The Trump administration has agreed to resume student loan forgiveness for an estimated 2.5 million borrowers who are enrolled in certain federal repayment plans following a lawsuit from the American Federation of Teachers.Under the agreement reached Friday between the teachers union and the administration, the Education Department will process loan forgiveness for those eligible in certain repayment plans that offer lower monthly payments based on a borrower’s earnings. The government had stopped providing forgiveness under those plans based on its interpretation of a different court decision.The agreement will also protect borrowers from being hit with high tax bills on debt due to be forgiven this year.“We took on the Trump administration when it refused to follow the law and denied borrowers the relief they were owed,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. “Our agreement means that those borrowers stuck in limbo can either get immediate relief or finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.”The Education Department said the Trump administration is reviewing forgiveness programs to identify ones that were not affected by court rulings that blocked much of the Biden administration’s efforts to cancel student debt.“The Administration looks forward to continuing its work to simplify the student loan repayment process through implementation of the President’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” the department said in a statement.
Several forgiveness programs are included
According to the deal, the Trump administration must cancel student debt for eligible borrowers enrolled in the following plans: income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, income-contingent repayment plans, Pay As You Earn (PAYE), and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) plans.If borrowers have made payments beyond what was needed for forgiveness, those payments will be reimbursed. The Education Department must also continue to process IDR and PSLF “buyback” applications. Balances forgiven before Dec. 31 will not be treated as taxable income, as they will in 2026 due to a recent change in tax law.The administration must also file progress reports every six months with the court to show the pace of application processing and loan forgiveness, according to the AFT.
How many borrowers are waiting for forgiveness?
An estimated 2.5 million borrowers in IDR plans will be affected by the agreement, and another 70,000 are waiting for forgiveness through the PSLF program.Even with the agreement in place, mass layoffs at the Education Department could factor into processing times for forgiveness, said Megan Walter, senior policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.If borrowers continue to make payments while their application is pending forgiveness, that will be refunded to them if they are successful, Walter said. “But keep really good records,” she said.
What are the PSLF and buyback forgiveness programs?
Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which has been in place since 2007, forgives federal student loans for borrowers who have worked at non-profit organizations or in public service after 120 payments, or 10 years. The Biden administration also created an option for borrowers to “buy back” months of payments they missed during forbearance or deferment in 2023, to allow more people to qualify for that forgiveness.To determine if you qualify for a buy-back under the PSLF program, consult this page at the Education Department.
The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.
Cora Lewis, Associated Press
With federal SNAP food assistance set to run dry this weekend amid the protracted U.S. government shutdown, Louisiana, New Mexico and Vermont became the latest states Wednesday to announce help for low-income households that rely on the funds to eat.They join states from New York to Nevada in scrambling to find ways to get food to people who are increasingly anxious and will otherwise go hungry without their normal monthly payments from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Several states take action Wednesday
In Louisiana, where nearly one in five residents receive SNAP benefits, lawmakers authorized $150 million in state funding Wednesday to help avoid Saturday’s expected interruption. Republican Gov. Jeff Landry backed a bipartisan measure to allow most of the state’s nearly 800,000 SNAP recipients to receive their full monthly benefit amount.“Our priorities are specific, we’re going to protect the most vulnerable population in Louisiana which is our kids, disabled and elderly,” Landry said.But officials said that while program details are still incomplete, the effort will likely exclude “able bodied” adults who aren’t caring for children or don’t share a household with elderly or disabled members about 53,000 recipients.Elsewhere, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Wednesday that her state will provide $30 million in emergency food assistance to residents through EBT cards, backfilling SNAP benefits temporarily. The Democrat leads a state where 21% of the population relies on SNAP the highest rate in the nation. Officials said the benefit would cover about 30% of what residents usually see at the start of the month.New Mexico held a two-day special legislative session at the outset of the shutdown to shore up food banks and pantries with $8 million in new funding, along with $17.5 million in SNAP-related costs to offset cuts under President Donald Trump’s spending and tax cut bill.The emergency funding is expected to last about 10 days, while Democratic state House Speaker Javier Martínez said the Legislature is positioned to approve more if necessary because “children going without basic food staples is an emergency.”Lujan Grisham said state officials are aware that 10 days isn’t enough but they are prepared to deal with the issue for as long as they can.“We’re not going to let food insecurity creep into this state,” she said.In Vermont, Republican Gov. Phil Scott and Democratic legislative leaders approved using $6.3 million in state funds to cover 15 days of SNAP benefits and provide $250,000 to food banks. The Legislature had previously put $50 million aside for such emergencies.
