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If you’re trying to build wealth, your first six figures in savings is a huge milestone. That’s according to the late billionaire Charlie Munger.
“It’s a b—-, but you gotta do it,” Munger told investors at an annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting two decades ago (1).
“I don’t care what you have to do,” he continued. “If it means walking everywhere and not eating anything that wasn’t purchased with a coupon, find a way to get your hands on $100,000. After that, you can ease off the gas a little bit.”
Munger’s six-figure fixation might seem a bit arbitrary at first, but his reason behind it was actually simple: Six figures are where the real power of compounding is unlocked. Once you cross this critical threshold, your money earns more money at a meaningful scale.
But not everybody agrees. Some financial advice gurus are saying there’s freedom to be had with numbers as low as $20,000.
Financial YouTuber Nischa Shah explains that once you’ve saved just 20 grand, you can begin taking advantage of the power of compound interest in your investments. More importantly, you can stop being driven by fear — and not have to take the first job you’re offered or stay in a role you hate because you lack other options.
“Compound interest is one of the most powerful forces in finance,” she said (2). “And once you hit 20K, you’ll see exactly what it means. Your money doesn’t just sit there anymore. It starts earning returns. And then those returns start earning their own returns.”
In her words, “It’s like planting a tree that grows even more trees for you.”
Either way, whether the magic number is five or six figures, it’s clear the experts agree on one thing: When it comes to investing in your financial future, compound interest is the best friend to your savings.
Here’s why maximizing savings with compound interest unlocks your wealth potential — and what you can do to hit your goal and discover financial freedom.
Munger’s $100,000 benchmark has math on its side. But in reality, most families struggle to set aside six figures as they battle stagnant wages and rapidly rising costs of living.
To put this in perspective, the national savings rate, or amount of disposable income left over after accounts are settled, was just 3.5% in November 2025, which is the latest month that data is available, as of February 2026 (3).
What is more alarming is that 21% of Americans have no emergency savings at all, and 37% say they would struggle to cover an unexpected $400 bill, according to a 2024 survey of 1,192 Americans from Empower (4).
In other words, many families don’t have a safety net.
The dearth of savings is particularly acute for younger Americans. According to 2026 data from Empower, the median net worth of Americans in their 20s is just $6,600, and those numbers only climb to $23,093 for those in their 30s and $68,698 for those in their 40s (5).
That’s much less than Munger’s benchmark.
That’s why it’s important to remember that your personal finances could start changing at a much lower threshold. If you’re young or lack savings, just getting to $20,000 could really help shift your thinking.
A lack of cash available immediately can limit your flexibility. In this situation, your top priority has to be survival, which means you don’t have the opportunity to leave your job in pursuit of a better one, take time off to get educated or take on investments with significant risk.
Simply put, you have little to no wriggle room, and that has real consequences on the way you think and process the world around you.
According to a survey of Vanguard customers, people with no emergency fund spend nearly twice as much time thinking about money issues every week than those with at least $2,000 in in the bank (6).
That’s why a high-yield account like the Wealthfront Cash Account can be a great place to grow your emergency fund, offering both competitive interest rates and easy access to your cash when you need it.
A Wealthfront Cash Account currently offers a base variable APY of 3.30%, and new clients can get a 0.75% boost during their first three months on up to $150,000 for a total APY of 4.05%. That’s 10 times the national deposit rate, according to the FDIC’s January report.
With no minimum balances or account fees, as well as 24/7 withdrawals and free domestic wire transfers, your funds remain accessible at all times. Plus, Wealthfront Cash Account balances of up to $8 million are insured by the FDIC through program banks.
Boosting your savings can certainly fatten your wallet, but they have profound implications for your mental health, too.
The same Vanguard study also found that going from no savings to $2,000 in savings improved financial well-being by 21% (6). Indeed, those who progressed further and saved up three to six months of living expenses in an emergency fund saw another 13% bump in well-being.
Put another way, it’s good for your health to have an emergency fund.
But scraping together an emergency fund might not seem easy at first. American households spent roughly $78,535 per year in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (7). That means a $20,000 emergency fund should cover just over three months of living expenses for the typical family.
Once you hit this benchmark, though, you won’t need to focus as much on surviving and can start focusing on growth and investments instead. You can also start to think about taking some time off work to invest in education or pursue a better-paying job.
The question is, how do you get to that benchmark?
It could be as easy as setting up a budget. A quick daily check-in of your accounts can show you exactly where your money is going — and find new ways you can save.
However, if managing a budget feels overwhelming to you, apps like Rocket Money can simplify the process.
Rocket Money can easily flag recurring subscriptions, upcoming bills and unusual charges by pulling in transactions from all your linked accounts.
This can help you cut unnecessary costs, and then you can manually redirect savings straight into your retirement fund. No spreadsheets, no guesswork, no stress. Small habits like this can make a big difference over time.
Rocket Money’s intuitive app offers a variety of free and premium tools. Free features include subscription tracking, bill reminders and budgeting basics, while premium features — like automated savings, net worth tracking, customizable dashboards and more — make it easier to stay on top of your retirement contributions and overall financial goals.
Once you’ve set up a budget, it’s also worth assessing how you’re spending money. As Munger suggested, you might consider cutting back where you can.
For instance, you might find in your budget that you have monthly expenditures that should be reassessed and trimmed down.
That doesn’t have to mean sinking to an untenable living standard, though.
Most people look to cutting down on subscriptions like Netflix or DoorDash, or going out less. While these are smart options, you could also consider looking to other ways to save on essential expenses, such as reducing your cell phone bill and car insurance.
Sometimes, you have to go shopping around for the best deals.
OfficialCarInsurance.com lets you instantly sort through policies from car insurance providers in your area, including trusted names like Progressive, GEICO and Allstate. With rates as low as $29 per month, you can find coverage that suits your needs and potentially save you hundreds of dollars per year.
To get started, fill in some basic information, and OfficialCarInsurance.com will provide a list of the top insurers in your area within minutes.
Ultimately, even after setting up your savings and reducing expenses, it is always a good idea to keep things in perspective.
After all, for anyone starting from scratch, getting to the $100,000 milestone can offer breathing room — but it can also be such an overwhelming number that you never even start. Although it would be great to have $100,000 invested in growing assets, even $20,000 can unlock noticeable growth.
Here’s why.
The S&P 500 has delivered a compounded annual growth rate of 10% since 1957 (8). Socking away the first $20,000 you don’t need for other savings goals into a low-cost index fund that tracks this index, then adding $1,000 per month, could get you to the $100,000 threshold in just under five years if the market remains at historic, favorable levels.
However, if you were to have sold off your investments in a year like 2022, when the S&P was down nearly 20% year-over-year, you could end up losing a lot of money — investing always carries risk (9).
And that’s why it’s crucial you have a long-term outlook — like Munger and Warren Buffett — when it comes to investing so that you can ride out any stock market volatility.
Speaking of market volatility, it’s also important to diversify your investments so that you aren’t over-indexed in any one stock or market. But finding the right stock picks can be tricky, and top-shelf advisor services often have asset under management (AUM) fees, which are charged as a percentage of the portfolio’s total value.
How it works is simple: When you make a purchase on a linked credit or debit card, Acorns automatically rounds up to the nearest dollar, and the excess is placed into a smart investment portfolio.
Let’s say you purchase a doughnut for $2.30. Before you’re done licking the sugar off your fingers, Acorns will round the amount to $3.00 and invest the 70-cent difference for you. Just $2.50 worth of daily round-ups add up to $900 per year — and that’s before your savings earn money in the market. This could give you the boost you need to reach that $20,000 benchmark.
Plus, if you sign up now and set up a recurring investment of at least $5, you can get a $20 bonus investment.
Join 250,000+ readers and get Moneywise’s best stories and exclusive interviews first — clear insights curated and delivered weekly. Subscribe now.
