Day: October 18, 2025

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Hannah Neeleman, 35, the cofounder of Ballerina Farm, a 328-acre Utah farm, lifestyle brand, and farm goods store.

Neeleman has 21 million followers across Instagram and TikTok, where she documents life with her husband and co-founder, Daniel Neeleman, and their eight kids, aged between 21 months and 13 years old. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

My husband Daniel and I started Ballerina Farm about eight years ago. We wanted a business where we could work together as a couple and involve our eight children. I didn’t want to have to put them in day care or leave them with a nanny.

Growing up, my life was intertwined with my parents’ flower shop, and I always wanted that for my own children. We were homeschooled, so us kids would do our school in the morning and then head to the shop to help with chores.

After college, Daniel and I moved to São Paulo for four years for his work. We would go on farm hotel getaways and just fell in love with agriculture. I did a lot of research into how we could make something ourselves that could support a family.

We landed on free-range pigs, and started with four on a little farm in the middle of nowhere in Spanish Fork, Utah, in 2017. We started posting to social media to share our offering with the local community. I only had 53 followers on Instagram, but Daniel and I really believed in what we were building, and so we just started. The first few years were really intense and a lot of work.

Now that the business is bigger, we have around 100 employees. Daniel and I have a lot of direct reports, but we tag-team. If he has a meeting, then I’m on kid duty. We just balance it. I don’t know if it’s well-balanced, but it’s always a work in progress.

Here’s what a day in my life is like.

My toddlers wake me up around 7 a.m.

I’m not an early riser. I’m usually woken up by my wiggly two and three-year-olds climbing into my bed at around 7 a.m. That’s my alarm clock, and it’s the best.

Mornings consist of getting the kids ready for their school classes, putting breakfast on the table, and praying before we eat. I have yogurt from our creamery with a scoop of our maple cinnamon protein powder every morning.

We have a schoolhouse on the farm, and an amazing school teacher who lives down the road. Just before 9 a.m., the older kids are out the door, and I have time to do my own thing for a couple of hours. I usually respond to any pressing text messages or emails, and then I try to get down to our barn gym. If I can get a good workout in, then my whole day is better.

I did my undergraduate in ballet at Juilliard, and in the last few months, I’ve started taking a private ballet class once a week from one of my old instructors. It’s like this fun hour and a half where I get to relive the glory days.

On Tuesdays, I usually cook from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Every workday looks a little bit different. On Tuesdays, I try to film a reel of me cooking a recipe from start to finish. I’m usually cooking an elaborate meal from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It takes me a few days to a week to get an entire video written out, edited, and posted.

On Wednesdays, we meet with all of our various team directors (marketing, creative, retail, events). On Thursdays, I have my meeting with the marketing team. But pretty much every day, I share snippets of what I’m doing on Instagram and TikTok.

Recipe testing is just such a fun day because I love being creative. In some seasons of my life, I feel more creative and the ideas flow. Then there are other times where I’m like, “How do I refuel that? And how do I gather inspiration?”

The seasons inspire me. The farm and the garden really guide what my content looks like, because using fresh ingredients is the most exciting thing to me. When I see a beautiful tomato that’s just off the vine, that’s when I want to cook with it. In the springtime, when it’s lambing season, you have all this beautiful sheep’s milk available.

Lunch is my main meal, which I eat with my family

Lunch is the meal that we try to have together as a family. That was one thing that we loved in Brazil: everyone would gather at lunchtime for a big meal.

Our lunches are pretty much always the same. We eat around 1 p.m. after the kids finish school. They’re either some sort of carb or starch, like potatoes or pasta, sometimes rice or quinoa. I make bread a few times a week, so if it’s a bread day, we have that, too. Then it’s a protein, usually steak or a roast that I put in the oven earlier, and a vegetable. It’s super simple. Usually, we also have kefir.

Dinner is less of an ordeal for us. Everyone’s kind of coming and going from lessons and practices, and the dairy. So, it’s just: come and eat something simple. We usually all eat together, but with the kids all in different sports, it can vary.

We live in a small, rural town, so in terms of takeout, there’s not a ton of options.

We have an online store and two brick-and-mortar Ballerina Farm stores selling baked goods, produce, frozen meat, dairy products, Ballerina Farm protein powder, and homeware. The Ballerina Farm farmstand is pretty near us, and last night, the kids had sourdough frozen pizza from there for dinner.

Ballerina Farm is our legacy, and we want to build something with meaning and depth

We launched the Ballerina Farm store Instagram account about a year ago, and I really wanted it to have a different voice from my page and its own authority. I want people to come to the brand for the products, for the experience, and not because of my content.

It’s been very fun and exciting to see the team that we’re building really run with it and see people want to be a part of the simple life movement.

