I don’t know how Henri Cartier-Bresson would have reacted to Leica replacing the optical viewfinder on his camera with an artificial display. Perhaps the French photographer and cofounder of Magnum Photos wouldn’t have cared one bit about it. Or maybe hea profound humanistwould have disliked the idea of it almost as much as I do.
Cartier-Bresson once famously said that his Leica became the extension of [his] eye, prowling the streets all day, feeling very strung up and ready to pounce, determined to trap lifeto preserve life in the act of living. Thats a little harder to accomplish with Leicas new camera. Today, Leica is launching the M EV1. Its the first M camera with a digital viewfinder, meaning the Ms most distinct assetits beautiful optical viewfinderis no more.
Henri Cartier-Bresson during the 1968 Paris riots.[Photo: Alain Nogues/Sygma/Sygma/Getty Images]
What is the new Leica M EV1?
Before we get to the new camera, it’s important to understand what came before. For the last seven decades, the soul of the Leica M has been its optical rangefinder viewfinder. For those not obsessed with cameras, this is a beautiful, entirely mechanical system of mirrors and prisms. When you look through it, you see the world directly, as if through a window, but with a ghostly double image in the center. To focus, you turn a ring on the lens, and this second image moves. When it perfectly overlaps with the main image, your subject is in focus. It’s a method that is precise, completely free of electronic lag, and creates a unique, unfiltered connection to the world.
This system, first pioneered by Leica, made the M camera the tool that defined 20th-century photojournalism. Its compact, quiet, and discreet nature allowed photographers like Robert Capa to get closer to their subjects than ever before, capturing history as it unfolded without intrusion. The M was more than a camera; it was a philosophy of seeing, demanding a manual, deliberate approach that became synonymous with the craft of photography itself.
At first glance, the M EV1 is undeniably an M. It has the same satisfying density, the same minimalist silhouette carved from magnesium and aluminum. But then you notice the changes. The front is cleaner, almost sterile, without its iconic rangefinder windows. The top plate is also different; the traditional ISO dial is gone, sacrificed to make room for the new electronic viewfinder’s housing. The camera is also noticeably lighter46 grams less than its rangefinder cousins, a direct result of removing the complex optical and mechanical guts of the rangefinder system.
Inside, the M EV1 is built on the same foundation as the stellar M11 series. It uses the same 60-megapixel full-frame BSI CMOS sensor, a chip renowned for its incredible detail, 15 stops of dynamic range, and superb performance in low light. That sensor is paired with the company’s Maestro III processor. The company says that this combination makes the camera extremely responsive and quick. The camera also includes 64GB of internal memory, a practical feature for anyone who has ever filled a memory card at a critical moment.
And then theres the entire raison dtre for this camera: the electronic viewfinder (EVF). It’s a high-resolution, 5.76-million-dot screen, which, according to Leicas claims, offers a “what you see is what you get” experience. It is, like I said, a fundamental departure from the rangefinder’s optical approximation.
[Photo: Leica]
The Eye of Sauron
For the first time in an M, the photographer doesnt see real reality. It doesnt see kids crying, running from a napalm strike in Vietnam. It doesnt see Muhammad Alis fist. It doesnt see a sailor kissing a nurse in New Yorks Time Square. Or any of the photos taken with rangefinders that have arguably defined the 20th century. Út, Hoepker, or Eisenstaedt wouldnt have seen those scenes through their own eyes but through the filter of a display that, rather than reality itself, shows a direct feed from the sensor, showing exactly how the final image will look in terms of exposure, depth of field, and color. Not the world, but the final photograph.
While showing me the new camera, Nathan Kellum-Pathe, Trade Marketing Product Communications manager at Leica USA, admitted that taking this step was a significant topic of discussion within the company. A decision that was ultimately justified by looking at the brand’s history and its current strategic goals. Read that as sell more cameras to a new public who want an easier-to-use experience.
He also noted that there was historical precedent, as not every M had a rangefinder inside of it. He believes it is a good time to do it, pointing at the 70th anniversary of the M system as the right moment to show the market that Leica is open to changing what the M is defined by.
This will likely rankle purists like myself (Im writing this under embargo, so there are no public reactions at this time). Kellum-Pathe insisted that the Leica M EV1 doesnt mean they were going to kill the traditional M. We’ve had 70 years of the M with the rangefinder, he says. “We will continue to have the M with the rangefinder.
[Photo: Leica]
[Image: Leica]
[Photo: Leica]
Kellum-Pathe points out that a digital viewfinder has practical advantages. It makes using wide-angle or telephoto lenses much easier, as the EVF shows the lens’s true field of view, unlike a traditional rangefinder, which is limited in its perspective. It also makes focusing with fast, shallow-depth-of-field lenses like Leica’s own Noctilux much simpler, thanks to digital tools like focus peaking (which highlights sharp areas in color) and magnification.
Even the frame-line selector lever on the front of the camera has been repurposed into a customizable function button to toggle these aids without taking your eye from the viewfinder. And heck, for photographers who wear glasses, a built-in diopter adjustment wheel is a nice convenience compared to the screw-on lenses required for optical viewfinders.
Its all really cool. But it is an artificial pixel wall between a photographers retina and the real world. A screen is a layer of interpretation of reality, no matter how technologically good it can be. It is not a keyhole to the real world, as the optical rangefinder is. The direct human connection to the moment gets lost. In the middle of this AI clusterfrak, the last thing I need is for yet another analog instrument to become digital. But I get it. According to Kellum-Pathe, this move is a direct response to customer demand.
The market has asked for it for quite some time, he told me, explaining that many love the idea of the compact M body and its legendary lenses but are intimidated by the steep learning curve of the manual rangefinder system. The M EV1 is designed to be a bridge. It creates a new, third pillar in the M lineup, sitting alongside the analog and digital rangefinder models, offering an easier entry point into the Leica ecosystem, he argues.
Next Gen Leica
Priced at $8,995, the camera is also about $850 less than its rangefinder sibling, a price difference Kellum-Pathe is the result of eliminating the very object that forever defined the M: The complexity of the hand-assembled optical mechanics versus a digital panel. Much like cars getting rid of analog controls in the name of a money savings and alleged consumer demand, Leica is betting that this new model will attract a new generation of users without taking away from the purists who will always have the traditional M waiting for them. “For those who prefer the rangefinder experience, thats never going to go away,” he insists. Well, good. I sure hope so.
And yes, of course the M EV1 will be a better camera for most people in most situations. The EVF is technically superior, more accurate, and more versatile than the 70-year-old optical rangefinder system it replaces. It makes the famously demanding process of shooting with an M camera significantly more accessible. It will probably sell like crazy (or as crazy as a $9K gadget can sell).
The analog Leica M6 [Photo: Leica]
But again, I just can’t shake the feeling that it misses the very essence of what makes the M the M. A magic that was never about technical perfection. It was about the direct, visceral connection between the photographer’s eye and the world, viewed through a bright, clear pane of glass.