The Globe and Mail (1); @nischa (2); Bureau of Economic Analysis (3); Empower (4), (5); Vanguard (6); Bureau of Labor Statistics (7); Business Insider (8); CNBC (9)
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
Warren Buffett closed his career with a $351 million New York Times investment, backing one of the last thriving newspaper businesses in a digital era. Daniel Suchnik/WireImage
It’s only fitting that one of Warren Buffett’s final investments before retirement circles back to the business that first taught him how to make money. In the last quarter of 2025, Berkshire Hathaway bought a $351 million stake (more than 5.1 million shares) in The New York Times Company, according to a regulatory filing this week. The bet speaks to longstanding ties between the newspaper industry and Buffett, who worked as a paperboy in the 1940s.
Today, Berkshire is known for its long-term investments in insurance, energy and tech. But it was once a prominent media investor before Buffett retreated as digital advertising upended the business. But The New York Times has emerged as one of the industry’s rare success stories. The company added 450,000 new digital subscribers during the October-December quarter and lifted quarterly revenue by more than 10 percent year over year to $802 million. Last year, the company made $344 million in profit.
Buffett, 95, officially stepped down as Berkshire’s CEO at the end of 2025, handing the reins to his successor, Greg Abel. In many ways, the new stake is a nod to Buffett’s roots. As a teenager living in Washington, D.C., he woke before 5 a.m. to deliver copies of papers, including The Washington Post. His route included six senators and a Supreme Court justice. Showing early signs of the dealmaker he would become, Buffett expanded his territory, eventually delivering some 500,000 papers. The hustle was so lucrative that he filed his first federal income tax return at age 14 after earning more than $500 in 1944.
His affection for newspapers carried into his tenure at Berkshire, where he invested heavily in media companies such as The Washington Post and even established an annual newspaper-tossing contest at Berkshire’s shareholder meeting.
Warren Buffett takes part in a newspaper-throwing contest during the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in 2015. Photo by Hannes Breusted/picture alliance via Getty Images
But that love affair frayed as the internet eroded newspapers’ advertising dominance. At a 2010 Berkshire conference, Buffett remarked that it “blows your mind” how quickly the business had unraveled.
He began pulling back soon after, stepping down from The Washington Post’s board in 2011. Berkshire, which was at one point the paper’s largest investor, swapped its 28 percent stake in Graham Holdings Co., the Post’s then-parent company, for a Miami television station in 2014. The move followed Jeff Bezos’ $250 million acquisition of the paper a year earlier.
By the end of the 2010s, Berkshire had exited the newspaper business entirely, selling a portfolio of 30 local publications to Lee Enterprises for $140 million in cash. The group included titles such as Buffalo News, the Omaha World-Herald and Tulsa World.
“The world was changed hugely, and it did it gradually,” Buffett said of the industry’s decline in a 2019 interview with Yahoo Finance. “It went from monopoly to franchise to competitive to… toast.” Even then, he predicted that major publishers such as The New York Times might endure. As for the rest: “They’re going to disappear.”
The New York Times has indeed thrived, in part thanks to an aggressive expansion into games, recipes and video. Others have struggled. Under Bezos’ ownership, The Washington Post has wrestled with declining advertising revenue and subscriptions. These troubles came to a head earlier this month, when roughly one-third of the newsroom was laid off, with cuts hitting sports, books, international and metro coverage particularly hard. The Los Angeles Times, owned by biotech entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong, has faced similar turbulence, including a newsroom reduction of more than 20 percent in 2024.
Buffett’s vote of confidence has further buoyed The New York Times. Its stock surged to an all-time high this week after Berkshire disclosed its stake, capping a 12-month run in which shares climbed 57 percent.
Will Lewis arrived at The Washington Post as the storied paper was working to shed 240 employees, saying then that as a result of faulty financial projections, “We’re not in a place that we want to be in and we need to get to that place as fast as we can.” The British media exec had come to the US to be CEO and publisher of the Post, starting in January of 2024. “My plan is to arrive and for us to together craft an extremely exciting way forward. I can smell it. I can feel it. I know it,” Lewis said in his first meeting with the newspaper’s staff.
Two years later, “exciting” might not be the word that Post staffers would use regarding the publication’s “way forward.” The 148-year-old paper, which since August of 2013 has been owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, laid off over 300 journalists last week, a move that killed off its sports and books section, and left its local and international teams diminished.
And Saturday, Lewis was out too, sending a brief email to staff that reads “After two years of transformation at The Washington Post, now is the right time for me to step aside. I want to thank Jeff Bezos for his support and leadership throughout my tenure as CEO and Publisher. The institution could not have a better owner.”
“During my tenure, difficult decisions have been taken in order to ensure the sustainable future of The Post so it can for many years ahead publish high-quality nonpartisan news to millions of customers each day,” he concluded.
Will Lewis in 2023
By Carlotta Cardana/Bloomberg/Getty Images.
According to a statement from the Post, CFO Jeff D’Onofrio has taken over as acting publisher and CEO. “The Post has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity. Each and every day our readers give us a roadmap to success. The data tells us what is valuable and where to focus,” Bezos said in a statement regarding the transition. “Jeff, along with [executive editor Matt Murray] and [opinion editor Adam O’Neal], are positioned to lead The Post into an exciting and thriving next chapter.”
Lewis was not present on the Zoom during which Murray announced the layoffs Wednesday, Post staffers who were on the call tell Vanity Fair. He did, however, participate in meetings that day, during which he “gave no indication he was leaving,” The New York Times reports. He was spotted Thursday on the red carpet at the NFL Honors event in San Francisco, a pre-Super Bowl party attended by actor Tiffany Haddish, athlete Travis Kelce, and rap icon Too $hort, among others.
And then he also announced that he was going to change the opinion page, including the editorial page, and he was going to exclude from those pages, essentially, people who didn’t buy into this ideology of free markets and individual liberties. Of course, he didn’t define that. But what it meant in practice was that anybody who was left of center, even slightly left of center, was going to be excluded from the opinion pages of The Washington Post because they were evidently too critical of Donald Trump.
And even today, there’s absolutely no moral core to these editorials today. It’s not that they won’t criticize Trump from time to time, but they do so in the softest, most mealy-mouthed way. They always use it as an opportunity to also attack the Democrats. They’re constantly falling back on the phrase “overreach.” Well, it’s not overreach. It’s abuse of power. So, with all of these decisions, from the decision not to publish a presidential endorsement to the remake of the opinion pages—and particularly the remake of the editorials themselves—they’ve just driven away readers by the hundreds of thousands who are disgusted with what they’ve seen.
And so despite that fact, the newsroom, day-in and day-out, is just doing some tremendous work, and work that does hold the administration accountable. But it seems like with every reader they get in through the front door with great news coverage, they lose through the back door through these decisions that are being made by the owner, the publisher, and then also by the kinds of editorials that they seem to be running day after day.
So when Post leadership says the decline in audience is the result of a problem with the newsroom, the way you see it, it’s the leadership that is to blame for the decline in audience?
They had a lot of work to do. They had to make some changes, too. I don’t think it’s the quality of the reporting, but I think it’s a matter of how we communicate with the public. The way that people consume news and information is dramatically changing. And so if the way people consume information is dramatically changing, then the way you deliver information has to change dramatically as well. And so clearly there were things that needed to be done. Perhaps even very disruptive things that needed to be done. That said, ownership and the publisher, I believe, made things infinitely worse with their decisions. I mean, you lose hundreds of thousands of loyal subscribers? It’s appalling.
The editorial page editor, in his couple of interviews that he did—he did one with Fox News, and he did one with The National Review, which tells you what kind of audience he’s trying to reach. He basically portrayed readers who had abandoned the Post as being partisan, that their readership of the Post was driven by partisanship. Well, it wasn’t. They saw a president who was likely to abuse his power, who was in fact abusing his power. They felt that the press needed to play an important role in holding this government or any government to account. They saw The Washington Post as doing that really well, so they supported the Post with their subscriptions. That is not partisanship. That is citizenship. The idea that the press should hold the government to account, that’s what the press ought to be doing, and it’s appropriate that people support that.
