Day: October 8, 2025

• Ford ordered the majority of its employees back to the office four days a week in September.
• Before the new policy came in, some workers got emails warning they may be fired if they didn’t badge in more.
• Multiple employees said they got the emails despite complying with remote working rules at the time.

Ford is the latest company to crack down on working from home — and some employees say they’ve been told they could be terminated if they don’t comply.

In June, the Detroit automaker told employees that they would be required to come into the office four days a week from September 1, with Ford saying the move would help boost growth as the company battles to transform itself into an affordable EV powerhouse.

Since then, Ford has sent some employees emails telling them that they are not badging in enough and warning that they could face termination if they do not improve their attendance, three current and former Ford employees told Business Insider.

Two said they had received these emails despite complying with updated office attendance policies and having previous work-from-home arrangements signed off by their managers.

While many of Ford’s Michigan-based teams have been in the office three days a week since late 2024, other divisions maintained a more flexible approach to working from home, two current and former employees said.

In an all-hands for a team within Ford’s Enterprise Technology division — which oversees Ford’s IT services and internal digital tools — on September 9, human resources director Homer Isaac said the tone of the emails was designed to instigate a “change of behavior” around remote working.

In a recording of the all-hands viewed by Business Insider, Isaac said the fact that the enterprise technology division had previously had more lenient rules on remote working meant that some employees may have received the emails despite complying with pre-existing working-from-home arrangements.

He said that the company was aware that employees who had been “doing the things that you were supposed to” have been “caught up in a lot of that noise,” adding that workers who are complying with the new four-day-a-week rules should not be concerned about losing their jobs.

“Most of the company went back to three days a week back in the fourth quarter of last year. [Enterprise technology] had 13 days a quarter, and then progressed in August to three days a week, and now four days a week, which is the official policy in September,” said Isaac.

“The letters up to this point, quite honestly, were based on a window where our standard wasn’t the same as everybody else’s standard. The communications are standard, and I will pledge to this team, we have asked for those to be changed or modified — we have failed in that,” he said.

‘Flexibility is a two-way street’

In the days after Ford announced the return-to-office mandate on June 25, certain employees received an email saying that their badge data indicated their “on-site presence since April 2025 has averaged less than one day a week,” and was not in line with company expectations that hybrid workers come in three days a week.

These initial automated emails warned that not meeting these new expectations would be considered a “policy violation,” according to copies of the emails viewed by Business Insider.

One former Ford employee told Business Insider that despite their pre-June remote working arrangements being approved by senior management and complying with the three-day-a-week requirement, they continued to receive automated emails saying that their on-site presence had not improved.

These subsequent emails warned that failure to comply with the new policy of four days a week on-site from September would result in “discipline up to and including termination.”

“We need to work across time zones, and the new policy makes that impossible. People are working to the rule and are no longer willing to put in extra time outside normal hours. Flexibility is a two-way street,” said the employee, who recently left the company.

Another current Ford employee told Business Insider they had also received a similar email warning that failing to comply with the new remote working rules could result in termination, despite going into the office the required number of days.

“I’m tired and exhausted. I just want to do my job and help the company, but upper management is constantly making that harder to do, and then telling me I’m the problem,” they said.

A source with knowledge of the emails told Business Insider that some employees may have received one or more notices incorrectly.

They added that non-compliant employees were identified via an automated HR system that required managers to confirm whether they had taken vacation or sick leave, or if they had a pre-existing remote working agreement, before they were sent a warning.

A bumpy road to RTO

Like many companies, Ford’s return to office hasn’t been entirely smooth. Employees Business Insider spoke to mentioned teething problems and overcrowding, with one calling an RTO trial run in August “a little bit disastrous” due to a lack of desks and parking.

The employee said that the overcrowding issues have now been mostly “smoothed out,” but added that the way the process had been handled had hurt morale.

A source with knowledge of the situation said that limited parking had been an issue, with some employees forced to triple-park and Ford running a shuttle service for workers at some offices.

Hybrid IT employees were also told to begin coming into Ford’s Dearborn site three days a week on August 6, according to interviews with employees and an email viewed by Business Insider.

In comments posted on an internal Ford forum on that day, employees complained that the site’s Rotunda center had run out of parking and that police had shown up to ticket workers parked illegally. A Ford employee BI spoke to confirmed that police had attended.

Ford is opening a 2.1 million-square-foot new world headquarters in Dearborn in November. The company says it will have capacity for around 4,000 employees.

