Month: August 2025

• I like to chat with other moms when I travel. I’ve received some of the best parenting tips that way.
• These strangers’ advice has helped me learn to accept my supporting role as a mom.
• It’s also taught me how to be more present for my kids now and worry less about their future.

I travel often, and whenever I do, I always ask moms of older kids (teens and older) the same question: Looking back, what are you grateful for that you did as a mom, and what would you have done differently?

Perhaps because I’ll likely never see these women again, I feel like they are always super honest with their response.

One woman told me I should ask my own mom, but I told her the reason I ask other moms is because my mom was diagnosed with dementia as soon as I had my first son.

I regret never asking my mom parenting questions, but I honestly didn’t know what to ask until I had my own kids, and by then it was too late. That’s why I ask strangers.

Asking stranger moms for advice has helped me become a better parent

Answers include simple things like, I wish I had made my high school son get a crappy summer job so he would realize the value of a dollar. That advice always stayed with me, and this past summer, I made my own high school son get a camp counselor job. It turned out to be a great decision — he learned how to manage both kids, parents, and bosses, and also realized how hard you have to work to make minimum wage.

Another piece of advice from a mom I met in St. Lucia was how she was glad she met her son where he was. He was a little different and quirky — he dressed in a really unique style and his hair was completely different from the other kids — and she let him be him and not try to suggest more mainstream ways to fit in. I loved that.

Parenting is tough, and often, as moms, we want to protect our kids, so we try to shield them from hurt feelings and being excluded by other kids by suggesting ways they can assimilate or blend in.

However, I realized that by trying to make them something they are not, I’m doing a disservice to my kids. Instead, this mom’s advice helped me realize that my job, as a mom, is to accept them and their sometimes strange and quirky habits and let them know I’m there for them no matter what. The rest of the world can judge them, but my job is to accept them and make them feel safe.

So, when my son made me a paper purse in art class, I wore it proudly.

Some of the stories I hear are deeply sad

Another mom I met in Sydney told me her son committed suicide, and in hindsight, she wished she had been more present in his childhood instead of being so worried about his future. That always stayed with me.

I worry about my kids’ future — will they be happy in school, will they stay away from drugs, will they get involved in the wrong crowd? Listening to this mom, I realized that I’m missing out on the now by worrying about the future.

So, I decided to implement Kid Appreciation Day. A few times a month, whenever my kids either feel down, or want to talk to me about something, or we are celebrating a win (a good score on a math test), I take them to their favorite spot, Chipotle, and they can order anything they want.

The rule is we have to eat there and they can’t look at their phones. We go to a Chipotle two towns over, so they don’t run into their friends. I hear about the girls they like, the challenges they are having with school or friends, and the daily ins and outs of their lives.

This has completely changed my relationship with my kids. They know they can tell me anything and I’ll listen, not judge or give advice, unless they ask. Plus, spending one-on-one time together (I never take my two sons together), has really allowed me to focus on their needs as individuals. It’s our special time together, and I hope they cherish those moments as much as I do.

It’s changed my life

Another mom told me she would tell her daughter, I don’t love what you did, but I love you. That’s such a great way of letting my sons know that I’m disappointed in their behavior, but I still love them.

The advice I’ve gotten over the years has always made me think and ask myself: Can I do better?

My kids are now 14 and 16, and I’m still asking moms, because I’ve been receiving great advice for 16 years. The difference is, now people ask my advice back.

I tell them I never regret traveling with my kids — even if it means pulling them out of school. I am also so grateful that I volunteered all the time when they were in elementary school — I was pizza mom, fruit Friday mom, art appreciation mom (even though I suck at art), and field day mom. Now that they are in high school, they don’t want me around school, but they loved it as kids. It’s one of the best things I did.

• Chenin Matthews is the director of guest experience for the Four Seasons’ private jet.
• The hotel-and-resorts company runs trips that can cost over $240,000.
• Custom meals from the executive chef, and guests breaking into song are among the unique moments.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Chenin Matthews, director of guest experience for the Four Seasons Private Jet. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I came straight from college as one of the managers in training at the Four Seasons Hualalai, in Hawaii. For the last three years, I’ve had the pleasure of calling the jet program my main focus.

Travel is often exciting just because of the end destination, but it can also be a bit cumbersome. That’s not the case with the Four Seasons jet.

It’s a customized Airbus A321, with 48 first-class lay-flat Italian leather seats, so it’s absolutely stunning. In the back, we have a standing-room lounge that creates this social atmosphere.

A normal week varies whether I’m grounded or in flight.

Grounded, it’s making sure that we feel really great with our logistics, working with our Four Seasons teams and properties.

When we are traveling with the guests, every three days you’re in a new destination. I’m on about four of these trips a year.

We’ve got some regional trips that are $148,000, and then we’ve got our longer, 24-day trips that are more from there.

Some of our guests are successful in their own world where they handhold every single detail, and then they’ve allowed us to step in and take over. It’s really interesting to see the relaxation that comes to them.

You never touch your luggage, you don’t have to worry about where your boarding pass is, or which gate you’re going to — we’re there all along the way.