The Washington Post is laying off a third of its workers across all departments, scaling back foreign coverage and shutting down some sections of the paper.
Executive editor Matt Murray announced the layoffs during a Zoom call with employees on Wednesday. The Post will restructure its local news department and editing staff, close its books department, and shrink the number of journalists it stations overseas, he told staffers.
Barry Svrluga, a sports columnist at the Post, said on social media that the media outlet will also close its sports department in its “current form,” citing comments by Murray during Wednesday’s call.
In a letter to the newsroom shared with CBS News, Murray wrote that the restructuring plans are intended to “place The Washington Post on a stronger footing” and better position the paper in a “rapidly changing era of new technologies and evolving user habits.”
Murrary also acknowledged the financial challenges the paper, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has faced after “multiple rounds of cost cuts and buyouts.”
WaPo “dramatically diminished,” former editor says
Martin Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post from 2013 to 2021, told CBS News the cuts will seriously weaken the paper’s ability to cover news.
“The scope of the coverage is going to be dramatically diminished,” he said. “That’s sad because the newspaper is setting its ambitions low, rather than setting its ambitions high.”
Baron criticized the Post’s leadership for some of its editorial decisions, including a controversial move not to endorse a presidential candidate in the days before the 2024 national election, which he said hurt the paper’s reputation.
Baron also directed blame at Bezos for prioritizing his business goals over the paper’s welfare.
“He’s not the same person who was there when I was there,” Baron said of Bezos. “He let his business interests get in the way of his management of the Post.”
Bezos’ communications team and Amazon did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for the newspaper didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the scale of the job cuts or confirm the size of its workforce.
Pleading with Bezos
The announcement follows days of speculation that the company was planning to make cuts to its foreign, sports and local desks.
Amid media reports about the planned layoffs, some Washington Post reporters last month sent letters to owner Jeff Bezos pleading with the billionaire and Amazon founder not to cut any jobs.
“Cutting this deeply sourced, battle-hardened and tireless staff would hinder The Post’s ability to respond to the biggest news developments on the horizon,” the Post’s foreign correspondents said in their letter, which was posted on social media.
“Don’t eliminate our jobs,” reporters from the Post’s local desk said in their missive to Bezos. “Keep the Washington Post a place that covers Washington.”
Bezos bought The Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million amid a declining readership and other budgetary challenges.
At the time, he promised employees that the paper would follow in the footsteps of its late publisher, Katharine Graham, in pursuing the truth and following important stories, “no matter the cost.”
Downie, who served as executive editor from 1991 to 2008, contrasted the paths of the Times and the Post. During the past decade, the Times transformed itself into a one-stop-shopping environment that lured readers with games such as Spelling Bee, a cooking app, and a shopping guide. By the end of 2025, it was reporting close to thirteen million digital subscribers and an operating profit of more than a hundred and ninety-two million dollars. The Post does not release information about its digital subscribers, but it was reported to have two and a half million digital subscribers at the time of the non-endorsement decision, in 2024.
“One of the big differences to me was that they hired a publisher”—Ryan—“who didn’t come up with any ideas,” Downie told me. “And then when he left . . . we knew that Bezos was losing money, and we were encouraged by the fact that they were looking for somebody who could improve the business side of the paper and the circulation side of the paper. And then they chose this guy who we hardly ever heard from, who had a checkered past in British journalism.”
Writing last month on a private Listserv for former Post employees, Paul Farhi, who as the media reporter for the Post covered Bezos’s acquisition of the paper, shared his “utter mystification and bafflement” about Bezos’s tolerance of Lewis. “Even as a hands-off boss,” he wondered, “could Bezos not see what was obvious to even casual observers within a few months of Will’s arrival—that Will was ill-suited to the Post, that he had alienated the newsroom, that he had an ethically suspect past, and—most important—that none of his big ideas was working or even being implemented?” (Farhi, who took a buyout in 2023, gave me permission to quote his message.)
Even before these new cuts, a parade of key staffers had left the Post. A beloved managing editor, Matea Gold, went to the Times. The national editor, Philip Rucker, decamped to CNN, and the political reporter Josh Dawsey to the Wall StreetJournal. The Atlantic hired, among others, three stars of the paper’s White House team: Ashley Parker, Michael Scherer, and Toluse Olorunnipa. These are losses that would take years to rebuild—if the Post were in a rebuilding mode. The Post, Woodward said, “lives and is doing an extraordinary reporting job on the political crisis that is Donald Trump”—including its scoop on the second strike to kill survivors of an attack on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat. But the print edition is a shadow of its former self, with metro, style, and sports melded into an anemic second section; daily print circulation is now below one hundred thousand. More pressingly, it’s unclear whether a newsroom so stripped of resources can sustain the quality of its work.
The sports columnist Sally Jenkins, who left the Post in August, 2025, as part of the second wave of buyouts, has been more supportive of management than many other Post veterans. So it was striking that, when we spoke recently, she was both passionate about the work of her newsroom colleagues and unsparing about how the business side had failed them. “When you whack at these sections, you’re whacking at the roots of the tree,” she told me. “We train great journalists in every section of the paper, and we train them to cover every subject on the globe. And when you whack whole sections of people away, you are really, really in danger of killing the whole tree.” When I asked how she felt about the losses, Jenkins said, “My heart is cracked in about five different pieces.”
Inside the world’s most expensive yachts are interiors and deckings made out of teak, a tropical hardwood that is desired both for its resistance to water and rot, and for the fact that it has become a status symbol for the wealthy. The thing is, they’re not supposed to have it at all, and now the world’s richest assholes are looking for a new material they can flex with, according to the BBC.
Since 2021, it has been illegal to import teak to the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union. The reason is two-fold. First, teak contributes to deforestation, which has devastated the ecosystems of the Southeast Asian nation. But let’s be real, the Jeff Bezoses of the world don’t really care about that. The main reason that teak has been (well, supposed to have been) on the way out is because it was found that the teak trade funds the military junta that took over Myanmar by force in 2021—the same military that carried out a genocide against the Rohingya people.
Western governments quickly tried to cut off that funding by issuing sanctions against Myanmar, including several state-owned timber companies known as major exporters of teak. That was a real buzzkill for the yachting class, but it also didn’t truly stop them. In 2023, The Guardian reported that a number of US companies continued to import teak that originated in Myanmar.
Other shipmakers also flouted the restrictions. UK-based Sunseeker caught a fine for using Myanmar teak in 2024, and Dutch shipyard Oceanco got dinged for the same infraction for the superyacht it built for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Why these companies continue to use teak is probably pretty simple. Bezos’s yacht cost $500 million. The fine for the teak was $157,000. They probably can just tack that on to the bill.
Despite this, it does appear that the industry is finally starting to turn away from teak, per the BBC—not for any moral reason it seems, but rather because the pre-sanctions teak stockpile is finally running out. Sunreef Yachts, based in Poland and Dubai, announced that it will ditch teak entirely, opting for both other woods and non-wood alternatives. Supposedly, Google co-founder Sergey Bryn and Tilman Fertitta, owner of both the Houston Rockets and a suite of hotels and restaurants, have both taken up alternate options for their recent yacht projects. Per the BBC, Bryn used a more sustainable wood on his yacht’s helipad, so make sure to thank him for his sacrifice if you see him.
Let’s all look forward to finding out what conflicts those fund in the not-too-distant future.
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Economist Peter Schiff made his name by predicting the 2008 housing crash. Now he’s sounding the alarm on another potential crisis in America’s housing market — one that could see a wave of homeowners mailing back their keys.
“Why are housing prices so high? Because for a long time, the Fed kept interest rates at zero, and so a lot of people were able to get really low mortgages, 3% mortgages, 4% mortgages,” Schiff explained in a 2025 YouTube video (1).