The rangefinder, with all its quirks and limitations, forces a different kind of seeing. Its an active, mental process of aligning frames and focusing patches, a collaboration between mind and machine. Its a peephole, not a television screen. Looking through the M EV1’s brilliant little display, as sharp and clear as it is, will always feel like watching a broadcast of reality rather than witnessing it. The digital aids, while useful, add another layer of interpretation, of noise, of things to distract you.
I think of Robert Capa on the beaches of Normandy and his vision narrowed to a small, glowing rectangle in a digital viewfinder with the chaos raging around him. And I keep coming to the idea that, while the new Leica M EV 1 is probably a perfect digital camera, while it may look and click like a regular Leica M, it will never have, by definition, the same take a look through the magic hole and let’s see what comes at the end of this je ne sais quoi. And for sure, it will never be the extension of Cartier-Bresson or anyone else’s eye.
Theres not a more fairy-tale story in business. Nike CEO Elliott Hill began as an intern. Worked about every job imaginable at the company. Was passed up as a fave for the CEO role in 2020 when John Donahoe was brought in from Bain. And then, finding himself retired, and charter member of a silver fox baseball league in Austin, the swoosh boomeranged in from the clouds and Hill hitched a ride back to Beaverton.
Now, after a year at the helm, Hills still dealing with Nikes COVID hangover, brought about (at least in part) by Donahoe, who bolstered profits by selling waves of retro sneakers to people at home, all while reorganizing the core innovation team structure that had made Nike successful for decades. When Hill showed up in 2024, Nike revenue was down 10% yoy. This year, its down 9.8%, and Trumps tariffs took a $1.5 billion bite out of Nikes net profits.
One point five billion, fires off Hills tongue as we sit together in the swank office at the top of Nikes Lebron James Innovation Center in Beaverton, ORa number I dont feel a need to say aloud thats clearly been imprinted in his psyche.
Following a year of Hills media quarantine, I was invited alongside a small group of global journalists to get a peek at what Hill has up his sleeveand let me be honest in admitting that it felt a little strange to be back so soon. I was just at Nike in March 2024 profiling Donahoes swansong when I wrote our Spring cover story.
The campus was a little dead back then; and more than one executive seemed to be biting their tongue. Keep in mind, most of Nike leadership is a collection of people whove been there for decades (often 20 and 30 years). They have an earned ownership of Nikes POV, like a family sharing kitchen cabinets.
And I dont think its just the endless buffets of salmon and vegan lox Nike plowed on the press talking: Campus did feel more energized. Interviews felt less guarded. But more so, Nikes new product lines are genuinely more exciting than about anything thats come out of Nike for years.
Nike didnt invite us here for a casual photo opp; it is quite intentionally seeding its own turnaround narrative. The company has something to prove to fans and shareholders alikenamely, that it can still innovate. But its making a strong case that it can. From its Project Amplify exoskeleton-in-a-shoe, to Nike Mind brain-hacking footwear, to a new inflatable jacket called Project Milano, to recycled fabrics known as Aero-FIT that are 2x more breathable, every big new idea out of Nike looks more promising than another Dunk colorway.
Here are my four big takeaways on what is going on at Nike, and where the company is going next.
[Photo: Nike]
Elliott Hill seems like the guy for this moment
Elliott Hills job is to get Nike growing again. (And you can read my full Q&A with Hill here.) But as Hill put it to me, not all one percents of revenue are created equal. And accomplishing just 1% growth for Nike, which is $500,000,000 by the way, means it has to essentially launch the equivalent of a new company every year. Will Nikes onslaught of new innovation help achieve this revenue growth? On that he hedges a bit. The lowest hanging fruit is still simply spreading the Nike gospel farther across the world. (Thats my sacrilege not his.)
Elliott Hill [Photo: Nike]
Sport exists in every country, and we’re doing business in almost 190 countries. And . . . we’re not meeting our full potential in some of these countries, says Hill, citing southeast Asia and Malaysia in particular. We have tremendous opportunity to still grow there, when we run our offense.
Keep in mind Hills earliest duties at the company involved hopping on the phone and pitching Nike products to shops, building its retailer network. The same network that Donahoe torched thousands of small retailer relationships by pivoting the company to direct-to-consumer.
Hills job has been a lot like the task ahead of whichever president follows Trumpreinstituting dismantled systems just to get the machine running again.
Hill has been repairing retailer relationships. Hes relaunched marketing under Just Do It. And hes also rewound the entire innovation engine of the company back to its old structure. Donahoe blew up about 40 years of Nike hierarchies when he reorganized all product development under Mens, Womens, and Kids. Hill put these teams back into sports like running and basketball.
Look, I talked to Hill for all of 17 minutes. He really feels like some platonic ideal of a Nike executive, with a penchant for slapping you in the knee when he makes a point. Theres a sort of wake up, stay focused energy to him.
Execs on Hills payroll have called him more trusting and unflinchingly supportive. Ive gotten to meet, and re-meet, a lot of Nike execs and designers over the last decade. And truly, they all have a new bounce in their step.
But I also appreciated how Jannett Nichol, a 32-year Nike veteran who is VP, Apparel & Advanced Digital Creation Studio Innovation, threw lukearm water on my question: Was all of the new product I was seeing the result of Hill taking charge with a more aggressive innovation strategy?
I mean, I think Elliot coming on has been fantastic. There’s no denying what he brings to the company . . . he’s always been that personality type, she says. But the work was in flight. And it was going to happen, whether it was Elliot or not.
[Photo: Nike]
The truth Nike wont tell you: Its a wellness company
One of Hills best decisions was promoting Matt Nurse to become Nikes chief science officer.
Nurse is a researcher who runs Nikes big athlete testing facility, the Nike Sports Research Lab.
(For some reason, whenever Im there, Nike has hired these fitness models to demonstrate sports, and the soccer players, seemingly carved from marble, always have their shirts off. Doesnt Nike sell shirts? NIKE DO YOU NEED ME TO LEND YOU A SHIRT?!?)
Anyway, Nurse has always seen Nike as something more than shoes. And thats important for Nike. Sneakers are increasingly commoditized. Even Nikes marathon-busting Vaporfly shoes were quickly copied by the entire footwear industry.
Nurse has to juggle a somewhat complicated narrative that underlies Nike. They are inspired by the elite athlete, and their dialogues with these superhumans is intimate and ongoingas evidenced when chief innovation officer Tony Bignell swiped through his own text message thread with Eliud Kipchoge to pull up a picture. But their other message is that, um, also, well if you have a body youre an athlete!
Nikes marketing and business model has a lot of ways to grow in this regard, and I think Nurses team sits at the fulcrum in making that work.
[Photo: Nike]
One of Nurses pet projects is the launch of Nike Mind, two new neurophysiological shoes that poke into your feet to measurably calm down your brain. I compare Nike Mind to Nintendos Brain Age moment, when with a single app, it expanded its premise and addressable market from gamers to anyone concerned about aging.