Different strokes for different states
So far, state responses have been mixed. Some, like Rhode Island, say they will funnel reserve federal welfare funds directly onto the debit cards issued to people who buy groceries with SNAP. States including Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, West Virginia plan to boost funds to food pantries to help cover for low-income families needing food. Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Republican Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo are both seeking to direct $30 million in state funds to cover food assistance.Other states such as Alabama, Texas, Kansas and Florida have not acted.In Nebraska, the state Department of Health and Human Services issued a statement Tuesday announcing it would pause SNAP benefits the next day. It said it is “actively coordinating with food banks, nonprofit partners, and community organizations,” and listed area food banks for those seeking help.Leaving people to fend for themselves will mean the most vulnerable like children and the elderly will go hungry, said Tashara Leak, a registered dietitian and nutritional researcher and professor at Cornell University. She also serves on New York State Council on Hunger and Food Policy that routinely meets with New York’s governor.“The panic is already starting,” Leak said, adding families with limited resources are “already rationing food in preparation to not receive benefits on Nov. 1.”
States can’t do what the federal government can
Despite the best efforts of states, local governments and food charities, it won’t be enough to cover what the federal government does under SNAP. Even states with fat budget surpluses couldn’t cover the SNAP tab much beyond November. That tab nationwide totaled about $100 billion in 2024.“There’s no way for the states to be able to fill in the gap for the month of November, especially with such short notice,” Leak said.Democrats have called on the Trump administration to release contingency funding to ensure uninterrupted SNAP payments, but it has declined to do so.Recently, a group of Democratic state officials filed suit, asking a judge to require the Trump administration to keep funding SNAP benefits. They say that the government is required to use one contingency fund, which has around $5 billion, for that purpose and that another larger reserve fund of about $23 billion is also available. A hearing is set for Thursday in federal court in Boston.Delays in benefits are nearly certain for most beneficiaries whose debit cards are replenished early in the month even in states that are planning to pay for benefits or if a judge orders the federal government to load the cards immediately.The legal filing asserted that in California, for instance, there will be a one-day delay in benefits available for every day after Oct. 23 that the process of putting money on cards hasn’t begun. That means that if a judge orders the program to continue on Thursday, the first cards would likely not be ready until around Nov. 10.Christopher Bosso, a Northeastern University professor of public policy and political science who has published a book about SNAP, said even a delay would be deeply felt. Beneficiaries often stock up on groceries at the start of the month, and stores often hold sales then that encourage shoppers to do so.“We’re about to find out how much this program matters, in ways that people hadn’t realized,” Bosso said.
AP writers Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.
Margery A. Beck and Geoff Mulvihill, Associated Press
Recently, Figma CEO Dylan Field assembled employees from throughout the company for a demo of a new-ish tool for generating, refining, and editing synthetic images and videos. Rather than being built around one-off prompts, it allowed users to create visual workflows for comparing and manipulating options created by different AI models. It also facilitated putting imagery through multiple rounds of polishing and remixing, adding a large dose of human taste and quality control to the process.
According to Field, they were mesmerized by what they saw. We had it scheduled for 20 minutes, he remembers. And 20 minutes came, and everyone’s like, ‘No, no, please keep going. We’ll cancel the next sessionthis is the most magical thing.’ We went for an hour.
The tool that wowed the Figmates, as Figma employees call themselves, was the creation of an Israeli startup. Both were known as Weavybut not for long. Figma had already agreed to acquire the company. Slightly rebranded as Figma Weave, its product will join Figmas growing portfolio of web-based apps for designing interfaces, whiteboarding ideas, creating presentations, AI-assisted coding, and more.
[Image: Weavy]
Figma isnt disclosing the terms of the acquisition, its first since its July IPO. It will result in around a dozen Weavy staffers joining the company, including cofounders Lior Albeck, Jonathan Alumot, Jonathan Gur-Zeev, and Itay Schiff. Describing its vision as artistic intelligence, the startup was founded in 2024 and announced a $4 million seed funding last June. In its short existence, it had lined up an impressive customer list, including Google, Nvidia, Toyota, Dyson, Panasonic, and HP.
Its products interface provides a canvas for connecting building blocks called nodes to create a flowchart-like system of inputs and outputs. One example project starts by feeding a prompt into several still-image generators, then sends the nicest one on to serve as source material for several video generators. Another deconstructs an image into editable layers, allowing for the sort of masking and tweaking that was once solely the province of a product such as Photoshop. A third starts with an actual beauty shot of a dessert taken in a studio, then generates purely synthetic images of other foodstuffs that retain its look and feel. Workflows can accept user input that affects their operation, turning them into mini-apps with ongoing value.
[Photo: Weavy]
Many tools have long helped users perform programming-like feats via workflow builders with some conceptual similarities to Weave, if not its emphasis on AI and imagery. One you might be familiar with is Apples Shortcuts. Field himself remembers using another called LabVIEW in middle school. But the unusual degree of buzz around Weavys implementation of the idea attracted his attention.
I started to hear about it from people who are connoisseurs of product and have good taste, he says. It spiked as something to check out.
Meeting with the startups founders, Field bonded over their approach to balancing power and approachability, which struck him as Figma-esque. As he explains it, My job to get right every day, from a product standpoint, is, how do you balance the power of a tool with approachability and simplicity? It’s a constant battle. I just felt like the way that they were thinking about that aspect was extraordinary.