“And because homes are bought — not based on what the home cost — but based on the monthly payment, the lower the monthly payment, the more somebody could pay for a house. Now you have a problem where housing prices went way up, but then mortgage rates went way up, and home prices never came back down to levels consistent with more expensive mortgages.”
Indeed, mortgage rates have surged. The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage has climbed from below 3% just a few years ago to more than 6.1% today (2). Normally, higher borrowing costs can cool down the market, but prices remain stubbornly high: the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which tracks the price of single-family homes in the U.S., jumped more than 43% over the past five years (3).
Schiff believes prices will “eventually” fall to match today’s higher rates — a painful adjustment that, he warns, could trigger “a housing emergency.”
“It’s going to create a bunch of defaults and a lot of people are going to walk away and mail in their keys because they can’t sell their houses for more than they owe,” he said.
The scenario sounds familiar. During the 2008 bust, many underwater homeowners — those who owed more than their homes were worth — simply mailed their keys to the lender and walked away.
Today’s market is different. Lending standards are tighter than during the subprime era, making widespread negative equity less common. Supply constraints are also a factor: Zillow estimates the U.S. is short roughly 4.7 million homes, a gap that has helped keep prices elevated (4).
Schiff argues that many owners are staying put only because they locked in ultra-low mortgage rates, which are now limiting the number of homes for sale.
“But at some point, there are people that have to sell their houses for whatever reason and if they have to slash the prices to do it, they may not have enough money to repay the mortgages. And so this could have a cascading effect,” he warned.
According to December 2025 sales data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), pending home sales were down 3% on the previous year and had plunged 9.3% since November (6). While seasonality could be a factor here, the NAR suggests that the decline in pending home sales could be the result of consumers facing a lack of inventory and feeling like they don’t have a lot of good options on the table.
While Schiff is wary of the U.S. homeownership market, he acknowledges one persistent trend: “Rents go up every year,” he noted on his show.
America’s housing affordability crisis is, in part, a reflection of broader cost-of-living pressures — and it underscores how real estate can serve as a hedge. As inflation drives up the cost of materials, labor and land, home values tend to rise as well. Rental income often follows suit, giving landlords a stream of cash flow that adjusts with inflation.
In fact, investing legend Warren Buffett has often pointed to real estate as a prime example of a productive, income-generating asset. In 2022, Buffett remarked that if you offered him “1% of all the apartment houses in the country” for $25 billion, he would “write you a check (8).”
Of course, you don’t need billions of dollars — or to even buy a house outright — to benefit from real estate investing. Crowdfunding platforms like Arrived offer an easier way to get exposure to this income-generating asset class.
Backed by world-class investors like Jeff Bezos, Arrived allows you to invest in shares of rental homes with as little as $100, all without the hassle of mowing lawns, fixing leaky faucets or handling difficult tenants.
The process is simple: browse a curated selection of homes that have been vetted for their appreciation and income potential. Once you find a property you like, select the number of shares you’d like to purchase and then sit back as you start receiving any positive rental income distributions from your investment.
In a recent J.P. Morgan report, Al Brooks, the vice chair of Commercial Banking at J.P. Morgan said, “I think multifamily housing is absolutely where you want to be as an investor.” He added, “The multifamily rental market may still feel the impact of a recession, but to a lesser degree than other asset classes (9).
If diversifying into multifamily rentals appeals to you, you could consider investing with Lightstone DIRECT, a new investing platform from the Lightstone Group, one of the largest private real estate companies in the country with over 25,000 multifamily units in its portfolio.
Since they eliminate intermediaries — brokers and crowdfunding middlemen — accredited investors with a minimum investment of $100,000 can gain direct access to institutional-quality multifamily opportunities. This streamlined model can help reduce fees while enhancing transparency and control.
And with Lightstone DIRECT, you invest in single-asset multifamily deals alongside Lightstone — a true partner — as Lightstone puts at least 20% of its own capital into every offering. All of Lightstone’s investment opportunities undergo a rigorous, multi-stage review before being approved by Lightstone’s Principals, including Founder David Lichtenstein.
How it works is simple: Just sign up with your email, and you can schedule a call with a capital formation expert to assess your investment opportunities. From here, all you have to do is verify your details to begin investing.
Founded in 1986, Lightstone has a proven track record of delivering strong risk-adjusted returns across market cycles with a 27.6% historical net IRR and 2.54x historical net equity multiple on realized investments since 2004. All told, Lightstone has $12 billion in assets under management — including in industrial and commercial real estate.
As such, even if multifamily rentals don’t appeal to you, Lightstone could still serve you well as an investment vehicle for other real estate verticals.
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This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
A startup cofounded by a renowned Harvard geneticist has taken a step toward cracking the human body’s biological breakdown by securing FDA approval to test its cutting-edge gene therapy on humans.
Life Biosciences, a biotech company cofounded by Harvard genetics professor David Sinclair, said Wednesday it had secured approval for a Phase 1 clinical trial aiming, in part, to restore vision in people with eye conditions such as glaucoma and non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION) through “partial epigenetic reprogramming.” During the trial, researchers will attempt to turn back the biological clock on damaged cells in a person’s eye by directly injecting it. This allows the therapy to reach damaged retinal ganglion cells and deliver “rejuvenation instructions” directly to the target cells to help restore their function and potentially reverse vision loss.
The company will enroll its first patients over the next couple of months, with results potentially coming by the end of the year or early next year, CEO Jerry McLaughlin told Fortune.
McLaughlin, a pharmaceutical industry veteran who previously worked at Merck and at venture-backed biotechs such as Neos Therapeutics and AgeneBio said the approval was groundbreaking: “It’s a transformational day, I think, for science overall, for Life Biosciences, for the field of partial epigenetic reprogramming,” he said.
The FDA approval, which McLaughlin said researchers in his industry have been waiting on for years, puts the lean Life Biosciences team (fewer than 20 people) ahead of the pack, as the longevity boom is increasingly being underwritten by billionaire money.
Rather than focus on full-body de-aging, Life Biosciences’ is taking a “staged approach” to de-aging, first tackling optic neuropathies, conditions in which damage to the optic nerve erodes vision. The trial aims to restore some vision in both patients with glaucoma and NAION—both of which can cause blindness. Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and it’s especially prevalent in adults between the ages of 64 and 84. NAION, meanwhile, is the “most common acute, optic neuropathy” in people over 50. McLaughlin said the company chose to focus on these diseases partly because of their outsized impact on patients.
“The bad news is there’s absolutely nothing to treat [NAION], and the even worse news is that there’s about a 20-to-30% chance in the next two to three years it’s going to happen in the second eye,” he said.
McLaughlin said Life Biosciences is already applying its epigenetic reprogramming to help treat other conditions. The company previously saw success in treating liver fibrosis, or MASH, which he said showed the company’s approach “transcends organs.”
While the company is first focused on helping patients with vision loss, McLaughlin isn’t ignorant about the potentially giant opportunity opening up thanks to a rapidly aging global population.
“Our population replacement is not there in the U.S. We’re well below population replacement,” said McLaughlin. “It’s worse in other parts of the world, and with a rapidly aging population, extending healthy human lifespan is critical, from an economic standpoint, and for society overall.”
The world’s cumulative fertility rate has been dropping for years, but the U.S. fertility rate, in particular, hit a record low in 2024, at 1.6 children per woman, below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. The country’s fertility rate is on par with other advanced economies, such as Iceland and the United Kingdom, according to data from the World Bank. Others come in even lower, like Japan, which recorded a fertility rate of 1.15 births per woman in 2024, according to a local government agency.
The science behind Life Biosciences
Life Biosciences cofounder and Harvard geneticist Sinclair is the key behind the company’s FDA breakthrough. Previously Sinclair, who earned a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from the University of New South Wales, led pioneering research on partial epigenetic reprogramming, partially de-aging cells by modifying their epigenome, biochemical markers that tell genes when to turn on or off without altering the underlying DNA sequence.