[Photo: Nike]
It starts with these shoes that essentially force mindfulness by connecting pressure points on your foot to textures on the ground. 22 foam nodes stick through the outsole, angling and resonating shapes and sensations straight into your foot. Theyre funky to walk in. You can feel blades of grass, even trough socks.
They increase alpha waves in your brain, just like meditation, though Nurse admits they dont reach the point of “meditation shoe. Cognitive neuroscience, and the way products and spaces measurably affect us, is the cutting edge of design right now. Two decades of worldwide academic research are just begging to be commercialized. And these Mind shoes are just a taste of what that could be as Nike neurosciences the hell out of the rest of your body.
[Image: Nike]
You can imagine where we’re headed, says Nurse. You start thinking about tapping into [our] sensory systems. The foot is one area . . . youve got a whole body . . . this whole canvas. He points out that we have all sorts of emotional states that we might want to activate, other than calm.
Another area where Nike is inherently thinking outside sport is in its Project Amplify exoskeleton, or a robotic Achilles tendon that clips onto the back of a shoe.
Cognitive neuroscience, and the way products and spaces measurably affect us, is the cutting edge of design right now.
Project Amplify isnt built for Lebron. Vaporfly broke marathoning with 4% energy return. Project Amplify will offer something more like a 20% boost in energy when it debuts mid-ish next year. At launch, Nike imagines a similar market to people who bought e-bikesathletes who want to adventure further, faster. But in my opinion, so much energy amplification offers a new opportunity for Nike to shift the narrative from just being faster to being more able-bodiedsomething that will resonate with the aging population in particular.
[Photo: Nike]
Thats not Be Like Mike stuff! But Nike has the potential to be the first and most aggressive to democratize the exoskeleton as a slip-on shoe, or an ebike for your feet as the company is positioning it. If all Amplify does is help you hike or run another few miles, its a failure. This is a training tool. A rehab tool. A healthcare tool. A way to keep boomers (and every generation that comes after them) walking consistently and healthily through their lives, not necessarily to dunk, but to buy groceries.
[Image: Nike]
Nurse gets this but is treading carefully.
“Maybe you just need to get around the city, he muses. We got you. It’s okay. You’re still moving. We’re going to help you.
The Apple Watch is now a $17 billion business for Apple and all it does is display texts and track some health metrics. Apple found a way to appeal to athletes and people worried about a fall. Nike needs to master that same balance to grow.
Quite simply: The global footwear industry is worth somewhere around $150 billion. The global wellness industry is worth $6.3 trillion. Hills revenue answer exists everywhere off the track, court, or pitch.
[Photo: Nike]
One of Nikes most important investments is architecture
Nike has invested about $1 billion in new architecture since 2017, and following my four visits over the last 14 years, I cant begin to emphasize how important these investments were.
[Photo: Nike]
With apologies to buildings named after Mia Hamm and Tiger Woods, so much of HQ feels like an office park stuck in the 90s. Meanwhile four new buildingsincluding the Lebron James Innovation Center (one giant staircase, designed to look fast, where athletes sweat in rooms straight out of Dragon Ball Z and a lot of the designers work) and the Serena building (a million square feet of undulating offices with a stunning events space on the roof)are both a pleasure to be in, and bring a sense of possibility.
These are modernist marvels set to a backdrop of Oregon forest. They exemplify the mix of nature and technology. Nike convincingly claims they have the best facilities to measure human performance on the planet, and they will become increasingly important as tools for Nikes teams to break out of their own silos. The Lebron building, for instance, is off limits for most Nike employees to visit, given the sensitivity of the designs inside. But Nikes new head of innovation, Tony Binell, has worked to shift development spaces up a level, and open the first flooran atrium celebrating Lebrons first 30,000 points thats ensconced by many meeting roomsto all 3,500 people on Nikes product creation teams, so that people who work on different sports can share ideas and mingle.
That’s how you get some of that sharing we sort of missed because I can’t be bothered to walk across campus, you know? says Binell. But actually, [it should be like] That shoelace is cool! We could use that shoelace!’
[Photo: Nike]
Nike ACG gets even hauter
To grow its business, one thing Nike wants to do is expand its brandsand Hill told me hes even open to acquiring the right companies to do so. But the entire technical and trail-inspired outdoor industry, ranging from The North Face to ArcTeryx, is one of its fastest growing categories in sport, worth around $130 billion a year by Nikes estimation. And as it happens, Nike has had a very respected, slightly underground (for Nike) label called ACG that plays in this space.
ACG puts out some of the most experimental, hypebeastiest drops each year. And Nike is about to put it front-and-center on the podium at the Milan Winter Olympics. (RIP EVERYONE WHO LIKED ACG AS A PERSONALITY TRAIT.)
Their new Air Milano jacket reinterprets Nike Air as a haute, inflatable winter jacket. Its computationally quilted baffling catches the light in a captivating way. (Youd never know that pattern is actually an abstraction of the ACG logo.) And a handheld inflater puffs the jacket up in about 10 seconds, creating insulation on demand.
This coat is wild. Absurd. Beautiful. I love it.
[Image: Nike]
It also feels high-end. Nike intends to relaunch ACG around this moment, making the sub brand the pinnacle expression for an athlete, with the reemergence of ACG in a new premium way, according to Nichol.
“[Its the] most technical garment we’ve ever made that’s not going to space, Nichol says. In other words, its going to be expensive.
Consider: this probably means that Nike is selling air for more than down. Thats a somewhat wild possibility to comprehend! The ultimate margins are likely appealing on a balance sheet. But I do also worry that if Nike stays too premium with this tech, it’ll get Sketchersed or Sheined to death before it can own the space.
When I mention to Nichol that the jacket felt like it would make a great sleeping bag or tent, I asked, does stuff like that make sense for Nike?
I think through the lens of ACG it fits perfectly, she says.
Nike simply cannot look new while looking so old
Nike hit its low point in 2023 with the release of Ben Afflecks Air. A company that was about to get trounced for doing nothing more than rereleasing old shoes gave the whole company the Argo treatment. How do you ruin Michael Jordan? By making his story look old instead of timeless.
Look, Nike Air is from 1978. That shit is almost 50 years old. The last incredible, mainstream tech release was its Flyknit material in 2012. And the truth is, Nikes launched its last category-busting product almost a decade ago now, with its Alphafly shoes that returned 4% of someones stride and literally broke long distance running. This was 2017lifetimes agopre COVID and ChatGPT.
And lets be very honest: In this moment of massive technological advancement, consumers are naturally developing higher expectations as to what constitutes a breakthrough. Nobody beyond the most advanced athletes are interested in 4% margins anymore. This is the moment to reinvent how we live.