[Photo: Figma]
Field was also attracted by the fact that their product didnt spit out AI images and videos allegedly ready for use. Instead, it was about making it easier for human creators to slice, dice, and otherwise rework them before they ever appeared anywhere.
Its easy to consider AI outputs as the final destination, but that’s not the way you should think about it, he says. Theyre just this new creative starting point. You can use them like clay, and you can figure out how to transform them. And I think [Figma Weave] does a really good job of showing how it’s possible.
Field says that Figma is working on integrating Weave with its broader ecosystemboth aking it possible to bring Figma designs into Weave and adding elements of Weave to other products. Its also planning to speed further development through additional hires. Maybe most of all, hes mindful of the delicate work involved in not screwing up what Weavy created on its own.
They’ve got the trust of their community, he told me. I think it’s very important for Figma to show that we’ll be a good steward of the team, of this platformand that we’re doing everything we can to help them build.
The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point Wednesday for the second time since September. Before that, it had gone nine months without a cut.The federal funds rate is the rate at which banks borrow and lend to one another. While the rates consumers pay to borrow money aren’t directly linked to this rate, shifts affect what you pay for credit cards, auto loans, mortgages, and other financial products.“While the full economic impact of such a move will unfold over time, early indicators suggest that even modest rate cuts can have meaningful consequences for consumer behavior and financial health,” said Michele Raneri, vice president and head of U.S. research at credit reporting agency TransUnion.The Fed has two goals when it sets the rate: one, to manage prices for goods and services, and two, to encourage full employment. Typically, the Fed might increase the rate to try to bring down inflation and decrease it to encourage faster economic growth and increase hiring. The challenge now is that inflation is higher than the Fed’s 2% target but the job market has been weak. The government shutdown has also prevented the collection and release of data the Fed relies on to monitor the health of the economy.Still, the Fed has projected it will cut rates once more before the end of the year.Here’s what to know:
Interest on savings accounts won’t be as appealing
For savers, falling interest rates will slowly erode attractive yields currently on offer with certificates of deposit (CDs) and high-yield savings accounts.Three of the top five high yield savings accounts had rate cuts after the last Fed rate cut in September, according to Ken Tumin, founder of DepositAccounts.com, while two of the big five banks (Ally and Discover/Capital One) cut their savings account rates. The top rates for high yield savings account right now remain around 4.46% to 4.6%.Those are still better than the trends of recent years, and a good option for consumers who want to earn a return on money they may want to access in the near-term. A high yield savings account generally has a much higher annual percentage yield than a traditional savings account. The national average for traditional savings accounts is currently 0.63%, according to Bankrate.There may be a few accounts with returns of about 4% through the end of 2025, according to Tumin, but the Fed cuts will filter down to these offerings, lowering the average yields as they do.
A cut will impact mortgages gradually
For prospective homebuyers, the market has already priced in the rate cut.“Mortgage rates, in particular, have responded swiftly,” said Raneri. “Just in the past week, they fell to their lowest level in over a year. While mortgage rates don’t always move in lockstep with the Fed’s target rate often pricing in anticipated future cuts, the continued easing of monetary policy may well push rates even lower.”Bankrate financial analyst Stephen Kates said a declining interest rate environment will provide some relief for borrowers over time.“Whether it’s a homeowner with a 7% mortgage or a recent graduate hoping to refinance student loans and credit card debt, lower rates can ease the burden on many indebted households by opening opportunities to refinance or consolidate,” he said.
Auto loans are not expected to decline soon
Americans have faced steeper auto loan rates over the last three years after the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate starting in early 2022. Those are not expected to decline anytime soon. While a cut will contribute to eventual relief, it might be slow in arriving, analysts say.“If the auto market starts to freeze up and people aren’t buying cars, then we may see lending margins start to shrink, but auto loan rates don’t move in lockstep with the Fed rate,” Kates said.Prices for new cars remain at historically high levels, not adjusting for inflation.Generally speaking, an auto loan annual percentage rate can run from about 4% to 30%. Bankrate’s most recent weekly survey found that average auto loan interest rates are currently at 7.10% on a 60-month new car loan.
Credit card rate relief could be slow
Interest rates for credit cards are currently at an average of 20.01%, and the Fed’s rate cut may be slow to be felt by anyone carrying a large amount of credit card debt. That said, any reduction is positive news.“While inflation continues to exert pressure on household budgets, rate cuts offer a potential counterbalance by lowering debt servicing costs,” Raneri said.Still, the best thing for anyone carrying a large credit card balance is to prioritize paying down high-interest-rate debt, and to seek to transfer any amounts possible to lower APR cards or negotiate directly with credit card companies for accommodation.
The Associated Press receives support from the Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.
Cora Lewis, Associated Press
Shares of Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) were down about 9% in premarket trading on Thursday. It follows what can only be described as a mixed bag of a quarter-three earnings report on Wednesday, October 30.
