Month: September 2025

• Nicole McMillian left her 10-year banking career with Chase to open a coffee shop in rural Oregon.
• Her business, Cowgirl Barista, was struggling until she found viral TikTok fame.
• Now, she’s tripled her sales, with guests driving hours to buy McMillan’s buckets of coffee.

I spent 10 years working for Chase Bank, building a career in corporate banking. It was steady, professional, and came with a clear path forward. But when a prime lot went up for sale in my small hometown of Damascus, Oregon, I saw an opportunity that banking couldn’t give me.

The property sat right along a major highway that had no drive-thru coffee stands nearby. I pitched the idea to my parents, who had run their own excavation business for decades. Their first reaction was: “What do you know about coffee? You’re a banker.”

They weren’t wrong — but I knew I could figure it out. I had spent years helping small business clients with lending and commercial strategy. I understood balance sheets, profit and loss statements, and how to set up a business. Coffee, I figured, could be learned.

So I found a coffee roaster willing to train me like a new employee, practicing for six months by making drinks for my dad’s work crew.

By September 2019, we opened our stand, and a few months later expanded into food carts, a beer trailer, and even a small outdoor concert space. It was more than coffee — we were trying to build community in a town that didn’t have much of a gathering place.

Struggling to stay open

Even with all that work, by early 2023, the coffee side of the business was struggling. Some days, I wondered if it made more sense to close and focus on the bar, which was doing better.

I’d been posting casually on TikTok since 2021 — nothing fancy, just drink-making videos and lighthearted content. But in the spring, I stumbled on a quirky product online: oversize 34-ounce plastic buckets with handles and straws. They reminded me of fairground lemonade containers.

I ordered 15 and filmed a quick video of myself making a giant iced Americano in one. It wasn’t my best content, but the internet thought otherwise. The clip went viral overnight.

By the next morning, customers were lined up 15 to 20 cars deep, spilling onto the highway. I had only one barista scheduled. I called my boyfriend to rush in and help, even though he’d never worked behind the espresso machine. We were completely overwhelmed, but the excitement was electric.

Going viral changed everything

That one 62-second video doubled, then tripled our sales. In the months since, we’ve hired two more employees, extended our hours, and started selling “bucket refills” with a $1 discount for customers who bring them back — a sustainable perk that has built loyalty.

People drive hours to visit. One family comes every Sunday from an hour and a half away. Others have traveled from Idaho, Texas, and beyond just to see “the viral bucket shop.”

The attention has been surreal. Local media covered us, and we’ve had partnerships with larger food companies. Strangers stop me in town to say they recognize me from TikTok. It’s strange to be called “famous” when I feel like I just had a silly idea that resonated at the right time.

From corporate banker to community builder

What’s most rewarding isn’t just the sales — it’s the way our little business has energized the town. Damascus never had a space for concerts, vendor fairs, or car shows before. Now, our lot hosts all of those, with the coffee stand at the center.

The skills I learned in banking helped me run the numbers, train my staff, and set up systems. But what I didn’t expect was how fulfilling it would be to create something joyful in my community.

I thought I was leaving behind a secure career for a gamble. And for a while, it looked like that gamble might not pay off. Then TikTok turned it all around.

Now, instead of debating whether to close the stand, I’m asking myself how to keep up with demand. They’re far better problems to have — and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

• Tesla recently outlined its reasoning for a pay package that could make Elon Musk a trillionaire.
• It said his record of success included a company called “eXploratory Artificial Intelligence or ‘xAI.'”
• The corporate name “xAI” doesn’t appear to stand for anything, and it’s unclear where the idea came from.

Last week, Tesla unveiled a ten-year compensation plan for Elon Musk that could turn him into a trillionaire. Perhaps by accident, it may have also invented an alter ego for one of Musk’s other major holdings, xAI.

Across 16 pages of its September 5 proxy statement, the automaker detailed a plan centered on targets for earnings and growth in key product lines that could result in Musk owning more than a quarter of what would be an $8.5 trillion company.

In explaining its position, Tesla noted that Musk has built several very valuable companies: “Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Neuralink Corp. and eXploratory Artificial Intelligence or ‘xAI.'”

It referred to the company simply as xAI, or by its legal name, X.AI Corp., in other parts of the document.

The wrinkle? Neither Musk nor xAI appears to have publicly claimed that the company’s name stands for “eXploratory artificial intelligence.” In fact, the name doesn’t appear to stand for anything at all.

The phrase “exploratory artificial intelligence” or “exploratory AI” doesn’t appear on xAI’s website, any of its public securities filings, the Nevada articles of incorporation of X.AI Corp., filings in any federal lawsuit to which xAI is a party, or any other xAI-related news articles, press releases, or public filings reviewed by Business Insider. These sources instead refer to the company as xAI or its legal name.

