When my son went to college, I obsessively followed him on a tracking app. It gave me more anxiety than peace of mind.
I loved to obsessively track my two sons on Life 360.
When my eldest went to college, I lost sleep because I tracked his every movement.
He asked me to stop, and suddenly, I felt peace.
When my eldest child was born 21 years ago, I realized that the hospital wasn't going to give me a parenting manual. I turned to the lessons of my own mother.
Being raised by a Middle Eastern immigrant who panicked about my whereabouts until I was well into my 20s made me a perfect candidate for a modern Mama Bear.
Once my two boys became teens, I leaned heavily on the Life 360 app, a modern surveillance tool that became my technological sedative every Saturday night. It was a way to breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that my children were finally in an Uber on their way home.
But as they headed into college and I became an empty nester, I had to learn to let my kids go.
Midway through those early years, I finally caught on that every kid over 12 was light years ahead of me regarding technology. Ninth graders knew all the app hacks, manipulating it through some youthful sorcery to show themselves "here" when they were actually "there."
Even though I considered myself fairly smart and, as a clinical psychologist, a supposed "expert" in human behavior, I indulged my naïveté, believing my teens were at a sleepover when they were really at an unsupervised party.
Once my eldest left for college, the Life 360 app was all I had to keep my worrying at bay. When it was 12 a.m., I could tell myself to go to bed; he was back safely in his dorm.
But the average college freshman, fresh out of their parents' purview, is just getting started at 12 a.m.
I distinctly remember one Thursday night when he first entered college. I was in bed, obsessively and maniacally refreshing the app.
I became flooded with questions of concern: Where is he? Why has he been in one spot for so long? Wait, I see him moving. Good news! Only not in the right direction! Now where? Who is he with? Has he been taken under duress?
I decided to text him, but nothing. I texted again, but still nothing. I finally broke down and called, but it went straight to voicemail.
It eventually turned out he was safe and fine, but I never got any sleep that night.
Coincidentally, it was shortly after my anxiety-fueled all-nighter that my son asked if my husband and I could release him from the Big Brother-ness of the tracking app.
He was a good kid, so we agreed — with the condition that if something objectively horrible occurred, we would have to resume our watchful eye.
Was it an easy parental transition? Absolutely not.
But then something very unexpected happened. Instead of worrying more, I was paradoxically worrying less. I had entered into a bygone era reminiscent of my parents' generation. I could drift into slumberland without a care. I embraced a blissful ignorance, knowing only what he shared with me, which in my case was very, very little.
Of course, I had moments of concern, but I had removed myself from the state of panic and constant fretting. I realized knowing his every movement was more about my anxiety than his safety. If notified of an emergency, I will absolutely spring into action, but beyond that, what can I do?
Helplessness is a terrible state of being for a parent, knowing I won't be able to grab their hand to shield them from all that lurks out there in the world. But he will make his own choices, whether I know about them in real time or not.
After my eldest, now a college junior, weaned us off tracking him, I didn't even put up a fight with the youngest, who flew the coop this fall and immediately asked to be freed from our tech oversight.
I started using my new empty nest status to focus on myself instead of tracking my kids. I am reacquainting myself with myself. Who was that woman who got partially shelved that day in the delivery room? It was time to reengage with who I wanted to be when I grew up. For me, this meant dedicating more time to my first love, writing, and to my second love, my husband.
The irony of all ironies is that I now worry more when they come home for the holidays, feeling the familiar panicky tinge as I walk down the hall to see the still empty beds late into the night.
But I try to remind myself I trust my kids, and they no longer need my oversight.
Read the original article on Business Insider
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
I took a chaotic, surreal robotaxi ride through central London. It left me impressed, but with one big question.