Daniel and I are not trying to build something huge and sell out. It’s very much a legacy for us, and we’re trying to build something that people want to learn from and want to be a part of because it has meaning and depth.

It’s hard to not see some Instagram or TikTok comments, but I typically don’t focus on them. People can say a million nice things about you, and then one negative thing, and it hurts in a way that is just human. But I know who I am, and I know what we’re doing, and I believe in that.

After the kids go to bed, I fill my cup by editing

Before the kids go to bed, we usually do scripture study, pray, and check in about how their days went at around 9 p.m. It’s very grounding.

Daniel and I are both people of faith and really value our relationship with God. I feel like we definitely wouldn’t be where we are today without that faith, because we use it as a compass to make all our decisions — as business owners, parents, and husband and wife.

After the kids go to bed, it’s kind of like my work time. I edit, which I find very satisfying. I consider it “me time” because it fills up my cup.

In terms of my bedtime routine, I don’t do anything too crazy. I’ve been really into taking care of my skin lately as I’m getting older. I’m like, “this is serious, we got to step up our game.” I use a lot of tallow-based products from Five Mary’s Ranch, and I’ve also been loving Primally Pure’s Soothing Mist. Ogee is also great!

I do my nightly skin routine and that’s it. I go to bed around midnight or later. At the end of the day, I am pretty tired. Daniel and I like to joke that we haven’t slept in about 10 years.

On Sundays, we try to shut off. It’s a day that we try to keep sacred and special. We go to church and stay off social media. We do try not to talk about the business, but it often does come up because that’s when we have more time to think.

It’s a constant journey thinking about how we can put the cleanest, best products in people’s hands. How can we create an agritourism experience where people see produce being grown, learn about it, and then, in their own way, become more self-reliant in their own spaces? That’s what fuels me, and it’s really the most exciting part of our business.

• Guardant Health has the first FDA-approved liquid biopsy that can spot colon cancer.
• Co-CEO Helmy Eltoukhy tells Business Insider the story of how they used Silicon Valley strategy to build it.
• This article is part of “Transforming Treatments,” a series on medical innovations that save time, money, or discomfort.

At first, cancer is a quiet disease. Inside the body, cells are aggressively multiplying out of control, changing everything. But on the outside, there’s nothing special to see or feel. Not yet.

For Guardant co-CEO Helmy Eltoukhy, that invisibility looked like an engineering challenge. What if cancer could be detected early — through blood tests — before you even knew it was there?

“So many patients go through this really nerve-racking diagnostic odyssey,” Eltoukhy told Business Insider.

Eltoukhy, who trained as an electrical engineer at Stanford during the late ’90s dot-com boom, had watched classmates start companies like Google and Facebook. He took a job at Illumina, working to make genome sequencing cheaper — cutting the cost of a once-unthinkable endeavor from billions to around $1,000.

It was a lesson in how Moore’s Law — technology getting exponentially faster and cheaper — could transform biology, too.

And so, for the past 13 years, he’s been chasing what he calls a holy grail for early disease detection: a blood test any doctor might whip out at an annual physical, to screen for all kinds of cancer.

Today, he’s closer than ever. With FDA approval to screen for colon cancer already locked in, he’s chasing pre-cancer detection, and maybe even general organ health and blood tests for other diseases, like inflammatory issues.

Still, it’s unclear whether his publicly traded company will manage to turn a profit, and just how far its blood-based disease-hunting strategy can go.

Engineering blood to find cancer seemed easy, until it wasn’t

A drop of blood that can detect disease? I know, we’ve heard this tall tale before (Theranos, anyone?) Technically, it’s not impossible, if done right.

That’s where Eltoukhy started. In 2012, he teamed up with fellow Stanford alum AmirAli Talasaz to design “liquid biopsies” — using fragments of cancer DNA in someone’s blood to help doctors determine the best course of treatment.

Guardant used more than a drop’s worth of blood, gathering a few teaspoons, enough to fill at least two vials. The company’s first “360” cancer test was a success and was approved by the FDA in 2020, helping doctors better tailor late-stage cancer treatments and improve survival.

But the ultimate goal was spotting cancer early — perhaps even before symptoms arise. In 2015, they “hit a wall,” Eltoukhy said. Just a couple of years into their project, they found “there was nothing else to detect” genetically.

The company went into moonshot mode (“project LUNAR”), turning to epigenetics — the molecular “software” that controls which genes are powered on or off inside our bodies’ hardware (our DNA).

That was the big unlock for seeing more cancer. “We created a chemistry that allows us to see both the hardware layer (the genomics) and the software layer (the epigenetics),” Eltoukhy said.

Suddenly, a whole new field of possibilities opened up.

