to 40 years,” Jain said. “Look at all the changes that have happened in the last 20 years. It’s difficult to imagine what might happen in the next 20 years.”
When Jordan Piluso went to a New Jersey estate sale in late January, she had one goal: to purchase a porcelain rabbit from the designer brand Herand.
She’d learned about the sale online and viewed photos of the items available. She didn’t plan to buy any other decorative animals.
But her mission quickly changed.
“When I walked into the house, this [ceramic] cat was sitting on a piano right in the entryway,” the 34-year-old stay-at-home mom told Business Insider. “No one was looking at it, so I just grabbed it. I thought it was such a whimsical, out-there decor piece, and that’s my style.”
She later purchased the $25 cat decoration, along with a few other pieces. She didn’t know it at the time, but her secondhand find was actually an Italian art piece from Fornasetti.
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“I love very eclectic, conversational pieces, and I just thought: I’ve never seen anything like this cat,” she added.
Jordan Piluso and the Fornasetti cat she bought at an estate sale.
Jordan Piluso
Hidden in plain sight
When Piluso purchased her cat statue, she didn’t immediately look for markings or a signature indicating the artisan who made it.
“I picked it up and was like, ‘You’re coming with me,'” she said. “It was just a no-brainer.”
The people running the estate sale were equally unaware of its origins.
“They were just happy to get rid of it,” she said.
The Fornasetti cat that Jordan Piluso found at an estate sale.
Jordan Piluso
It wasn’t until Piluso got home and did a Google image search that she realized it might be valuable. She saw photos of similar cat pieces by the Italian artist Piero Fornasetti and noticed that each had a stamp at the base of its tail.
Sure enough, her cat statue has one too. It reads “Fornasetti Milano, Made in Italy” and features an image of a hand holding a paintbrush.
The Fornasetti stamp at the base of the cat statue.
Jordan Piluso
Cats have been a signature motif for the late artist and his brand for decades.
Its modern feline pieces retail between $73 (€62) and $2,353 (€2000) each, while vintage cat statues like Piluso’s have sold for upward of $2,500 on secondhand sites.
Piluso confirmed with the brand via email that it’s authentic and was hand-painted between the late 1950s and early 1960s. Business Insider reviewed the email exchange.
Ken Farmer, an antique and fine-art appraiser, told Business Insider that Fornasetti created over 13,000 designs during his career and aimed to bring art into ordinary homes.
“This playful, smiling cat ceramic figure with black leopard spots on a white field, circa 1960, is likely worth $1,000 to $1,500 at auction and $3,000 retail,” he said.
Valuable, but priceless
The potential profit she could gain from her Fornasetti piece doesn’t matter much to Piluso. She has no intentions of selling it.
“It’s something that brings me so much joy,” she said. “I’m always going to be able to talk about this when people come over. I can tell my kids the story someday.”
“To me, that is a far more valuable gift than the monetary value this cat could bring,” she continued.
Her husband, a dog person, was less convinced that they should keep the decor piece when Piluso originally brought it home. However, he’s since come around, she said.
The couple is keeping the ceramic cat, which doesn’t have a name, on a tall mantle out of reach of their toddler.
Secondhand treasures
Don’t worry — Piluso didn’t leave the estate sale without the pink-and-gold embellished bunny she had initially gone there for.
She purchased the rabbit piece for $600 and a ceramic tiger for $50 — both of which will be displayed prominently in her home.
The decor pieces Jordan Piluso bought at a recent estate sale.
Jordan Piluso
Piluso said she’s relatively new to shopping secondhand. She was looking for a hobby after having her second child, and eventually landed on decorating her home with vintage pieces.
She said she loves the charm vintage decor adds to her home and the stories she can share with guests. That’s why her husband encouraged her to create a TikTok account to share her finds with a wider audience.
And clearly, she’s a natural at finding hidden gems.
“When you go to estate sales or thrifting, don’t be afraid of the oddities,” she said. “They can be the coolest, and in this case, some of the most valuable things you can find.”
