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There’s a valuable leadership lesson behind University of Maryland’s viral March Madness moment

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Amid the chaos of March Madness is a simple leadership lesson: Know your team.

On Sunday, Brenda Frese, the University of Maryland basketball coach, went viral after cameras showed her shouting passionately at one of her players.

“I believe in you, but you got to want this moment,” she told junior guard Oluchi Okananwa, just a few inches away from her face.

While the interaction might appear abrasive at first — and sparked debate online about whether it crossed a line — Frese’s message turned out to be exactly what Okananwa needed in that moment.

“I love to be coached hard, and that’s what she does with me every single day. And really what that was, was a regroup moment for myself and her telling me she believed in me, because sometimes that’s really all you need to hear,” Okananwa said at a post-game press conference.

The guard said she was “forever appreciative” of the interaction, and after the heated conversation, she returned to the court and locked in for the rest of the game.

Moments like this can reflect a deeper level of trust between a coach and a player. In high-pressure situations, direct, emotionally charged feedback can cut through the noise — but it requires a strong relationship, according to Frese.

In a post-game press conference, Frese said that a coach needs to know their players. “You can’t have those conversations if you don’t have a relationship with them,” she said, according to Yahoo Sports.

Knowing your players

There’s a meaningful distinction between tearing someone down and delivering direct, emotionally charged feedback. In this case, Frese’s approach pushed Okananwa while also showing confidence in her ability to meet the moment.

“We do have to at times have those tough conversations,” Frese said at the press conference. “The best-of-the-best, the elite-of-the-elite wanna be coached hard.”

Tim Quigley, a professor of strategic leadership and governance at IMD, told Business Insider that Frese likely understood exactly what her player needed to hear, and that delivering it with intensity is part of the culture of sports — and real life.

“It takes your whole being, your whole soul, everything you’ve got, to compete at that level,” Quigley said. “Little, teeny things make all the difference. And that coach is working to get that out of her player. She knows her player and she cares.”

Quigley, who previously competed internationally as a cyclist, said those kinds of exchanges were common with his own coach. He added that while that specific kind of interaction is unlikely to occur in a boardroom, most CEOs have likely had similar moments of intensity with their teams.

“If we’re in the workplace trying to make a decision about, let’s say, it’s a multibillion-dollar acquisition, people are going to yell at each other at times,” Quigley said.

Quigley said the context in those scenarios is crucial. When people establish strong relationships and understand how to motivate their direct reports, those moments of feedback can be critical in helping them perform better without feeling belittling.




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What smart people in economics and business are saying about a viral report warning of an AI-driven recession and stock crash

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  • A viral research report warned of a stock market crash and double-digit unemployment by 2028.
  • The note sent software stocks sliding and rattled investors.
  • Critics said markets may be overreacting to a worst-case scenario thought experiment.

A research note warning that the AI boom could trigger a recession and a stock market crash spooked investors and sent software stocks sliding on Monday.

Citrini Research outlined a hypothetical 2028 scenario in which rapid AI adoption leads to mass white-collar layoffs and a collapse in consumer spending.

The report, which was published Sunday, went viral and amplified debate over whether AI is a productivity boom or a destabilizing shock.

Here’s what prominent economists and business leaders are saying about the note:

Claudia Sahm

Claudia Sahm, the chief economist of New Century Advisors and creator of the Sahm Rule recession indicator, raised concerns about the framing of the scenario.

“One concern with the Citrini scenario (and mirrored in the current moment) is the focus on destructive (left) rather than constructive (right),” Sahm wrote on X on Monday. “Maybe the latter takes longer, but it matters for the new equilibrium, too.”

In a follow-up post, she said that a labor market shock of the magnitude Citrini describes would likely trigger a forceful policy response.

“The labor market crisis they describe would generate a forceful fiscal/monetary response. They downplay that,” Sahm wrote. “The more likely scenario of gradual, limited job losses will be the hard one to get policymakers to focus and act.”