From colon cancer to ‘an everything test’

That breakthrough led to SHIELD, the first FDA-approved blood test for colon cancer, cleared in 2024. The test is near-perfect at detecting late-stage cancer, when there is a lot of cancer DNA being shed into a person’s blood, but it is only about 60% sensitive to stage 1 cancer.

It is now being tested in a massive, independent clinical trial of 24,000 patients across the US, alongside a test from competitor ClearNote Health. The goal of this “Vanguard” study from the National Institutes of Health is to measure how well Guardant’s SHIELD can spot not just colon cancer but other kinds, too — bladder, breast, pancreatic, and more.

“Think of it as your iPhone, where initially it only had a few features, over time, it has a thousand features,” Eltoukhy told Business Insider. “You imagine a future where you combine all of that in a single blood test and you’re looking at not billions, but trillions or quadrillions of data points per test. It’s just a matter of time. There’s no doubt in my mind that that’ll be in the cards for all of us.”

There’s potential to detect other conditions, too. Inflammatory diseases, organ health, and biological aging are just a few of the targets Eltoukhy has his sights set on. “I think in the future it could be multi-disease,” he said. “We think it could literally be an everything test that complements a primary care physician.”

Today, liquid biopsies, like Guardant’s, are among the most sought-after investments in biotech. Earlier this year, Guardant announced one such “strategic collaboration” with Pfizer. Guardant also has numerous publicly traded competitors, including the Illumina spinoff Grail, Myriad, and Natera.

Dr. Eleftherios Diamandis, a clinical biochemist at the University of Toronto, has been studying the genetics of cancer since the 1980s. He says this kind of seamless cancer surveillance has always been a cancer doctor’s dream, but so far, accurate early detection has remained elusive.

“I never say never because who knows how the science will work out in five years or 10 years,” Diamandis told Business Insider. “But as we speak now with the clinical science Guardant has published and other companies have published, they are missing these lesions,” he said, referring to the precancerous polyps that precede colon cancer, and that are easily cleaned out during routine colonoscopies.

Diamandis wonders if we will ever be able to reliably pick out meaningful clues in our blood that predate cancer — can you see something that’s not there yet?

Still, he holds onto the possibility that science and technology might advance beyond what he can imagine. He never thought he’d be able to cruise through the chaos of rush hour traffic in a car that drives itself. Now, he does.

“The accuracy and the speed and all the difficult situations that this car can handle,” he said. “I don’t know how they made it. It’s unbelievable.”

The urgency

Already, the demand for a test like SHIELD is high. Rates of colon cancer have been rising sharply among patients under 50, historically considered too young, too healthy, and too numerous for routine colonoscopies.

Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek, who was diagnosed with colon cancer at 46 years old, told Business Insider he wishes this test had been available years earlier. (Van Der Beek is now a paid spokesperson for Guardant.)

“If I could save anybody the journey that I’ve had to endure the last two years, man, that’s a beautiful thing,” Van Der Beek told Business Insider. “I mean, listen, the ‘could-have, should-have’ train is a black hole, and so I don’t want to jump on board that, but don’t let my could-haves become yours. That’s my biggest message. Get screened.”

• AI job seekers should build real projects using public data sets, said Stanford professor Jure Leskovec.
• Also a startup cofounder, he said adaptability and curiosity are crucial as AI evolves rapidly.
• Communication and empathy matter as much as knowing how to code, Leskovec added.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation and written commentary from Jure Leskovec, a computer-science professor at Stanford University and cofounder of Kumo, a maker of AI tools for predicting business outcomes from company data. This story has been edited for length and clarity.

If you want to work in AI, you need to show that you can actually do the work. Launch real projects using public datasets, deploy a demo, post your work on GitHub, or write about it on a blog.

Participate in hackathons — they’re a fantastic way to demonstrate initiative and teamwork in a short time. We organize hackathons ourselves and are often impressed by what participants produce. It’s concrete proof of what you can do.

Even if you fail, you’re showing that you’re curious and proactive. By your second or third project or hackathon, you’ll have gained valuable experience.

We recently hired someone who stood out because he built a generative AI tool for analyzing customer purchase data. It showed ambition, curiosity, and problem-solving, which are qualities we really value.

Curiosity and flexibility matter

My second recommendation is to show adaptability — that you’re the kind of person who is always experimenting with new tools, and that you can learn quickly. This is essential because AI is evolving at a pace that surprises even those of us who work in the field every day.

The best job candidates have taught themselves frameworks like PyTorch, JAX, or LLM tooling, and they stay current on areas like GenAI, multimodal models, diffusion, and reinforcement learning. Curiosity and flexibility matter more than having a fixed set of skills, because the skills in demand today may look very different tomorrow.