Self-driving taxis are now a common sight on the streets of San Francisco and Shanghai — but in London, the city's famous black cabs still rule the roost. That may not be the case for much longer. Earlier in June, Uber announced it would begin trialling driverless taxis in the UK's capital, in partnership with Microsoft and Nvidia-backed self-driving startup Wayve. As the two companies prepare to launch their robotaxi service, I took a test drive through the busy streets of central London in one of the self-driving Ford Mach-Es Wayve has been testing in the city. The robotaxi dealt with everything London's chaotic driving environment could throw at it, with Wayve CEO Alex Kendall, who joined for the ride, saying it was one of the more eventful trips he'd taken. Robot, take the wheel After a quick look around Wayve's Kings Cross base, we hopped in a Ford Mach-E equipped with the company's "AI driver" self-driving system. Wayve's upcoming robotaxi service with Uber will be fully driverless, but for now, the company is testing with safety drivers who take over if the robotaxi runs into problems. I sat in the front seat, alongside a big red button that disengages the self-driving system (the safety driver on my ride said he'd never had to use it). The driver drove us out of the gates of Wayve's HQ and then, with a sharp buzzing noise, he removed his hands from the wheel, and the robotaxi took over. London's streets are famously complex, so much so that taxi drivers are required to learn thousands of them off by heart in a 150-year-old exam known as "The Knowledge." The city's hodgepodge of Roman and Victorian roads are a mess of cycle lanes and pedestrian crossings, with complex road layouts that often serve more as a rough guide than a rulebook for the millions of drivers passing through the city each day. For Wayve, that complexity is the point. The company says its AI driver — which runs on an end-to-end AI model, an approach also adopted by Tesla — is capable of generalizing and reacting to the physical world in the same way a human would, unlike rivals like Waymo, which rely on high-definition maps and sensors. Kendall said that this allows Wayve's software to drive anywhere, even places it hasn't seen before, and deal with the kind of unexpected encounters that are an everyday occurrence on the streets of a major city like London. "I can't wait to see another autonomy company come into London because I think it's extremely challenging," said Kendall. "The advantage of starting in London is that we've been forced to develop a system that can operate on complex roads and deal with all of these unexpected scenarios," he added. On the road In the first few minutes of our drive, we encountered multiple jaywalkers, including several who darted out across the street without warning in front of the robotaxi. We also had to inch through narrow gaps between rows of parked cars. Perhaps understandably, Wayve's robotaxi was more cautious than your average Uber driver. On one occasion, the robotaxi came to a jerky stop at an amber light when it may have had enough time to go through. Sometimes, that caution was too much for London's impatient commuters. One maneuver that saw the car slowly navigate a tight gap between a set of roadworks and a row of traffic drew an irate honk from the car behind, which was clearly keen for us to hurry up. Wayve has been testing its autonomous vehicles on the streets of London for years, but they still run into the odd surprise. Around halfway into our drive, we came across a roadblock as a team of workers trimmed an overhanging tree. In the seat behind me, Kendall broke off from answering my question and leaned forward to see how the car would deal with the falling branches and the worker directing traffic — but the robotaxi barely paused, successfully reading hand signals to stop and proceed and accelerating past the quizzical stares of the maintenance crew. "I've never seen that before," said Kendall as the robotaxi exited the roadblock, also dodging a tractor reversing along the road. Our route skirted the edge of Soho, London's central nightlife district, and went past the entrance to the British Museum, a narrow street packed with tourists, taxi drivers, and roadworks. Perhaps the most impressive moment of the drive came on this road, one of London's busiest. The robotaxi came to a stop at a crosswalk in near constant use as a huge crowd of pedestrians streamed toward the Museum. Working out the safe moment to move forward would be daunting even for a human driver, but the car spotted an opening and moved through the zebra crossing quickly, avoiding traffic building up behind us. "Lots of autonomy systems, I think, would be stuck here for hours," said Kendall, explaining that moments like this required the robotaxi's AI software to track and predict the activity of dozens of pedestrians. A glimpse into the future? As the drive went on, the activity around us occasionally passed into the bizarre. While coming to a stop at a red light, we narrowly avoided being hit by a small piece of metal that fell off the truck in front as it accelerated away. A pedestrian crossing at the red light kindly picked up the debris and moved it to the side of the road, but it's hard to imagine anyone thinking to simulate a situation so surreal. For Kendall, incidents like this are proof that robotaxis need to get on as many roads as possible. After opening offices in Canada, the US, and Japan over the last year, Wayve has now tested its vehicles in 90 cities in the past 90 days, from alpine roads in Switzerland and dirt tracks in rural Italy to bustling cities like Tokyo and Vancouver. Kendall said for some of those places, Wayve had little to no training data, demonstrating the ability of its software to apply what it has learnt to completely new cities and driving environments. "If robotaxis are just going to be in affluent areas like the Bay Area, then we've failed as an industry. We've got to make sure this technology is rolled out globally," Kendall said. The launch of a driverless ride-hailing service with Uber in London, which will be the first time Wayve has taken the safety driver out of its vehicles, is a big step toward that vision. Both companies declined to say when the driverless pilots would begin or which automaker would supply the vehicles for the robotaxi fleet, but Kendall described it as a huge moment for the young British startup and the broader industry. "It's exciting, it's my life's work. Over 99% of road accidents are due to human error, and this