Michael Burry

Michael Burry.

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Michael Burry, the investor famous for predicting the 2008 housing crash and profiled in “The Big Short,” amplified the report to his millions of followers.

“And you think I’m bearish,” Burry wrote on X, linking directly to Citrini’s research.

His post included a chart from the Citrini report, titled “The AI Feedback Loop: A Non-Cyclical Disruption,” contrasting traditional recessions — which, it said, self-correct — with what Citrini describes as an AI-driven cycle with “no natural brake.”

Brendan Duke

Brendan Duke, a senior director for federal budget policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and a former senior policy advisor at the Biden-Harris White House National Economic Council, said many critics may be misreading Citrini’s premise.

“A lot of people have a hard time with the concept of a thought experiment,” he wrote on X.

However, Duke added that one underappreciated risk in the scenario is the financial market impact if “prime white collar borrowers who nobody ever thought would default… defaulting” becomes a reality — referring to the report’s suggestion that white-collar layoffs could cascade into prime mortgage and private credit stress.

Jeff Dorman

Jeff Dorman, chief investment officer at Arca, framed the response to the report as a lesson in investor psychology.

“The biggest takeaway from the virality of this Citrini doom porn is that fear sells,” Dorman wrote on X, referring to Monday’s stock market sell-off.

He said that markets and media often reward dramatic crash predictions, even if they rarely materialize.

“There are thousands of successful macro newsletters that you pay money to subscribe to, and all of them tell you to buy gold, build a bunker, and short stocks,” he wrote, adding that high-profile recession forecasters frequently get attention despite repeated false alarms.

Deepak Shenoy

Deepak Shenoy, founder of Capitalmind, compared the AI recession warning to past resource-scarcity warnings.

“This is the viral post that currently spooks everyone,” Shenoy wrote in an X post.

He pointed to 2008-era warnings that oil reserves were running out — fears that did not ultimately dismantle the energy industry.

“Doomsday porn is addictive,” Shenoy wrote. “AI based end of everything is the WWF of the world now, fun to watch but is mostly fake.”

Michael Bloch

Michael Bloch, a partner at VC firm Quiet Capital, published a rebuttal titled “The 2028 Global Intelligence Boom.”

He said that even if AI keeps improving rapidly, it doesn’t have to end in a crash — it could make the economy richer.

“What if our AI bullishness continues to be right… and what if that’s actually bullish?” he wrote on Substack this weekend.

Bloch said investors are confusing pain in parts of tech — like SaaS and middleman-style businesses — with a broader economic collapse, and that cheaper services could leave households and startups with more money to spend.




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Katherine Li, West Coast breaking news reporter at the Business Insider.

The author of a viral AI report warns that blue-collar jobs won’t be safe from an AI-driven recession

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The coauthor of an AI research paper is speaking out after his work triggered a global stock sell-off.

Citrini, a firm focused on thematic equity investing, alongside Alap Shah, CEO of Littlebird.ai, theorized a future where, instead of transforming the economy in a positive way, the AI boom erases white-collar jobs and severely reduces the spending power of those workers, and eventually stunts economic growth.

On Monday, Shah told “TBPN” podcast hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hays that despite how well it seems to be going for blue-collar jobs at the moment in terms of growth and the lack of mass layoffs, these jobs won’t be safe if white collar jobs go away because ultimately, there is only “one labor market.”

“Let’s say in our scenario, we talk about 5% of folks might get fired in a couple of years,” said Shah. “Those 5%, if there aren’t white collar jobs for them to relocate into, then they’re going to have to move into the gig economy and the blue collar labor force.”

“And so that puts pressure on the entire labor market, not just the white collar one,” Shah added.

Shah and Citrini published a report on Sunday, written from a futuristic point of view set in 2028, that predicts a negative domino scenario triggered by the AI boom. The research theorizes that AI will kick off a mass white-collar layoff too quickly, which will then deal a blow to the metro housing and mortgage market, and eventually lead to a global stock sell-off and a widespread recession in all sectors. In this scenario, the paper said, AI growth could also lose momentum due to a lack of funding.

