Navigating Big Tech's new era

Tech heavyweights had prime seats at Trump’s inauguration.

Julia Demaree Nikhinson – Pool/Getty Images

This post originally appeared in the BI Today newsletter.
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Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. Warren Buffett is officially hanging it up. The 94-year-old investing legend plans to resign as Berkshire Hathaway CEO after 55 years in charge. Buffett broke the news to a stadium full of Berkshire shareholders in Omaha. BI’s Theron Mohamed was there — here’s what he witnessed.

The business titan had hinted to shareholders that his reign was coming to an end and carefully prepared for his departure. Following Buffett’s announcement, business leaders from Tim Cook to Mark Cuban reacted to the news. Check out some of the famed investor’s best quotes.

On the agenda today:

Why millennials’ retirement estimations might just be plain wrong.
Inside Big Law’s fight against Donald Trump.
Influencers are selling get-rich-quick courses to young men skeptical of higher ed.
How AI is transforming work for consultants at McKinsey, BCG, and more.

But first: Talking all things Big Tech with Alistair Barr, the author of our soon-to-be-launched Tech Memo newsletter. (Sign up to get the first edition in your inbox!)

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here. Download Business Insider’s app here.

This week’s dispatch

Introducing Tech Memo

Alistair Barr, a longtime tech editor at Business Insider, will be helming a new newsletter for us called Tech Memo. It aims to deliver the best of BI’s inside coverage of Big Tech and the broader industry.

I connected with Ali about his plans for this new reader service.

Ali, what should readers of the BI Tech Memo expect that they won’t get elsewhere?

This newsletter, for starters, is for people working in tech companies, or who want to. How is the work environment changing? What’s the best way to thrive and get ahead in Silicon Valley? Then, anyone who does business with these organizations, and those who want to understand them more intimately, will get great value from this, too. BI has always excelled at providing an exclusive look at what’s really happening inside these powerful companies. My goal is to bring the best of this coverage to readers every week.

What big themes are top of mind?

New, powerful tools, such as AI, are being unleashed across these huge organizations and disrupting how things are done. Changes within tech companies will influence how we all work in the future. And I’m laser-focused on the changing relationship between employees and companies in the industry, so we’ll be sharing more insights, such as our piece this week about new Big Tech performance-management approaches. Finally, with tariffs, it will be interesting to see how tech companies adjust their operations, particularly their hardware supply chains. This applies especially to Apple.

Who is interesting to you right now?

I’m obsessed with Elon Musk and all of his companies. His raw way of blurting out what’s on his mind is a stark change from the usual pre-packaged, PR-checked talking points of most executives. Sam Altman is challenging Musk for the crown of “most interesting tech CEO” right now. Then, I’m keen to see how Mark Zuckerberg’s more open approach to AI model development will work out (or not).

The Millennial Retirement Panic

Between the dot-com bubble bust and the 2008 Great Recession, millennials started off adulthood at a retirement disadvantage — and they could face even greater upheaval in the decades to come.

Current retirement estimates don’t factor in the economic impacts of AI, the climate crisis, and more — all things that could make millennials’ retirement future rocky.

Why retirement assumptions don’t add up.

Big Law fights back

When President Trump issued a barrage of executive orders targeting several of the nation’s biggest law firms, many struck deals. Four firms chose to fight the administration in court.

So far, that gamble looks like it’s paid off. In each of the four suits, judges blocked the most consequential elements from each executive order and signaled they’d later rule in favor of the firms.

It’s creating a rift in the legal profession.

Also read:

Meet Richard Lawson, the sole Justice Department lawyer taking on Big Law in court

Plato vs. Porsches

Disillusioned with higher education and facing a masculinity crisis, young men are gravitating toward college alternatives. Manosphere influencers are answering the call.

Denouncing college as a scam, they’re marketing a lifestyle full of fast cars, private jets, and Dubai mansions. All this could be yours, they promise, if you buy their $1,000 course.

And young men are buying.

AI comes to consulting

Consulting firms are embracing AI with new technology.
Tyler Le/BI

Workers at big consulting firms like McKinsey and BCG were initially ambivalent about AI. Now, it’s helping them save time on rote tasks, which they’ve reinvested into more advanced work.

The two firms — plus Deloitte, KPMG, and PwC — told BI how they’re implementing AI into their workflows, from streamlining writing style to experimenting with AI agents.

Here’s how the tech is reshaping the industry.

Also read:

McKinsey, BCG, and Deloitte’s new competition is small, fast, and driven by AI

This week’s quote:

“We eat our own dog food.”

— Ryan Carrillo, who used an assumable mortgage to buy his home. He’s the cofounder of Assumable.io, which also helps buyers find homes with assumable mortgages.

More of this week’s top reads:

Google is shaking up its compensation to incentivize higher performance.
Walmart is once again America’s grocery king, but rival Costco is rapidly gaining ground.
The smartest things economists are saying about a possible recession.
A BI reporter went to Trump’s first 100-day rally. The key issue for rallygoers was, surprisingly, not the economy.
Inside the first week back at JPMorgan’s largest US office, from the memos to the jockeying for desks.
BI went to the “Conclave of Silicon Valley.” It showed the hold tech has on DC.
Starbucks is staffing up its stores with baristas and ditching machines in the latest stage of its turnaround.
Spotify cut costs to turn a profit. Now, subscribers are being flooded with music they hate.

The BI Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York (on parental leave). Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York. Elizabeth Casolo, fellow, in Chicago.