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As the Class of 2025 graduates into an uncertain and fast-changing working world, they face a crucial question: What does it mean to be successful? Is it better to take a job that pays more, or one thats more prestigious? Should you prioritize advancement, relationship building, community impact or even the opportunity to live somewhere new? Sorting through these questions can feel overwhelming. I am a business school professor who spends a lot of time mentoring students and alumni in Generation Zthose born between 1997 and 2012. As part of this effort, Ive surveyed about 300 former undergraduate students and spoken at length with about 50 of them. Through these conversations, Ive watched them wrestle with the classic conflicts of young adulthoodsuch as having to balance external rewards like money against internal motivations like wanting to be of service. I recently revisited their stories and reflections, and I compiled the most enduring insights to offer to the next generation of graduates. Heres their collective advice to the Class of 2025: 1. Define what matters most to you Success starts with self-reflection. It means setting aside societys noise and defining your own values. When people are driven by internal rewards like curiosity, purpose or pleasure in an activity itselfrather than outside benefits such as moneypsychologists say they have intrinsic motivation. Research shows that people driven by intrinsic motivation tend to display higher levels of performance, persistence and satisfaction. Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabiles componential theory further suggests that creativity flourishes when peoples skills align with their strongest intrinsic interests. The alternative is to get caught up in societys expectations of success, as one consulting alum put it. She described struggling to choose between a job offer at a Fortune 500 company or one at a lesser-known independent firm. In the end, she chose to go with the smaller business. It was, she stressed, the right choice for me. This is crucial advice: Make yourself proud, not others. One related principle I share with students is the Tell your story rule. If a job doesnt allow you to tell your storyin other words, if it doesnt mirror your vision, values, talents and goalskeep looking for a new role. 2. Strive for balance, not burnout A fulfilling life includes time for relationships, health and rest. While many young professionals feel endless pressure to hustle, the most fulfilled alumni I spoke with learned to take steps to protect their personal well-being. For example, a banking alum told me that business once dominated his thoughts 24/7. He continued, Im happier now that I make more time for a social life and paying attention to all my relationshipsprofessional, personal, community, and lets not forget myself. And remember that balance and motivations can change throughout your life. As one alum explained: Your goals change and therefore your definition of success changes. I think some of the most successful people are always adapting what success means to themchasing success even if they are already successful. 3. Be kind, serve others and maximize your happy circle Some people believe to have a positive change in the world you must be a CEO or have a ton of money, another alum told me. But spreading happiness or joy can happen at any moment, has no cost, and the results are priceless. Many alumni told me that success isnt just a matter of personal achievementits about giving back to society. That could be through acts of kindness, creativity, innovation, or other ways of improving peoples lives. A retail alum shared advice from her father: When your circle is happy, you are going to be happy, she said. Its sort of an upward spiral. Your happy circle doesnt need to consist of people you know. An alum who went into the pharmaceutical industry said his works true reward was measured in tens of thousands if not millions of people in better health thanks to his efforts. In fact, your happy circle doesnt even need to be exclusively human. An alum who works in ranching said he valued the well-being of animalsand their ridersmore than money or praise. 4. Be a good long-term steward of your values Success isnt just about todayits what you stand for. Several alumni spoke passionately about stewardship: the act of preserving and passing on values, relationships and traditions. This mindset extended beyond family to employees, customers and communities. As one alum who majored in economics put it, success is leaving a mark on the world and creating a legacy that extends beyond ones quest for monetary gain. One alum defined success as creating happiness and stability not just for herself, but for her loved ones. Another, who works in hospitality, said he had a duty to further his employees ambitions and help them grow and developcreating a legacy that will outlast any title or paycheck. In an analysis by the organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry, Gen Z employees