Stephen Colbert said CBS pulled a Democratic lawmaker’s interview from “The Late Show” over concerns about federal regulations. So, he posted it on YouTube instead.
The dispute marks the latest flash point in a growing tension between late-night hosts, broadcast networks, and the Federal Communications Commission.
James Talarico, a Democratic Texas state representative running for a highly competitive US Senate seat, was scheduled to appear on “The Late Show” on Monday night.
Colbert told viewers during his monologue that network lawyers intervened.
“He was supposed to be here,” Colbert said Monday night. “But we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast.”
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Colbert said he was also told not to acknowledge the decision on air.
“Then I was told, in some uncertain terms, that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on,” he said. “And because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”
CBS said in a statement that it did not prohibit “The Late Show” from broadcasting the interview. It said it gave the show legal guidance.
While CBS didn’t air the interview on TV, the show uploaded it overnight to its YouTube page.By midday Tuesday, the video had racked up more than 2 million views — significantly more than other recent guest interviews, which had largely drawn between about 75,000 and 510,000 views on YouTube.
The last guest to surpass 1 million views was Bad Bunny, who appeared on “The Late Show”ahead of his Super Bowl halftime performance.
A spotlight on the FCC’s ‘equal time’ rule
Jimmy Kimmel was briefly suspended after FCC chair Brendan Carr called out the comedian’s political jokes.
: Todd Owyoung/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Colbert said the network’s concerns stemmed from the FCC’s so-called “equal time” rule, which requires broadcast stations to provide equivalent opportunities to legally qualified political candidates.
“It’s the FCC’s most time-honored rule, right after ‘No nipples at the Super Bowl,'” Colbert said on Monday night’s television-aired monologue.
The rule applies to over-the-air television and radio broadcasters, but not to cable channels or online platforms — meaning CBS’s broadcast would fall under its purview, while YouTube would not.
He said most late-night talk shows — including his own — typically qualify for what’s known as the “bona fide news exemption.”
That carve-out is designed to give news and public affairs programs flexibility to respond to events without having to book opposing candidates for balance.
Colbert has hosted several Democratic and independent lawmakers this year, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
In recent months, the FCC has stepped up scrutiny of broadcast networks.
On January 21, the FCC’s Media Bureau published a letter that said it had “not been presented with any evidence” that any current late-night or daytime talk show qualifies for the “bona fide news exemption.”
Colbert said that the letter is part of what worried CBS’s lawyers.
CBS said in its statement that, “The show was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled.” It said the show decided to publish the interview through its YouTube channel instead.
Last week, the FCC opened a probe into Disney-owned ABC after “The View” hosted Talarico.
In the YouTube interview, Talarico said the regulatory scrutiny was politically motivated.
“I think that Donald Trump is worried that we’re about to flip Texas,” Talarico told Colbert. “This is the party that ran against cancel culture, and now they’re trying to control what we watch, what we say, what we read.”
Talarico is locked in a competitive Democratic primary for the Senate seat against Rep. Jasmine Crockett. The winner is expected to face a Republican nominee that could include incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, former Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, or Rep. Wesley Hunt.
The open Senate seatis set to be decided during this year’s mid-term elections.
A broader strain between CBS and its staff
Monday’s standoff adds to an already complicated period for Colbert and his network.
In July, CBS said “The Late Show” would be canceled in May 2026, a move that was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.”
It came after Colbert criticized CBS’s decision to settle a $16 million class-action lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump over its editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with his then-presidential opponent, Kamala Harris.
Some lawmakers raised concerns about CBS’s decision, questioning whether it was political.
CBS is owned by Paramount, which was acquired in August by David Ellison’s Skydance Media.
The network has faced other turbulence in recent months. Recently installed CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss was criticized for her December decision to delay a “60 Minutes” segment on the Trump administration’s use of jails in El Salvador. And, on Monday night, Anderson Cooper said he would be leaving “60 Minutes” after 20 years on the show.
