Day: November 11, 2025

• Asahi Pompey said it’s not always wise to seek mentorship from the most senior person.
• The Goldman partner advised looking for someone who has the time to actually know you and your work.
• In Goldman’s annual intern survey, 84% of respondents said they expect workplace mentorship.

When it comes to mentorship, it’s not always wise to aim high.

Asahi Pompey, Goldman Sachs’ global head of the Office of Corporate Engagement and chair of the Urban Investment Group, said that young people often have the wrong priorities when looking for a workplace mentor.

“One mistake I think people make is that they tend to want the most senior sponsor and mentor. That’s not so great if that person doesn’t know you well, doesn’t know your work, and can’t really speak to it,” she told Business Insider.

People often fall into a “trap” where they seek out mentorship in the biggest name or moneymaker, even though that person might not be able to devote enough time to the relationship, she said.

“You need somebody who’s going to bang the table on your behalf, and that’s going to be someone who really knows the substance of your work and the value that you’re delivering,” Pompey said.

In Goldman’s annual intern survey this year, 84% of respondents said they expected to be paired with a mentor at a new job. The potential mentorship options have recently changed, since the firm shook up its leadership ranks last week by promoting 608 employees to managing director. Of the new MDs, 70% came from revenue-generating divisions and 27% were women.

Pompey — who has been at Goldman for nearly 20 years and a partner since 2018 — advised the new MDs to pinpoint the people they want to mentor. She’s also told Business Insider that she consistently worries about the people on her team, and especially about whether she’s doing all she can to “amplify their talents.”

Some of Business Insider’s 2025 rising stars of Wall Street advised college students to harness the power of networking early on in their careers. Others said it’s important to avoid chasing titles or jobs simply because they sound impressive, and instead be guided by genuine interest.

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• After quitting a $250K HR job, Jesse Tervooren is coming up on a year of unemployment.
• Time away from work helped her become a more present mother and rethink her relationship with money.
• She is now seeking a job that aligns with her values and promotes a healthy work-life balance.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jesse Tervooren, a 39-year-old former HR executive based in Vancouver, Washington. It’s been edited for length and clarity.

When I quit my $250,000 corporate HR job last year, I thought finding another job would be no big deal. I was out of touch with the reality of the job market.

I hadn’t applied to a job in a traditional way in over a decade because I’d always been recruited. Now that it’s rounding up on a year of unemployment, I wish I could go back and shake myself.

At the same time, my time away from work has finally allowed me to be a present mother and confront my strained relationship with money. I’m absolutely ready to go back to work, but I plan to make a few changes.

I knew it was time to leave when my values no longer aligned with the company’s

I identified early on in my career that I was good at work, and I let productivity and achievement become my identity. There were many times, throughout my decadelong career in HR, when I tried to take a step back and be less intense, but I think I had an addiction to the dopamine that came from stress.

When my daughter was born, my husband became her main caregiver, and I became the sole provider for our family. In 2023, I was promoted to director of people experience at a dental company. I loved the diversity of my job’s responsibilities, the salary, and my team, so I stayed for months.

The straw that broke the camel’s back came when I was in direct opposition with my boss about something that made me realize I wasn’t the right person for the job. I made a commitment to myself that I would never stay in a role where I was compromising my values.

I didn’t wake up that day thinking I was going to quit, but something about that day made me feel like I couldn’t take it anymore.

After I quit, I took a break that backfired, but I don’t have any regrets

I had a little too much hubris, thinking it would be easy to find my next role, so I didn’t start applying to jobs until January of this year. I was very out of touch with reality.

As a healthcare recruiter, I saw an almost constant shortage of workers, so I thought it would be the same for the HR industry. From January to April, I applied for jobs, wrote personal cover letters, reached out to past coworkers, sent LinkedIn messages, and did everything I could to secure a new role, but it felt like all my applications went into the abyss. It was very humbling.

I don’t have any regrets and feel that everything worked out as it should, but I wish I had looked at the job market in my field and started applying sooner.

Quitting made me realize I hadn’t been a present mother

I used to think I was the most present mother I could be. I’d stop working at five and put on a smile to play with my daughter, but I was still mentally going through everything I had done that day. I was available, but I wasn’t present.

Since quitting my job, I’m finally able to give my 6-year-old daughter what she needs: me fully immersed in her world, playing, being silly, and not just physically being next to her. Kids are intuitive, and I feel like she’s noticed the difference.