Last week, frustration over Ford’s return-to-office policy bubbled over in a highly public fashion when a number of meeting room displays at the company’s Dearborn site began displaying a crossed-out image of CEO Jim Farley with an explicit anti-RTO message.

“We have done everything we can to make sure our employees understand the in-office policy, and we have given everyone time to adjust their schedules and work with their managers to make sure they are in compliance,” a Ford spokesperson told Business Insider.

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• Dave Dama bootstrapped his e-commerce company in 2010. Today, he does eight figures in annual revenue.
• He believes Amazon is the best place to start a brand on a shoestring budget.
• His formula for success involves launching as many products as you can sustainably.

Dave Dama launched his first Amazon brand in 2010, when e-commerce entrepreneurs were just starting to figure out the platform.

“The competition and saturation weren’t there,” he told Business Insider. “You could really launch products in any category and see some success if you had an understanding of the platform, without ads, because the secret wasn’t out yet.”

The e-commerce veteran admits that selling on Amazon in 2025 is more complex and expensive, but he still believes it’s the best place to start a business.

“The beautiful thing about Amazon and why it allowed us to succeed is that it really lowers the barrier to entry and reduces overall risk,” he said. “If I were to set up a traditional retail store distribution channel, there are tremendous costs that come with building all that infrastructure out and hiring. Those costs are reduced 90%, if not more, by starting on Amazon.”

Dama and his business partner, Arsalan Rahbarpoor, bootstrapped their e-commerce business, which now does eight figures in revenue between their two brands: Pure Daily Care, which offers beauty and wellness devices for at-home use, and Aquasonic, which offers oral care products.

“You can start with 2,000 bucks, so what’s the worst that can happen?” encouraged Dama. “Amazon is a potential gold mine, and the first stop in your brand-building journey.”

He and his CMO, Jonathan Cohen, provided a playbook for succeeding on Amazon in 2025.

‘It’s a numbers game’: Launch multiple products

“If you want to become a hyper successful seller, it’s a numbers game,” said Dama — meaning, launch and list as many products as you can sustainably. Set the expectation that most of your products won’t take off, he added: “There’s a 90% plus chance of failure as you’re learning the platform and the process.”

The key is to at least break even, so you have the capital to continue testing different products.

That’s what worked for Dama and Rahbarpoor, whose first product flopped. Once they realized it wasn’t a winner, they lowered the price enough to sell through their initial inventory and then analyzed customer reviews to figure out what went wrong.

“How do you recoup that investment? How do you continue to have the ability to launch new products? Because if you launch enough new products, you will eventually have a stable of winning products and build a real business,” said Dama.

Optimize your listing page

Your listing page matters.

“It’s become more important just because of fierce competition,” said Dama. “You’re going up against hundreds of other options, so you need to set your listing apart by really investing in quality photos.”

If you don’t have the budget to hire a professional, your iPhone can go a long way. One top Amazon seller, who started her e-commerce business with $2,000 upfront, shot her initial product photos with her phone. She used GIMP, a free image editor, to paste her product images on a white background.

Dama added that eventually, you’ll have to pay for Amazon ads: “When I get on calls to mentor aspiring Amazon entrepreneurs, I tell them two things: A, you have to have an idea for which products you want to launch. And B, you need to master ads. Or, if you have the money, hire someone who knows the ad game. Because Amazon, at this point, is absolutely a pay-to-play platform.”

Think beyond Amazon

Once you’ve found what Dama likes to call “winning products,” it’s smart to think about leveraging other platforms.

“I think all Amazon sellers should be thinking about everything off Amazon — TikTok being one of the top things.”

TikTok Shop is the platform’s built-in e‑commerce feature, which allows users to discover and purchase products within the app. It officially launched in the US in 2023, and top Amazon sellers agree that succeeding in e-commerce in 2025 means at least exploring TikTok Shop.

Not every product is the right fit for the platform. In general, consumers on TikTok Shop are more price-conscious, explained Cohen: “It’s going to be really tough to get a TikTok shopper to buy a moisturizer for over $100 unless it’s the No. 1 spoken about moisturizer.”

While AquaSonic isn’t big on TikTok, Pure Daily Care has exploded on the platform, driven by one specific line of products — the NuDerma High Frequency Wands — that went viral during the COVID pandemic.