The FCC and representatives for Colbert did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
When automakers went electric, they also went sleek and digital.
Climate control knobs disappeared. Door handles tucked themselves into body panels. Audio volume dials became haptic sliders.
Now, as automakers face regulatory pressures and customer blowback, some of the industry’s biggest names are reversing course and reintroducing physical buttons.
Audi’s upcoming 2027 e-tron updates promise a more “tactile” interior experience. Ferrari’s first EV — designed in collaboration with former Apple design chief Jony Ive — is filled with physical controls. Even Tesla is redesigning its flush door handles.
“We will never, ever make this mistake anymore,” Andreas Mindt, the head of design at Volkswagen, told AutoCar last year when asked about filling cars with digital screens.
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“Honestly, it’s a car. It’s not a phone: it’s a car.”
How the touchscreen took over
Ferrari’s newest interior design mixes several standard buttons and control knobs with digital displays.
Ferrrari
The move to giant screens was about aesthetics, economics — and influence.
Sam Abuelsamid, co-host of the Wheel Bearings podcast, told Business Insider it all started with Tesla’s lead.
Tesla’s Model S, its first-ever ground-up design, centered much of its interface around a 17-inch touchscreen.
“It gives cars a more high-tech look and feel,” Abuelsamid said. “Also, it cut costs. It costs a lot of money to develop and validate physical controls.”
When Tesla’s sales started to take off, the industry tried to mimic the sleek styling. Throughout the industry, the influence of Tesla’s pared-down approach was evident.
Volkswagen’s ID.4 never had climate knobs. Rivian’s door handles electronically slid inside the door frame. Ford added huge tablets to the center of its Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning.
Even Tesla took it a step further, removing the physical turn-signal stalks from the Model 3 — before bringing them back.
At first, the tech-forward approach worked for the target audience.
“It goes back to the types of consumers who adopt these technologies,” Eleftheria Kontou, an assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering at the University of Illinois, said to Business Insider.
“Environmentalists and technically-inclined shoppers are the most common EV buyers,” Kontou added. “They want a new tech gadget, so EVs are a very attractive option.”
But as EVs moved beyond tech enthusiasts and into the broader market, expectations shifted.
The usability problem
Tesla led the EV industry with its sleek door handle and screen-centric design.
Sjoerd van der Wal/Getty Images
As EVs went mainstream, the downside of screen-heavy cabins became harder to ignore.
“The core safety concern isn’t mechanical reliability — it’s distraction,” Spencer Penn, a former Tesla Model 3 engineer and now CEO of sourcing platform LightSource, told Business Insider. “Touchscreens require visual attention and lack haptic feedback.”
The advantage of physical controls, he said, is ergonomic and psychological immediacy rather than mechanical redundancy.
That usability tension has begun drawing regulatory scrutiny.
China recently moved to ban certain flush and hidden door handle designs over safety concerns. In the US, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has investigated complaints involving electronic door mechanisms. And in 2024, the European Transport Safety Council said it would not afford five-star safety ratings to vehicles with too many screens.
A course correction
The EV revolution was built on the promise that cars could function more like smartphones — constantly updated, endlessly configurable, and increasingly software-driven.
That vision isn’t disappearing — and touchscreens aren’t going anywhere.
General Motors is building subscription revenue around digital features. Tesla continues to push new full self-driving updates. Ford’s next generation of EVs will rely heavily on cloud-connected systems.
Instead, they’re restoring some physical controls for high-frequency or safety-critical functions — volume, climate adjustments, hazard lights, windshield wipers — while leaving navigation, media, and ambient light settings to digital menus.
The 2027 Audi e-tron brings back the scroll wheel on its steering wheel.
Audi
“Inspired by the functional aesthetic of the well-received Audi Concept C and the tactile experience of its physical controls reflecting mechanical quality, the familiar scroll wheel returns, permitting operation of various functions and replacing the previous touch-sensitive interface controlling volume and MMI menu selection,” Audi says about its 2027 e-tron.