“The system turned out to be one long daisy chain of correlated bets on white-collar productivity growth,” the paper theorizes. “The November 2027 crash only served to accelerate all of the negative feedback loops already in place.”

Shah elaborated on these concerns on “TBPN.” When asked what he thinks of the current growth in the health and education sectors, Shah said most of it could be spurred by government spending, which would go away if personal income declines.

“Those sectors continue to grow because government spending grows,” said Shah. “But again, gets very circular if government spending is coming primarily from taxes and primarily payroll taxes because the average worker pays a lot more in taxes per dollar than the average corporate does.”




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This Ikea plushie is swinging off the shelves because of Punch the sad viral TikTok monkey

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A sad baby monkey has turned an Ikea plushie into a viral must-have.

Punch, also known as Panchi-kun, is a seven-month-old Japanese macaque born in July. His mother abandoned him shortly after birth, and he was later rejected by other monkeys at Ichikawa City Zoo in Japan. To soothe him, zookeepers gave him a brown orangutan plush from Ikea.

Videos of Punch clinging tightly to the orangutan toy — hugging it after being brushed off by an older monkey, carrying it everywhere, even fending off curious monkeys who try to grab it — have racked up millions of views on TikTok. The clips turned the lonely macaque into an internet star.


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Punch found comfort in an Ikea plush.

JIJI PRESS / AFP via Getty Images



A Japanese hashtag that translates to “hang in there, Punch” has also been trending, with users around the world rallying behind the baby monkey.

Viewers identified the plush as Ikea’s Djungelskog orangutan, and now it’s swinging off shelves at top speed.

Javier Quiñones, commercial manager at Ingka Group, which operates Ikea stores worldwide, told Business Insider on Monday that Ikea has “seen a clear increase in sales of the DJUNGELSKOG orangutan toy, particularly in Japan, the US, and South Korea” over the past few days.

The toy is sold out in some stores in those regions, and the company is “making sure that the toy is back in stock as soon as possible,” Quiñones said.

“The toy has long been one of our most sought-after across markets, and the story from Japan is now giving it a little extra love,” he added.

An Ikea spokesperson said the Japan team has reached out to the zoo to explore ways to help Punch.

“On February 17, IKEA donated several soft toys, including additional orangutans, as well as storage items to support Punch and enhance areas for children visiting the zoo,” the spokesperson said.

“Just like the zookeepers, we sincerely hope that Punch will soon become comfortable in an environment with the other monkeys and no longer need the soft toy,” the spokesperson added.

The orangutan plushie retails for $19.99 in the US, both in stores and online. Business Insider’s check of Ikea’s website on Tuesday found the toy out of stock at most US locations, with only about six stores still offering click-and-collect or in-store purchases.

The frenzy also spilled onto resale platforms, where prices climbed quickly.

A search on eBay on Tuesday showed multiple listings for the orangutan plush, with one seller asking as much as $328, more than 16 times the retail price.




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Did you miss Amtrak’s viral ‘Trak Suit’ launch? You may get another shot.

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  • Amtrak’s ”Trak Suit,’ designed by a New York School of Design student, was on sale for four days.
  • The limited release, which ended February 2, was popular enough that Amtrak is considering a second run.
  • The rail line is considering mass production with more versions at varying price points.

As someone who has spent more than 150 hours on Amtrak trains, let me tell you, comfort and functionality are key when selecting an outfit. Bonus points if you can make it look cool.

Enter Amtrak’s ‘Trak Suit, a blue and white microfiber fleece poly fabric set that has a detachable sleep mask in the hood, a color block pant design, and an embroidered Amtrak logo. The suit sold for $279 on the rail line’s website from January 29 to February 2.

The limited release was so popular that Amtrak is thinking about bringing it back.