On the one hand, Meta announced $51.2 billion in revenue, a 26% increase year-over-year (YOY) from $40.6 billion and a quarterly record for the company. The boost also beat Wall Streets estimate of $49.6 billion, according to consensus estimates cited by Bloomberg.
However, Meta also reported a non-cash income tax charge of $15.93 billion. This one-time charge led to a significant decrease83%in Metas net income YOY. It also meant the companys earnings per share dropped to $1.05 from 2024s $6.03.
While the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads points out that its earnings per share would have been $7.25 without the tax charge, in reality it severely missed Wall Streets predicted $6.70, according to consensus estimates cited by the Guardian.
“Our compute needs have continued to expand”
Meta also increased its estimated total expenses for 2025, from between $114 billion and $118 billion to $116 billion and $118 billion. Similarly, its estimated capital expenditures for the year rose to $70 billion to $72 billion, up from a range of $66 billion to $72 billion.
Why the higher numbers? It all comes down to AI.
In an earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that despite building an aggressive assumption worth of AI infrastructure, the demand keeps increasing in a way that is very likely to be a profitable thing.
He claimed that there are more than a billion people actively using Meta AI on a monthly basis.
As we have begun to plan for next year, it’s become clear that our compute needs have continued to expand meaningfully, including versus our own expectations last quarter, Zuckerberg stated. We are still working through our capacity plans for next year, but we expect to invest aggressively to meet these needs, both by building our own infrastructure and contracting with third-party cloud providers.
Zuckerberg does admit that there could be unnecessary overflow, but he claims that it could be converted into intelligence and better recommendations for Metas family of apps and advertisements.
He further shared that capital expenditures and total expenses will be significantly higher in 2026 than 2025, due to infrastructure and employee compensation costs.
Notably, Meta laid off 600 people from its AI superintelligence research lab just last week.
By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact, Meta chief AI officer Alexandr Wang stated in a memo about the layoffs.
Zuckerberg only announced the new superintelligence lab in June.
Fast-casual restaurant chain Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) is seeing its stock price plummet this morning after reporting third-quarter 2025 earnings and a sales forecast that alarmed investors.
As of the time of this writing, CMG shares are down a staggering 19% to $32.21 in premarket trading. Heres what you need to know about the companys stock price crash.
Whats happened?
On Wednesday, Chipotle reported its Q3 2025 earnings after the bell. Some of what the company revealed has alarmed investors.
But first, here are the companys most critical quarterly metrics:
Total revenue: $3 billion (a 7.5% increase)
Comparable restaurant sales: up 0.3%
Operating margin: 15.9% (down 1% point)
Adjusted diluted earnings per share: $0.29 (up 7.4%)
Stores opened: 84
As noted by CNBC, Chipotles adjusted EPS of 29 cents matched investor expectations, and its $3 billion in revenue came close to the $3.03 billion expected by LSEG analysts.
However, while Chipotle’s main Q3 metrics largely met expectations, the companys forecast led investors to dump the stock in the hours after it reported its latest earnings.
Full-year comparable sales expected to decline
Investors generally arent happy with only their expectations being met. They want unlimited growth into the future, too. A perceived lack of future growth can send investors fleeingand that appears to be what is happening to Chipotles stock in premarket trading.
After reporting its relatively expected Q3 results, Chipotle issued its full fiscal 2025 forecast, revealing that it was cutting its sales outlook.
For the full fiscal year (the company is now in its Q4 2025), Chipotle says it expects full year comparable restaurant sales declines in the low-single digit range.
This is the third time in a row that the restaurant chain has cut its sales forecasts. Back in February, the company had initially said that it expected full-year sales to increase by low-to-mid single digits.
Why the gloomy outlook?
As for the factors affecting its lowered sales forecast, Chiptole CEO Scott Boatwright cited several reasons on the companys investor call.
As consumer sentiment has declined sharply throughout the year, Chipotle stores have seen a broad-based pullback in frequency of customer visits, Boatwright said.
This is especially true for low- to middle-income customers, which Boatwright says include households earning less than $100,000, representing about 40% of Chiptoles total customer base.
Boatwright says this segment of customers is dining out less often due to concerns about the economy and inflation.
However, another segment of Chipotle customers is also having a large negative impact on Chipotles revenue as they cut back on visits, too. This segment comprises younger people aged 25 to 35.
Boatwright says this cohort is facing particular economic challenges, leading them to pull back on discretionary spending. Those challenges include unemployment, increased student loan repayment and slower real wage growth.
We believe that this trend is not unique to Chipotle, Boatwright noted, and is occurring across all restaurants as well as many discretionary categories.
At the same time, Chipotle may rely more heavily on younger diners than other chains. “We tend to skew younger and slightly over-indexed to this group relative to the broader restaurant industry,” Boatwright said.
Forging ahead with new store openings
Despite projecting full-year 2025 sales declines, Chipotle says it will expand its physical store footprint significantly in 2026.
