Chase Sapphire, Walmart, Starbucks: Talking with BI's Katie Notopoulos about her recent hot takes
Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. Want to know what a day in the life is like for the CEO of a superyacht firm? Anders Kurtén of Fraser Yachts told BI about his daily drive to Monaco and his nightly unwinding routine.
On the agenda today:
Scale AI locked down Big Tech training documents after BI revealed security holes.
Two retired Air Force pilots share what it's like to fly a B-2 bomber mission.
Gen Z has an oversharing problem at work.
A private-equity professional shared his stressful on-cycle recruiting experience.
But first: One writer's " vindication."
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This week's dispatch
Hot takes
Katie Notopoulos is one of those people who articulates what you think before you quite realize you think it. A senior correspondent for BI who writes about tech and culture, she is curious, observant, funny, and spot-on. We chatted this week about the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, why she thinks Starbucks customers should pay for their extras, and more.
Katie, in a must-read for BI, you declared "vindication" after news broke that Chase Sapphire Reserve will increase its annual fee to $795. What's going on here?
The Chase Sapphire Reserve card had this big cult following for its rewards points. Meanwhile, I never had the card and felt a nagging resentment whenever I had to listen to friends talk about their free flights and other perks. (Chase Sapphire cardholders were famous for constantly talking about the card.) Recently, Chase announced a higher fee, which makes the card not worth it for many people. I was seeing meltdowns on Reddit and social media from people furious about the change. But for me, as someone who always felt FOMO about the card, I was delighted.
Earlier this month, you wrote about Meta AI's public feed and raised the possibility that people might not have understood their posts were public. After your piece, Meta changed the app's controls. Tell us how you sniff out stories.
I'm always interested in how people are using technology in unexpected ways. A lot of it is just spending a ton of time scrolling around and just being a user on social media. Meta is interesting because it wears its heart on its sleeve in a sense. You can get an understanding of the company's worldview — and how it sees the future of AI — just by using its apps and the AI chatbots they're rolling out.
You can be contrarian. You recently suggested that Starbucks customers should pay for their add-ins, and that Walmart apparel was getting cool. You wrote that President Trump was onto something when he suggested families were essentially over-toyed.
I love low-stakes heterodoxy. One of my favorite older Business Insider stories was Josh Barro arguing that grilling is overrated. It's the perfect contrarian position, and he makes a strong case for it. I only want to argue something I truly believe and think can change someone's mind, or to have them think, "Omg yes, I've been saying this, too!"
What is the most fun thing you do online (or off!)?
Right now, I'm watching "Love Island USA" on Peacock. There's a really interesting fandom for the show happening on X, where people are using the "communities" feature to create custom feeds for fans of each contestant on the show, which is a new and organic user behavior. Maybe I should write about that …
Scale AI's cybersecurity problem
The startup locked down its training documents after a BI review of thousands of files found that it exposed "confidential" data from its high-profile clients, such as Meta and xAI, in public Google Docs. The lockdown temporarily prevented contractors from accessing them, causing confusion and delays.
Scale AI has said it's investigating security gaps, following BI's initial reporting. It said it had disabled any user's ability to publicly share documents from Scale's systems. "We take data security seriously," a spokesperson said.
What it's like to fly a B-2 bomber
American stealth bombers recently flew 37 hours to bomb Iran's nuclear sites, with the Pentagon calling it one of the longest B-2 Spirit flights in decades.
But the record for the longest B-2 flight belongs to two retired Air Force pilots who flew 44 hours in October 2001, executing one of the first bombing missions in Afghanistan after the 9/11 terror attacks. They shared what it's like to carry out these exceedingly long bombing missions.
Inside the two-day mission.
Make Coworkers Mysterious Again
It's a good thing that workplaces have become friendlier and more inviting. It can also be exhausting when coworkers share a little too much information.
Gen Z might be the biggest culprit, but there's no age limit on oversharing. Boundaries at work are still important — talking about the wrong things can hurt your professional reputation.
Authentic vs. unfiltered.
Surviving PE recruiting hell
On-cycle recruiting is known to drive junior bankers to extreme lengths to compete for lucrative and elusive private equity jobs. The practice got so intense that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said he'd fire anyone with a future-dated private equity job.
One private-equity professional shared with BI his experience of on-cycle recruiting when he was a junior banker. He described interviewing until 2:30 a.m. and hiding in the bathroom to text a rival firm, calling it one of the "most stressful" 12-hour periods of his life.
Still, he doesn't think the practice should go away.
This week's quote:
"This is the hardest year I've had in HR."
— Alexandra Valverde, an HR director who's been in the industry since 2019.
More of this week's top reads:
How data centers are deepening the water crisis.
San Francisco was written off as dead. Now, real estate investors are flocking back.
I worked under Anna Wintour. She wasn't warm, but she was an incredible teacher.
Meta's largest AI competitors are fighting for users inside its most popular chatbot app: WhatsApp.
I was laid off from Microsoft after 23 years, and I'm still going into the office.
Gen Z and millennial day traders tell us about switching from the 9-to-5 experience to full-time stock investing.
The real victims of the "Zillow Ban" lawsuit.
The finance industry's newest social media sensation roasts PE bros — and they love it.
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