Day: October 26, 2025

• My husband and I had careers in biotech, but never felt like we were built for the corporate world.
• We were seeking a different life, one that aligned with our nonconformist values and shared dreams.
• We moved to Puerto Rico and bought a farm. Life isn’t easy, but it was the right choice for us.

Despite my husband and my family’s belief that our decision to leave the matrix to live on a homestead in the mountains was spontaneous, people don’t just wake up one day and realize they don’t fit in. That moment of clarity is the culmination of years of being different. After all, in high school, I was voted least likely to conform.

Both Paul and I were raised by Depression-era parents. We were expected to take a certain path: go to college, climb the corporate ladder, get married, and have 2.3 kids.

Always square pegs in round holes, Paul and I knew we weren’t built for the corporate world and the trappings of middle-class life. While our peers were happy being molded into successful corporatists who sought that lifestyle, we knew we were supposed to live on a mountain in peace and solitude, raising a few animals, and growing food.

Our dreams have always been aligned

The idea of lifelong devotion to a job that was only fulfilling on pay day and when we were out buying toys to distract us from the monotony, pained us both.

My husband and I started dating in 1997. Our first date was spent planning our escape from the corporate grind and living on that mountain. We knew we had to conform for a few more years to make the money needed to fund our shared dream. Our lifestyle afforded us two vacations annually, so we visited many potential locations: France, Mexico, several states, and Puerto Rico.

We were married seven years and living in Southern California by the time we left our jobs in biotech, in 2008. When the company we were both at announced layoffs, we saw it as the sign we needed. We put our house on the market, got our final stock awards, and quit our jobs.

The Island of Enchantment felt like home

We’d visited Puerto Rico twice. The second time we stayed on an eight-acre farm in a small town in the interior. As we drove up and down the mountain, we did as we’d seen others do, saying “Yo!” to everyone we saw. People probably wondered who these Americanos were with their funny accents. Between us, we spoke five words of Spanish.

Despite the language barrier, many invited us to their homes for dinner. By day four, I said to Paul, “It feels like we’ve been traveling for 40 years and now we’re home.” He agreed.

The mountain called to us

We knew we were looking for a farm, one that was large enough to offer us privacy and space for animals and lots of trees. We found a 15-acre farm in the same town we vacationed in, called Utuado.

When we bought it, it had 8,000 coffee trees, which we replaced with a rare collection of fruit trees, palm trees, and bamboo from throughout the tropical world. Today, we are consultants to people new to agriculture in the tropics. We raise goats, chickens, ducks, and a mascot pig named Cora. We usually have between three and five dogs and many cats (all outside). Our chickens remind us every morning why we threw out our alarm clock.

We were here for Hurricane Maria in 2017. She took 40% of our trees. Like all other farmers, we’ve spent the last eight years rebuilding. Having gone through the most destructive hurricane in Puerto Rico’s recorded history with the organic farming community, we’ve renewed our commitment to Puerto Rico and our lifestyle.

We’re living the life we were meant to

Our families have stopped asking, “When are you coming back home?” This time, we didn’t have to remind them, “We are home.” They got the message when we jumped into rebuilding the farm.

We speak more Spanish today than we did in 2008. I love being referred to as Doña, which is a title denoting respect for older women. Although our consulting business sustains us in many ways, we don’t make the money we used to. However, I still think our worst days on the farm are better than our best days in the corporate world.

I often wonder if, despite not following our parents’ wishes, if they were alive, they’d be proud of us. I hope so. I’ve certainly lived up to my high school mates’ predictions about me.

• Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni launched the Phia app in April.
• The cofounders raised $8 million in a seed round that included VCs and backers like Kris Jenner.
• They told Business Insider 3 lessons they’ve learned along the way.

Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni, both 23, are turning heads with Phia, their AI fashion app that’s drawing interest from investors and trendsetters.

Phia, an AI-powered shopping assistant, went live in April and said it has since amassed over 600,000 users. The free app and browser extension compare prices on fashion items across around 40,000 linked sites to help users find deals. It’s the pair’s first business, and it’s making waves with investors.

Gates and Kianni raised $8 million in seed funding in September. The round was led by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins and included investors like Kris Jenner, Hailey Bieber, and Michael Rubin.

Gates is the youngest daughter of billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates and philanthropist Melinda French Gates. While she likely picked up a thing or two about running a business from her parents, Phia’s early success appears to be all hers and Kianni’s doing. They didn’t turn to Gates’ parent to back the startup.

Instead, they pitched investors with an app they developed and tested. While behemoths like Amazon and OpenAI are building AI-powered shopping assistants, Gates and Kianni presented themselves as the shopping-obsessed Gen Zers who were the perfect fit to launch an app like Phia.