“Given the great response we are seeing from fans, we are evaluating an extension or second run,” an Amtrak representative told Business Insider. “If we choose to mass produce these in larger quantities, we may even consider a few different versions of the design at different price points.”


A model wears the Amtrak 'Trak Suit on a staircase

Amtrak’s ‘Trak Suit was designed by a student the New York School of Design, Anastasiia Lukinskaia.

Amtrak



The ‘Trak Suit was designed by New York School of Design student Anastasiia Lukinskaia last fall.

When Amtrak launched the NextGen Acela train in August 2025, the rail line selected seven students from the New York School of Design to create two track suits to showcase during New York Fashion Week in fall 2025.

“When we revealed the ‘Trak Suits collection during fashion week in New York, the response from our fans was incredible,” Amtrak Vice President, Digital & Brand Management, Jessica Davidson, said in a press release.

I plan to spend hundreds more hours on Amtrak trains, so if the ‘Trak Suit comes back, I just might get one.




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Gary Marcus calls out viral AI essay as alarmist ‘hype’

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If that viral essay about AI had been printed on paper, there’s a good chance AI researcher Gary Marcus would’ve ripped it up in disgust.

Marcus acknowledges something is happening in AI — just nowhere near the scale described in the recently viral essay, which predicted a looming disruption “worse than COVID.”

Marcus, who on X criticized the essay written by entrepreneur and investor Matt Shumer as having “not a shred of actual data,” dismissed its contents as alarmist in an interview with Business Insider.

“Hyped-up views have gotten us into a bad place, possibly one that’s going to lead to a serious economic recession or something like that,” Marcus told Business Insider. “And I guess I think that one should work from the facts rather than just trying to cause an alarm.”

In his essay titled “Something Big is Happening,” Shumer, whose past startup sells a subscription-based AI-assisted writing tool, warned that AI would upend not just software engineering, but most jobs done “on a screen.” Shumer also has a small VC fund.

Marcus said that while AI will replace some labor and affect jobs, the process will be much slower than what Schumer and others are describing.

AI can do some things well and help speed up work, but it’s just not near the point of replacing humans, Marcus said.

“AI can do a small subset of the tasks, and that sometimes speeds up human beings and things like that, but it rarely does all of what a human being can do in any particular domain,” he told Business Insider. “This will change over time, just to be clear. It is likely that AI will replace most human labor over the next century, but it’s not likely that it will over the next year or two.”

Companies that move too quickly to replace jobs with AI are likely to find themselves in a similar position as Klarna, Marcus said. In 2024, Klarna touted an AI assistant that could do the equivalent work of 700 people. By May 2025, CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski, long a proponent of AI, said that “as cost unfortunately seems to have been a too predominant evaluation factor when organizing this, what you end up having is lower quality.” He added that “investing in the quality of the human support is the way of the future for us.”

“Six months or a year later, they come back with their tails between their legs because it turns out that the AI systems don’t do things as well as the human,” Marcus said. “So, I’m not saying that there’s nothing going on. I’m not saying that there’s no value in these AI systems, but they’re premature.”

Klarna told Business Insider that the number of its customer service queries handled by AI has increased “as it gets better at more complex requests,” and the company “has not reversed or scaled back its AI strategy.”

Marcus said that the more likely outcome in the short-term is not that AI will replace junior employees but rather that executives think it’s capable of doing so — and make what could ultimately prove to be a costly gamble.

“The biggest thing I think junior people have to worry about right now is a misapprehension by the C-suite that these techniques work better than they actually do,” Marcus said.

As of Friday morning, Shumer’s post has been viewed more than 80 million times on X alone. In a Substack post expanding on his criticisms, Marcus called Schumer’s post “weaponized hype.”

“The general impression that he conveys is basically that the sky is falling now, and at most, I think what’s really happening is the junior people are under some threat, and I think that threat is actually exaggerated,” Marcus told Business Insider.