technology can eliminate those," he said. A long road ahead My ride in Wayve's robotaxi ended with the car smoothly negotiating a double roundabout. The safety driver took back control to pull into the company's headquarters, the first time he'd touched the wheel since we'd left an hour ago. After 60 minutes of driving around the centre of one of the world's biggest and most chaotic cities without a hitch, I was impressed, if not completely sold. While self-driving cars are now a reality, the history of the industry is littered with broken promises, high-profile failures, and impressive tech demos that have failed to pan out. Saber Fallah, professor of safe AI and autonomy at the University of Surrey, told BI that while Wayve's AI-focused approach to self-driving was "bold and innovative," he was skeptical about how soon the company would be able to build a robotaxi network in a city as complex as London. "Unlike cities like Phoenix, where many Level 4 trials have taken place, London presents an extremely dynamic and unpredictable environment," said Fallah, adding that the vehicles would need to understand informal social cues and context between drivers and reason about their intent. Fallah said that one issue with Wayve's approach is that the "black box" nature of end-to-end AI systems might make it difficult to understand why robotaxis based on this tech make decisions, potentially undermining public trust. Despite calling the planned robotaxi pilot an "exciting step" for self-driving cars in the UK, Fallah warned that Uber and Wayve would have to navigate challenging liability and regulatory issues while building public confidence in the frontier technology. "Achieving consistent, safe operation without fallback drivers in central London will be an enormous hurdle," he added. Whether Uber and Wayve can run rides like the one I experienced in London a hundred times a day, in rain, sun, fog, and hail, will be the ultimate test. Until then, Londoners will have to stick to the city's black cabs and iconic red buses to get around.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Billionaires Sell Nvidia Stock and Buy a Robotaxi Stock Up 300% in 3 Years (Hint: Not Tesla)
The number of large institutional investors holding Nvidia declined 2% in the first quarter, while the number holding Uber increased 8% during the same period. Nvidia provides the hardware and software needed to build autonomous cars and robots, but DeepSeek's breakthroughs and chip export restrictions have weighed on the stock. Uber operates the largest ride-sharing platform in the world, which means the company is ideally positioned to aggregate demand for autonomous ride-sharing services such as Waymo. 10 stocks we like better than Nvidia › Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is ideally positioned to be a major player in the market for physical artificial intelligence (AI), a technology that lets autonomous machines such as cars and robots understand, navigate, and interact with the real world. Nevertheless, certain hedge fund billionaires sold shares in the first quarter: David Tepper at Appaloosa sold 380,000 shares of Nvidia, reducing his position 56%. Steven Schonfeld at Schonfeld Strategic Advisors sold 901,900 shares of Nvidia, cutting his stake 72%. Meanwhile, those same hedge fund managers, and others, bought Uber Technologies (NYSE: UBER), a company well positioned to benefit from robotaxis and whose stock has soared 300% in the past three years. David Tepper added 1.7 million shares of Uber, upping his stake 113%. It ranks among his top 10 holdings. Steven Schonfeld added 50,400 shares of Uber, upping his stake 7%. It ranks among his top 30 holdings. Bill Ackman at Pershing Square Capital added 30.3 million shares of Uber, starting a new position that now ranks as his largest holding. More broadly, recently filed Forms 13F show that the number of large institutional investors (i.e., those with at least $100 million in securities) holding Nvidia declined 2% sequentially in the first quarter. Meanwhile, the number of large asset managers holding Uber increased 8%. Read on to learn more about these stocks. Nvidia is the market leader in data center graphics processing units (GPUs), chips that are the industry standard in accelerating complex workloads such as training machine learning models and running artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Importantly, Nvidia holds more than 90% of the market in data center GPUs, and the market is forecast to grow at 28% annually through 2030. Nvidia has also developed a robust software platform called CUDA. It comprises developer tools such as code libraries, frameworks, and pretrained models that streamline the building of AI applications across multiple disciplines. For instance, Nvidia Drive is a platform for autonomous vehicles, and Nvidia Isaac supports autonomous robots. In short, Nvidia brings together the data center systems, software development tools, and embedded systems (i.e., onboard computers that power autonomous cars and robots). That vertical integration is an advantage, because it lets Nvidia design systems with the lowest total cost of ownership, and developers need not waste time integrating products from multiple vendors. Looking ahead, Wall Street estimates Nvidia's earnings will increase at 28% annually over the next three years. That consensus makes the current valuation of 46 times earnings look fair. So why did certain hedge funds sell the stock in the first quarter? Profit-taking probably contributed, but I suspect they were also worried about exports controls and DeepSeek. However, while the Trump administration has restricted the export of H20 GPUs to China, it also revoked the Biden-era AI Diffusion Rule that would have limited sales to dozens of countries. And while the cost efficiencies DeepSeek achieved could hurt demand for Nvidia GPUs, many experts expect the opposite. Lower costs will make AI accessible to more companies, which should more than offset any decrease in demand. Uber leads the U.S. ride-sharing market with a 76% share, according to Bloomberg. It also ranks second in the restaurant food delivery market, with a 24% share. The company is also the market leader in ride-sharing services in nine other countries, and the market leader in food-delivery services in eight countries. Here's the two-part investment thesis for Uber: First, the company should be able to grow its market share in ride-sharing and food-delivery services as consumers lean into new product categories such as grocery and