I’ve learned to stop using money to deal with stress

When I was earning a $250,000 salary, I’d cope with a stressful day by ordering something from Amazon, buying myself a little treat, or doing a Target run. I’d justify it by saying, “It’s just a sweater from Target, it’s not a designer purse.”

I didn’t realize that I was using money to distract myself from stress. Now that I don’t have access to disposable funds, I’ve had to find other ways to deal with stress.

I’ve gotten into coloring, painting, and even doing my own nail art. I’m not overly artistic or talented in any of these things, but they’re cathartic and allow me the satisfaction of seeing something through to completion without pressure.

I’ve also built a community of friends over this time. I go walking some mornings with a neighbor who has kids in the same school as mine. It’s good for physical health, mental health, and connection. My time away helped me realize I’m so much more than how productive I am in a day and how much I can contribute to a company.

I’m ready to work again, but I have boundaries

Although it’s nice and relaxing to stay home and color, I miss working. I miss feeling productive, like I’ve accomplished something that is tangible and in the service of others. I also miss the daily social connection that I had at work.

I’m ready to work again and need to work again to provide for my family, but I guess I’ve become disenchanted with corporate America.

I don’t want to go back to an office, from 9-to-5, or have to send my daughter to day care instead of spending time with her. I’m not even seeking balance — just a job that won’t systematically conflict with motherhood, mental health, and life. I may be idealistic, but I’m no longer willing to sell my soul for work.

Do you have to story to share about how you’ve navigated long-term unemployment? If so, please reach out to this reporter at tmartinelli@businessinsider.com.

• Microsoft recently formed a new superintelligence team under Mustafa Suleyman.
• A renegotiated OpenAI deal lets Microsoft independently pursue artificial general intelligence.
• The team will build a “world-class, frontier-grade research capability in-house,” Suleyman tells BI.

In the race to build powerful artificial intelligence, Microsoft has had its hands tied behind it back for years. Now, the software giant is free to compete, according to top executive Mustafa Suleyman.

Suleyman recently unveiled a superintelligence team at Microsoft and he spoke with Business Insider about how this came about and the company’s future plans.

What’s clear from the interview is that Microsoft will aggressively pursue artificial general intelligence, technology capable of outperforming humans in a wide variety of tasks.

While Suleyman has rejected narratives about a race to AGI, the new unit puts the tech giant in more direct competition with its partner OpenAI and other companies, including Anthropic, Google, and Meta.

The superintelligence team will focus on building a “world-class, frontier-grade research capability in-house,” Mustafa, Microsoft’s AI CEO, told Business Insider in a recent interview.

“Microsoft needs to be self-sufficient in AI,” he said. “And to do that, we have to train frontier models of all scales with our own data and compute at the state-of-the-art level.”

This is a major departure from Microsoft’s approach in recent years. The company mostly focused on building smaller models, post-training existing models for new purposes, and channeling resources toward OpenAI instead of trying to build in-house frontier models that would compete with the startup’s GPT offerings.

Previous limitations

A big reason for this narrower strategy was Microsoft’s previous agreement with OpenAI. That deal barred Microsoft from developing its own AGI through 2030, according to a person familiar with the matter. This reflected OpenAI’s desire to maintain control over frontier AI development while relying on Microsoft for cloud infrastructure and capital investment.

The two companies recently renegotiated this partnership. The new deal lets Microsoft “independently pursue AGI (artificial general intelligence) alone or in partnership with third parties.”

Loftier goals

That’s freed Microsoft to pursue loftier goals. The new team, called Microsoft AI Superintelligence, has big ambitions for what AI will one day be able to achieve.

Potential future applications include healthcare, energy, transportation systems, and reducing the “cost of living for billions of people over the next 10 years,” Suleyman said.

The team’s remit will be to focus on solving fundamental problems that present barriers to the creation of those applications, Suleyman said. Two examples he cited: How to transfer learning so AI models can teach other models new knowledge, and continual learning to add knowledge to existing neural networks.

Suleyman said Microsoft is making major investments in compute through partnerships with Nvidia, as well as expanding its own chip development and AI-optimized cloud infrastructure that allows training and inference capacity to be shared more efficiently.

Keeping an open mind

Suleyman recently said in an internal meeting reviewed by Business Insider that Microsoft plans to make “significant” investments in its own AI chip cluster to help the company build its own models. These custom chips are part of Microsoft’s broader push to reduce reliance on third-party hardware and improve performance across Azure’s AI services.

“It’s the number one priority for us to make sure this is the most performant infrastructure in the world,” Suleyman said during that meeting.

