Day: November 1, 2025

• Every few months, I drive an hour to shop at Trader Joe’s for pantry staples.
• My family and I stock up on tomato basil marinara sauce for pasta dinners and homemade pizzas.
• I use Trader Joe’s unsweetened cocoa powder to make hot chocolate almost every night.

I started shopping at Trader Joe’s almost a decade ago, as a single mother to a 2-year-old, and was impressed with the affordability and quality of everything the grocer carried.

When I got married, I introduced my husband to our favorite things, and he was hooked.

Now, we happily drive an hour to the Winter Park, Florida, location (just north of Orlando) every couple of months for these 13 pantry staples.

The No. 1 thing we stock up on is tomato basil marinara sauce.

We get four jars of Trader Joe’s tomato basil marinara sauce on each trip.

I think it tastes homemade and elevates our weeknight pasta dinners to something that feels special. We also use it to make homemade pizza.

We also buy plenty of spaghetti.

Half a bag of Trader Joe’s Italian spaghetti feeds all three of us with at least one serving of leftovers for lunch.

Imported from Italy, the spaghetti cooks perfectly al dente and has a slight sweetness. I’ve even eaten it with only olive oil and sea salt.

Garbanzo beans are the key ingredient for one of our favorite protein-packed meals.

For a quick, protein-packed dinner, I like to sauté sliced cooked sausage with canned garbanzo beans in herbs and olive oil. It’s become a household favorite.

We’ve found that Trader Joe’s garbanzo beans taste fresher than the rest, so we always stock up on them.

Trader Joe’s ube mochi pancake and waffle mix is a family favorite.

My son loves anything ube-flavored, and I love anything that’s gluten-free, so this pancake and waffle mix is perfect for us.

They’re so easy to mix up that my 11-year-old son has made them for my husband and me.

We’ve eaten them with whipped cream and mixed berries for an out-of-the-ordinary (and colorful) weeknight dinner.

I add cinnamon to my coffee every morning.

I’ve been adding cinnamon to my coffee every morning for over 10 years. I consume it daily, so I want it to be good, and Trader Joe’s organic cinnamon is the best I’ve ever had.

I also add it to smoothies, baked goods, and hot cocoa.

Trader Joe’s unsweetened cocoa powder makes my favorite hot chocolate.

I make homemade hot cocoa nightly, using two tablespoons of Trader Joe’s cocoa per cup. Just like the cinnamon, the cocoa is the best I’ve had.

I also like to make homemade brownies and chocolate cake with it.

My husband and I love Trader Joe’s organic frosted toaster pastries.

I like to grab a few boxes of Trader Joe’s organic toaster pastries for an out-of-the-ordinary treat. With a hot cup of coffee, they taste like Pop-Tarts for adults.

If there was only one thing I could buy at Trader Joe’s, it would be the salted peanut butter.

To me, this peanut butter is a delicacy.

I’ve eaten it by the spoonful for a quick pick-me-up, used it in smoothies for added protein, and drizzled it over chocolate ice cream for a Reese’s-like dessert.

My son likes the sweetness of pineapple salsa.

My son loves salsa, but not when it’s too spicy. The addition of pineapples (which he also loves) makes this one sweet enough for him to enjoy.

Plus, it’s full of tomatoes, pineapples, and peppers, so I like to consider it a serving of fruits and vegetables.

Another snack my son loves is cashews sprinkled with Trader Joe’s ranch seasoning blend.

I thought it would be fun to use this seasoning to give cooked vegetables a kick, but my son found another tasty use for it.

He sprinkles the ranch seasoning blend on plain cashews for a snack that’s arguably as satisfying as a bag of flavored potato chips.

Trader Joe’s baked cheese crunchies are a great late-night snack.

We love chips in our house, but I like to find lower-fat versions.

I think Trader Joe’s baked cheese crunchies are just as good as Cheetos, and I can actually taste real cheese on them.

I never feel bad putting them in my son’s lunch or eating them as a late-night snack.

I think Sprinkles tomatoes taste great alone, in salads, and on snack plates.

I’ve never seen these Sprinkles tomatoes anywhere else besides Trader Joe’s, but I think they’re like vegetable candy.