retail, and the Uber One membership program. In addition, advertising revenue should keep growing steadily as Uber collects more consumer data. Second, Uber is ideally positioned to serve as a demand aggregator for autonomous ride-sharing companies. The company values the U.S. market alone at $1 trillion, and CEO Dana Khosrowshahi recently told analysts, "Uber can deliver the lowest operational costs for our [autonomous vehicle] partners because we are leaps and bounds ahead on every aspect of the go-to-market capabilities." Importantly, Uber is already involved with several autonomous ride-sharing companies, including Alphabet's Waymo in Phoenix; Austin, Texas; and, soon, Atlanta. Uber also works with WeRide in Abu Dhabi and, soon, Dubai, and it plans to add 15 more cities in the next five years. Similarly, May Mobility plans to deploy thousands of robotaxis on Uber in the next few years, with an initial launch in Arlington, Texas, slated for late 2025. Uber stock currently trades at 15 times earnings, a discount to the one-year average of 40 times earnings. The present valuation looks quite reasonable for a company whose earnings are forecast to grow at 25% annually over the next three years. Patient investors should feel comfortable buying a small position today. Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $653,702!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $870,207!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 988% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Trevor Jennewine has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Nvidia, and Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Billionaires Sell Nvidia Stock and Buy a Robotaxi Stock Up 300% in 3 Years (Hint: Not Tesla) was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Yahoo
Billionaire Bill Ackman Has Nearly 20% of His Hedge Fund in 1 Growth Stock That's Up 44% in 2025
This dominant platform-enabled business is Pershing Square's largest holding, demonstrating Bill Ackman's strong conviction. Running a scaled mobility service, powered by a network effect, makes this company a partner of choice for firms working on autonomous vehicle technology. Even after the stock's huge rise in 2025, the valuation is compelling. 10 stocks we like better than Uber Technologies › The average investor can find lucrative investment ideas by following the experts. Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund manager who runs Pershing Square Capital Management, is one such professional. His firm's strategy involves making bold bets on a select few businesses, a focus that rhymes with Warren Buffett's philosophy. That's why it's noteworthy when one position commands 18.5% of the fund at a market value of $2.2 billion (as of March 31). This company is the single largest holding for Ackman. As of June 12, this growth stock has soared 44% in 2025. That impressive performance beats the major indexes by a wide margin. Maybe it's time for investors to take a closer look at this business. The stock that Pershing Square made a big investment in is Uber (NYSE: UBER). When the hedge fund first bought shares in January, the stock had just come off a disappointing 2024 that saw the share price dip 2%. After that kind of upsetting performance, Ackman still was impressed with Uber's strong fundamentals. Those fundamentals are worth highlighting. Growth is a key part of the Uber story, even though it's a global scale platform. Revenue was up 14% in Q1 (ended March 31), driven by double-digit gross booking gains in both the mobility and delivery segments. It's encouraging to see both parts of Uber's business registering meaningful growth, particularly in the uncertain economic environment. Another positive development deals with Uber's profitability. The company generated over $1.2 billion in operating income just in the last three months, highlighting how financially sound it has become. For an indication of just how much Uber has evolved, understand that in Q1 2019, the business posted a massive $1 billion operating loss. The management team is optimistic. They expect adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to increase at a "high 30s% to 40%" compound annual rate between 2024 and 2027. Uber's most defining characteristic is probably that it benefits from a powerful network effect. As more riders come to the app to book a trip, drivers who are looking to boost their income will follow because there is more of an opportunity to make money. With this added capacity, Uber becomes more valuable to riders. It's a positive feedback loop. That network effect underscores Uber's remarkable competitive position. This is becoming more evident with the rise of autonomous vehicle (AV) technology. Uber's direct relationship with riders, in particular, makes it a very valuable partner for AV firms looking to achieve faster adoption. Of course, it benefits Uber by giving it a low-risk, capital-light avenue to get into this space that just might be the future of transportation. Uber is one of the rare businesses whose name is used also as a verb. This highlights how well the service resonates with people. Alphabet's Google, Airbnb, and Netflix are other prominent examples. These are all dominant enterprises in their own right. The path of least resistance is to immediately follow in Bill Ackman's footsteps and buy Uber shares. But investors must take the time to understand the investment case with this opportunity. Once that hurdle checkpoint is cleared, the next step is to take the valuation into account. Uber's stock has been on quite the run, accelerating 109% higher since June 2023. Strong financial performance in recent years is doing a great job of winning over the investment community. But the valuation is still very reasonable. The stock trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 23.5. Maybe now is a good time to consider initiating a position in the company. Before you buy stock in Uber Technologies, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Uber Technologies wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $653,702!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $870,207!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 988% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Neil Patel has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Airbnb, Alphabet, Netflix, and Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Billionaire Bill Ackman Has Nearly 20% of His Hedge Fund in 1 Growth Stock That's Up 44% in 2025 was originally published by The Motley Fool