Nike has made billions off of its classic IPs, remixed with new colorways and design sensibilities. But its hard to see the sheer scale of modern collab culture as anything but late stage capitalism. Every designer I know is lamenting the thirst of the social/product feed. And through that lens, Nikes days of selling fancy foams feel numbered. But erase a few bad news cycles, and I challenge you to name a company more exciting than Nike right now in terms of sheer potential.
Consider that Nike is a UX company that doesnt really make software, and a technology company that doesnt touch phones. It builds products for the human bodythings to make us move faster, more comfortably, and more joyfully.
Im excited about Nike because slip-on exoskeletons and brain-activating apparel introduce the possibility to reshape our day-to-day lives. But most of all, Im hopeful that Nike seems to be recognizing that its potential is so much greater than what we stereotypically think of as footwear and apparelof that 1970s brown Argo filter fogging over the swoosh.
Nikes new tagline, born from its EVP and chief innovation, design & product officer, Phil McCartney, is Make epic shit. The remit really is both that hard and that simple.
The government shutdown has reopened debate on what has been a central issue for both major political parties in the last 15 years: the future of health coverage under the Affordable Care Act.Tax credits for people who get health insurance through the marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, expire at the end of the year.Democrats say they won’t vote to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate an extension of the expanded subsidies. Republicans say they won’t negotiate until Democrats vote to reopen the government. Lawmakers in both parties have been working on potential solutions behind the scenes, hoping that leaders will eventually start to talk, but it’s unclear if the two sides could find compromise.As Congress circles the issue, a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 6 in 10 Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about their health costs going up in the next year. Those worries extend across age groups and include people with and without health insurance, the poll found.A look at the subsidies that are expiring, the politics of the ACA and what Congress might do:
Enhanced premium help during the pandemic
Passed in 2010, the ACA was meant to decrease the number of uninsured people in the country and make coverage more affordable for those who don’t have private insurance. The law created state by state exchanges, some of which are run by the individual states, to try to increase the pool of the insured and bring down rates.In 2021, when Democrats controlled Congress and the White House during the COVID-19 pandemic, they expanded premium help that was already in the law. The changes included eliminating premiums for some lower-income enrollees, ensuring that higher earners paid no more than 8.5% of their income and expanding eligibility for middle-class earners.The expanded subsidies pushed enrollment to new levels and drove the rate of uninsured people to a historic low. This year, a record 24 million people have signed up for insurance coverage through the ACA, in large part because billions of dollars in subsidies have made the plans more affordable for many people.If the tax credits expire, annual out-of-pocket premiums are estimated to increase by 114% an average of $1,016 next year, according to an analysis from KFF.
Democrats push to extend subsidies
Democrats extended those tax credits in 2022 for another three years but were not able to make them permanent. The credits are set to expire Jan. 1, with Republicans now in full control.Lacking in power and sensing a political opportunity, Democrats used some of their only leverage and forced a government shutdown over the issue when federal funding ran out on Oct. 1. They say they won’t vote for a House-passed bill to reopen the government until Republicans give them some certainty that the subsidies will be extended.Democrats introduced legislation in September to permanently extend the premium tax credits, but they have suggested that they are open to a shorter period.“We need a serious negotiation,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has repeatedly said.
Republicans try to scale the ACA back, again
The Democratic demands on health care have reignited longstanding Republican complaints about the ACA, which they have campaigned against for years and tried and failed to repeal in 2017. Many in the party say that if Congress is going to act, they want to scrap the expanded subsidies and overhaul the entire law.The problem is not the expiring subsidies but “the cost of health care,” Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said Tuesday.In a virtual briefing Tuesday, the libertarian Cato Institute and the conservative Paragon Health Institute branded the subsidies as President Joe Biden’s “COVID credits” and claimed they’ve enabled fraudsters to sign people up for fully subsidized plans without their knowledge.Others have pitched more modest proposals that could potentially win over some Democrats. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has said he is open to extending the subsidies with changes, including lower income limits and a stop to auto-enrollment that may sign up people who don’t need the coverage.The ACA is “in desperate need of reform,” Thune has said.House Republicans are considering their own ideas for reforming the ACA, including proposals for phasing out the subsidies for new enrollees. And they have begun to discuss whether to combine health care reforms with a new government funding bill and send it to the Senate for consideration once they return to Washington.“We will probably negotiate some off-ramp” to ease the transition back to pre-COVID-19 levels, said Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, the head of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, during a virtual town hall Tuesday.
Is compromise possible?
A number of Republicans want to extend the subsidies. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said most people who are using the exchanges created by the ACA “don’t really have another option, and it’s already really, really expensive. So I think there are things we can do to reform the program.”Hawley said he had been having conversations with other senators about what those changes could be, including proposals for income limits, which he said he sees as a “very reasonable.”Bipartisan groups of lawmakers have been discussing the income limits and other ideas, including making the lowest-income people pay very low premiums instead of nothing. Some Republicans have advocated for that change to ensure that all enrollees are aware they have coverage and need it. Other proposals would extend the subsidies for a year or two or slowly phase them out.It’s unclear if any of those ideas could gain traction on both sides or any interest from the White House, where President Donald Trump has remained mostly disengaged. Despite the public stalemate, though, lawmakers are feeling increased urgency to find a solution as the Nov. 1 open enrollment date approaches.Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire has been talking to lawmakers since the shutdown began, trying to find areas of compromise. On Tuesday, she suggested that Congress could also look at extending the enrollment dates for the ACA since Congress is stalled on the subsidies.“These costs are going to affect all of us, and it’s going to affect our health care system,” she said.
Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Joey Cappelletti in Washington and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.
Mary Clare Jalonick, Associated Press
Its been a wild 24 hours for the stock prices of Americas big four publicly traded quantum computing companies, which include D-Wave, IonQ, Quantum Computing Inc., and Rigetti.
Yesterday, all four quantum firms saw their stock prices fall significantly along with a broader market selloffmostly related to fears about a growing trade war with China and disappointing tech earnings.
But today, shares of the Quantum Four are up on the rumors that the Trump administration is interested in taking an equity stake in quantum computing firms. Heres what you need to know.
Commerce Department reportedly interested
Last night, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Commerce Department was in talks with several quantum computing companies over equity stakes in those firms in return for federal funding.
Specifically, the Journal said D-Wave, IonQ, and Rigetti were in discussions with the federal government about the matter. The report stated that Quantum Computing Inc. and the privately held Atom Computing were considering similar arrangements.
Fast Company has reached out to all the quantum firms named in the WSJs report. IonQ declined to comment. Others did not immediately reply.
The exact terms of any such deal are unknown. However, the report states that minimum federal government funding awards would be for $10 million each. It is unknown how much equity the U.S. government would want in exchange for funding, though the level of equity and the amount of funding will likely be correlated.
The funding would come from the Chips Research and Development Office, which is overseen by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
The Commerce Department did not immediately reply for comment.