Sinclair’s research showed that, by using three of four proteins that Nobel-prize winning Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka previously found could fully reset the age of a stem cell to pluripotency—or a blank state—researchers could rejuvenate cells without resetting them so fully that they “forget” their original function. Partially resetting the cells had more potential for therapeutic uses because these cells “maintain” their identity, as they partially de-age, unlike the fully reset cells that “forget” their function and can turn into tumors.
Sinclair laid the foundation for his work using mice in preclinical trials, Life Biosciences then licensed the technology from Harvard and Sinclair’s lab to test on non-human primates to better match the human eye’s anatomy.
In those studies, McLaughlin said, Life Biosciences induced a NAION-like injury and then used the treatment to reverse the vision loss and restore it to that of a healthy primate.
Despite the increasing competition in the space, McLaughlin isn’t scared of competitors, and he said the large amount of money and activity in the longevity space is warranted. Following the FDA approval, more companies may even follow Life Biosciences’ footsteps and focus more on epigenetic reprogramming, he said, which could overall be positive for the field.
“We believe this has some of the highest prospects, best prospects, in aging science—partial epigenetic reprogramming,” he said. “As we continue to generate evidence, evidence is only going to bring more people to the field.”
The bond between Lauren Sánchez Bezos and the fashion world is growing stronger, and during couture week in Paris, the journalist, entrepreneur, and wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos certainly did not leave her front row seat vacant. From Schiaparelli, which opened the Spring-Summer 2026 schedule, to Christian Dior, which marked Jonathan Anderson’s debut in the world of haute couture, Sánchez Bezos was present at some of the most anticipated shows. She smiled for the photographers, wearing different looks with one common thread: all three were suits. In fitted jacket and pencil skirt, Mrs. Bezos focused on a great wardrobe classic.
The first was a fiery red skirt suit by Schiaparelli, with an artistic, sculptural touch, perfectly in line with the style of the house’s creative director Daniel Roseberry. She paired the suit with a handbag with details forming a trompe-l’oeil face and a pair of red five-inch pumps to create the total look.
Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos arrive at the Schiaparelli Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2026 fashion show.
Pierre Suu/Getty Images
The second version was in shades of gray. Chosen for Dior’s Haute Couture show, this outfit consisting of a waist-hugging jacket and a pencil skirt, is an archival piece that comes straight from the Parisian fashion house’s Fall-Winter 1998 collection, when John Galliano was in charge of creative direction.
Lauren Sánchez Bezos in a vintage Dior suit at the house’s Haute Couture show.
The Amazon founder has been cozying up to Donald Trump for some time, from killing a Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris to attending Trump’s indoor inauguration. In the same February 2025 WSJ piece, the paper revealed that Melania pitched the documentary to Bezos personally when he dined a Mar-a-Lago in December:
[Melania] was looking for a buyer for a documentary about her transition back to first lady. Her agent had pitched the film, which she would executive produce, to a number of studios, including the one owned by Amazon. As the meeting approached, Melania consulted with director Brett Ratner on how to sell her idea to the world’s third-richest man. Melania regaled Bezos and his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, with the project’s details at dinner.
Just over two weeks later, Amazon, a company that prides itself on frugality and sharp negotiating, agreed to pay $40 million to license the film — the most Amazon had ever spent on a documentary and nearly three times the next-closest offer.
Netflix and Apple declined even to bid. Paramount made a lowball $4 million distribution-rights offer. Disney, the most interested studio besides Amazon, offered $14 million.
And in March 2025 a “person close to Bezos” told the Financial Times that the Melania documentary “is patently ridiculous, but is very pragmatic”. They added, “He is doing a deal, offering money to buy the Trump family’s affection and flattering the president. If you think about it in terms of costs versus benefit, it is pretty low. It’s a smart investment.”
An Amazon spokesman downplayed the suggestion that the deal was part of Bezos’s effort to kiss up to the new administration, telling the WSJ, “We licensed the upcoming Melania Trump documentary film and series for one reason and one reason only — because we think customers are going to love it.”
The documentary isn’t the only deal the Bezos-owned company has made with the Trumps recently. In March 2025, Amazon announced that Prime Video would begin streaming The Apprentice, the reality competition show in which Donald Trump played a successful businessman. The president promoted the show’s streaming debut with twoposts on Truth Social. It’s unclear how much he stands to make from the deal.
Jeff Bezos is launching a massive new satellite network to compete with Elon Musk’s Starlink.
The Amazon founder’s rocket company, Blue Origin, announced on Wednesday that it will deploy 5,408 satellites to create a global communications system called TeraWave.
This move places Bezos in direct competition with Musk’s Starlink, which currently dominates the satellite internet market with roughly 10,000 satellites already in orbit.
TeraWave will operate using a “multi-orbit” design. Most of the fleet—5,280 satellites—will sit in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), while 128 larger satellites will occupy a higher Medium Earth Orbit (MEO).
This unique architecture allows the system to move immense amounts of data at speeds of up to 6 terabits per second, roughly 6,000 times faster than current consumer satellite services.
While Starlink and Amazon’s own consumer network, Leo, focus on providing internet to the general public, TeraWave is strictly built for high-end users. Blue Origin says the service will target data centres, government agencies and large-scale enterprises that require secure, “symmetrical” upload and download speeds.
The network is expected to serve as a critical backbone for artificial intelligence processing in space. By placing data centres in orbit, companies can use infinite solar energy and avoid the immense resource strain associated with Earth-based facilities.
Bezos has predicted that such orbital data hubs will be “commonplace” within the next two decades.
Blue Origin plans to begin launching TeraWave satellites in late 2027 using its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket. The rocket recently reached a major milestone in November by successfully landing its booster on a floating platform, a feat previously only achieved by SpaceX.
The announcement creates a complicated dynamic for Bezos, who is now backing two separate satellite ventures. While Amazon Leo serves individual households, TeraWave will offer a specialized “enterprise-grade” alternative.
Analysts suggest the new system is designed to provide “route diversity,” acting as a space-based backup for terrestrial fibre-optic cables.
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If you’re planning on putting your feet up by the coast and sipping margaritas in your golden years, make sure you’ve got the funds for it. These days, even a seven-figure net worth may not be enough to pay for the retirement of your dreams.
Almost 50% of investors say it “will take a miracle” to retire securely, according to the 2025 Natixis Global Retirement Index (1). Of the individuals surveyed, 23% of those who are already retired felt that they needed “divine intervention” to live securely.
The survey also found that about 25% of all people surveyed and 21% of people who do have $1 million or more fear they’ll never have enough money saved to retire.
But it’s never too late to get your retirement savings in fighting form with these three steps to catch up on saving and help secure your retirement.
Paying down your debt can open the door to the lifelong contributions needed to achieve your financial goals and secure your retirement. However, this can take up a lot of time, which can cut into your ceiling of life-time savings.
With home values higher than ever, you can make your home work harder for you by making the most of your equity. The average homeowner sits on roughly $311,000 in equity as of the third quarter of 2024, according to CoreLogic.
Rates on HELOCs and home equity loans are typically lower than APRs on credit cards and personal loans, making it an appealing option for homeowners with substantial equity.
When it comes to retirement it’s important to remember that you don’t have to do it all on your own. Setting yourself up for your golden years is already nerve-racking enough — especially with rising market uncertainty and recession fears.
Finding a financial advisor that suits your specific needs and financial goals is simple with Vanguard.
With a minimum portfolio size of $50,000, this service is best for clients who already have a nest egg built and would like to try to grow their wealth with a variety of different investments. All you have to do is set up a consultation with a Vanguard advisor, and they will help you set a tailored plan and stick to it.
Creating a diversified portfolio with assets that traditionally fare well over economic cycles is a great way to boost your retirement fund.
Real estate is known to yield steady returns while diversifying your portfolio. However, investing in real estate as an asset class has been out of reach for the average investor.
New investing platforms are making it easier than ever to tap into the real estate market.
Lightstone DIRECT offers accredited investors access to institutional-quality multifamily and industrial real estate — with a minimum investment of $100,000.