Shumer previously told Business Insider that he wrote his essay in part to reach people like his dad, who may be skeptical or avoid AI entirely. He felt compelled to warn them about what might be on the horizon, even “if there’s just a 20% chance of it happening.”

Marcus’s biggest critique of Schumer’s post is that it doesn’t take into account current data and research showing that AI still has a long way to go, and that it didn’t present the full context behind a famous Model Evaluation & Threat Research graph assessing AI progress.

He said that other studies, including a June 2025 paper published by Apple’s Machine Learning Research Group, found limitations in what current models can do.

Marcus also said that many leading AI CEOs who have made bold predictions about the future of work have failed to deliver on past ones. He points to xAI CEO Elon Musk’s frequent rosy outlook on the number of robotaxis Tesla will put on the road (Musk once said one million by 2020) and to Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton’s 2016 statement that the world should stop training radiologists. (Last May, Hinton told The New York Times that his prediction was poorly worded and that while he was wrong on the timeline, the general direction for AI’s capabilities in radiology was correct.)

“What they have all learned to do is to sell the rosiest picture possible, and the media rarely calls them out,” Marcus told Business Insider.

On Thursday, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman made waves by predicting that most, if not all, white-collar tasks could be automated within the next year and a half.

One of the industries Suleyman mentioned is accounting. Marcus isn’t convinced.

“Think about accounting in particular,” he told Business Insider. “Even one mistake can cost a client hundreds of thousands of dollars or get them sent to jail or whatever. Accounting is a business that is built on accuracy. If you’re not accurate, you don’t have a business.”




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Tech leaders are raising tough questions over Matt Shumer’s viral essay on how AI will impact jobs.

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Scientists and business leaders are responding to a viral essay warning of AI’s impact on jobs with a mix of agreement and skepticism.

The essay, titled “Something Big is Coming,” written by cofounder and CEO of OthersideAI, Matt Shumer, has racked up more than 60 million views on X as of Thursday.

In the 5,000-word post, Shumer said that AI could upend daily life on a scale “much bigger” than COVID, a comparison which drew pushback online. He wrote that the changes already unfolding in the tech sector are likely a preview of disruptions that could soon reach other industries as well.

“Even if there is a 20% chance of this happening, people deserve to know and have time to prepare,” Shumer told Business Insider’s Brent Griffiths in an interview.

Here’s what some of the sharpest minds in AI are saying about Shumer’s essay.

David Haber

Haber, a general partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz specializing in technology investments, posted on X that Shumer’s essay contains “great advice for how to get ahead in your job at any large company right now.”

“‘I used AI to do this analysis in an hour instead of three days is going to be the most valuable person in the room.’ Not eventually. Right now,” Haber quotes from the essay. “Learn these tools. Get proficient. Demonstrate what’s possible.”

Alexis Ohanian

The Reddit founder responded to Shumer’s initial post on X with a simple comment: “Great writeup. Strongly agree.”

Since 2023, Reddit has introduced a range of AI-driven tools, from search features that summarize user discussions to AI that sharpens its content recommendations and targets ads, but Ohanian recently emphasized that the platform must retain its humanity to stay competitive.

Eric Markowitz

Markowitz, the author and managing partner and director of research at Nightview Capital, a long-term-oriented investment firm, responded to Schumer with an essay almost as long, which criticized the practice of chasing speed and replacing the value of humanity simply because it could be done.

“These two worlds — Wall Street and Silicon Valley — have formed a feedback loop of short-termism so tight, so self-reinforcing, that they’ve confused efficiency with purpose, growth with meaning, and the elimination of people with progress,” wrote Markowitz.

“I have two research assistants. Could I replace them with AI? Of course. But their value extends their weekly output,” Markowitz added. “They give meaning to my work and I love seeing the excitement in their faces when they make a new discovery that I, alone, could not have found.”

“Let me say it again: we are not our tools. We never have been,” Markowitz wrote in conclusion.