But even in a software-defined future, drivers still expect something smartphones don’t require: the ability to drive down the road without looking at a screen.
“It is less expensive when you remove dozens of switches with a singular screen panel,” Penn said. “However, it’s more expensive if you misalign yourself with the voice of the customer.”
Do you remember what you were doing on this day 20 years ago? If you were an avid Disney Channel viewer, chances are, the answer is living and breathing “High School Musical.”
In January 2006, a direct-to-TV movie musical starring a cast of largely unknown teenagers set a single-night audience record on the Disney Channel. It was such a hit that the house of mouse promptly doubled down with repeat screenings, sing-along versions, piles of merchandise, and a live concert tour that packed arenas across the country. By the time the year was out, the soundtrack had become the top-selling album of 2006.
No one could have known that a Disney Channel Original Movie would eventually become a hit trilogy and multibillion-dollar franchise, but director Kenny Ortega was never in the business of half-heartedness. He’d already made a name for himself as a choreographer (“Dirty Dancing,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” Madonna’s “Material Girl”) and a director (“Newsies,” “Hocus Pocus”). He’d signed on to choreograph and direct “High School Musical” because he recognized his younger self in the story — but also because he saw potential for an ambitious production, complete with original songs and colorful dance sequences.
Ortega successfully won support from Disney Channel executives to turn the original script into a “full-on musical,” which, at the time, was not a popular format for the network.
“The musical was dead, according to the industry,” Ortega told Business Insider. “The budget came in, and I was like, how the heck am I going to be able to do this?”
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With only about a month to shoot and a few million dollars to spend, it was crucial to ensure that each piece to the puzzle fit perfectly.
“We made every dollar stretch and every minute mean something,” Ortega said. “We didn’t waste any time. Nothing ended up on the cutting room floor.”
Ashley Tisdale, Corbin Bleu, Lucas Grabeel, Vanessa Hudgens, Zac Efron, and Monique Coleman on the set of “The Today Show” on March 30, 2006.
Jemal Countess/Getty Images
Ortega and his team eventually landed on Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens to play Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez, a basketball star and a whiz kid who discover an unlikely love for theater. The high schoolers resolve to follow their dreams and, of course, fall in love in the process. Offscreen, Efron and Hudgens followed suit, dating for several years.
As “High School Musical” celebrates its 20th anniversary this week, Business Insider spoke with Ortega about the movie’s key casting decisions, the actors’ real-life relationships, and the potential for another sequel.
The sibling dynamic between Ashley Tisdale and Lucas Grabeel led Ortega to make their characters siblings
Lucas Grabeel and Ashley Tisdale as Ryan and Sharpay in “High School Musical.”
Disney
Is it true that you wanted to run the auditions for “High School Musical” like Broadway auditions?
I did. And I got in a little trouble for that in the beginning.
I remember Judy Taylor, who I adore, who was head of casting at Disney Channel for many, many years, came to me during our big final testing. We had about 25 and 30 kids for the finals. And then we narrowed it down to about 18. And I had them in the room for about six hours — they were playing basketball, they were dancing, they were singing, they were improvising. I was flipping them around and switching them around and looking at the chemistry that was in the room and looking at the promise that was in front of me.
The next day, Judy came back and said, “The agents are flipping out. They want to know what the heck’s going on over here. These kids have other auditions, other people to meet, and you’re holding them ransom.”
But then the next day, Judy came back to me and said that Zac Efron’s agent called her and said, “Zac said it’s the best audition he’s ever been to.” And that even if he didn’t get the part, it was worth being a part of the auditioning.
It was such fun. The kids in that room with me were having an absolute ball. I don’t think they’d ever been put through any kind of an audition like that, being West Coast actors and not East Coast theater actors. I put them through the mill.
Were any of the main cast members almost passed over because there were concerns about their stamina, or their singing and dancing abilities?