“We are the two girls in college who are obsessed with shopping,” Gates said. “We are the people who are using this product.”

Gates and Kianni met as roommates at Stanford University, where they came up with the idea for Phia. Gates floated the idea of dropping out of college to found Phia — as her father did with Microsoft — but her parents said no. Instead, Gates finished her degree remotely in 2024 before working on the app full time.

Since then, Gates and Kianni said they’ve learned a few leadership lessons that are helping them forge their own paths as cofounders. Here’s what they’ve learned so far as young entrepreneurs.

It’s OK to fire yourself

When they started Phia, Gates said they thought they’d always have to do everything themselves. As she started building a team, which now includes 13 employees, she learned that it is OK to admit if you’re not the right person for a job.

For example, Gates, who studied human biology, and Kianni, who studied science and technology, handled the startup’s accounting and taxes in its early days.

“At a certain point, you have to let go of certain things and have trust in your team,” Gates said.

Gates said one of the best pieces of business advice she’s received is that everything goes back to the team that you build.

As cofounders, Gates and Kianni have learned to divide and conquer based on each other’s strengths and passions. While both Gates and Kianni studied science, Kianni has gravitated more toward marketing, and Gates is all over the finance side of the business.

AI can supercharge your workflow

As the founders of an AI-powered app, Gates said Phia is also trying to use artificial intelligence as a tool to “supercharge” their workflow. These days, most companies are trying to get employees to use AI in some way.

Gates said she and her team at Phia use AI to help write emails, vibe code, and perfect speeches for the cofounders. She likes that AI can “poke holes” in human logic to make their work better, Gates said.

In a June episode of Gates and Kianni’s podcast “The Burnouts,” Kianni said they used ChatGPT to break down the common features in viral videos and use them to recreate that in their own content.

AI is “how we’re going to succeed as a startup,” she told Business Insider.

Let the little fires burn

It may sound counterintuitive to let problems in your company persist, but you can’t always sweat the small stuff, Kianni said.

In an era full of distractions, Kianni really connects with the advice to stay focused on the bigger picture, especially when it comes to leading others.

“The best skill you can really learn is to be able to effectively prioritize,” Kianni said. “Just because there is a small fire doesn’t mean that that is the most important thing for you to focus your time and energy on.”

Establishing her work priorities is a big part of her daily routine — along with downing a Celsius energy drink in the mornings. Kianni describes herself as a night owl, while Gates starts her early mornings off by reading customer feedback.

“I’m much more effective when I focus on doing one thing that’s a big problem and solving it within one day, versus trying to tackle micro-fires at once,” Kianni said.

• Savvy investors use 1031 exchanges to defer capital gains taxes by reinvesting in like-kind properties.
• Successful 1031 exchanges can increase cash flow and strengthen investment portfolios.
• Sign up for Business Insider’s daily markets newsletter here.

When you sell a property for more than you purchased it, you’ll typically owe capital gains tax.

The amount depends on factors like how long you owned the property and your taxable income, but it could be as high as 37% if you sell within a year and trigger short-term capital gains.

However, IRC Section 1031 provides an exception, allowing investors to postpone paying tax on the gain if they reinvest the proceeds in similar property. Commonly known as a 1031 exchange, investors use the strategy to reinvest in more profitable properties and grow their wealth.

There are a few rules to consider: 1031 exchanges are intended for investment properties, not primary homes; you must exchange for another property that is similar or “like-kind,” which the IRS defines as “the same nature or character”; and you have a limited amount of time to complete the exchange.

As soon as you sell, the clock starts: You must identify your replacement property or properties (you can identify as many as three like-kind properties) in writing within 45 days of selling the first property. Then, you must close on the replacement property within 180 days of your initial property sale.

One investor BI spoke with attempted a 1031 exchange but ultimately abandoned it because he couldn’t meet the 180-day deadline.

While his failed 1031 experience may be “rare,” he said, “there are so many things that could delay a closing.”

BI spoke with three investors who successfully executed 1031 exchanges and have stronger portfolios as a result.

Jeff White and Suleyka Bolaños exchanged their worst-performing property and quadrupled their cash flow

The first property Jeff White and Suleyka Bolaños bought — a fourplex in Denver — was a piece of work.

Looking back, “we could have done a lot better,” said the couple, who retired in their 40s by buying one rental property a year.

Thanks to a 1031 exchange, they were eventually able to swap it for two better-performing assets.

“We listed the fourplex for sale, found a buyer, and then went under contract on that single-family large house and a condo,” said White. “We closed on the same day — three transactions — paid zero tax, and got rid of our worst property that only cash flowed, at that time, $400 a month maximum, to those two other properties.”

They rented each individual room in the single-family home and rented the condo to a Section 8 tenant, which more than quadrupled their cash flow, said White: “We went from $400 to $1,700 overnight.”