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The next frontier in computing
That the Trump administration is reportedly interested in an equity stake in Americas quantum computing firms is of little surprise. This past year alone, the administration has taken stakes in chipmaker Intel. and rare earths mining operator MP Materials.
The link between these two companies is that they produce products and materialsadvanced chips and rare earth elementsthat are seen as vital to Americas national security supply chain.
Intels chips power everything from navigation systems to military technology, and MP’s rare earths are needed to make the components that go into critical electronics used by the government and military.
Quantum computing differs in that, as of now, quantum computers dont play a critical role in powering the tools behind U.S. economic, military, or security power. But that is expected to change in the years ahead as quantum computers advance and have the potential to be more revolutionary than even AI.
Quantum computers are different than the classical computers we use today.
A classical computer operates using bits, where each bit of data can either be a one or a zero. However, a quantum computer utilizes qubits, where each unit of data can represent a one and a zeroor anything in betweenat the same time.
This means that quantum computers can carry out computation tasks in a matter of minutes or hours that would take a classical computer thousands of years or more to compute.
Given the potential for quantum computers to revolutionize everything from materials science to healthcare to communications and security, its no surprise that countries, including the United States and China, are deeply interested in the development of this technology.
Quantum Four stocks jump on Thursday
After the WSJ report broke, shares of the four publicly traded quantum computing companies spiked in premarket trading on Thursday morning. As of the time of this writing, all quantum four stocks are currently up significantly, including:
D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS): up 13%
IonQ, Inc. (NYSE: IONQ): up 12%
Quantum Computing Inc. (Nasdaq: QUBT): up 11%
Rigetti Computing, Inc. (Nasdaq: RGTI): up 9%
Todays price jump helps wipe out much of the losses that the Quantum Four experienced yesterday amid a broader market selloff. Yesterday, D-Wave closed 15% lower, IonQ closed down 6%, Quantum Computing Inc. lost 7%, and Rigetti lost 9%.
Over the past 12 months, the stock prices of the Quantum Four have surged. As of yesterdays close, D-Wave was up 2,174%, IonQ was up 269%, Quantum Computing Inc. was up 1,215%, and Rigetti was up 2,831%
In a companys early days, culture is forged through proximityshared desks, late nights, and the push-and-pull of turning ideas into reality. Decisions happen on the fly, and everyone knows each other by name. But as you scaleespecially as a remote-first organizationthat sense of connection can quietly fade. Suddenly, you realize you cant attend every onboarding, celebrate every milestone, or even recognize every face on a Zoom call.
That moment should give you pause. In fact, if it doesnt, youre missing a red flag.
At Appfire, weve gone from a small crew to nearly 800 people across multiple continents. Our remote-first approach lets people work where they wake up, but it also brings a new set of leadership challenges. In a world defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), the old playbook of hallway conversations and impromptu lunches doesnt cut it. Staying connectedand relevantrequires intentional, adaptable systems for communication, empathy, and trust.
Heres what Ive learned (often the hard way): what works for 50 people absolutely breaks at 800. Here are four principles I rely on to keep our culture intact as we growno matter how turbulent or complex the environment.
Communicate Consistently to Anchor Culture
When you cant rely on physical presence, communication from leadership becomes your presence. Within my first month at Appfire, I started recording biweekly Loom videosshort, informal updates on everything from board meeting takeaways to customer feedback, industry trends, and whats keeping me up at night. Theyre deliberately unpolished. The point is authenticity, not production value.
But its not just about me talking at people. Company-wide meetingsvirtual or otherwiseare vital for transparency and alignment. Switch up the format: one month, an unscripted Q&A; the next, a focused all-hands on product milestones or wins. Routine is good, but predictability can breed apathy. Variety keeps people engaged and shows that leadership is present, listening, and investedeven across time zones.
In VUCA environments, these touchpoints become cultural anchorssteadying the ship when the waters get rough.
Lead with EmpathyEspecially Through Change
Growth brings change: new processes, shifting priorities, new faces. This can breed friction, especially when people feel overlooked or misunderstood. Empathy isnt just a soft skillits table stakes for leadership, particularly in uncertain or ambiguous circumstances.
You dont need every answer, but you do need to listenreally listen. Ask questions. Make it clear youre aware of the daily realities people face, whether theyre your tenth hire or your 900th. Empathy creates psychological safety, unlocking collaboration and innovationeven as the ground shifts beneath us.
And in a globally distributed, remote-first workforce, empathy means honoring differences: work styles, time zones, communication preferences. Flexibility and inclusion arent perkstheyre strategic imperatives in a complex world.
Assume Positive Intentand Seek to Understand First
As companies scale, silos form. Communication happens over Slack, Zoom, or emaileasy recipes for misinterpretation. My default? Assume positive intent. When something doesnt make sense, I encourage teams to seek understanding first, not just to be understood.
This mindset is a buffer against the ambiguity that naturally creeps in as organizations grow and evolve. Its especially critical during moments of changenew tools, shifting strategies, re-orgs. Curiosity over judgment fosters better collaboration, healthier conflict, and ultimately, stronger relationships.
As a leader, you have to model this. It sets the tone for everyone else, especially when things get messy.
Focus on What You Can Control
Lets be honest: the world isnt getting any simpler. Markets swing, technologies disrupt, geopolitics intrude. In a volatile, complex landscape, the temptation is to hunker down or get distracted by what you cant control. Resist it.
We cant manage macroeconomics or global events. But we can control the quality of our products, the strength of our partnerships, the depth of our customer relationships, and the authenticity of our culture. We can prioritize creating real value over chasing hype. We can show up for each other. Grounding teams in whats controllable fosters resilience, clarity, and focuseven amid chaos.
Intention Over Scale
Scaling isnt about headcount. Its about evolving how you lead when the old rules no longer apply. CEOs of remote-first, high-growth companies cant lean on proximity or familiarity. We have to be intentionalabout communication, empathy, trust, and clarity. These arent nice-to-haves. In a VUCA world, theyre the infrastructure of sustainable growth.
At Appfire, I may never know every employee personallybut I want every employee to feel like they know me. Not through perfect videos, but through a cadence of authentic, consistent leadership. Staying connected isnt about scale. Its about deliberate intention in the face of complexity and uncertainty.
Thats how you build a culture that scalesand survivesin a remote, unpredictable world.
Research shows that an employees perception of what makes an authentic leader is the most significant predictor of job satisfaction and happiness at work. And I experienced this firsthand when my boss said three simple words that changed everything.
You see, as a journalist, I was always accustomed to someone checking, editing, and approving every piece before publication. So when I asked my new boss yet another question about a piece of content I was working on, his response shocked me. He turned around and said, I trust you.
I was blown away because it was a huge shift. For the first time, Someone is encouraging me to trust my own judgement instead of seeking approval. It was the complete opposite of everything perfectionism had reinforced in me. And while that was a breakthrough moment for me, Id realized just how much perfectionism had shaped me leading up to that moment.