There were questions. I mean, I think everybody saw the chemistry between Zac and Vanessa from the very, very beginning and knew that it was palpable and that that was going to be hard to top, but there were also concerns about whether they could handle the responsibility. They were young. Vanessa was 15, Zac was 16, and we were putting them in a full-on musical that they had to carry.
Fortunately, we also had the support of Ashley Tisdale and all the other brilliant [actors], Corbin Bleu and Lucas Grabeel and Monique Coleman. And beyond that, with people like Alyson Reed and Bart Johnson. And so we had them surrounded with a lot of great energy and intelligence, and we did it.
But no, I don’t think anyone really was averse to any of the choices that we made. It was hard for me to get Ashley because she was already a big star for Disney Channel, and I think they were priming her for her own movie. And I was like, “Please!” I was crazy in love with what I knew she could do with this role, and she was delicious to work with.
Ashley Tisdale as Sharpay in “High School Musical.”
Disney
I can’t imagine anyone else playing Sharpay.
Honestly, every day she brought something to the party, to the game. There were days where she would come in and she would say to me, “Don’t say anything! Don’t say anything! Can I show you something?” She was just really an improvisational genius, and she really had her arms wrapped around Sharpay, and we had the most fun developing that role together and working with [screenwriter] Peter Barsocchini, of course.
You know, in the beginning, Ryan and Sharpay weren’t brother and sister. They weren’t twins. They were just two characters in the high school that were both in the theater department. But the chemistry that they had together in the auditions, I said, “I think we should make them twins.” I said, “They’ve got something here that I think we could have a heck of a lot of fun with.” And everybody agreed, and we moved forward with that idea.
This is an interesting point, because Ryan and Sharpay are auditioning to play a couple in the musical, are they not?
Yes. [Laughs.] We didn’t change that. I don’t think we thought it through. I think we were a little busy.
Did any of the actors butt heads behind the scenes?
No. I mean, there was some really fun rapport between Lucas and Ashley that they incorporated into their work.
There was this wonderful kind of tug of war between the two of them. And then when the lights came on, and the cameras were rolling, it was just like they were onstage. They put it on.
We felt that. We saw that. We saw them bickering or challenging one another, and we just found it to be really great. And I didn’t have to ask them to be anything. All I had to do was just turn on the camera and get out of the way.
I was there to guide and direct and suggest and mold, but these kids brought a lot. They really did that. They studied, they cared. Day one, Zac said, “Don’t worry about time. Don’t worry about working us, Kenny. We all committed to do this. Let’s make it worth something. Let’s make this worth us all being here.”
Zac was initially really helpful in me sort of raising the bar on what I could expect from these young people. Because before that, other than “Newsies,” I hadn’t been really experienced in working with kids that young.
Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens lobbied for their characters to kiss in the first movie
“High School Musical” won outstanding children’s program at the 2006 Emmys.
Mathew Imaging/FilmMagic for Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
Was there any concern about Zac and Vanessa potentially breaking up during the trilogy?
Well, I think you quietly have concern because you know that that could impact a kind of energy and comfort. And especially with younger kids, you want to make sure that it doesn’t change the sort of climate and ease that we walk into every day. But it didn’t weigh heavily on me. They were all friendly. They all got along. They all enjoyed each other’s company. There was no one that was over here and everybody over here. They really all enjoyed each other’s company. They were a tight-knit group of kids all through it. They were serving of one another, helpful to one another. And I don’t remember that weighing on me.
Certainly, no one said, “Hey, be careful.” No one really brought it up. And I wasn’t aware that they even had a kind of romance, a kind of care for one another in that capacity, until almost the end of the first movie. And I thought it was so silly that I didn’t pick up on it, but I was a little busy.
Was there a version of the movie in which Troy and Gabriella do kiss at the end?
I don’t think at the end of one, no. I don’t think we wanted that. And not because we knew that there would be a two. I just think that we felt that that was something that we could all hope and wish for, but that it wasn’t time for it.