I’ve eaten them alone, in salads, on snack plates, and in the car on the way home from Trader Joe’s, paired with the cheese crunchies.

Our dogs love Trader Joe’s grain-free dog treats with peanut butter and banana.

Our dogs get so excited when they see us carrying Trader Joe’s bags into the house because they know what’s coming.

These grain-free peanut butter and banana dog treats cost just $3 at my local store, so I buy three to four boxes per visit.

My favorite thing about these treats is that they have real ingredients, like chickpeas, peanut butter, ground coconut, and dried bananas.

Click to keep reading Trader Joe’s diaries like this one.

• Tesla has an Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) known as Full Self-Driving (Supervised).
• Wayve, a UK-based startup, also has an ADAS that it plans to license to automakers.
• Business Insider tried an hourlong demo of Wayve’s ADAS. Here’s what happened.

Let’s put aside the Tesla vs. Waymo debate and talk about Wayve.

The UK-based startup, founded in 2017, is yet another company that has autonomous-driving technology ambitions, but it’s not building a robotaxi platform like Waymo. Nor is it a car or robotics manufacturer like Tesla.

Wayve’s goal is to develop a highly capable Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) that it can license to other automakers. Think a flexible version of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) that can be plugged into any automaker’s cars.

The startup is working on fully driverless systems, but it also sees an untapped market in licensing supervised self-driving technology.

I tried a demo of an ADAS system powered by Wayve’s AV2.0 AI driver in San Francisco, taking a nearly hourlong ride inside a Ford Mustang Mach-E. The car was retrofitted with five cameras, a radar, and Wayve’s AI driver.

Two Wayve spokespeople joined me for the ride to answer questions I had about the technology, along with a “vehicle safety operator” who was behind the wheel in case he had to intervene during the ride.

In some ways, it reminded me of a Tesla robotaxi, a ride-hailing service that — in SF — operates with a safety monitor behind the wheel.

My experience with Wayve didn’t diminish my impression of Tesla’s FSD. However, it did raise questions: How much of the advantage that Tesla claims — from complete software ownership to the billions of miles of driving data it says it has on hand — ultimately matters in developing a competent, assisted driving system? How long will it take for Wayve to catch up? And, if Wayve does, could Tesla truly corner the ADAS market if it’s still only thinking about licensing its software?

A Tesla spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

The Wayve approach

Like Tesla, Wayve has built an “end-to-end” AI system, which means the software learns to drive directly from data rather than relying on engineers to hand-code rules.

The AI driver scans the road using sensors — whether with cameras only or a combination of radar and lidar — and determines how to steer or accelerate based on what it has learned from real-world and simulated driving experiences.

Leveraging the adaptability of an end-to-end system, Wayve wants to distinguish itself by providing a “hardware agnostic” software.

The company says it means Wayve has software that automakers could plug-and-play into all kinds of cars, from personally-owned vehicles to commercial trucks, no matter what sensor stack it has.

If an OEM only has cameras, Wayve says its AI driver will work. If a car has more redundant sensors outside of cameras, the AI driver should be able to support higher levels of automation, a Wayve spokesperson said.

The proposition to automakers is that there are no additional hardware costs.

“We can integrate on any camera or sensor setup, on any system or chip, which is quite appealing to OEMs because there’s no additional hardware or core costs or CapEx on their side,” the spokesperson said.

Wayve chauffeur

There’s a lot more tech underlying Wayve’s ADAS system, but most consumers will likely only want to know: How does it drive?

My demo began near Moscone Center in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood during 5 o’clock rush hour. We zig-zagged through the city for a few miles before we circled back to Moscone Center. The 30-minute demonstration ended up being a nearly hourlong ride due to traffic conditions.

Throughout the ride, Wayve was capable of stopping for jaywalking pedestrians and maneuvering around drivers who stood too close to the road as they opened their car doors. On Mission and 6th, a car was blocking the intersection when our light turned green. The AI driver still waited for the car to move out of the way before it proceeded.

There were two or three moments where AV2.0 braked harder than usual, especially when it was inching along heavy traffic. It’s a curious behavior that I’ve noticed in other self-driving cars.