Thriving from failure
Back in 2011, I was living my dream. I was on stage at the New York Comedy Club, about to deliver my first five-minute stand-up set in America. Id memorized and rehearsed and memorized every word. After I delivered my first joke, my mind went completely blank. Nothing. For 30 excruciating seconds, I stood frozen like a deer in headlights. When I looked down at my palm for my SOS backup notes, all I saw was a giant smudge mark. My nervous, sweaty hands totally smeared the ink. I looked around the room, locked eyes with a friend, and took a desperate breath. Eventually, my jokes came flooding back. But I replayed that freeze for years on loop in my mind.
That experience taught me that perfectionism isn’t protection at all. Far from it. It’s actually a trap. We think we’re safe when weve mapped everything out, but it’s actually the opposite. If we forget one tiny point, everything unravels quickly.
Research distinguishes between excellence-seeking perfectionism (driven by high standards) and failure-avoiding perfectionism (driven by fear and concerns). So many of us are trapped in the latter, with this fear disconnecting us from our authentic voice. This kind of perfectionism is sneaky because it disguises itself as high standards. And its also very, very convincing.
Trying to meet an impossible standard
I see this pattern constantly. One leader at a recent presentation skills workshop was convinced she needed to get everything right. But when I asked, According to who? she couldnt answer. We laughed, her shoulders dropped, and she smiled. Her entire presence shifted. Authentic leadership requires presence, vulnerability, honesty, and trust. But its rigidity that causes fear-driven perfectionism.
When youre trapped in perfectionism, youre chasing an impossible standard, instead of leading from a true place. And teams can feel that disconnect. After I froze on stage in New York, I made a decision. I would never memorize another performance. Instead, I learned to be present, trust myself, and adapt. And the result was always better performances and much deeper connections because I was finally in the room with my audience instead of being trapped in my head. The antidote to perfectionism isn’t lowering our standards. It’s raising authenticity.
Preventing perfectionism from getting in the way
Ive learned that below are the key steps to follow if you want to prevent perfectionism from getting in the way of your success:
Own your mistakes openly. When you admit your mistakes, you give others permission to stop hiding theirs and start learning from them instead.
Share what didnt work. I tell leaders about bombed pitches and lost rooms. Failure can build connections very quickly.
Say I dont know. When someone asks you something you haven’t considered or you dont have the answer to, admit it. This creates the space for honest connections.
Get comfortable with version #1. My comedy coach Judy Carter said, Get your ideas out there because you can always make them better. At the end of the day, done is way better than perfect.
When my boss said those three words to me, he gave me something powerful. And thats permission to trust myself. Sure, perfectionism might make you look good, but authentic leadership is what actually transforms people and is what allows you to build true connections and relationships that will last for years to come.
Headlines alternate between massive AI investments and reports of failed deployments. The pattern is consistent across industries: seemingly promising AI projects that work well in testing environments struggle or fail when deployed in real-world conditions.
It’s not insufficient computing power, inadequate talent, or immature algorithms. Ive worked with over 250 enterprises deploying visual AIfrom Fortune 10 manufacturers to emerging unicornsand the pattern is unmistakable: the companies that succeed train their models on what actually breaks them, while the ones that fail optimize for what works in controlled environments.
The Hidden Economics of AI Failure
When Amazon quietly rolled back its “Just Walk Out” technology from most U.S. grocery stores in 2024, the media focused on the obvious: customers were confused, technology wasn’t ready, labor costs weren’t eliminated as promised.
But the real lesson was subtler and more valuable. Amazon’s visual AI could accurately identify a shopper picking up a Coke in ideal conditionswell-lit aisles, single shoppers, products in their designated spots. The system failed on the edge cases that define real-world retail: crowded aisles, group shopping, items returned to wrong shelves, inventory that constantly shifts.
The core issue wasn’t technological sophisticationit was data strategy. Amazon had trained their models on millions of hours of video, but the wrong millions of hours. They optimized for the common scenarios while underweighting the chaos that drives real-world retail.
Amazon continues to refine the technologya strategy that highlights the core challenge with visual AI deployment. The issue wasn’t insufficient computing power or algorithmic sophistication. The models needed more comprehensive training data that captured the full spectrum of customer behaviors, not just the most common scenarios.
This is the billion dollar blind spot: Most enterprises are solving the wrong data problem.
Focusing on the right data, not just more data
Enterprises often assume that simply scaling datacollecting millions more images or video hourswill close the performance gap. But visual AI doesnt fail because of too little data; it fails because of the wrong data.
The companies that consistently succeed have learned to curate their datasets with the same rigor they apply to their models. They deliberately seek out and label the hard cases: the scratches that barely register on a part, the rare disease presentation in a medical image, the one-in-a-thousand lighting condition on a production line, or the pedestrian darting out from between parked cars at dusk. These are the cases that break models in deploymentand the cases that separate an adequate system from a production-ready one.
This is why data quality is quickly becoming the real competitive advantage in visual AI. Smart companies arent chasing sheer volume; theyre investing in tools to measure, curate, and continuously improve their datasets.
First-hand experience
As the CEO of a visual AI startupVoxel51these challenges are something Ive lived first-hand. My co-founder and I started the company after seeing how bad data derails AI projects. In 2017, while working with the city of Baltimore to deploy vision systems on its CitiWatch camera network to aid first responders, we experienced the pain of creating datasets, training models, and diagnosing failures without the right tools. That work inspired us to build our own platform, which became FiftyOnenow the most widely adopted open source toolkit for visual AI with more than three million installs. Today, more than 250 enterprises, including Berkshire Grey, Google, Bosch, and Porsche, use it to put data quality at the center of their AI strategy. Here are just a few outcomes:
Allstate improved data quality in vehicle damage inspection by automating the pipelinesegmenting parts, detecting damages, and matching repair costsreducing hours of manual effort while ensuring consistent results.
Raytheon Technologies Research Center organized and filtered large research datasets to surface meaningful patterns in complex image attributes, turning noisy data into usable insights.
A Fortune 500 agriculture tech company curated training data from harvesters to improve grain segmentation, capturing edge cases like unhusked and sprouting kernels for more robust models.
A Fortune 500 company curated visual data to detect defective screens before shipment, preventing costly recalls and customer returns.
SafelyYou shows the impact of this approach. The companys system helps care delivery in senior care facilities with models that help reduce fall-related ER visits by 80%. The key wasnt just massive scale60 million minutes of videobut the ability to curate variations in how seniors actually fall: different lighting, speeds, body types, and obstacles. By automating checks for annotation mistakes and model blind spots, they cut manual review by 77%, boosted precision scores by 10%, and saved up to 80 developer hours each month.
The Path Forward
For executives evaluating visual AI investments, the lesson is clear: success is driven not by bigger models or more compute, but by treating data as the foundation. Organizations that prioritize data quality consistently outperform those that focus primarily on technology infrastructure or talent acquisition.