I think Zac and Vanessa wanted it, if I’m not mistaken. I think both of them were like, “We could do a little kiss. I think that it would end the movie in a really lovely place.” And we said, “You already have. You’ve already ended the movie in a really, really lovely place. There’s all kinds of promise about where these two kids are going.”
Troy Bolton’s voice was originally a mix of Zac Efron’s and Drew Seeley’s, but Efron did all his own singing for the sequels
Zac Efron as Troy in “High School Musical.”
Disney
Zac has gone on to do other musicals like “Hairspray” and “The Greatest Showman,” which is maybe a surprise, given that he didn’t do all his vocals in the first movie.
He did part of it. A lot of people don’t know that. A lot of people think that he was lip-syncing the whole movie. He wasn’t.
Drew [Seeley] did an incredible job. Drew’s an amazing composer and lyricist and performer and actor and singer, and he helped us. But because the music for one was written before we had Zac, the music wasn’t written for Zac. And so there was some of the music there that was just out of his range. But he did a lot of it. And then Drew filled in some of the higher-register parts. But “High School Musical 2” and three is all Zac.
Whose decision was that? Was it Zac coming to you, saying, “I want to do the singing now,” or was it your call?
We all wanted him to do it because we all wanted everybody to be doing their own work. And it was hard for him. It was a challenge, but God bless him, he accepted the role, and he went along with us, and he sang all through all those scenes where you see him, he’s singing along with the track.
When we knew that we were going to make a second, it was on everybody’s plate. We’re going to write the songs now, knowing Zac’s voice, knowing Zac’s range and register, so he can deliver all the music for the next movie.
Ortega would sign on to do a fourth ‘High School Musical’ if the cast and crew were all in this together
The cast of “High School Musical” performs “We’re All in This Together.”
Disney
In your mind, would Troy and Gabriella have made it as a couple? Twenty years later, are they still together?
Well, that would be unfair of me. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of Peter Barsocchini being able to write a fourth movie, if that’s the plan. So I wouldn’t want to throw anything out there, because as a director, I would want to be open to either way, whether they stayed together or whether they didn’t stay together, that if I was fortunate enough to be invited to come back and do it again and everyone wanted to, that I would be open to looking at whatever Peter wanted to put in front of us as what he would think the future brought for those characters.
I think all of us hope that they would be together, but maybe not necessarily as a couple, maybe just connected in some kind of wonderful, soulful, spiritual way. Friends, even. Who knows? We’ll see. I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but it’s been talked about.
So you’re not connected to a fourth movie right now?
No, no, I’m not. No one has reached out to me and said, “We’re doing it.” But I know that the fans have been asking, could we do some kind of coming back together, some kind of a reunion show? And hey, I’d just be happy with a nice dinner with everybody present and with no rush to get out after dessert.
But for the fans, I hope we could do something. I think that would be lovely. They’re deserving. They’ve been amazing. They’ve changed all of our lives.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
There is a yearslong lag in the AI hype cycle, according to one former AI researcher turned venture capitalist.
Jenny Xiao, who cofounded Leonis Capital in 2021 after a stint at OpenAI, said the current investment excitement around AI is far behind the actual research.
“There is a massive disconnect between what researchers are seeing and what investors are seeing,” Xiao said on the Fortune Magazine podcast this week.
What’s being discussed at the biggest AI conferencesis as much as 3 to 5 years behind what researchers are thinking about, Xiao said.
“We are so behind the technical frontier, and that’s the gap I really want to bridge,” she added.
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Xiao, who dropped out of a Ph.D. program in economics and AI to take a researcher role at OpenAI, founded Leonis Capital to bridge the worlds of venture capital and deep academic AI research.
“With AI, there needs to be a new generation of founders. There needs to be a new generation of VCs,” she said.
It’s also the first time investors need to be able to provide financial support to both the market and the technology, she added. Unlike SaaS companies, which were built on a “stable tech stack,” AI is moving fast. To keep up, Xiao said investors are going to need to be as technical as the founders.