While the opening of new stores increases operational expenses, it could also help the company boost sales by expanding into new markets where no Chipotle stores exist or where the company is underrepresented.
In 2025, Chitpotle said it will open between 315 and 345 locations by the end of the fiscal year. In 2026, the company said it expects to open even more stores.
We anticipate opening between 350 and 370 new restaurants, Boatwright revealed. The CEO noted that these will include 10 to 15 new partner-operated restaurants outside of North America.
Countries where these restaurants are expected to open include South Korea, Singapore, and Mexico, as well as parts of the Middle East. Chiptole also expects to open one or two company-owned stores in Europe.
CMG share price plummets
But investors seem to care little about Chipotles continued expansion and are instead focused on the companys lowered sales forecast.
As of the time of this writing, CMG shares have declined 19% in premarket trading to $32.21 per share. Thats a low that Chipotle’s stock price hasn’t seen since 2023.
As of yesterdays share price close of $39.76, CMG stock had declined more than 33% since the beginning of the year.
At just above $32 per share in premarket trading this morning, Chipotles share price is now nearly half of what it was on the first trading day of 2025.
If youve been eager to try cultivated meatmeat grown from cells, without the need to raise an entire animalyour options, so far, have been limited. The innovation has only appeared on a handful of restaurant menus since its approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
But if youre in the Bay Area, youre in luck: Cultivated meat startup Mission Barns will be selling its pork meatballs (made with a base of pea protein plus the companys cultivated pork fat) at Berkeley Bowl West, one location of an independent grocery store in California.
[Photo: Mission Barns]
It marks the first retail sale of cultivated meat in the United States, though the products are available for just one day only: Saturday, November 1.
That said, those in the area will have more chances to try Mission Barnss cultivated meat products.
Along with the one-day sale, the company is hosting four in-store tastings at Berkeley Bowl, offering samples of its pork meatballs on November 1, January 17, and February 21, plus tastings of its cultivated pork salami on December 12.
[Photo: Mission Barns]
Cultivated meat in restaurants
Cultivated meat (also called cell-cultured meat or lab-grown meat, though some in the industry contest that moniker) is still a nascent field.
Mission Barns first launched in 2018. Others like Upside Foods, which makes cultured chicken, and Wildtype, which develops cultivated fish, have been around just a little longersince 2015 and 2016, respectively.
U.S. regulators approved the first sales of cultivated meat in 2023. And since then, a variety of call-cultured options have made a few brief appearances on restaurant menus. (That move followed Singapores 2020 approval of cultivated meat, and cultured meat has been sold both in restaurants and in retail in Singapore, like in the frozen section of a butchery.)
The Michelin-starred Bar Crenn in San Francisco briefly sold Upsides chicken. Chef José Andrés piloted cultured chicken from Good Meat (owned by Eat Just) at his China Chilcano DC eatery. Otoko, a sushi restaurant in Austin, Texas, offered Wildtype salmon last summer (but stopped selling it after Texas lawmakers enacted a cultivated meat ban).
Mission Barns, too, debuted its cultivated pork meatballs and bacon at a few exclusive dinners at Fiorella in San Francisco this past September. But cultured meat hasnt yet been sold in a grocery store in the United States, until November 1.
Mission Barns CEO Cecilia Chang says the startup picked Berkeley Bowl for this milestone because it has a track record for innovation; its been an early adopter of new plant-based brands. A 12 pack of the cultivated pork meatballs will be on sale for $13.99.
Mission Barns CEO Cecilia Chang [Photo: Mission Barns]
Mission Barns’s focus on fats
Though a handful of statesincluding Texas, Florida, and Alabamahave moved to ban cultivated meat even before its widespread availability, Chang doesnt see cultured meat as controversial.
I think people don’t know that much about it, she says.
The in-store tasting series is a way to build up that consumer awareness and education. Mission Barns is collaborating with researchers from Tufts Universitys Center for Cellular Agriculture, who will observe the tastings to see how people react and talk about such products in a setting outside of a focus group.
Mission Barns hopes to get crucial insights, too.
Though the startup has created a handful of products under its own namelike meatballs, bacon, pepperoni, and salamiit doesnt ultimately aim to be its own brand. Instead, its a B2B company, focused on selling its cultivated fats as ingredients to consumer packaged goods partners.
That focus on fat makes Mission Barns unique in the cultivated space; the startup isnt creating entire cuts of cultured meat like other companies.
Fat is really where a lot of that delicious, meaty, umami flavor comes from, Chang says. And Mission Barns sees these fats as a next generation functional flavoring ingredient that can go into alternative proteins or other savory applications.
[Photo: Mission Barns]
Through the cell cultured process, the company can also tune its process to tweak nutrition details, like lowering the saturated fat and cholesterol or adding in more omega 3s.
That includes plant-based meats like Mission Barnss meatballs and bacon, or possibly soups, sauces, and so on. The products that will be on offer at Berkeley Bowl are like a proof of concept for cultivated fat as an ingredient, and a way to show other CPG companies what Mission Barns can offer.