There were no moments of intervention from the safety monitor outside of taking over to park the car.

A Wayve spokesperson informed me that I experienced an automated driving level that falls somewhat between what the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) labels as L2 and L3. L2 means that some level of driving is automated, but it is under constant human supervision. L3 is when a car can drive itself under certain conditions without human supervision unless the car requests the driver to take over.

The spokesperson said that the safety operator did not have his foot on the brakes, pedal, or steering wheel.

The ADAS race

This is not a one-to-one comparison of Tesla’s technology or progress to Wayve’s.

I experienced Wayve’s AV2.0 in a single, supervised demonstration. Wayve’s AI driver/AI driving tech may not be in cars until 2027.

Anyone can go buy a Tesla and experience FSD today.

Tesla is also conducting robotaxi trials without a human directly behind the wheel in Austin. Although a safety monitor remains in the front passenger seat.

Wayve announced in June that it would begin testing fully autonomous driving in London with Uber in the spring of 2026.

The company was co-founded by Alex Kendall in 2017, when Alphabet was nearly a decade into robotaxi development and around two years after Tesla released Autopilot, a stripped-down version of FSD (Supervised).

Tesla boasts 6 billion miles of real-world driving data collected from its vehicle fleet. Wayve collects data from multiple sources, including its own fleet of test vehicles, OEM data, and simulated driving.

In March, the startup said Wayve’s AV2.0 — first accustomed to the UK’s right-hand driving — was able to adapt to US roads with about 500 hours of “US-specific training data.”

Wayve announced in April a partnership with Nissan to incorporate its assisted driving technology into mass-produced vehicles.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has publicly said that the company is in talks to license FSD to major automakers.

Still, purely from the driving experience, it was hard for me to pinpoint where a passenger might distinguish between FSD and Wayve’s AV2.0 system.

Bill Gates ignited a firestorm this week with the publication of a new climate strategy memo. In the memo’s first page, the Microsoft founder dismissed, in his words, the “doomsday view” that climate change would “decimate civilization” and called for a recalibration of priorities—including more funding for global health and a narrower focus on key technologies that can make a difference on climate. Paired with a move to cut funding for efforts to craft climate policy earlier this year, the memo was perceived as an indication of a dramatic pivot.  

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In the days that followed the memo’s release, scientists cried foul and President Donald Trump cheered. It has come up in virtually every climate conversation I’ve had since then. Gates is unlikely to be upset. When I saw him last week ahead of the release, he almost seemed to relish the idea of creating an outcry. “If you think climate’s not important, you won’t agree with the memo,” he told journalists at a small gathering in New York City. “If you think climate’s the only cause [to address] and apocalyptic, you won’t agree with the memo.”

But much of the attention and outcry misses the point. In the memo, Gates tries to take a “pragmatic” view, as he said at the gathering. He cites the difficult fiscal environment as governments cut foreign aid to explain the need to shift some money to urgent global health challenges. Acknowledging temperature rise projections, he calls for an increased focus on adapting to the effects of climate change. And he calls for judicious spending on the right technologies (think: advanced nuclear power or cleaner manufacturing) that can become economic and bring down emissions. Whatever you think of Gates’s tone, it’s hard to argue against any of those three points. 

The truth of the moment is that climate efforts are under stress. There are plenty of things to take issue with in the Gates memo, and I’ll dig into that, but it’s at precisely this moment that folks working to address climate change need to widen the aperture of how we understand and talk about the issue. The more we consider various approaches to tackling climate change, the better off we will be.  

Gates opened the meeting with journalists last week crunching numbers. Gavi, a global vaccine effort, can save a life for about $1,000, he said. This year’s replenishment drive fell short of its target, as countries cut their foreign aid budgets. “This is the first year that more kids will die than died the year before,” he said with a noted change in tone. And, to his mind, it’s best to prioritize investing in saving lives today over future-oriented climate efforts. As he put it: “If you said to me, ‘Hey, what about 0.1 degrees versus malaria eradication?’ I’ll let the temperature go up 0.1 degrees to get rid of malaria. People don’t understand the suffering that exists today.”