If she has one piece of advice for investors who haven’t gone deep into the technical side, it’s that they should know “AI progress isn’t linear,” she said.
They should know AI progress happens in “lumps,” she said. So, questions about why AI progress is slowing down or speeding up aren’t the best way to characterize the rate of development.
“It’s neither of those two extremes,” she said. “It’s somewhere in between.”
Leonis Capital did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Chief marketing officers at many of the world’s biggest brands made artificial intelligence a centerpiece of their strategies this year.
For some brands, the enthusiasm ran into risky territory. From AI-generated ads that veered into the “uncanny valley” to backlash over replacing human models and advertising creatives, AI’s growing role in advertising fueled a string of controversial marketing moments. The AI backlash even led to its own marketing trend: brands hating on AI.
A survey of more than 6,000 US consumers conducted by the brand-tracking platform Tracksuit in November found that overall sentiment toward AI-generated advertising skewed negative (39%). Neutrality was also strong among respondents, at 36%, while only 18% felt positive about brands using AI-generated content in their ads.
Matt Barash, chief commercial officer of the adtech platform Nova, said that while AI can be a useful tool for buying and placing ads, brands should be cautious when attempting to automate the creative process.
“When brands ask AI to invent stories from scratch, they don’t get innovation — they get an approximation of human emotion, and the result can make headlines for all of the wrong reasons,” Barash said.
Indeed, several major marketers did make the news for their AI-related mishaps this year. Take a look at some of the most notable AI advertising controversies of the year, below.
McDonald’s ‘most terrible’ AI holiday ad
McDonald’s Netherlands cooked up an AI-generated holiday ad this month — and quickly sent it back to the kitchen when it became clear that viewers weren’t lovin’ it.
The “most terrible time of the year” ad was intended to be a satirical take on Christmas calamities that could occur over the festive period. The 45-second spot featured a quickfire montage of cooking mishaps, broken bones at the ice rink, and Santa’s sleigh getting stuck in a traffic jam. The brand suggested its restaurants could act as a shelter from the chaos. “Hide out in McDonald’s ’til January’s here,” the ad’s narrator said.
Some social media commentators denounced the fast-food chain as a McGrinch, complaining the ad had a cynical sentiment and “creepy” characters. After initially turning off the comments on the ad’s YouTube video, McDonald’s later removed the ad from the site altogether.
In a statement, McDonald’s Netherlands said that while the ad was intended to reflect some of the stressful moments that the holidays can bring, it recognized that many of its customers feel the season is “the most wonderful time of the year.”
“We respect that and remain committed to creating experiences that offer Good Times and Good Food for everyone,” the statement said.
Coca-Cola’s metamorphosing holiday trucks
Coca-Cola already had one AI-generated holiday ad misfire under its belt, after last year’s “Holidays are Coming” rendition was criticized as “dystopian” and “soulless.” Despite that, this year it released three AI-generated holiday ads.
One of the ads, another AI rendition of the classic “Holidays are Coming” spot, caught the attention of the eagle-eyed creative community due to its lack of consistency. Sure, the wheels on the trucks went round and round — a criticism of last year’s ad was that they appeared to glide across the road — but they also appeared to change in quantity as the ad rolled on.
In the spirit of Christmas, Dino Burbidge, an independent innovation specialist, shared the gift of this handy graphic to help everyone follow along:
Dino Burbidge
PJ Pereira, cofounder of Silverside AI, the production company behind the ad, defended Coca-Cola’s use of AI in a statement.
“Coca-Cola became a pioneer in this space because, once they recognized AI as the future, they stopped debating whether it’s perfect or not — and instead focused on how to use it in the best, most creative way possible,” Pereira said.
Pereira also said that the ad performed well with consumers in testing. System1, which rates ads on a scale from 1 to 5.9 stars on their potential to drive long-term growth for brands, gave the 2025 “Holidays are Coming” ads the highest possible score: 5.9. A separate creative testing company, DAIVID, said the ad generated higher-than-average attention and brand recall scores.