Investments in data collection, curation, and management systems are the levers that truly move the needle. By embedding scenario analysis into data strategymodeling how different data quality, diversity, or labeling scenarios impact performancecompanies can anticipate risks, optimize resource allocation, and make more informed AI investments.
Ultimately, the most successful visual AI initiatives are those that integrate rigorous data practices with forward-looking scenario planning, ensuring that models deliver reliable performance across a range of real-world conditions.
Early in my (Chantals) career, my manager, Scott, shared something in my annual review that Ill never forget. My sarcastic sense of humor made some people uncomfortable. He recommended that I “tone it down a bit.”
I felt embarrassed and defensive. Since I was young, Id always leveraged humor to connect and signal mental acuity. The feedback made me question what I thought I knew. Was my presumed superpower actually a liability? The conversation rattled me, and I didnt know what to do with the feedback.
So often, early-career professionals enter the workforce and receive technical feedback from managers: fix code this way, prepare for a check-in using this template, sequence slides like this for a presentation. This type of feedback is helpful. Too often though, managers are nervous to share behavioral feedback (like what Scott gave to me). They worry that itll come across as too subjective and therefore not valid or offensive to the receiver. These are reasonable concerns, but unfortunately, perception can impact how your career progresses. It might be jarring (and unfair) to receive this kind of feedback, but you can actually use it to your advantage.
If youre lucky enough to have a manager who gives behavioral feedback, heres how to move from unproductively rattled to productively responsive. This way, you can leverage the feedback to grow professionally.
Be open (not defensive)
As humans, we are wired to self-protect ourselves from danger. Research shows that feedback activates the brains threat response. As a result, it can be difficult to accept feedback.
To resist a fight, flee or freeze reaction, start by giving yourself grace. As humans, we all have blind spots. That doesnt mean were not good enough the way we are. Then remind yourself that every piece of feedback is one persons perspective, not a fact. Were allowed to hold it at arms length, examine it, and decide if accepting it would support our professional development. When we are “at choice,” we can treat feedback with curiosity, which encourages growth.
Practice gratitude
Saying thank you releases dopamine and contributes to overall well-being. This is a great antidote to the “fear of not being good enough,” which we often experience when confronted with difficult feedback. Take a moment to appreciate the thoughtfulness of the person who is trying to help you develop and explicitly thank them. This might sound like, I imagine sharing that feedback was difficult, and Im really grateful you did. Its important I understand how Im experienced by others. Thank you.
Ask open-ended questions
Resist asking the feedback deliverer for numerous examples to back their point. Remember, its not a litigation. This approach will ensure that you dont receive useful feedback from them in the future. Instead, get curious about their experience of you with follow-up questions like, How did that affect you? What else feels important for me to know? What advice, if any, do you have for me?
Resist doing the opposite
When we receive difficult feedback, it can be tempting to respond by doing the opposite of what weve been doing. But, critical behavioral feedback we receive is often an overdone strength, not a behavior to abandon entirely.
For example, one client, Izzy, exuded optimism. She always saw the best in colleagues or opportunities and could frequently be heard saying, Dont worry, itll all work out! and Sure, its possible, no problem. Unfortunately, over time, her relentless positivity started eroding her reputation. Some people perceived her to be naive and thought that she lacked critical thinking skills.
Upon hearing this feedback, Izzy felt self-conscious and began to shift her behavior in a dramatic way. She wanted to prove that she could operate with a skeptical eye, It sounds like I should always be the devils advocate in the room, she said. But this reaction would have created a host of other issues. Other colleagues suddenly saw her as overly negative or even inauthentic. Instead, to support Izzys growth, we worked together to invite a little more critical judgment into her leadership to complement her gift of seeing whats possible.
When you get tough feedback, instead of over-dialing, figure out specific behaviors that you might be exaggerating. And then, rather than trying to adjust the dial by 180 degrees, try to change it by just 20 degrees.
Make small adjustments
How do you adjust just 20 degrees? Experiment with new behaviors. Make the experiments small, easy, and playful so they feel appealing versus daunting.
For example, my client, Drew, received feedback that he “talked too much and came off as a know-it-all in meetings.” So he decided to conduct an experiment. For a week, he committed to practicing affirming someone elses idea and asking a curious question when someone contributed in meetings before saying what he thought. This sounded like, “Lisa, I see how that could help progress things. Who else do you think we could involve to make it happen?“
At the end of the week, he reflected on how it went, what he learned, and what he wanted to do more or less of the next week. This type of experimentation enabled incremental growth that led to meaningful shifts in how others saw him.
The importance of feedback
All of us need to receive feedback to hone and continue to grow our skills. For me (Chantal), I started paying closer attention to the way my humor landed with colleagues. I started noticing when my sarcasm enhanced connection and the times when too much levity diminished psychological safety or signaled less professional behavior. Scotts feedback equipped me to use my superpower more skillfully and navigate the nuanced professional realmwith greater effectiveness.
Ultimately, we must all know if our humor isnt landing, our communication is too blunt, or our empathy is overbearing. When we have the courage to hear about how others see us at work and are willing to adjust our behavior, were able to have a bigger impact in our careers and in life.
Twenty-five years ago, Google unveiled Adwords, which pledged to enable advertisers to quickly design a flexible program that best fits [their] online marketing goals and budget, Google cofounder Larry Page said at the time.
The principle was simple. AdWords allowed advertisers to purchase individualized, affordable keyword-based advertising that appears alongside search results used by hundreds of millions of people every day.
That decision was a game changer for Google. Advertising now accounts for around three in every four dollars of revenue the company has made so far this year, growing 10% in the last year alone. The product, since renamed Google Ads, has powered the company to prosperity, cementing its position at the top of the search space.
But a quarter of a century on, artificial intelligence could force an overhaul of Google Ads.
The shift from traditional search to AI answer engines represents the greatest challenge to Google’s $200 billion monetization engine we’ve ever seen, says Aengus Boyle, vice president of media at VaynerMedia, a strategy and creative agency set up by entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk.
Thats not because competitors are siphoning away users from Google: The companys global daily active users are up 13% year on year, with nearly 2 billion people logging on to Google services every day, according to Bank of America estimates. But because Google is starting to layer in AI-tailored answers into the front page of its search resultsoften above the advertisements and blue links to sources that helped make its name over the last 25 yearsits ability to bring in ad revenue could take a serious hit. If AI answers start replacing traditional Google searches, thats a real threat to the whole cash engine, says Fergal O’Connor, CEO of Buymedia, an ad platform company. Google makes most of its money from ads tied to clicks. The more queries, the more ad space, the more revenue.
The problem is that AI summaries of search results make it less necessary to click through to websites. So far, thats been to the consternation of website owners, who rely on visits to their websites in order to sustain their business models. In time, it could harm Google itself. If people stop clicking through to sites because they get what they need from an AI summary, that entire model takes a hit, OConnor says.