Todd McLees

McLees, the founder of HumanSkills.AI, wrote on X that Shumer is not wrong, but he said that the advice Shumer provided is akin to “telling someone the floodwaters are rising and handing them a better bucket.”

“As AI grows in ability, our role in defining direction, values, and purpose only becomes more essential,” McLees said.

“What do you bring when the machine can do the work? That’s the only question that matters when intelligence is abundant,” McLees added. “Shumer wrote the alarm. It’s a good one. But alarms don’t tell you where to go. You have to find that within yourself.”

Gary Marcus

Marcus, Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at NYU and founder of AI companies Robust.AI, has some harsh words for Schumer in his newsletter.

Marcuz called Shumer’s blog post “weaponized hype, filled with vivid narrative and marketing speech,” and said he did not provide real data to support the claim that the latest AI can write complicated apps without mistakes.

“Shumer’s presentation is completely one-sided, omitting lots of concerns that have been widely expressed here and elsewhere,” Marcus added, after discussing various studies that question the accuracy and productivity gain AI tools actually provide.

Vishal Misra

Misra, Vice Dean of Computing and Artificial Intelligence at Columbia University, responded in a lengthy Substack article that detailed why he doesn’t think AI is as scary as it sounds, at least not right now.

Misra wrote that many strange AI behaviors that make them seem sentient, such as perceived resistance and self-preservation, are simply a result of training data.

As for the possible elimination of jobs, Misra said he understands the anxiety, but history says we may not need to panic.

“When the camera was invented, portrait painters had every reason to panic. Their livelihood depended on a skill that a machine could now approximate,” Misra wrote.

“What happened? Painters didn’t disappear. They were freed from the obligation to faithfully reproduce reality and ventured into impressionism, cubism, abstract expressionism,” Misra added. “The camera didn’t kill painting. It liberated it.”




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Author of viral ‘Something Big is Coming’ essay says AI helped him write it — and that proves his point

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The author of the viral essay warning about impending AI disruption says he couldn’t wait any longer to get the word out.

“Let’s say there is just a 20% chance of it happening, which is maybe realistic, maybe underselling it,” Matt Shumer, GP of Shumer Capital, said during an interview with Business Insider. “Even if there is a 20% chance of this happening, people deserve to know and have time to prepare.”

The people in tech who previously warned about AI’s impact were mostly speaking to others in the industry, he said. Shumer said he wanted something that spoke to his dad, a lawyer who is just a few years from retirement and is hopeful he can run out the clock on the potential massive change on the horizon.

He’s certainly found an audience.

His essay, titled “Something Big is Coming,” has been viewed over 60 million times on X alone, as of Wednesday evening. In the nearly 5,000-word post, Shumer wrote that AI’s disruption to people’s lives could be “much bigger” than COVID — a comparison that has drawn some pushback online. Shumer’s past controversy over an open-source model he promoted in 2024 has also come under scrutiny, after AI researchers discovered the model didn’t live up to his performance claims. He previously apologized, saying “I got ahead of myself when I announced this project.”

In his essay, Shumer also wrote that what he’s seeing in tech is likely what awaits other industries.

“I don’t know that this is coming for sure, but I think a lot of us in tech really see this progress, and it’s frankly dizzying, and there’s a good chance of this,” he said. “And the more people know, the better.”

Shumer is not alone in his fears about the future.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who is known for writing eyebrow-raising essays of his own, has said that up to half of all entry-level, white-collar jobs may be wiped out in the next one to five years. xAI CEO Elon Musk has called AI a “supersonic tsunami” that will quickly eliminate jobs that don’t involve physical labor.

Shumer said even he is unsettled about the prospects of AI. After all, he’s 26 and still near the beginning years of his career. In 2020, he cofounded OthersideAI, which later spawned HyperWrite, an AI-assisted writing tool.

“I don’t know how many more years of my career there will be if this all actually comes to pass,” he told Business Insider. “So, it’s frankly a little confusing and terrifying for someone like me.”