A top school or credential might get your application looked at, but it won’t get you hired. We look for people who build things, who are adaptable and curious. In job interviews, we can tell if someone is just trying to map new ideas to what they learned in school versus truly engaging with what’s new.

There’s no playbook for AI. We’re writing it right now. I always value it when my students bring me solutions that haven’t been tried before, even if they’re wrong. We’re still at the experimental stage of AI in many ways, and there isn’t always a clear textbook answer.

Sharpen your thinking

At Kumo, we conduct several interviews to see an applicant’s full thought process. We pay close attention to how they approach problems and often value their reasoning as much as their final answer — if not more.

It may sound simple to say, “think outside the box,” but it is more critical now than ever. Who knows? Your idea today could become the standard tomorrow.

I encourage people to sharpen their thinking by questioning assumptions, trying to solve problems without relying on familiar tools, and deliberately exposing themselves to new domains. Practice brainstorming multiple answers to the same problem, even the ones that seem impractical at first. Over time, these habits train you to see possibilities others overlook.

One last piece of advice: Don’t forget to be human. Technical skills aren’t everything. I look for people who can communicate clearly, work well in teams, and think carefully about the ethical and social implications of what they’re building. Collaboration, empathy, and awareness of bias matter just as much as knowing how to code.

• The Trump administration said it is processing student-loan forgiveness for some borrowers on income-based repayment.
• Eligible borrowers received emails stating that they are expected to receive relief in the coming months.
• The ongoing government shutdown could cause delays.

Some student-loan borrowers are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel after years of payments.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump’s administration began sending emails to some borrowers on income-based repayment plans notifying them that they’re eligible to have their loans discharged.

IBR plans give borrowers monthly payments based on their incomes, with the promise of forgiveness of any remaining debt after 20 or 25 years. While the Department of Education did not specify how many borrowers are eligible for this round of forgiveness, 2 million borrowers were enrolled in IBR plans in the second quarter of 2025, according to Federal Student Aid data.

“Your loan servicer will notify you if and when your IBR discharge has been processed,” the email, reviewed by Business Insider, said. “It may take some time for your loan servicer to process your discharge and for your account to reflect this change. Most borrowers will have their discharge processed within two weeks, but for some borrowers, processing could take more time.”

Student-loan forgiveness has been rare under the Trump administration, given its focus on overhauling repayment and shifting away from debt relief efforts. Over the summer, the Department of Education paused IBR processing to update borrowers’ payment counts, and it has also been working through a backlog of other repayment plan applications, including those for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

Here’s what borrowers should know about the coming relief.

Who qualifies for the student-loan forgiveness

The first version of the IBR plan was created by Congress in a 2007 law and went into effect in 2009, with an updated version going into effect in 2014. The updates meant that borrowers who enrolled in the plan before July 1, 2014, had payments that were 15% of their discretionary income with a repayment period of 25 years, while those who signed up after July 1, 2014, had payments that were 10% of their discretionary income with a repayment period of 20 years.

Borrowers are able to switch from other income-driven repayment plans to IBR plans over the course of their repayment. That means payments made before IBR went into effect count toward the forgiveness threshold.

Trump’s “big beautiful” spending legislation that he signed into law in July made some updates to IBR eligibility. It removed the requirement to be in financial hardship to enroll and expanded eligibility to some parent PLUS borrowers who took out loans to support their children’s educations.

How the government shutdown could impact relief

The government has been shut down since October 1, and federal agencies have enacted their contingency plans to ensure critical functions stay in operation. A notice posted at the top of Federal Student Aid’s website said that “information on this website may not be maintained, and inquiries may not receive a response.”

It added that borrowers “should continue to make payments on your federal student loans as scheduled.”

The forgiveness emails that IBR borrowers received said that the Department of Education will send borrowers’ discharge information to servicers after October 21, and those who want to opt out of the relief have to do so before that date. However, due to furloughed and terminated staff at the Department of Education, paperwork processing — including for forgiveness — could be delayed.

Delays could also have tax implications. A 2021 provision in the American Rescue Plan made student-loan forgiveness tax-free through 2025, so after January 1, 2026, borrowers who receive relief could face thousands of dollars in new tax bills.

The shutdown has also impacted ongoing litigation related to the department’s paperwork processing backlog. The American Federation of Teachers, which includes members enrolled in PSLF, filed a lawsuit urging the department to cancel the loans of borrowers who have met their payment thresholds. The judge overseeing the case wrote in a legal filing earlier this month that the briefings will be paused due to the lapse in appropriations.

On October 17, however, the AFT and the Department of Education filed a joint status report stating that the department will recognize the date a borrower becomes eligible to have their loans discharged as the effective date of the relief, preventing those who reach the payment threshold before the end of the year from being taxed.