Founded in 1986 by David Lichtenstein, Lightstone Group is one of the largest privately held real estate investment firms in the U.S., with more than $12 billion in assets under management.
Over nearly-four decades, their team has delivered strong, risk-adjusted performance across multiple market cycles — including a 27.5% historical net IRR and a 2.49x historical net equity multiple on realized investments since 2004.
Here’s the kicker: Lightstone invests at least 20% of its own capital in every deal — roughly four times the industry average. With its skin in the game, the firm ensures its interests are directly aligned with those of its investors.
Another way to diversify your portfolio is through alternative assets like art, which has a low correlation with stocks and bonds.
Many investors consider it an asset reserved for the top 1%, but that’s no longer the case.
Now, with Masterworks, you can buy fractional shares in multimillion-dollar works by icons like Banksy, Picasso and Basquiat. While art can be illiquid and typically requires a long-term hold, it offers unique portfolio diversification.
Masterworks has sold 25 artworks so far, yielding net annualized returns like 14.6%, 17.6%, and 17.8%.*
Skyler Chan launched GRU last year. Courtesy GRU Space
Civilian travel to the Moon remains years away, but a California startup is already making plans to host overnight guests there. GRU Space, founded by 22-year-old entrepreneur Skyler Chan, is taking deposits ranging from $250,000 to $1 million for a lunar hotel that has yet to be built.
“If we solve off-world surface habitation, it’s going to lead to this explosion. We could have billions of human lives maybe born on the Moon and Mars,” Chan told Observer. He founded GRU last year after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, and previously interned at Tesla.
The hotel, which the company expects to open by 2032, will initially consist of an inflatable structure designed to accommodate up to four guests for multi-day stays. Over time, it would evolve into a brick building inspired by San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts. More ambitiously, GRU argues that the project could do more than jump-start space tourism—an industry it sees as essential to sustaining a future lunar ecosystem—and instead lay the groundwork for entire cities beyond Earth.
Chan founded GRU with the goal of building the first permanent structure off Earth. His team includes founding technical staff member Kevin Cannon, a professor at the Colorado School of Mines, and advisor Robert Lillis, who also serves as associate director for planetary science at UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory. The startup has received seed funding from Y Combinator, joined Nvidia’s Inception Program and counts SpaceX and Anduril among its investors.
GRU’s initial target customers include adventurers, repeat spaceflight participants and couples looking to elevate their honeymoon plans. While final pricing has not been set, the company said a stay would likely cost more than $10 million and require a $1,000 non-refundable application fee.
The project’s first milestone is slated for 2029, when GRU plans to launch an initial lunar mission to assess environmental conditions and begin early construction experiments. Two years later, another payload will land near a lunar pit chosen for its protection from radiation and temperatures, with initial hotel development targeted for 2032.
A rendering of GRU’s lunar hotel. Courtesy GRU Space
Chan acknowledged that GRU’s timelines are estimates, but argued that bold ambition is necessary to make progress. “We need to really shoot for the literal moon,” he said.
According to Chan, today’s space industry is dominated by two forces: governments and billionaire-backed companies. He hopes space tourism can become a third pillar. “Lunar tourism is the best first wedge to spin up the lunar economy,” he said.
GRU says it is well positioned to contribute to those ambitions, with plans that extend far beyond a single hotel. After completing its lodge, the company plans to build roads, warehouses and other infrastructure—first on the Moon, then on Mars. Eventually, it hopes to reinvest profits into resource utilization systems on the Moon, Mars and asteroids.
“If we’re able to understand how to use resources on the Moon and Mars and beyond, that is going to enable us to not be tethered to Earth, and start being interplanetary,” said Chan. “It’s a Promethean moment.”
From Airbnb and Booking.com to Amazon and Google, leading companies show how disciplined experimentation turns uncertainty into advantage. Unsplash+
Leaders at Airbnb wondered whether listings with professional photographs might perform better than those using user-uploaded images. Rather than relying on instinct or anecdote, they ran a controlled experiment: some listings were assigned professional photography, while others retained user-generated photos. The results were striking. Listings with professional photos received more than twice as many bookings and earned hosts over $1,000 more per month. What began as a simple test ultimately led Airbnb to launch a full-scale photography program, transforming how hosts presented their properties and how customers experienced the platform.
This is experimentation in action: a disciplined approach to uncertainty that allows organizations to uncover insights they might never reach through planning alone.
Booking.com reportedly runs over 25,000 experiments each year, a practice that has helped transform it from a small startup into a global travel powerhouse. According to Lukas Vermeer, its director of experimentation, Booking.com runs more than 1,000 experiments simultaneously, often tailoring tests to individual website visitors. These are primarily A/B tests, in which two alternatives are assessed side by side to determine which performs better. Over time, this approach allows the company to optimize entire customer journeys, refining everything from search results to booking flows based on real-world behavior rather than assumptions.
What these companies demonstrate is that sustained experimentation fundamentally changes how organizations learn.
Why experimentation matters more than ever
Building a culture of experimentation creates the conditions for unexpected opportunities to surface and be exploited. It encourages organizations to move beyond incremental improvement toward breakthrough innovation, while also improving internal processes and engagement. Employees in experimental cultures tend to be more curious, more resilient and more willing to challenge the status quo.
Creating this culture starts with the leaders. For experimentation to take root, leaders must be willing to redefine what success and failure mean. Instead of treating failure as something to be avoided or punished, leaders need to frame it as an essential part of learning. This shift enables a growth mindset in which teams are encouraged to generate ideas, test them quickly and scale what works. Crucially, leadership teams must model this behavior themselves. When leaders visibly test, learn and adapt, experimentation becomes embedded in the organization’s DNA rather than confined to innovation labs or product teams.
Empowering employees to test and learn
A true culture of experimentation empowers employees at every level to test hypotheses and iterate continuously. That requires time, tools and psychological safety. Providing dedicated time for experimentation sends a powerful signal. 3M famously allowed its researchers to spend 15 percent of their time exploring scientific topics or personal interests, regardless of immediate commercial relevance. The policy led to numerous innovations, including the invention of Post-It Notes.
Google adopted a similar philosophy, allowing employees to spend 20 percent of their time on side projects. While not every experiment succeeded, the approach produced significant breakthroughs like Gmail and AdSense. By making experimentation an expected part of the job, companies like Google and 3M normalized creative exploration and reduced the fear associated with trying something new.
Amazon has taken a related but distinct approach, fostering a culture of “many small bets.” Rather than seeking uncertainty upfront, Amazon continually tests new products, processes and business models, accepting that most experiments will fail, but that a few will deliver outsized returns.
Leaders don’t need to replicate these models exactly. Even modest steps, such as allocating one day per month for experimentation, offering workshops or providing small seed budgets, can be enough to spark momentum.
Making data the backbone of learning
Experiment without measurement is just trial and error. Effective experimentation depends on data. Leaders should encourage teams to document their experiments clearly: what hypothesis was tested, what data was collected and what was learned. Results, positive or negative, should be shared openly to maximize organizational learning. Over time, this creates a shared language or evidence and reduces reliance on opinion-driven decision-making.
As Adam Savage, the special effects designer and co-host of Mythbusters, has said: “In the spirit of science, there really is no such this as a ‘failed experiment.’ Any test that yields valid data is a valid test.” the essence of this approach is learning: rapid experimentation is vital for outpacing competitors, far more so than simply being right.
Reducing fear through structure and play
Many organizations struggle with experimentation due to fear—specifically, fear of failure. Psychologists describe loss aversion as our tendency to fear losses more than we value gains. In business, this often shows up as risk avoidance, perfectionism and decision paralysis. Leaders must actively normalize failure as a learning mechanism and a key part of progress. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos captured this succinctly when he said, “If you know it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment.” Booking.com’s Lukas Vermeer echoes this philosophy, emphasizing that experiments exist to discover what works, not to prove someone right.