Of course, Google will obviously try to wedge ads into the AI answers, notes OConnorand indeed, the company is already doing sobut he says its not a like-for-like comparison. One generative answer replaces a full results page of ad inventory, so its fewer impressions, fewer clicks, and less data flowing through the system, he explains.
However, if anyone is best placed to capitalize on those changes, its Google, Boyle predicts. Their clearest advantage lies within Google Adswhich has allowed them to integrate ads into new AI discovery surfaces, like AI Overviews and AI Mode, faster than any of their competitors in the space, he says.
OConnor believes that Google will adapt to the new norm, with AI being alteringbut not terminalto the future of advertising.
If people genuinely stop Googling and start asking, the whole search economy has to reinvent itself, OConnor says. But if you’ve been around the digital ad space for a few decades, you’ll know that we’ve survived a few events that were billed as being apocalyptic to the industry.
Google has had 25 years to understand how best to target and present ads to its users and to squeeze out everything it can from the ad industry. Its best placed to secure another 25 years of dominance, even if it requires some changes.
In what is somehow a real-life event and not an overwrought metaphor for the state of American democracy, earlier this week, work crews began tearing down the East Wing of the White House in order to make room for President Donald Trumps planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom addition. Previously, Trump had said that the project would not interfere with the existing building, which now appears to be accurate only in the sense that by sometime this weekend, the East Wing will no longer exist.
The ballroom, which has an estimated cost of $250 million and a conspicuously uncertain completion date, will allow a president who feels most comfortable holding court at his chintzy Florida social club to enjoy a reasonable facsimile in D.C., complete with gold and crystal chandeliers, a gold-accented ceiling, and gold floor lamps.
For months, Trump has boasted that he wouldnt pay for the ballrooms construction using public resources, which is perhaps the plans only saving grace. But as the government shutdown enters its fourth week and millions of federal workers continue to go unpaid, the president has opted for a financing model that is grotesque and insulting in a different way: passing the tab along to a menagerie of wealthy opportunists eager to curry favor with a president who values personal fealty above all else.
Trump has fantasized for years, even before he entered politics, about being the man who expanded the White House, and reportedly reached out to the Obama administration in 2010 to offer to build a ballroom himself. He also claims to have approached the Biden White House with the same offer, which, given their history, is a conversation I assume would not include much by way of small talk.
Now that Trump is president for a second time, hes been champing at the bit to follow through. Shortly after taking office, he mused about building his beautiful, beautiful ballroom, and in August, he told reporters who spotted him walking on the White House roof that he was looking for more ways to spend my money for the country. Trump has also said that managing the business of real estate is relaxing for him, an interesting insight into his priorities that is, in my view, bad news for anyone who hopes hes working diligently to reopen the government he runs.
Last Wednesday, Trump hosted a dinner at the White House to court deep-pocketed prospective donors to underwrite the ballroom project, which he variously described to them as phenomenal and totally appropriate. The guest list, according to The New York Times, included representatives from many of the Big Tech brands that distanced themselves from Trump during his first White House tenure, and are now doing their best to make him forget about it: among others, Amazon, Apple, Google, HP, Meta, and Microsoft. Also well-represented at dinner was the crypto industry, whose luminaries are by now used to opening their checkbooks whenever Trump asks. Representatives from Coinbase, Ripple, Tether were in attendance; so were the Winklevoss twins, who now run the crypto exchange Gemini, and Charles and Marissa Cascarilla, whose company, Paxos, is the blockchain partner for PayPal.
Also listening to Trumps pitch were a handful of big-name companies with lucrative government contracts, whose executives even more of an incentive to contribute to the presidents latest vanity project. Lockheed Martin, for example, holds multiyear defense contracts worth billions of dollars; the consulting firm of Booz Allen Hamilton does business almost exclusively with the federal government; Peter Thiels Palantir, which has been an integral part of the U.S. defense and intelligence infrastructure for years, recently inked a $10 billion contract to provide software support services to the Army for the next decade. Under this administration, it appears that an implicit condition of continuing to do business with the government is doing little favors for Trump upon request.
Even bit players in the MAGA universe who have good reason to believe they are already in Trumps inner circle still felt compelled to show up: Kelly Loeffler, the former Georgia senator whom Trump appointed to lead the Small Business Administration; Benjamin Leon, Jr., whom Trump has nominated to serve as ambassador to Spain, and the Lutnick family, whose patriarch, Howard, is currently the Secretary of Commerce. On the one hand, it feels remarkable to me that a sitting Cabinet member would perceive no optics problems with allowing his boss to solicit his family for cash on an ongoing basis. On the other hand, given this presidents history of firing Cabinet members who do not conduct themselves at all times as vassals privileged to be in his presence, obediently attending is probably the prudent choice.
A final list of donors has yet to be released, but Trump says the project is fully funded. Per CBS News, Google, Booz Allen, and Palantir (among others) have all agreed to donate, as has Lockheed Martin, which has given somewhere north of $10 million. And in his remarks at the dinner last week, which was advertised on gold-lettered invitations exhorting recipients to help establish the magnificent White House Ballroom, Trump praised unnamed attendees for being really, really generous, and insinuated that some in the audience had given as much as $25 million.
A pledge form obtained by CBS News allows donors to The Donald J. Trump Ballroom at the White House to pay in a lump sum or on a three-part installment plan, and teases that they willbe eligible for some sort of recognition, which could entail etched signage on the ballrooms exterior. There is probably no better illustration of the Trump administrations approach to governance than gut-renovating the Peoples House by adding a co-branded, corporate-sponsored wing to it.
One of the larger confirmed donations so far reveals just how high the stakes can be for those whom Trump asks to give. About $22 millionroughly 10% of the total price tagcomes from the money YouTube agreed to pay Trump last month to settle a lawsuit he brought over the companys decision to suspend his account in the aftermath of January 6. If you are keeping track at home, this means that a Silicon Valley giant that was kicking him off its platform four years ago is now waving the white flag in the form of an eight-figure check. At the dinner, Trump could not resist obliquely celebrating his reversal of fortune one last time: Its amazing the way a victory can change the minds of some people, he said, according to The New York Times.
Officially, YouTube wrote its check to the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit involved in funding the ballrooms construction. But the takeaway from this episode is pretty clear: The people and companies Trump solicits can either surrender what amounts to a rounding error on their balance sheets, thus earning Trumps praise and enjoying a significant tax write-off. Or they can pass, and run the risk that Trump turns around and uses the legal system to shake them down for even more.
Wealthy people buying access to power is not new; for that matter, neither is wealthy people spending their money on decor that was already garish four decades ago. But the presidents preoccupation with rebuilding the White House in his imageand his supporters willingness to chip inlays bare the extent to which decisions in this administration are getting made by people who have no idea what life is like in this country for those who are not billionaires. Trumps government might not be open, but it is as for sale as it ever was, for anyone who can afford to pay the price.