Working with established food brands also means Mission Barns wont have to focus on building up its own brand, retail partners, and so on.
From our perspective, B2B is a much faster way to scale and grow, Chang says.
The startup already has partnerships in the works, though couldnt name specific companies.
For those who taste its offerings at Berkeley Bowl and want to know how to be customers in the future, “We’ll be telling them to watch the space, Chang says. Well hopefully be launching something in retail with a partner sometime next year.
In April 2025, Lucy Guo became the youngest female self-made billionaire after Meta paid $14.3 billion for a 49% stake in Scale AI, the company she cofounded with Alexandr Wang in 2016.
Though Guo had left the companywhich builds infrastructure and software to create AI applicationsover disagreements with Wang in 2018, she retained her 5% stake in the business, which skyrocketed in value after Meta’s investment.
In 2022 she reemerged with Passes, a platform that helps creators monetize their social media followings by selling access to exclusive offeringsfrom products and merch to pay-by-the-minute private phone calls. As of February, the company has raised a total of $49 million.
Guo tells me that Passes is growingits payments to creators have totaled nine figures so farand profitable. But its expansion has come with some controversy. In 2024, Passes was sued by rival platform Fanfix over alleged anti-competitive practices, and since February it has been facing a class-action lawsuit accusing it of distributing child pornography.
We talked about the lawsuits, as well as what her platform offers creators that they can’t get on Patreon or even OnlyFans. She says the platform’s main differentiator is that her long-term vision for Passes isn’t just engagement, it’s . . .
. . . using AI to grow creators’ earning potential and then managing their wealth.
Why did you found Passes?
I wanted to create a platform where creators could monetize their brand. Creators have such super fans that there’s no customer acquisition cost when it comes to marketing a product, which is unique. The best example was when Kylie [Jenner] made a lot of money through her lipstick brand, and her marketing plan was literally “I’m just going to drop it and people are going to buy it.”
Then we saw these other brands pop up like Logan Pauls Prime, and even Mr. Beasts with Feastables, that makes up most of his net worth. I was actually debating whether to start off with a platform like Passes or build something like a YC Safe( a Simple Agreement for Future Equity document developed by Y Combinator to help early-stage startups raise capital from investors), where creators would be able to get equity into brand deals that they work with.
Why did you consider that option?
It is the way to long-term generational wealth. Equity is more important than upfront cash, and I don’t think Hollywood and managers necessarily understand equity yet. No creators would listen to us if we pushed on equity unless we started making them money. The reason creators listen to their managers is that the manager is their main source of incomeso we needed to become their main source of income.
Over COVID, I noticed a lot of friends were making money from Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee. I thought it was the perfect time for creators to connect with their fans and offer an exclusive, authentic experience, and I wanted create the infrastructure for that.
What differentiates passes from say, a Patreon or an OnlyFans?
Quite a lot. We have paid livestreams, paid one-on-one calls where fans pay per minute. You can sell your own merchandise or you can create merchandise on our website and sell it without having to own inventory. We’re building out new features in the fintech space. We offer health insurance. We want to create these unicorn creators and get into wealth management.
Say a creator is on OnlyFans or Patreon, how do you convince them to switch over to Passes? We don’t compete with OnlyFansthey’re a completely different platform. We don’t allow nudity, so when someone’s on OnlyFans, we tell them that if they switch over to Passes, theyre probably not going to make any money.
There are plenty of non-pornographic content creators on OnlyFans.
Yeah, for sure. But even if they’re doing other stuff, I think their fan base has the hope of getting something else. Because of that, people are willing to spend more on OnlyFans because they just know they’re not going to get anything on Passes. As for Patreon, the pitch is pretty easy. We take less of a percentage from creators earnings, we have more features, so there’s more ways to monetize. We’ve seen creators switch over from Patreon and make 30 times more.
Youve said elsewhere that creators who make a lot of money on Passes often have something like 100,000 followers on social media. The most-followed people in the world dont necessarily have the closest relationships with their fans. Why is that?
Creators that have millions of followers are very busy. They’re focused on shooting movies or flying out for brand deals. Creators that have between 100,000 and a million followers aren’t getting as many opportunities. They’re desperate for a way to monetize their fan base, and they happen to have more superfans because they’re creating more content to gain traction and grow their follower numbers. They’re creating more content, and more content equals more money.
There was a 2024 lawsuit brought on by another creator platform, Fanfix, which alleged that Passes used confidential information to post clients and made misleading claims about creators’ earnings on the platform. That obviously doesn’t match up with what you just said.
I’m used to San Francisco and the tech industry, where you’re competing off of merit and everyone’s just trying to create the best product possible. Hollywood is very litigious and in the Hollywood scene, people are willing to make up lies in order to compete.
You’re also currently being sued in a class action suit over claims that Passes knowingly distributed child sexual materials. How are you responding to that case?