Nicole Shirvani traded in a duplex for two properties

Nicole Shirvani, a full-time psychiatrist, is using real estate to boost her savings and give herself the option to eventually scale back at work.

When she moved from Oregon to Florida in 2022 for a new job, the single mom swapped her Oregon duplex for two different properties closer to her new home: a beachside condo and a single-family home.

She started looking at exchange properties before listing the duplex to give herself plenty of time.

“Before you sell, try to have the replacement properties identified and line everything up,” she advised. “You don’t want to sell a house, not be able to find suitable properties, and be stuck, unable to invest that money into something.”

Shirvani, who has since added two short-term rentals in the Shenandoah Valley and a triplex in Lakeland, Florida, to her portfolio, plans to use the same strategy as she continues scaling.

Zeona McIntyre upgraded from a small property to a multifamily that produced stronger cash flow

Zeona McIntrye is financially independent thanks to her real estate portfolio, but when she first started investing in her 20s, she couldn’t qualify for a mortgage. She didn’t have strong savings or a consistent income to show a mortgage lender.

It forced her to get creative for her first purchase — a one-bedroom condo in Boulder, Colorado that she financed with private lending — and introduced her to numerous nontraditional real-estate strategies. She used a home equity line of credit to buy her second property, which she later traded in for a quadplex using a 1031 exchange.

“A 1031 exchange allows you to defer your tax burden; a lot of people think, ‘Oh, I don’t pay any taxes,’ but you’re technically kicking the can down the road,” she explained. “The cool thing, though, is that you can do unlimited 1031 exchanges and infinitely kick it down the road. And then when you pass away, if you pass that on to someone else, like your children or a family member, the inherited home does not have the tax burden anymore. So it dies with you.”

• LinkedIn’s VP of engineering said technical skills alone aren’t enough for software engineers.
• She said soft skills, like collaboration and problem solving, are equally important.
• The VP added that job seekers should showcase projects to demonstrate applied learning.

For many recent graduates with limited work experience and small professional networks, finding that first full-time job can feel daunting.

In a field like software engineering, standing out from hundreds of other applicants can feel especially challenging as AI coding tools take on work that used to belong to entry-level hires.

This concern is top of mind for LinkedIn’s VP of engineering for talent solutions, Prashanthi Padmanabhan. The VP told Business Insider that in the current job market, “technical skills don’t cut it.” While technical expertise remains “core” to the job and areas like LLM development and cloud applications are rising in importance, software engineers need to demonstrate they can bring more to the table.

The VP said highlighting soft skills and side projects will help candidates stand out in a crowded market.

The importance of soft skills

Padmanabhan said that soft skills are key to being an effective software engineer.

“You need to learn how to collaborate with different people, like a product manager, a UX designer, a marketer, to take your idea from concept to completion,” Padmanabhan said.

The executive pointed to LinkedIn’s “Skills on the Rise in Engineering” report, a data-backed ranking based on what companies are increasingly hiring for. At the top of the list is large language model development and application — but the next three are soft skills: people management, agile problem solving, AI strategy.

“Equally important are your soft skills, like critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and teamwork,” Padmanabhan said. “Like, how do you really think about user experience?”

Some executives say that entry-level candidates will take on higher-level types of work as AI automates simpler tasks. In software engineering, where AI tools are being adopted more quickly, that may translate to more engineers building products rather than focusing solely on code.

Demonstrating solo projects

Coursework and certifications can help showcase technical acumen — but you may need to go a step further in this job market to show you actually learned the skills, Padmanabhan said.

That’s why applicants should have some kind of project to show for the coursework or certification they learned, Padmanabhan said.

“When students are graduating, they’re not going to have a lot of on- the-job skills to show,” Padmanabhan said. “But what they can show us? How have they been up-skilling themselves?”

She said that side projects can boost a candidate’s chances by showing that they applied learnings from a certification program, academic degree, or course.

“If you don’t have the coding experience, but you have a brilliant idea in your head, just build something,” Padmanabhan said.

With AI tools handling more coding tasks, there’s a growing expectation that anyone can build out an idea. The executive said it’s becoming a part of the interview process for candidates to show off a concept that they brought to life. Padmanabhan said many students have a GitHub repository of projects they’ve built.

Padmanabhan said she’s had candidates send her surveys based on 100 peer interviews to demonstrate the reasoning behind their product idea. She said it’s important to validate your hypothesis from research before you start building. Then, you “continuously test and iterate,” she said.

“Showing how you go about building actually matters a lot, because that’s what happens in the real world,” Padmanabhan said. “We do user research. You do user experience studies.”

The executive said that once candidates have that kind of experience under their belt, they can use the interview to share more color about their journey.