Take that, haters!
Meta’s AI granny ad: a true classic of the genre
Apparel brand True Classic is a poster child of digital performance marketing, honing platforms like Facebook and Instagram to build a community of devoted customers — typically men ages 30 to 45.
So imagine its marketing chief’s shock when he realized Meta’s ad platform had swapped out his top-performing ad — a millennial man in a matching fleece set, casually posing on a stool — with that of a cheerful, yet clearly AI-generated granny sitting in an armchair.
Advertisers told Business Insider earlier this year that settings within Meta’s Advantage+ suite of AI-powered ad products had led to the platform automatically generating ad creatives on their behalf.
In a statement, Meta said that advertisers who use its full image generation feature can review the images before running their ads.
But three advertisers also told Business Insider they’d encountered a problem where Meta automatically switched those toggles to “on,” even when they’d explicitly turned them off — meaning they inadvertently spent some of their budgets on AI-generated ads they didn’t intend to run.
H&M’s attack of the clones
AI has helped take airbrushing to the next level. Some brands are experimenting with using generative AI to eliminate photo shoots altogether — with mixed results.
Take fast-fashion retailer H&M. In March, the company announced a plan to create “digital twins” of 30 models whose images could be used for social media posts and ad campaigns. H&M said the models would own the rights to their twins, which would include the ability to allow other brands to use them.
H&M released images of its “digital twins” in July.
H&M
H&M was aware that the move would be controversial.
“People will be divided. You know, ‘Is this good? Is this bad?'” Jörgen Andersson, H&M chief creative officer, told Business of Fashion at the time.
H&M certainly got chins wagging. American fashion influencer Morgan Riddle described the plan as “shameful.” Sara Ziff, founder of Model Alliance, a nonprofit that focuses on workers’ rights in the fashion industry, said the plan raised “serious concerns.”
“In an industry that has historically been a backwater for workers’ rights, H&M’s new initiative raises critical questions about consent and compensation, and has the potential to replace a host of fashion workers — including make-up artists, hair stylists, and other creative artists in our community,” Ziff said in a statement.
In a statement sent to Business Insider for this article, an H&M spokesperson said that the brand was exploring how generative AI can support the creative process in thoughtful and responsible ways.
“We recognize that generative AI raises important questions and concerns, and we want to be transparent in acknowledging that we do not yet have all the answers, but are continuing to learn and evolve,” the H&M spokesperson said.
Strike a pose, Vogue
H&M wasn’t the only fashion brand to give AI models a twirl this year.
Readers flicking through the August 2025 issue of Vogue noticed ads for Guess carried a small label/disclaimer: “Produced by Seraphinne Vallora on AI.” The models, “Vivienne” and “Anastasia,” were created using AI by a London-based AI marketing agency.
Social media users slammed the ad, saying the images pushed unrealistic beauty standards and that the use of AI imagery portended bad news for creative industry jobs. Some online commenters said they would cancel their Vogue subscriptions in protest. (Vogue publisher Condé Nast said at the time that an AI model had never appeared “editorially” in Vogue.)
The cofounders of Seraphinne Vallora said in an interview with “Good Morning America” that they were looking to supplement the modeling industry, not replace it.
“We are here to co-exist together, and we will always see photography, stylists, and everyone involved in a photo shoot as incredibly important,” said Valentina Gonzalez, one of the cofounders.
AI models and the controversies surrounding them weren’t a new advertising phenomenon for 2025. Brands such as Mango and Levi’s have also faced a similar backlash for featuring AI-generated models in their marketing in recent years. A new trend does appear to be emerging, though. Brand partnerships with AI social accounts dropped by around 30% in the first eight months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, according to transaction data from hundreds of campaigns provided by the influencer-marketing platform Collabstr.
Could AI models be the latest fast-fashion casualty?