“We were in the right category at the right time at the right price point,” said Cohen. “It came at a time when people could not go and visit their facialist or their aesthetician to get a treatment, so everyone was looking to social media and influencers to tell them what to do with their skin.”

It’s worth experimenting with the platform, especially if you’ve started to gain steam on Amazon.

“The creators are making content that they think resonates with their users, but also that they hope and know is going to convert — and that tends to be the stuff that already sells well. So, if you’re an Amazon seller that has a popular product that gets a lot of customer feedback and moves fairly well, you should absolutely be on TikTok and formulating your strategy,” said Cohen. “Even if your TikTok shop is just an experiment to see what happens, you wouldn’t know unless you get on there.”

• Business Insider’s Rising Stars of Wall Street hold important yet complex jobs.
• We asked them to break down what they do in a way anyone could understand.
• See top responses from Rising Stars at firms like Blackstone, Moelis, and Goldman Sachs.

Credit solutions, secondaries, private capital advisory.

Business Insider’s Rising Stars of Wall Street have impressive but complicated jobs. This year’s list features investors, traders, and dealmakers working in the hottest finance fields, from private lending to data center mergers.

So what do they actually do all day?

We asked this year’s picks to break it down by explaining how they describe their jobs to non-Wall Streeters at dinner parties. Here are 9 of the top responses, edited for length and clarity.

Lamar Cardinez, Blue Owl

Title: Principal with Blue Owl’s HomeCourt Partners Fund

“I find interesting investment opportunities in the world of sports, media, and entertainment.”

“And then after the investment has been made, keep them informed about the performance of the investments that we collectively own. And then after a certain amount of time, we do our best to return that original investment, that principal to the investors along with an additional amount that hopefully exceeds their expectations and leave them desire to partner with us continually.”

Jackie Shepherd, Morgan Stanley

Title: Vice President, Separations and Structured Solutions

“My partner is a physician, and I feel like I have to do this all the time because if I say anything that’s not a simple sentence, eyes glaze over.”

“I would say we’re helping our clients tackle their biggest strategic questions of — ‘What do I want to be when I grow up?’ So, what businesses do I want to be in? And if there’s a business that isn’t the right long-term strategic fit, what’s the most efficient way to separate that?”

Benson Kane, TPG Angelo Gordon

Title: Vice President, Credit Solutions Group

“We’re like a bank without the depositors. We’re working with kind of hairier situations, more complex financings — but we’re kind of like a bank, as people think about it. We make loans to companies and try to help them invest in businesses or whatever else they’re trying to do.”

Patrick Kearney, Apollo

Title: Principal, Private Equity

“The shortest answer is just buying good companies and trying to go from good to great, or buying great companies and trying to go from great to greater. And at its core, it’s about thinking critically, not only about the company itself, but macro trends, industry trends, and specific initiatives you can implement. The core of the job is thinking critically to tackle challenges and find the right solutions in a really, really dynamic environment.

Aman Mittal, Moelis & Co.

Title: Managing Director, Advisory

“I try not to. I work in finance and I do investment banking, and that’s good enough. These days it’s easier, I work in data centers, that’s the topic of the moment. But in general, what I say is we help companies find their path through the financial possibilities. And that includes sometimes selling the business, sometimes buying businesses, sometimes finding new capital partners.”

Josef Menasche, Goldman Sachs

Title: Managing director, Global cohead of Secondaries Advisory

“Sometimes, as a private equity investor, you have a company that you really, really believe in, and you think it’s fantastic, and you don’t want to sell it necessarily because you think there’s more upside — but you have to deliver cash back to your investors.

So what my team does is help private equity funds in that position find new investors to buy out the old investors, so that they can continue managing the business going forward.

Maybe they love the management team. Maybe they think the industry is at an inflection point where it’s going to grow really fast for the next five years. Whatever the reason, they want to hold on to the business longer.

We’re very transparent about that with the original investors. We give them the choice to reinvest going forward, because there’s a reason the actual investment team doesn’t want to sell.”

Mohini Chakravorty, Blackstone

Title: Principal, Blackstone Infrastructure

“I have dinner with non-Wall Street people all the time. It’s not very complicated. We raise money from large institutions, and then we use that money to buy companies in the infrastructure space. Think industries like digital infrastructure, data centers, transportation businesses — airports or toll roads. The last big category is energy or energy transition businesses. We buy these businesses. We try to improve them. We put in additional capital, or we spend more money to help grow them, and the ultimate goal is to help generate a return for the investors.”