In his interview with Business Insider, Suleyman said Microsoft will keep an open mind about what models it uses, including open-source offerings, Anthropic models, OpenAI models — and Microsoft’s own creations, known as MAI models.

“There’s no reason for us to be religious about that,” Suleyman said. “Obviously, we’re very focused on getting our products working.”

The adult in the room

As Microsoft enters a crowded field of companies with their own superintelligence teams, including Meta, Google, Anthropic, and Elon Musk’s xAI. Microsoft is trying to position itself as the adult in the room, emphasizing responsibility and safety.

“This isn’t about some directionless technological goal, an empty challenge, a mountain for its own sake,” Suleyman wrote in a blog announcing the new team.

In the interview with Business Insider, Suleyman declined to elaborate on which competitors he sees as directionless, but said he believes everyone will get behind developing AI that’s aligned to human interests.

“That should be something we all take for granted, but it actually needs to be stated and repeated, and it needs to be the No. 1 most important thing that humanity focuses on,” Suleyman said. “There’s a risk with these systems that they get extremely smart and run away from us, and we have to design them so that they don’t do that. That requires a humanist intent, which keeps humans at the top of the food chain.”

The team is making significant investments in safety. Suleyman recently added Trevor Callaghan, a former general counsel from DeepMind and legal director at Google, to his leadership team as vice president of responsible AI, according to an organizational chart recently viewed by Business Insider.

The new team comes at a pivotal moment for Microsoft, Suleyman said.

“We’ve got a huge mission ahead of us,” Suleyman said. “We have $300 billion of revenues, a huge responsibility to make sure that all of our products are AI-first, that we deploy agents everywhere, and we really make all the workflows that customers use today much more intelligent.”

“We have the data, we also have the distribution, and we have the user interface,” he added. “So I think it’s just a matter of time before these things become really, really magical.”

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• DoorDash was the fastest-growing brand of 2025, according to a Morning Consult survey.
• Baby boomers have turned to the brand this year, the survey showed.
• Demand for food and grocery delivery has remained steady even as consumers cut spending elsewhere.

DoorDash appears to be getting a boost from an unlikely group: baby boomers.

The delivery service topped Morning Consult’s list of the fastest-growing brands of 2025, according to a report released on Tuesday. The polling firm asked consumers which brands they planned to purchase from and created a measure called “purchasing consideration.”

Comparing data from the first quarter with the third quarter, Morning Consult found that consumers were planning to use DoorDash more than any other brand.

Don’t give the credit to millennials or Gen Z diners ordering burritos, though: boomers demonstrated the biggest increase in intent to place an order through DoorDash, according to Consult’s survey.

Young boomers, or those born between 1955 and 1964, were particularly interested in DoorDash, as were those who have been divorced or widowed, according to Morning Consult’s analysis.

While these boomers are in their sixties or entering their seventies, many are likely turning to DoorDash for convenience, Bobby Blanchard, senior director of audience development at Morning Consult, told Business Insider.

“This is an aging population,” Blanchard said. Whether they’re facing mobility challenges or don’t feel like shouldering the burden of cooking while living alone, a service like DoorDash “might help them maintain that sense of independence,” he said.

While DoorDash is well-known among younger diners, many older ones might be ordering from the company for the first time, Blanchard said. “Relative to boomers, they are a new brand,” he said.

Boomers are also more likely than younger generations to have more disposable income — and, thus, to be able to afford to order more dinners and grocery hauls for delivery, said Kayla Bruun, lead economist at Morning Consult.

“Being recognized as one of the fastest-growing brands is a reflection of the trust our customers place in us and the dedication of our teams who make that possible every day,” Jennifer Richardi, head of brand and creative at DoorDash, told Business Insider in a statement.

Younger adults are more likely to say that they’re cutting back on using DoorDash, Bruun said. Many Gen Z consumers, for instance, are strapped for cash and trying to find a job, as many entry-level positions are drying up. They’re cutting spending at Chipotle, Cava, and similar restaurants.

“Younger adults don’t have a lot of savings, don’t have a lot of investments, and they are also facing a tougher labor market,” she said.

Retailers have spent the last few quarters pointing to a divide between two types of consumers: shoppers who are cutting back and looking for deals, and those who keep spending, including on higher-end products.

Many shoppers are still willing to pay for delivery, though. DoorDash’s revenue increased by 24% during the first nine months of 2025, and its stock has risen by 20% so far this year. And demand for delivery is strong enough that retailers, from Walmart to Amazon to Dollar General, are speeding up delivery times for grocery orders.

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