We did our own internal investigation and found that the claims and the case do not match up with evidence that we have found thus far. I think this is just another one of those scenarios where people are trying to shake us down and attempt to get money. That case was dismissed in Florida. [Editor’s Note: The lawsuit was dismissed in Florida, but transferred to California, where it remains active.]
You did make changes to the platform as a result, though. Now people under 18 cant join.
We had the idea that everyone should be able to monetize. When you look at YouTube, a lot of families are monetizing their content. But at the end of the day, it was a handful of creators that generated near 0% of revenue on Passes. So we decided it was very risky and just not worth it.
Youre a high-profile founder. What is it like for you personally when legal challenges come up?
Now I’m immune to it. I was very surprised at first. What IÙve learned in lawsuitsand this blew my mindis that you have to assume everything in the claim is true and try to poke legal holes in that. You can’t just hand over proof that the allegations are wrong and move on. That just makes it so easy for people to sue off others of complete lies. I think the hope when people do that is that the cost of another party defending the lawsuit is greater than just settling. I refuse to settle because I would rather spend more and prove things are not true.
What can you say about the future of Passes?
Wealth management. Creators always ask us, how do I turn passive income into passive equity? Who are the best wealth managers to work with? How do I set myself up for life? This is all stuff we should just be able to do.
We’ve already paid out creators nine figures. Every time we send a payout to their bank account, we have to pay a fee. It just makes sense for us to be a bank because then we can give them high-yield savings accounts.
Do you have any predictions about the creator economy? The creator economy is growing, and we are going to see more creators in the future just because trends follow kids. When you talk to kids nowadays, they all want to be creators. We’re going to be seeing a lot more creators, especially in a range where we monetize well, which is the 100,000-follower range.
What do you think about this emergent class of AI-generated “talent”I’m thinking of figures like the AI actor Tilly Norwoodin the context of Passes and the creator economy? I am not that bullish on AI creators. There have already been a few and everyone thought it was going to be the next big thing, but really we got Lil Miquela and some others. What’s much more likely to happen is that people are going to be licensing their likeness out so they can spend more time creating content and interacting with their fans. For example, if a brand wanted to fly me out, I could just license my likeness out instead of that. I could scale myself better so I have more time to do things that I love. We’re not going to see AI creators replace actual creators because it’s hard to have a human connection with someone that you know is fake.
Do you think you can have a human connection with a licensed image of a creator? I think so. But you can’t dilute your brand too much. At the end of the day, it’s still that creator you have a connection with. You’re following them on Instagram and you love them.
How are you using AI to connect creators with the right brand deals? We have a feature called smart pricing that basically automatically prices pieces of content creators make based off factors like fan history and the type of content it is, to help optimize their earnings. When creators use this, their earnings go up by 3x usually. Hopefully this quarter, we’re rolling out AI agents for creators. We want creators to be able to focus on creating content. These agents do everything from AB test captions to scheduling mass messages and running strategy under pages.
Do you think we’re in an AI bubble?
I don’t think we’re in an AI bubble. Valuations are higher now because you can build companies at a lower cost. I was in San Francisco other week, and there was this company that scaled from zero to $90 million in revenue in four months. They have Cursor AI doing 99% of their code. Because of all these AI tools you now need less money to get to scale. Valuations are predictive. It’s like, okay, we’re going to give you 10x what revenue is because we believe you’re going to be a 100x revenue. And I think a lot of investors are thinking this way. You don’t need to burn as much capital to get there.
Its official: Samsung has found a way to turn fridges into giant, unavoidable ads.
In a move that comes as a shock to pretty much no one, Samsung announced on October 27 that its premium line of Family Hub fridges, which each come with a giant, AI-powered, embedded screen, will start displaying a widget featuring curated ads. By early November, anyone in the U.S. who owns a Family Hub fridge with a 21.5″ or 32″ screen will start seeing the ads, even if they bought the appliance well before the news was announced.
Commenters on Reddit and Tiktok are reacting with outraged shock to the concept of their kitchens becoming the next venue for the performance of late-stage capitalism, and for good reason. But the fact that Samsung has made this move isnt exactly surprising, despite the fact that it explicitly promised not to do so mere months ago.
When we incorporate screens into every mundane aspect of our daily routines, it stands to reason that companies will view those tiny, coveted windows into our everyday lives as an advertising opportunity.
A Samsung Family Hub model fridge in-situ. [Photo: Samsung]
Samsung walks back its promise
Back in April, Samsung told The Verge that it had no plans to incorporate ads into its series of screen-ified fridges, washers, driers, and ovens. By September, though, it had already walked that promise back.
In a statement to Android Authority at the time, Samsung shared, As part of our ongoing efforts to strengthen that value, we are conducting a pilot program to offer promotions and curated advertisements on certain Samsung Family Hub refrigerator models in the U.S. market.
Now, according to Samsungs new announcement, fridge ads will begin appearing in the form of a widget that also cycles through weather, news, and calendar updates.