Those efforts need not be mutually exclusive. But Gates, who has devoted much of his energy post-Microsoft to public health, argues that the causes do compete for dollars in national budgets, even if it shouldn’t be that way. “The cause of actually trying to convince rich countries they should be more generous is a pretty lonely cause,” he says. “It’s a huge thing that I spend time on, but as of this period in time we’re fighting a bit of a losing battle.” 

For as long as I can remember, climate advocates have insisted that addressing climate change needs to be framed around helping people. Indeed, the human implications of climate change have been a key focus of my work. Yet, in many places around the world facing some of the worst extreme weather events, climate change doesn’t even register as an issue because of more immediate concerns affecting their wellbeing. Addressing diseases that are killing people here and now—as Gates is suggesting–creates fertile ground to engage on climate. 

Pushing adaptation to the center of the climate conversation, another point Gates calls for, is also a worthwhile effort. For decades, climate advocates have avoided focusing too much on adaptation in fear that it would distract from necessary emissions reductions by creating the illusion of an easier path than changing corporate or consumer behavior. It’s an understandable concern, but in 2025 with unprecedented extreme weather events, climate change has arrived, and the reality is that many communities and countries will need to focus on adaptation. This isn’t a distant worry. Infrastructure built today will last for decades; adaptation is essential. 

Gates goes further. Countries should be encouraged to grow their economies even if that means a reliance on gas. Economic growth is adaptation, he argues. 

And then there’s the treatment of innovation and investment in climate technology. Innovation can get a bad rap when it’s used as an excuse to avoid taking action today. But, as the memo points out, innovation has accelerated the deployment of clean energy, to the point where economics are driving decarbonization today as much as policy pressure. Gates outlines a handful of key areas where investment can help bring down costs—from sustainable aviation fuel to steel production—and suggests focusing investment in those areas.

All that said, beyond the opening framing, there are points to take issue with in the Gates note. He does not address the possibilities of tipping points, including the destruction of coral reefs, which scientists say occurred this year. The effects of climate change are not linear, and at a certain, currently unknown threshold we risk doing damage that is both irreversible and impossible to comprehend. 

Moreover, he dismisses the cost of climate change in rich countries, noting some of the academic research that shows how parts of the U.S. economy could grow in warmer climates. Wealthy countries, he says, can simply absorb many of the adaptation costs. “If you’re a rich country, the cost of adaptation is just one of many, many things that are not a gigantic, huge percentage of GDP,” he said. 

These statements have a flavor of truth to them, but Gates doesn’t really consider the second-order effects of climate change. New costs can create social and political ripple effects if consumers are left to pay them. Just look at how inflation has reshaped politics in the U.S. And, for better or worse, no country, city, or state is an island. Climate disaster creates migration, social fragility, and, simply put, a sense of loss. It also contributes to the spread of some infectious diseases. Indeed, the economic literature has struggled to capture these factors.   

If the Gates memo was intended to offer a comprehensive path forward on climate, it would have been well served to address these sociopolitical challenges and tail-end risks. Gates is well-versed and thoughtful, but his solutions focus on the technical while at times viewing the political context through a narrow lens. For as long as I’ve written about climate change, acquaintances have asked me how worried they should be about climate change. My typical response: it’s not likely to end civilization, but when was that ever the bar to be concerned about an issue? Indeed, rather than ending civilization, climate change will play a role reshaping it—and because of that we should all be concerned.    

• GlobalData said Houlihan Lokey is the top M&A advisor by volume so far this year.
• The LA-based investment bank hired senior dealmakers and expanded its ranks as rivals held back.
• CEO Scott Adelson says “the flywheel is catching,” explaining how the bank is positioning itself.

Scott Adelson didn’t expect to be sitting in this seat right now.

“I’m probably an accidental investment banker,” the CEO of Houlihan Lokey — which has become one of Wall Street’s busiest investment banks by deal volume — said in an interview with Business Insider in September.

After earning an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Adelson started a small business and expected to spend his career building companies, not advising them. But when he joined a roughly 30-person valuation shop in Los Angeles in 1987, he thought he was making just a brief stop in the world of high finance.