“People outside the industry would be surprised by how much of our jobs revolve around interacting with people. To get deals done, it’s not always just about paying the highest price. It’s about convincing people and making relationships with management teams to get people comfortable that you are the right long-term partner.”

Florian Plath, JPMorgan Chase

Title: Executive Director, Mergers & Acquisitions

“I help companies find the right partners. When a company’s owners are thinking about buying, selling, merging with another company, my team and I really help the leaders try to figure out whether it makes sense and guide them through the entire process. We look at everything — not only numbers, but also the strategy, the culture — to make sure these combinations are a good fit.

“It’s a little bit of detective work, right? At the end of the day, we obviously want to make sure that both sides feel confident and excited.”

Joe Slevin, Jefferies

Title: Managing Director, Private Capital Advisory

“This one’s difficult in secondaries. I try to keep it simple: I say that we find patient new shareholders for exceptional private companies.”

• Naseem Rochette’s life changed after a car accident led to neurodivergence.
• Her new approach to work emphasizes vulnerability and a deeper focus on fewer tasks.
• Rochette highlighted the need for positive bias reframing for her progress after the accident.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Naseem Rochette, a 54-year-old account director at Databricks, based in New Jersey. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

My approach to life drastically changed in 2018 when I was hit and run over by a car. By that evening, the multitasking woman who thrived in chaos for so long vanished, and she has never returned.

I’ve been in tech for 25 years, and before my current position, I spent most of the last decade in different leadership roles at Google and Microsoft. Since getting run over, I don’t operate in the same way.

I have a traumatic brain injury now, and I’m neurodivergent. So, much of day-to-day life can be a trigger for me or make me uncomfortable.

I thought my condition would be a disadvantage for my career. However, my ability to be more vulnerable, share my journey, and connect with people in ways I hadn’t before gave me a stronger foundation to solve harder problems, and I became a better leader and advocate for myself because of it.

I worried how I was ever going to be good at my job again

It took a while to recover. I went back to work at Microsoft after a few months, which was too early, but I felt like I had to rush back because we had a big conference coming up.

Over the course of a year or two, I realized how my abilities were shifting. One of the things that really changed was that I could no longer manage a hundred things or thrive in that type of chaotic workflow. I became much better at focusing on five things in a deeper way.

I was really worried about how I would ever be good at what I do again. I couldn’t see the rewards of focusing on a few bigger problems instead of a ton of little ones. I had to accept that I was different now and navigate explaining that to those around me.

My neurodivergence changed the way I ran meetings

Most people, myself included, haven’t been made aware of the need for neurodivergent sensitivity. I had never thought about it until I was neurodivergent.

I transitioned into a leadership role at Google after Microsoft. There, employees made user guides to explain the way we work, and when I got to Google, I made a before-and-after one to explain how my working style had changed since my accident. Once I was able to articulate and understand that there was a change, I could talk more easily about it.

It was interesting to see the differences between my before-and-after user guides. Some of the main ones are that I don’t like phone calls and can’t listen to voicemails anymore, I can’t multitask, which used to be a strength of mine, and I don’t like attending big conferences or late-night networking events anymore.

When I ran large meetings in the past, I always told participants to just jump in with questions; I never realized how hard that could be. After the accident, it became hard for me to do that. Now, I always give multiple ways people can jump in, including sending a text or a note afterward that we can follow up on.

At the beginning of meetings, I also share that I don’t communicate or operate the way I used to. This opens the door for other people to share with me some of the unique ways they work, so we can figure out how to best communicate ideas.

Recognizing how my work needs differed from the norm made all the difference

There would be meetings at Google that started with loud music to build excitement, and I couldn’t engage because it suddenly hurt to be in that environment.

Whenever something like this happened, it was anxiety-inducing to decide whether to ask to turn the music down or take the time to explain why it bothered me. I didn’t want to change the environment for everyone, which made it hard to navigate.

In those meetings, I started explaining that I couldn’t kick off the call with loud music, so I’d join three minutes after, but I wasn’t late or forgetting about the meeting.

I can’t go out with a client to a jazz club or stay out late for drinks anymore. I won’t be at those conferences or on work trips that require that type of interaction. If I have to be at these events now, I always want people to know or be reminded that there are sensitivities.

I celebrate the day of my accident as a holiday; we call it Unbreakable Day

I decided that my story would be a happy one. That positive bias reframing was so important for my progress.