were found to be more prone to burnout when their employers lacked clear values. These findings reinforce what my students already know: Alignment between your values and your work is key to success. Final words for the Class of 2025 To the latest crop of grads, I offer this advice: Wherever life takes you nexta family business or corporate office, Wall Street or Silicon Valley, or somewhere you cant even imagine nowremember that your career will be long and full of ups and downs. Youll make tough choices. Youll face pressures. But if you stay grounded, invest in your well-being, celebrate your happy circle and honor your values, youll look back one day and see not just a job well done, but a life well lived. Bon voyage! Patrick Abouchalache is a lecturer in strategy and innovation at Boston University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Category:
E-Commerce
Five American small businesses will ask a U.S. court on Tuesday to halt President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, arguing the president overstepped his authority by declaring a national emergency to impose across-the-board taxes on imports from nations that sell more to the U.S. than they buy. Tuesday’s hearing before a panel of three judges at the New York-based U.S. Court of International Trade will be the first major legal test of Trump’s tariffs. The lawsuit was filed by the nonpartisan Liberty Justice Center on behalf of five small U.S. businesses that import goods from countries targeted by the tariffs. The companies, which range from a New York wine and spirits importer to a Virginia-based maker of educational kits and musical instruments, say the steep “Liberation Day” tariffs that Trump imposed on April 2 are illegal and will hurt their ability to do business. Small businesses are being harmed by the threat of increased costs, as well as “minute by minute changes” that prevent them from planning ahead, said Jeffrey Schwab, an attorney representing the plaintiffs. “Our clients have no certainty on what the tariffs are going to be at any point, and that’s exactly the problem,” Schwab said. “One person shouldn’t have unilateral authority to impose tariffs on every country at any rate, at any time that he wants.” The Liberty Justice Centers lawsuit is one of seven court challenges to Trumps tariff policies, and it is the first to seek a ruling that would stop the tariffs from moving forward. The Court of International Trade previously rejected the small businesses’ request to temporarily pause the tariffs while their lawsuit went forward, but then quickly scheduled Tuesdays court hearing to decide whether to rule against the tariffs or impose a longer-term pause. Trump imposed the new tariffs on April 2, saying the U.S. trade deficit was a “national emergency” that justified a 10% across-the-board tariff on all imports, with higher tariff rates for countries with which the U.S. has the largest trade deficits, particularly China. Many of those country-specific tariffs were paused a week later, and on Monday the Trump administration said it was also temporarily slashing the steepest China tariffs while working on a longer-term trade deal with Beijing. Both countries agreed over the weekend to cut tariffs on each other for at least 90 days. Trump’s on-and-off-again tariffs have shocked U.S. markets, but he has justified them as a way to restore America’s manufacturing capability. The president’s executive order announcing the tariffs invoked laws including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives presidents special powers to combat unusual or extraordinary threats to the U.S. The Liberty Justice Center said the law does not give the president the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs on any country he chooses at any rate he chooses. The law is meant to address unusual and extraordinary threats, and the U.S. decades-long practice of buying more goods than it exports does not qualify as an emergency that would trigger IEEPA, according to the lawsuit. The U.S. Department of Justice has argued that IEEPA gives presidents broad authority to regulate imports in response to a national emergency. It has said that the plaintiffs’ lawsuit should be thrown out, because they have not been harmed by tariffs they have not yet paid, and because only Congress, and not private businesses, can challenge a national emergency declared by the President under IEEPA. The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. Dietrich Knauth, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty is stepping down for personal reasons and the nation’s largest health insurer suspended its full-year financial outlook due to higher-than-expected medical costs.Chairman Stephen Hemsley will become CEO, effective immediately, the Minnesota company said.Hemsley was UnitedHealth Group CEO from 2006 to 2017. He will remain chairman of the company’s board. Witty will serve as a senior adviser to Hemsley.