Some organizations have gone further by gamifying experimentation. Platforms such as LabQuest have integrated points, badges and leaderboards into testing and user research, turning participation into a game. This approach has reportedly increased engagement and improved data quality, with significantly higher participation rates and more actionable insights compared to traditional methods. Gamification reduces the emotional stakes of failure and reframes experimentation as something engaging rather than intimidating.
A simple framework leaders can use
One practical framework for experimentation is the Build-Measure-Learn-Loop, popularized by Eric Ries in The Lean Startup. It begins with a clear hypothesis: We believe that changing X will improve Y. Teams then run a small, fast, low-cost test, measure the results using relevant metrics and decide whether to scale, refine or abandon the idea.
This loop isn’t limited to product development. HR teams can experiment with new onboarding processes. Marketing teams can trial messaging variations. Even finance teams can explore alternative budgeting allocation models. When every initiative is treated as a learning opportunity rather than a final verdict, organizations become more adaptive and resilient.
Steven Bartlett, founder of Social Chain and host of The Diary of a CEO podcast, underscores the role leadership plays in this process. “Get your team to conduct fast, fearless experiments—more often,” he advises. Bartlett has described how his social team reports weekly on the tests they’ve run, reinforcing that experimentation is a core expectation. As he puts it, whether teams behave this way ultimately comes “down to the leadership.”
Thriving through uncertainty
In a world changing at unprecedented speed, relying solely on past data and established models is increasingly risky. Markets shift, customer expectations evolve and competitive advantages erode quickly. Experimentation offers a way forward, not by eliminating uncertainty but by learning within it.
High-performing companies test, learn and adapt in real time. For leaders, the lesson is clear: the ability to foster experimentation is no longer optional. It is a core capability for navigating unpredictability and uncovering unexpected solutions.
Automakers and buyers will be resetting their expectations and plans in the electric vehicle market in the U.S. in 2026. While some large companies have made quick decisions to cut slow-selling, much-promoted models from their rosters—at least temporarily—most are continuing with plans to roll out new, less-expensive models.
And that could be the best thing for the American EV market going forward. With the end of the $7,500 federal tax credit in September and a generally softer retail market in the last quarter of 2025, expectations for car sales in 2026, gas-only engines included, are pretty muted, and the emphasis on affordability looks like it’ll continue beyond the new year.
Which works well for Slate Auto, an EV startup that’s backed by Jeff Bezos and several other investors. The burgeoning company reported that since the product’s announcement in April and the launch of a $50 reservation program, there have been more than 150,000 deposits placed for the all-electric, two-door pickup truck that was supposed to cost around $20,000 before various tax credits sunsetted. For its part, though, company officials are optimistic about the bare-bones truck’s prospects in a slower economy when it rolls off the assembly line in about a year.
Slate recently posted a video with its CEO answering questions from commenters about the company, which included whether a 9-foot surfboard would fit in its truck bed, why it isn’t offered with all-wheel drive, and, above all, the cost of everything. CEO Chris Barman cut to the point that reservation holders don’t need to worry about cost hikes inflicted by tariff and tax credit turmoil in 2025.
“The Slate is still affordable,” Barman said. “It doesn’t matter.”
Barman’s line delivery was significantly sharper than what most executives, even those with successful EVs and U.S. production, have been comfortable with in the wake of the headwinds EVs have faced with lukewarm demand for high-priced battery electrics in a cost-conscious economy.
Slate’s big selling point for the truck (expected to still cost around $25,000), according to Barman, is that it’s no-frills. It offers no power windows, built-in infotainment (or audio system), or hands-free driving assistance. It will offer the option to add a higher-capacity battery pack (price still to be announced) and a package to turn it into a closed SUV (estimated at $5,000). Those extras could put it well below the roughly $50,000 average price of all new cars in 2025, but it also has to appeal to a market in the mood to go back to basics.
“Slate Auto is particularly interesting because the very fact that its truck has surpassed more than 150,000 orders shows there’s a real demand for this kind of ‘utility-over-bells-and-whistles’ approach to cars,” Mike Calise, CEO of Tellus Power, an EV charging manufacturer, told Gizmodo. “It doesn’t need a massive, expensive battery to get the job done.”
New-car affordability has been a significant point of concern for the industry, economic analysts and those watching the rate of EV adoption in the U.S. Ford’s $19.5 billion writedown of its EV business in December, coupled with a tie-up in Europe with Renault for small EVs and ending F-150 Lightning production in favor of a plug-in, gas-powered range-extender EV version comes as it hedges its bets on a $30,000 electric pickup truck, also due in 2027 and using a simpler construction and less extravagant package than the electric cars of the first half of the 2020s.
“When you strip away the $5,000 infotainment systems and the motorized seats, you aren’t just lowering the price; you’re lowering the barrier to entry for the millions of small businesses and fleet operators who just need a tool that works,” Calise said. “It’s certainly still a niche product, but it provides an interesting take on auto manufacturing and allows people who have been historically priced out of the EV market a way to enter the space.”
While the Slate Truck and Ford’s unnamed EV pickup won’t have an impact on 2026 sales figures, the redesigned Nissan Leaf, reintroduced Chevrolet Bolt, single-motor Volvo EX30 and even the new Mercedes-Benz CLA EV fall well under that $50,000 new-car average mark, even if economic circumstances indefinitely delayed the U.S. launch of the sub-$40,000 Kia EV4 sedan and puts added cost pressure on Rivian’s mainstream, $45,000 R2 SUV.
“Whether it’s a Slate truck with manual windows or a scaled-down Ford, these vehicles are the answer to the affordability crisis,” Calise said. “They make sense for the person who needs to get to a job site or a delivery route without worrying about a $1,000 monthly payment.”
The Trump Administration thinks moving away from EVs and back to hybrid and gas-only vehicles will boost U.S. auto sales in an economically tenuous time. That could be true, at least in the short term, because new cars costing below $20,000 have rapidly been vanishing or crossing that line due to inflation and tariffs, and automakers aren’t usually the most nimble companies.
“Product plans can take years to shift, and with the possibility of future policy reversals from new administrations, the regulatory landscape remains stop-and-start. Edmunds Head of Insights Jessica Caldwell wrote following the announcement of new proposed fuel economy guidelines on Dec. 3. “These fluctuations also intersect with uncertainty surrounding long-term support for transportation infrastructure like EV charging, which shapes consumer confidence in adopting EV technology.”
Calise says he predicts 2026 to be the year for infrastructure rather than the cars themselves changing the EV landscape. More vehicles will accept the North American Charging Standard (NACS) port used by Tesla’s Supercharger network, including models from Hyundai, Kia, Nissan, Rivian, and others, with the port built into the vehicle rather than using an adapter. And public charging network reliability will be more important than ever.
“The winners will be the ones who can get hardware in the ground and keep it running,” Calise said. “The biggest development will be the shift from volume to reliability. With the court-ordered release of [National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure] funds and the $100 million-plus Accelerator program finally hitting the streets, 2026 will focus on the quality of chargers rather than the quantity.”
While new EV sales at the beginning of 2026 are likely to lag well behind those of the same time in 2025, there will still be many vehicles reaching the end of a lease period that land on used car lots. Aided by the end of the federal program to get as much as a $4,000 discount on a used EV, hot sellers in the third quarter of 2025 were mostly used Teslas. But cars like the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Volkswagen ID.4, and Ford Mustang Mach-E stayed in dealer inventories for less time than a gas-only or hybrid-powered used car and cost less than half as much when new.
Tyson Jominy, senior vice president of data and analytics at J.D. Power, says there would be a noticeable jump in three-year-old lease returns going on sale by the second half of 2026, including a ton of Teslas. And the dealers peddling three-year-old EVs will be motivated sellers for vehicles costing a fraction of what they did when new, including discontinued cars like the F-150 Lightning, Acura ZDX, and Nissan Ariya.
“It’s still going to be a buyer’s market for used EV buyers,” Jominy told Gizmodo. “But dealers will still want those cars off their lots.”