We’re talking with the guests to make sure we are delivering any wants and needs, customizations, and bespoke experiences.

We have an executive chef doing the catering, so it is always going to be three courses.

They’re either focusing on something from where we just came or where we’re going. Coming out of Japan, we have some wagyu beef on board. That’s always a favorite.

Even though we have a menu, it doesn’t mean that’s where it stops.

Oftentimes, we’ll have requests from people who are missing a little bit of home, like an American-style grilled cheese. We had some British folks who were missing fish and chips, but our chef made sure to have it.

I couldn’t tell you my favorite itinerary. It’s like choosing your favorite child. They’re so diverse and they offer such different things.

Ancient Explorer, which we just launched for 2027, is very ambitious. We’re going to Petra, the Great Barrier Reef, Easter Island, and Bangkok — all over the place.

Uncharted Discoveries, the itinerary that takes you through Latin America, features Cartagena, one of our newer properties coming online, and a ship trip to Antarctica.

When I first started, we used to say it was once in a lifetime experience, and we had to remove that because we have people who keep coming back.

We have a fair amount of people who travel solo, but 24 days later, it’s a group of friendships.

There’s a bittersweet element to the last flight. Guests have broken out into song and dance. It was “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” from Dirty Dancing.” One time, we had a captain on his last flight before retiring, and so people sang “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

I can’t say that there are any downsides to my job.

Part of the fun of travel is the unique moments that arise. There was a seaplane from another company that had an emergency landing, but there’s a reason that we have Champagne on board to stall us a little bit.

Sometimes it’s someone who has stumbled across a location that they remember from their honeymoon 20 years ago.

The first time I went to Bhutan with guests, people came out having emotional experiences from being up in Tiger’s Nest. It’s quite a pilgrimage to do the hike up there. Or when we go on a safari in the Serengeti and it’s people’s first time seeing a cheetah.

These moments are very powerful, to see how things unexpectedly touch people in different ways.

I was just on a trip a few months ago, and one of our guests was really touched by this moment that he had with a monk, so he actually wanted to donate about 2,000 kilograms of rice to this particular monastery.

Travel is intoxicating. To be able to experience, touch, and connect with different people, cultures, and food, is something that is special to me.

• Burning Man, the annual music and arts festival in the desert, is in a precarious financial situation.
• Last year, the organization behind the event operated at a financial loss.
• Ticket sales and donations are up this year, but the event, popular with the Silicon Valley elite, has not sold out.

The famously anti-capitalist festival Burning Man is in a bit of an ironic pickle: It needs money.

Burning Man Project, the nonprofit organization behind the annual event in Black Rock City, Nevada, is entering its 2025 festival on shaky ground.

“Everything is now at risk,” Marian Goodell, Burning Man Project’s CEO, wrote in a letter requesting donations after last year’s event.

Burning Man, which was born in San Francisco in the 1980s, has gained traction with Silicon Valley elite over the past few decades. Some of the richest names in tech, like Elon Musk, Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page, are regular attendees. But in recent years, it has struggled to break even as the costs of putting on the festival have increased and sales of high-priced tickets have not kept up.

So far, things are looking up this year. The organization expects more than 70,000 attendees, a spokesperson told Business Insider. That’s more than the 69,141 who attended last year, according to the festival’s official dispatch.

Donations are also up year-to-date, Goodell said earlier this month. And the festival’s new dynamic ticketing system more accurately reflects its costs. Last year’s standard ticket price, $575, didn’t cover the organization’s cost per attendee, which sat at about $749 in 2023. This year, Burning Man tickets are priced on a transparent sliding scale from “give a gift” — any ticket priced above $750 — to “receive a gift” — the limited number of tickets priced below $750.

Goodell said Burning Man’s “financial outlook is much stronger than where we were a year ago,” when it operated at a financial loss in 2024.

Still, tickets for this year’s festival, which runs from August 24 to September 1, have not sold out as they did each year from 2011 to 2023, less those when the event was called off due to the pandemic. At its peak, in 2019, Burning Man hosted 78,850 attendees.

Last year, after higher-priced ticket sales did not meet expectations, the nonprofit raised its fundraising goal from $10 million at the beginning of the year to $20 million by November to address a shortfall. Thanks to 10% staff cuts and a surge in donations, it squeaked through.

In 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, the organization’s expenses totaled $63.6 million, more than double what they were a decade prior, according to financial filings. Those expenses cover staff and year-round activities, as well as the festival’s basic infrastructure, like toilets, fuel, and medical staff.

Burning Man’s own principles are at odds with its fiscal well-being

Part of Burning Man’s financial problems lies in its very ethos. The event, which took on its current shape as a music and arts celebration in the desert in 1991, revolves around 10 principles, including “radical inclusion” and “decommodification.”

The former means the organization has been historically hesitant to raise ticket prices; it offers financial aid for those who qualify for reduced-priced tickets. For years, the standard ticket did not cover the average cost the organization bears per attendee; the discrepancy between the two peaked in 2022 when a standard ticket cost $475 and the actual cost per attendee was $676.