Four decades later, and he’s still there — and now sits at the helm of the bank, having been named to the chief executive role last year, and previously serving as copresident and global cohead of corporate finance.

Houlihan has come a long way from its roots as the restructuring and bankruptcy expert clients thought of when a liquidity panic was afoot. This year, Houlihan worked with financial sponsor clients like Carlyle and advised the hair care brand Color Wow on its sale to L’Oréal — part of the 240 transactions it handled through the third quarter, according to GlobalData league tables reviewed by Business Insider.

To be sure, other bulge-bracket banks handle larger corporate mergers or take-privates and have surpassed Houlihan in the transaction value they work on; however, in the middle-market arena — deals generally valued at around $1 billion and under — the firm has drawn significant deal flow.

During its most recent earnings disclosure this week — the bank’s second quarter of the 2026 fiscal year — Houlihan announced that it generated revenues of $659 million, 15% higher than the same quarter last year. Corporate finance revenues of nearly $439 million were about 17% higher than the same period last year; while financial and valuation advisory brought in $87 million, up almost 10%.

“Capital markets are wide open and capital is plentiful,” Adelson said, according to an earnings call transcript. “All this has increased overall confidence in the dealmaking appetite.”

Adelson has been predicting the rebound for months. After a sluggish few years, dealmaking finally appears to have returned in 2025 thanks to a steadier rate environment, lighter regulation, and a wave of optimism about AI and technology. Adelson says the firm’s ready, pointing to a strategy that’s expanded its ranks while others have retreated from hiring and deepened its sector-specific coverage.

“The flywheel is catching,” he told Business Insider, “and we’re ready for it.”

Hiring through the cycle

While many large banks have remained cautious about growing staffing levels in recent months, unsure how technology or other efficiency pushes will impact their compensation budgets, Houlihan has taken the opposite approach.

Since early September, it’s added six managing directors from companies like UBS and Capital One. They’ve joined Houlihan teams in the US and Europe, broadening the bank’s reach in healthcare finance, mortgage technology, IT services, private equity coverage, and capital solutions.

Adelson said one growth area of continued investment is the firm’s capital solutions group, which advises clients on financings and balance-sheet strategies. As of mid-2025, the firm’s overall head count was nearly 2,700 people, of which nearly 350 were managing directors.

Expanding the playing field

The hiring spree supports a broader effort to deepen Houlihan’s industry coverage. “To be able to hire through the cycles, to never really have any layoffs in an industry that has historically been known for expanding and contracting like an accordion,” Adelson said, has brought “tremendous” stability to the team.

Now, the firm has about 200 dedicated industry sectors, he said; each is led by senior bankers who are specialists in different fields. That’s more than double its coverage from a decade ago.

Within corporate finance, the capital solutions group operates as one of two engines alongside M&A. It helps companies and investors raise private capital, refinance debt, or manage their balance sheets and has handled more than 100 transactions this year, according to the company.

Targeted acquisitions

Another part of Houlihan’s expansion strategy has come through small, targeted acquisitions of boutique investment banks. Since 2020, it has acquired eight individual firms.

In 2024, the firm bought Waller Helms Advisors, a Chicago-based boutique focused on insurance and wealth management. The deal added 50 people to the financial services group, including 13 managing directors, according to the company’s announcement. Later that year, it acquired Prytania Solutions, a London firm that builds analytics software used in portfolio valuation and fund-advisory work — an example of how Houlihan is trying to integrate technology within its core business.

Adelson said the firm’s approach to M&A prioritizes cultural synergy. “We’ve walked away from deals that made tremendous economic sense,” he said, because they weren’t a fit culturally. And he still considers his entrée into banking an accident.

“I joined a really small firm and realized that I liked being the dumbest person in the room rather than the smartest,” he said, recalling Houlihan’s early days. Now, he tends to see himself as more of a builder than a banker — a mindset which he’s bringing to the firm’s next chapter.

“I am very much a ‘looking-forward’ person — what’s next, what’s the plan?” he said. “We’re nowhere near what we’re capable of achieving.”