He said dealers will still have to figure out ways to sell any EVs with little or no incentives other than any automaker support, while many will have an influx of gas-only or hybrid vehicles on sale, and companies pushing support on models subjected to tariffs that have bigger profit margins than budget EVs. The Leaf, imported from Japan, and the Bolt aren’t expected to contribute much to sales figures for their respective companies.
There could be some other curveballs for the EV market in 2026 now that Fiat says it will sell the Topolino microcar with its 28-mph top speed in the U.S. Calise says vehicles like that are, “designed for the 95% of trips that happen within a five-mile radius of home,” but moving from an “SUV-only mindset” for new cars could open the door for more compact and affordable vehicles in automaker product plans.
Slate will still have to back up its lofty and still growing reservation list when the first orders are completed. Many buyers who put their names on the list will simply ask for their $50 deposit back. Ford reported in excess of 150,000 F-150 Lightning non-fleet reservation holders ahead of that truck’s launch, but it reportedly never made more than 40,000 units in a year.
VW-owned Scout Motors will have to answer a similar question when its EV and range-extender SUVs and trucks are expected at the end of 2027 at the earliest. The company told Bloomberg earlier this fall that it had more than 130,000 people who paid the $100 fully refundable reservation fee.
But it’s still going to come down to a monthly payment for many consumers, whether looking at new or used EVs, or a new car altogether, in 2026. And Calise and Jominy think that all buyers will be looking for ways to get that payment as low as possible, even if it means sacrificing a few features, forgoing a luxury brand, or going for a basic vehicle like a Slate Truck.
“When consumers talk about affordability, they’re often sitting around their table talking about bills and monthly payments,” Jominy said. “Interest rates are certainly one of the variables feeding higher monthly payments.”
Insider stock sales amounted to $16 billion in 2025, according to data from Washington Service.
Jeff Bezos cashed in nearly $6 billion of Amazon stock throughout the year.
Detailed below are the top five sellers of 2025, ranked by proceeds.
2025 was — on the whole — a good time to cash in profits on stock positions, considering the S&P 500 finished 16% higher.
The gains were even bigger in tech, particularly for companies with their wagons hitched to the red-hot AI trade, which lifted the likes of Alphabet and Nvidia to market-beating performance.
Data from Washington Service shows that insider stock sales totaled $16 billion last year. The biggest seller of all was Jeff Bezos, who liquidated $5.7 billion.
Listed below are the details around Bezos, as well as the four other biggest sellers across the market. Note that nearly all of the sales tallied for this exercise were part of established plans, with purchases happening at pre-signaled intervals.
Jeff Bezos
BezosAlexander Tamargo/Getty Images for America Business Forum
Company: Amazon
Total shares sold: 25,000,000
Total value sold: $5.7 billion
The Amazon founder turned chairman turned many heads in 2025 with his high-profile wedding to media personality Lauren Sanchez, which pumped roughly $1.1 billion into Venice Italy’s local economy.
During the year, though, Bezos also offloaded 25,000,000 shares of Amazon stock, taking home $5.7 billion. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index reveals that his most recent stock sale netted $3.5 billion. While the billionaire’s net worth increased by $15 billion in 2025, he still slipped one notch on the list of the world’s wealthiest people.
Safra Katz
Sylvain Gaboury/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Company: Oracle
Total shares sold: 12,500,000
Total value sold: $2,531,343,305
Oracle enjoyed an overall strong year, despite a lackluster third-quarter earnings report that pulled the stock down in December. Former CEO Safra Katz exercised some stock options in the first half of the year, freeing up $1.8 billion.
She ended the year as the company’s top insider seller, and still holds a position of 1.1 million shares.
Michael Dell
President Trump previously mentioned Michael Dell as an individual involved in the TikTok deal.ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP via Getty Images
Company: Dell Technologies
Total shares sold: 16,253,968
Total value sold: $2.2 billion
Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell sold more than sixteen million shares, totaling $2.2 billion. His most recent sale netted $1.9 billion.
Dell and his wife Susan were in the news recently, investing $6.25 billion into “Trump Accounts,” a move that inspired fellow billionaire Ray Dalio to do the same.
Huang offloaded a total of 6,000,000 shares of Nvidia stock in 2025, resulting in $1 billion of proceeds. His highly profitable year helped him rise four places on the world’s wealthiest list, rising from 12th place to 9th.
MacKenzie Scott’s donations this year centered heavily on education. Taylor Hill/FilmMagic
MacKenzie Scott keeps her giving largely out of the public eye—allowing recipients to decide whether to disclose funding amounts, awarding mostly unsolicited grants, and acknowledging her philanthropy only through annual or semi-annual online posts. The one thing that isn’t subtle about her donations? Their size.
Scott gave a staggering $7.2 billion in 2025, the philanthropist revealed in a blog post earlier this month. The annual update brings her total giving over the past six years to more than $26 billion. It also places her just behind fellow billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates in lifetime philanthropic giving.
Scott, whose estimated $30 billion net worth is largely tied to her Amazon stake from her former marriage to Jeff Bezos, pledged in 2019 to donate the bulk of this fortune to charity. If this year’s totals are any indication, she is accelerating toward that goal: her 2025 giving far outpaced the $2.6 billion and $2.1 billion she donated in 2024 and 2023, respectively.
“This dollar total will likely be reported in the news, but any dollar amount is a vanishingly tiny fraction of the personal expressions of care being shared into communities this year,” Scott wrote in her blog post. She pointed to the $471 billion donated to U.S. charities in 2020, nearly a third of which came from gifts under $5,000, as evidence of the power of collective philanthropy.
Of the nearly 200 organizations supported by Scott in 2025, roughly 120 were repeat grantees. The largest single grant went to Forests, People, Climate (FPC), a collaborative charitable effort focused on reversing tropical deforestation, which received $90 million—boosting its total funding to more than $1 billion. “Now is the time for climate philanthropy to take action with vision and courage: to embrace the potential of forests and back the bold leaders best suited to protect them,” said Lindsey Allen, executive director of FPC, in a statement announcing the gift earlier this month.
The second-largest donation went to another environmental organization, Ocean Resilience & Climate Alliance, while a slew of other major gifts flowed toward education. She donated $70 million to both UNCF and Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which support historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and also gave $63 million each to Prairie View A&M University, Morgan State University and Howard University. Other notable education-focused recipients included the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and Native Forward Scholars Fund, which received $70 million and $50 million, respectively.
As a result, education emerged as the largest beneficiary of Scott’s 2025 giving, accounting for 18 percent of the total. Organizations focused on economic security and funding and regranting each received 13 percent, while environmental causes accounted for 12 percent. Additional funding went to groups working in equity and justice, democratic processes, health, and arts and culture.
Besides the sheer scale of her philanthropy, Scott’s approach stands out for its unrestricted nature, giving grantees full control over how funds are used. That flexibility has been widely welcomed, according to a recent study from the Center for Effective Philanthropy, which found that nearly 90 percent of surveyed organizations reported improved long-term financial sustainability as a result of Scott’s donations. The median grant size was $5 million.
Scott has attributed her generosity to the kindness she has received from others. “Whose generosity did I think of every time I made every one of the thousands of gifts I’ve been able to give?” she wrote. “It was the local dentist who offered me free dental work when he saw me securing a broken tooth with denture glue in college. It was the college roommate who found me crying, and acted on her urge to loan me a thousand dollars to keep me from having to drop out in my sophomore year.”
The roommate, Jeannie Tarkenton, later founded Funding U, a lending company offering loans to low-income students without the need for co-signers. Scott has since earmarked funds for the company, she noted in her recent blog post, describing how she “[jumped] at the chance to be one of the people who supported her dreams of supporting students just as she had once supported me.”
Scott’s financial contributions to Funding U will take the form of an investment rather than a donation. Alongside her philanthropic giving, she announced last year that she plans to pursue for-profit investments in “mission-aligned ventures” aimed at addressing challenges such as affordable housing and access to health care.