The event’s roots in “decommodification” mean it eschews corporate sponsorships or merchandise and concession sales that could subsidize ticket sales and donations. Similarly, the organization does not collect licensing fees from the many Burning Man regional offshoots that were attended by more than 100,000 people last year.

The armchair critic may be surprised that an event now synonymous with tech billionaires would be in financial straits. Some of the world’s richest men are regular attendees. But while Burners are getting richer — 37.2% earn between $100,000 and $300,000 annually, compared to 21% 10 years ago, according to an annual volunteer-run census — the majority still earn under $100,000 a year.

Some burners were not thrilled with Goodell’s calls to action last year, commenting on her posts with critiques about the amount that the organization spends on salaries and real estate (Goodell earned $391,000 in 2023, according to disclosures, and its office has an address in an expensive San Francisco area). Others said they want the nonprofit to focus on the annual Burning Man event, not its many charity initiatives, like the disaster relief project Burners without Borders and global artist grants.

The richest Burners have not spoken publicly about the festival’s finances, though they may very well be among those who donated to keep the festival afloat. While the organization does publish a list of donors, there is the option to remain anonymous. For all we know, Sgt Pepper Bm or Uncle Cornelius could be Dustin Moskovitz’s Burning Man alias.

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has given renewed voice to concerns about an AI bubble.
• Altman recently told reporters that investors are “overexcited” about AI.
• There’s disagreement, even among business leaders and tech CEOs, around the existence of a bubble.

It’s AI summer, but some business leaders seem concerned that they’re partying like it’s 1999, just before the dot-com bubble burst.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently told reporters that the AI market might be too hot, renewing the debate over whether there’s an AI bubble.

Here’s what leading tech CEOs and business leaders are saying about what’s ahead.

Sam Altman

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that the AI market is in a bubble.

“When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth,” Altman recently told reporters, per The Verge.

Altman said this describes the state of play.

“Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes. Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes,” he said.

Eric Schmidt

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said just because it looks like a bubble doesn’t mean that it is.

“I think it’s unlikely, based on my experience, that this is a bubble,” Schmidt said in July during an appearance at the RAISE Summit in Paris. “It’s much more likely that you’re seeing a whole new industrial structure.”

Schmidt said it takes solace in where the hardware and chips markets stand.

“You have these massive data centers, and Nvidia is quite happy to sell them all the chips,” he said. “I’ve never seen a situation where hardware capacity was not taken up by software.”

Joe Tsai

Alibaba cofounder Joe Tsai has voiced concerns about the scramble for data centers needed to help power the next generation of AI models.

“I start to see the beginning of some kind of bubble,” Tsai told the HSBC Global Investment Summit in March, Bloomberg News reported.

Tsai said he’s worried the building rush might outpace demand.

“I start to get worried when people are building data centers on spec,” he said. “There are a number of people coming up, funds coming out, to raise billions or millions of capital.”

Lisa Su

AMD CEO Lisa Su says the bubble talk “is completely wrong.”

“For those who are talking about a ‘bubble,’ I think they’re being too narrow in their thinking of, what is the return on investment today or over the next six months,” Su told Time Magazine in 2024. “I think you have to look at this technology arc for AI over the next five years, and how does it fundamentally change everything that we do? And I really believe that AI has that potential.”

Ray Dalio

Hedge fund icon Ray Dalio voiced concerns about a bubble earlier this year, when DeepSeek’s rollout led analysts to rethink AI’s outlook.

“Where we are in the cycle right now is very similar to where we were between 1998 or 1999,” Dalio told the Financial Times in January. “There’s a major new technology that certainly will change the world and be successful. But some people are confusing that with the investments being successful.”

At the time, Dalio cited high stock prices and high interest rates. The good news is that Wall Street widely expects the Federal Reserve to cut rates during its September meeting.

Tom Siebel

Billionaire tech CEO Thomas Siebel said there is “absolutely” an AI bubble and that it’s “huge.”

“So we have this similar thing going on with generative AI that we’ve seen with previous technologies,” Siebel told Fortune in January. “The market is way, way overvaluing.”

Siebel, who leads C3.ai, singled out OpenAI in terms of overevaluations.

“If it disappeared, it wouldn’t make any difference in the world,” he said. “Nothing would change. I mean, nobody’s life would change. No company would change. Microsoft would find something else to power Copilot. There’s like 10 other products available that would do it equally as good.”

Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban, who famously sold Broadcast.com just before the dot-com bubble burst, said he doesn’t see similarities to the current situation.

“There were people creating companies with just a website and going public. That’s a bubble where there’s no intrinsic value at all,” Cuban told podcaster Lex Fridman in 2024. ‘”People aren’t even trying to make operating cap profits, they’re just trying to leverage the frothiness of the stock market, that’s a bubble. You don’t see that right now. “

Cuban took particular notice of the quality of AI companies going public.

“We’re not seeing funky AI companies just go public,” he said. “If all of a sudden we see a rush of companies who are skins on other people’s models or just creating models to create models that are going public, then yeah, that’s probably the start of a bubble.”