Part of the issue is that AI is unlikely to affect all industries in the same way or at the same time, making career advice highly dependent on a person’s specific situation.

“If you’re a nurse, you’re probably going to be fine for quite some time,” he told Business Insider, adding that junior associates at law school face significantly more risk because many of the introductory-type tasks they do are already being targeted by AI companies.

In his essay, Shumer wrote that his realization of what’s in store came after his experience with OpenAI’s GPT-5.3-Codex, which was released last week. In its release notes, OpenAI said GPT-5.3-Codex was its “first model that was instrumental in creating itself.” Shumer wrote that AI is now capable of doing his technical work.

As for the other tasks, Shumer has been quite open about how AI helped him write his viral essay about AI. He said he spent hours working with Claude to craft his message.

“It did help a lot,” he told TBPN on Wednesday, “and I think that’s kind of the point.”

It’s why Shumer’s message to everyone who turned away from AI, perhaps after a clunky experience with an early version of ChatGPT years ago, is that they should seize the opportunity to see the breadth of what the technology can do now.

“If you look back 10 years from now and this did come to pass, you’ll be very glad you did,” he told Business Insider.




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I’m a 14-year-old founder whose YC application went viral. There are pros and cons to starting a company young.

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This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Alby Churven, the 14-year-old founder of Clovr, who lives in Wollongong, Australia. It’s been edited for length and clarity.

When I was younger, I started an e-commerce grip socks brand called Alpha Grips. It failed, but that’s what got me interested in business. I was 12.

A lot of kids’ first businesses is always something to do with e-commerce, like drop-shipping or clothing brands. Social media does saturate you with that “get rich quick” idea with drop-shipping or crypto. Although 90% of the time it’s a scam, it still ignites an interest.

Then I came up with the idea of Finkel, the startup I applied to Y Combinator with. I sent a cold email to Frank Greeff who’s a pretty big founder here. He recommended I started building in public on social media, so I started doing that. X is full of startups.

Social media played a big role, seeing other people building brands and businesses. That’s what got me into it. I used to do code camps when I was younger, so I’ve always been interested in tech and entrepreneurship.

I applied to YC. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to do this big video with all the editing. It’s supposed to be, you sit down and turn on the webcam and talk. I didn’t actually read the instructions when I did it, but I guess that’s what made it pretty viral.

There’s a new social media ban in Australia for people under 16. All these great things have happened for me with it, but the social media ban is taking that away. I don’t agree with it, but it is what it is.

I’m young. I think my advantage being a teenage entrepreneur is I’ve got time. My goal right now is to build as many things as possible, learn as much as possible, and see where it goes.

You decide you want to do maybe when you’re 18 or 16. But I know what I want to do. I want to be in startups and tech.

The benefits of starting young is that you don’t have as much pressure on you financially, so you can just build things.

In the future, I’ll have had experience. It’s about learning. I have time on my hands, and I enjoy it.

The younger generation thinks a bit differently. Some older people may not even know how to use AI.

I’m in the US right now, and I’ve been meeting with a lot of really cool people. When you’re young, you can utilize your age to make a lot of connections. It’s more rare. It’s crazy you’re doing it this young.

My age is a wow factor, but it also limits legitimacy.

It also can be a negative. People might not take you seriously if you’re really trying to pursue something. All the things I’m building are bootstrapped, because it’s impossible to raise funding when you’re young.

I’m getting to stages in my projects where I do need some money. I’ve applied to these accelerators. I had a very low expectation for Y Combinator. I got an interview about my other startup, Clovr, but then I got rejected.

I’ve heard you have to get in the system early, so when I’m older and I apply, I’ll already be in the system and have experience with how the process works.

I do think grants are a really good opportunity. You won’t raise nearly as much, but you’re not giving away any equity. I think giving away equity young is not a good decision. It gives pressure to perform and deliver, and when you’re young, you want to build stuff.




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