“Leading the people of UnitedHealth Group has been a tremendous honor as they work every day to improve the health system, and they will continue to inspire me,” Witty said.Witty joined the company in 2018 after serving about nine years as CEO of the British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline. He was named UnitedHealth’s CEO in February 2021, replacing Dave Wichmann.UnitedHealth became one of the nation’s largest companies under Witty’s leadership. Total revenue topped $400 billion last year, a 55% increase from the $257 billion UnitedHealth brought in the year before Witty became CEO.Shares of UnitedHealth rocketed higher under Witty, up 60.5% since he took the company’s top job.Yet in the past five months, that stock performance reversed sharply, coinciding with the fatal shooting of company executive Brian Thompson in front of a New York City hotel late last year.The company has wrestled with the media attention focused on Luigi Mangione, who was indicted last month on a federal murder charge in the killing of Thompson.The case has captured the American imagination, setting off a cascade of resentment and online vitriol toward U.S. health insurers while rattling corporate executives concerned about security.UnitedHealth cut its 2025 forecast last month following its first quarterly earnings miss in more than a decade. Shares of UnitedHealth, which have plummeted 38% since the deadly Dec. 4 ambush of Thompson in midtown Manhattan, fell 9% before the opening bell on Tuesday.UnitedHealth said Tuesday that it suspended its 2025 outlook as medical costs of many Medicare Advantage beneficiaries new to UnitedHealthcare were higher than expected.“To all stakeholders, including employees and shareholders, I’m deeply disappointed in and apologize for the performance setbacks we have encountered from both external and internal challenges,” Hemsley said during a conference call. “Many of the issues standing in the way of achieving our goals as well as our opportunities are largely within our control. I am optimistic about our future as these issues are within our capacity to resolve. We will approach them with humility, rigor and urgency.”More than 50 million people have health insurance under UnitedHealth Group Inc. It also has a large pharmacy benefit manager that runs prescription drug coverage and a growing Optum segment that delivers care and provides technical support.UnitedHealthcare is the nation’s largest provider of Medicare Advantage plans, with more than 8 million customers. Those are privately run versions of the federal government coverage program mostly for people ages 65 and older. AP Health Writer Tom Murphy contributed to this report. Michelle Chapman, AP Business Writer
Category:
E-Commerce
Amazon leaned into the advertising funnel in a big way during its 2025 Upfront event at the Beacon Theater in New York City on Monday night. Perhaps the most notable product enhancement the company unveiled was the use of AI to generate contextual advertising on its Prime Video platformmeaning that ads can and will be created on the fly, using AI, depending on the specific scene of a TV show or movie that is on the screen at any given time. For instance, if a viewer is watching a scene involving a loving phone call between a mother and daughter, pausing the show could result in an ad for mobile phone service, with AI-generated text dynamically created, right then and there. The ability gives Amazon’s massive advertising artillery even more firepower. Amazon execs at the event noted that its Prime Video service now has a global audience of more than 300 million, up from 275 million a year ago, and that engagement also increased 40% over the past year. A star-studded pitch to advertisers Amazon’s Upfront event was loaded with stars showcasing new projects for Prime Video. That included appearances by Michael B. Jordan, discussing a new Creed spinoff TV show called Delphi; Arnold Schwarzenegger (who stole the show with a 15-minute rambling appearance loaded with jokes about his old age) talking about his upcoming Christmas movie; John Cena talking about his new movie due out this summer with Idris Elba; and Jamie Lee Curtis, who announced that shes producing and starring in a new series, Scarpetta, alongside Nicole Kidman. The series will be an adaptation of the popular book series authored by Patricia Cornwell. Curtis later joined Schwarzenegger on stage to reminisce about the 1990s action movie True Lies in which they both starred. Other announcements include the December return of Fallout, which will air its second season, and was also renewed for a third season. Nicolas Cage was also announced as playing Spider-Man in Spider-Noir, which will be available to watch in either color or black-and-white. Two new seasons of Beast Games are also on the way. Finally, sports were front and center. The NFL will continue with Thursday night games on Prime, and Prime will also host a Black Friday game between Chicago and Philadelphia, and a Christmas Day game between Denver and Kansas City. Additionally, the NBA inked an 11-year deal with Prime, which will see 65 regular-season games air on the service, along with some playoff games.