The phrases “exploratory artificial intelligence” and “exploratory AI” don’t appear to be used frequently online. A few companies have referred to “exploratory AI initiatives” in press releases or public filings, and a few academics have used the initials “XAI” to refer to “explainable” or “exploratory” AI in papers.

Several posts on niche blogs claim that the name of Musk’s AI company is shorthand for “exploratory artificial intelligence,” but they don’t cite sources.

Those words have occasionally been strung together on social media. Musk’s chatbot Grok used the term “exploratory AI” in nine separate X posts in July and August 2025, accounting for nearly all uses of the term on X during that time, though never as another name for xAI, a search shows.

Tesla and xAI didn’t respond to emailed questions about whether xAI stands for “exploratory artificial intelligence.”

X.AI Corp. was formed in Nevada in March 2023. Musk announced the creation of the company in an audio livestream in July. The AI company merged with Musk’s social-media company X. Corp. earlier this year.

“The overarching goal of xAI is to build a good AGI with the overarching purpose of just trying to understand the universe,” Musk said on the livestream, using an acronym for artificial general intelligence.

One thing is clear: Musk really likes the letter “X.” Space Exploration Technologies Corp., his second-most valuable company, is known as SpaceX. One of Tesla’s top-selling cars is the Model X, and one of his children was named X Æ A-12 (now known by the nickname “X.”).

X.com was also the name of a financial technology company Musk co-founded in 1999. It eventually became PayPal; Musk bought the domain name X.com back in 2017 and, after buying Twitter in 2022, he moved it to X.com.

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• Jitender Jain transitioned to a hybrid role at JPMorgan Chase after Walmart’s office closure.
• He goes to the office three days a week, and he and his wife navigate parenting and cleaning accordingly.
• Jain values in-person work for stronger connections and broader economic contributions.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jitender Jain, a 40-year-old principal software engineer at JPMorgan Chase and a father of two daughters in Dallas. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Last year, when I worked at Walmart Global Tech, the company suddenly announced it was closing its Dallas office. I was told I’d have to relocate to another state and return to the office full time.

I wasn’t ready to transition from working from home to moving to a new state and going to the office daily, so I took severance from Walmart and transitioned to a hybrid role as a principal software engineer at JPMorgan Chase. A colleague referred me for the position, and after multiple rounds of interviews, I accepted the offer.

Around the same time, my wife’s team was called back to the office three days a week and was reduced from nine to just three engineers, tripling her workload. Life throws curveballs, but after navigating COVID-19, we felt equipped to handle the transition together.

With some thoughtful planning around childcare, we were able to manage, though there were challenges, and we’re still getting used to it.

I work three days in the office and two from home

Two days are fixed team days we agreed on together, and the third is flexible. I go to the office on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Many JPMorgan employees have been called back to the office five days a week. My commute is only about 15-20 minutes each way, which is manageable.

I know others have it harder. There are people who bought homes farther away during the pandemic because of cost or space. I remember leadership saying early on, “We won’t be remote forever,” and I took that seriously.

Truth be told, working from home during COVID-19 and even after wasn’t exactly enjoyable

When we were all remote, my wife and I would sometimes both have meetings at the same time, so we’d each have to close our doors and hope for the best.

Meanwhile, our daughters, 8 and 13, would be playing outside the rooms, and that play would eventually turn into a quarrel over the same toy or game. That’s when I’d have to jump in and help. I would rather be at the office.

We send the kids to school and then to aftercare. In the summer, they attended day camps. My wife and I coordinate pickup and drop-off.

I learned to share household responsibilities during the pandemic

I started doing things like cooking and doing the dishes. To be honest, I was forced into it at first, but over time, I’ve gotten used to it so that now, when a child is sick or has an appointment, my wife and I trade off based on our schedules. It’s helping everyone — not just my wife but the whole family — because we’re all happier when she gets more time to follow her passions.

When we were all at home, most of the work and meals happened in the house, so there were a lot more chores. Now that we’re out during the day, we all eat lunch outside, so there’s much less to do at home. We’re more relaxed, we eat dinner as a family, and the kids fight less often.

There’s a lot of flexibility at my company

It’s no problem if someone needs to shift a meeting, take a kid to the doctor, or attend remotely.

I got used to sitting in the comfort of my home with my family, but in-person work gives us an edge. You build stronger connections, solve problems faster, and create better solutions. Newer employees, especially, benefit from in-person support and mentorship. That’s part of my responsibility, too.

Working on-site also contributes to the bigger picture: If I go to the office, I generate revenue. Vacant buildings are rented again. They employ security guards. I spend money at restaurants and other local businesses. I try to think beyond just what’s convenient for me. I trust the company has a better view of the big picture than I do.

Eventually, we will be called back into the office five days a week. It will return to the way it was pre-COVID-19, and it may be a challenge at first, but we’ll adapt.