Neurodivergence gives people unique qualities and abilities, and being proud of those and owning them can be hard. Maybe there are some things I can’t do, but there are some things that I’m more comfortable doing now, and I own that. I wasn’t comfortable sharing my vulnerabilities pre-accident, and now that’s a huge strength of mine.

I’ve had the opportunity to mentor young people and help other people navigate what they’ve been through, whether it’s a trauma or a divergence. I always bring up having an inventory of wins. What are the things that you’ve navigated? What are the things that you can draw strength from, and what are the things that are hard for you?

Vulnerability is my new strength at work

This year, I joined the software company Databricks as an account director. If you go into any new job or interview, having a better sense of yourself and your limits, it’s going to be a lot easier to put yourself in a position for success.

After my accident, I had to be more deliberate with my communication. I also had to be kind to myself and not judge myself, or I would never make progress. I now see the benefits and value of the new me and have learned that vulnerability is a huge part of good leadership. Pretending that you can do something you can’t isn’t good for anyone.

Do you have a career story to share? Contact this reporter, Agnes Applegate, at aapplegate@businessinsider.com.

• Permits were filed for 54 new data centers in Virginia in the first nine months of 2025, per a BI tally.
• Tech giant Amazon filed permits for the most new planned data centers this year so far.
• The permits reveal developers are increasingly building larger, more power-intensive data centers.

Virginia is for data centers. Big ones.

Big Tech companies filed permits for 54 new data centers in the state in the first nine months of 2025, according to a Business Insider tally.

The number represents the state’s single largest spike in planned data centers in any one year, and a 16% increase from Virginia’s 2024 total.

Amazon-built data centers represent the bulk of the new construction, with 28 planned facilities, according to Business Insider’s count. The tech giant had 177 data centers built or in construction nationwide by the end of 2024, according to the analysis. The new planned data centers in Virginia would grow Amazon’s fleet to 205, a 15% increase.

The new Virginia permits also reveal how Big Tech companies are increasingly building larger, more power-intensive data centers. Business Insider previously identified 322 “hyperscale” facilities built or under construction nationwide at the end of 2024 that consume an estimated 40 megawatts of electricity or more each.

The new permits push this count to 370. All but one of Amazon’s new planned data centers are among the largest in Business Insider’s analysis. These giant data centers can consume as much power as a small city and up to several million gallons of water a day.

An Amazon spokesperson said Business Insider’s methodology for estimating electricity use is “flawed and can lead to inaccurate conclusions.”

This recent explosion of Virginia data center construction comes amid unprecedented nationwide investment in AI infrastructure. In June, construction spending on US data centers reached an all-time high of $40 billion, a Bank of America Institute report found. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta are pouring cash into the rush to build even more. The tech giants’ combined capital expenditures could reach an estimated $320 billion this year, primarily for AI infrastructure, an analysis of financial statements by Business Insider found.

Virginia is historically the epicenter of the data center construction boom in the US, with the most data centers in the country by far concentrated in Northern Virginia, known as “Data Center Alley.” Data centers in the state have emerged as one of the largest flashpoints in a national wave of grassroots resistance from residents worried about their impact on housing, the environment, and quality of life, even as they have promised to bring new tax revenue.

Data centers in Virginia already used a quarter of the state’s electricity in 2023. Business Insider estimated that if all the data centers built or in construction in the state by 2024 come online, at the low end, they would consume around the same amount of electricity as New York City used in 2024.

Overall, the 54 new planned data centers drive Business Insider’s electricity estimate another 26% higher.

Collectively, Business Insider estimates that if Virginia’s 383 data centers already built or in construction as of September 2025 all come online, they will use between 66.5 terawatt-hours and 106.4 terawatt-hours annually. The low end is roughly equivalent to the amount of power the entire state of Minnesota used in 2023; the high end is more power than Tennessee used that year.

To investigate data center expansion across the country, Business Insider filed requests with all 50 states and Washington, DC, for the air permits that regulate backup generators at every data center.

As of 2010, there were 311 data centers nationwide, Business Insider previously found. That number nearly quadrupled, to 1,240 data centers built or approved for construction by the end of 2024, the most comprehensive tally to date.

Have a tip? Contact Hannah Beckler via email at hbeckler@businessinsider.com or Signal at hbeckler.72. Use a personal email address and a non-work device; here‘s our guide to sharing information securely.