Category:
E-Commerce
One of the worlds most well-known stock market indexes, the S&P 500, will soon look a little different. Thats because its roster of 500 companies is getting a shakeup, which will see the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global join the index. In the process, Coinbase will replace legacy financial services company Discover Financial. Heres what you need to know about the changes coming to the S&P 500. What is the S&P 500? The S&P 500 is one of the worlds best-known stock market indexes. A stock market index is essentially a running list of publicly traded companies whose stock prices are tracked. These indices can help give investors an overview of how the economyor at least the marketsare behaving over a certain period, whether an hour, day, week, year, or decade. There are numerous stock market indexes across the world. The Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq 100 are the most well-known in the United States. Other global indexes include Chinas Hang Seng, Japans Nikkei 225, the U.K.s FTSE, Germanys DAX, and France’s CAC 40. Indices should not be confused with stock market exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Stocks are bought and sold on these exchanges, whereas an index only tracks the price of certain stocks (though you can buy ETFs and mutual funds on exchanges that are broadly representative of certain indices themselves). As its name suggests, the S&P 500 tracks 500 publicly traded companies in the U.S. markets. This is much more than the Dow, which only tracks 30 companies. The S&P 500 launched in its current form on March 4, 1957. The full name of the S&P 500 is the Standard and Poor’s 500. Why is Coinbase joining the S&P 500? The catalyst for Coinbase joining the S&P 500 is that a legacy financial company that is currently tracked by the index will no longer be separately traded. That company is Discover Financial Services, which is being acquired by Capital One Financial Corporation. Discover’s removal will leave the S&P 500 with only 499 companies, so the S&P 500 needed to find a replacement, which it has done with Coinbase. Why did the S&P 500 choose Coinbase? A committee chooses which companies are included in the S&P 500 and, generally speaking, the committee tries to include companies from a broad range of sectors so it is composed of 500 companies that are a good proportional representation of the American economy. Whats interesting with Coinbases inclusion on the S&P 500 is that it is the first time a cryptocurrency company has been added to the index, notes The Crypto Basic. While this wont change the fundamentals of the company itself, it signifies that crypto companies are becoming a more important part of the U.S. economyor at least, that’s the perception. However, the S&P 500 committee cant just choose any company it wants for the index. It uses multiple criteria when determining which companies to add. As noted by CNBC, any company added to the S&P 500 must have reported a profit in its most recent quarter and have had cumulative profits over the past four quarters. But those arent the only requirements. As S&P Global states, companies must also meet other selection criteria, which include: The company must be a large cap onethat is, it must have a market capitalization of at least $10 billion. The company must have sufficient liquidity. The company must have a sufficient number of shares that are available to the public (known as public float). The company must help contribute to the sector balance. The S&P 500 committee felt that Coinbase met these criteria. How unusual is this? Its important to note that changes to the S&P 500 arent as rare as changes to the Dow, which only tracks 30 companies. The S&P typically makes dozens of changes to its roster every year. As mentioned, the reason Coinbase’s addition is so notable is that its the first crypto company ever added to the S&P. When do these changes take effect? In a press release, S&P Global confirmed that these changes will take place on Monday, May 19. On that day, Discover Financial Services will be delisted from the S&P 500 and Coinbase will be added. How have Coinbase on Discover Financial Services shares reacted to the news? Discover Financial Services stock (NYSE: DFS) pretty much shrugged off the news when it was announced after market close on Monday. Thats because DFS shareholders know the company is already being acquired for a fixed amount. Because Discover Financial Services is being acquired, its removal from the S&P 500 was expected. On the other hand, Coinbase stock (Nasdaq: COIN) has surged on the news that it was joining the S&P 500. Shares are currently up over 10% in premarket trading as of the time of this writing. Yesterday, before the S&P 500 announcement, COIN shares closed at just over $207. However, Coinbases addition to the S&P 500 does not change any of the companys financials. The reason the stock is surging anyway is that many mutual funds and ETFs that track the S&P 500 will likely now add COIN shares to their baskets, meaning they will buy the stock, thus causing it to rise. Still, despite the companys inclusion on the S&P 500, COIN shares have taken a beating this year. As of yesterdays close, they were down over 16% year-to-date. Over the past five years, COIN shares have fallen 45%.
Category:
E-Commerce
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