In a statement to Fast Company, Samsung clarified that users will have the option to turn the widget off entirely via their settings, or dismiss certain ads at will. Still, the feature is rolling out automatically to everyone who already owns the fridge and chooses to update its software, despite the fact that nearly all customers bought these appliances before they knew that such a feature was a real possibility. If this was really a user-centered UX, shouldn’t they get to opt-in to ads, rather than be forced to opt-out?
For now, the ads are only related to Samsung products and services. But Samsung hasnt exactly promised that the ads will stay internal. In an interview with The Verge, Shane Higby, Samsungs head of home appliance business in the U.S., said that future promotions will depend on the feedback and insights gained from the program.
Higby added that the current ads are contextual or non-personal and that the fridges are not collecting personal information or tracking consumers. (In other words, your fridge isnt keeping track of how many carrots you have left in order to sell you more carrots.) Still, users have reason to feel a bit wary about that possibility, given that major companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon have all faced recent lawsuits alleging that their home devices were eavesdropping on users.
Samsung told Fast Company that the ad program is part of an effort to “strengthen the value” of its home appliances for customers, but it’s unclear exactly what value customers get out of this supposed exchange.
The writing was always on the wall
Online, reactions to the Samsung Family Hub fridge ad feature are overwhelmingly poking fun at the dystopian idea of an appliance thats trying to sell you something. One TikTok video from September with more than half a million likes shows a man trying to open a locked fridge with the caption, POV: its 2025 and you forgot to pay your Samsung fridge subscription fee so now you have to watch 67 unskippable ads to retrieve a glass of choccy milk.
On the subreddit r/technology, most users are in agreement that, if a fridge is going to try to sell ads, it should cost significantly less than a normal fridge, not more. I am definitely paying 5x for a fridge that solicits me! one user joked. Can it also target specific ads to all my family members? or maybe that is the $6000 fridge that I need? Can I get an add-on option where it also keeps food cold? Another added, Fridge should be $100 (delivered!) then if they expect me to put up with that crap.
These reactions are certainly a fair response to Samsung trying to sell you a microwave while youre just trying to grab a snack. But the writing was probably always on the wall for a company that started replacing physical buttons on almost all of its appliances with smart screensand has literally made its modern tagline Screens Everywhere.
As consumers, its our job to show Samsung that were not intrested in seeing our own kitchens turn into a marketing opportunityand we can do that by collectively opting to purchase regular old appliances that couldnt advertise to us if they tried.
Mike Zatz was not planning to leave the Environmental Protection Agency. For two decades, Zatz worked within the departments Energy Star program, managing the commercial building side of the public-private partnership focused on energy efficiency. “I loved the program. I loved what we were doing. I loved the success that we were having, he says.
But in June, when the EPA offered a second round of early retirement (or deferred resignation), Zatz was one of more than 1,400 employees to step away. The offer came after President Trump and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency rolled out mass terminations and program cuts to shrink the federal workforce at large.
It also came after Trump took aim at Energy Star specifically. In May, Trump announced his plans to shut the program down, part of a larger attack on energy efficiency measures since his return to office. No matter that the program was voluntary, that it saves Americans $40 billion on energy bills annually, that its notably cost-effective for a government program (for every one federal dollar invested, Energy Star delivers a return of $350), or that it has long had bipartisan support. Its in Trumps crosshairs.
At Energy Star, Zatz was crucial to getting commercial buildings on board with Portfolio Manager, a free tool to track and benchmark building energy use, which helps owners and operators comply with local laws, get green financing loans for investing in efficiency measures, and earn environmental recognitions. Zatz even helped expand Portfolio Manager to Canada.
Under him, the tool became the industry standard in North America: a trusted, free, essential resource. It’s not the only such tool though; there are a slate of private companies that track and benchmark building energy efficiency. And now, Zatz works for one. He recently started as the senior vice president of Global Data Ecosystems and Partnerships at Measurabl, a sustainability data platform that allows the real estate industry to measure, manage, and report on their emissions and energy performance.
Zatz will use his experience building up Portfolio Manager to help grow Measurabl’s customer basethis time with a global approach. Though now in the private sector, Zatz says Measurabl has the “same vision” that the EPA had for Energy Star. It’s an example of how the private sector is filling gaps in government services following Trump DOGE-powered gutting of the federal workforce and programsand also shows how former government workers, forced out by recent administrative moves, have plenty of skills to offer such companies.
Taking Energy Star’s mission global
Our built environment plays a huge role in our carbon footprint; In the U.S. alone, residential and commercial buildings together account for 31% of our greenhouse gas emissions. The building sector uses 75% of the countrys generated electricity. Tracking energy use is the key to reducing these emissions, and can also save operators significant money on energy costs.
By benchmarking their energy use and aligning with Energy Star standards, building operators can increase their profits, apply for efficiency rebates, and access certain loans. Apartment managers can use it to keep from passing increased utility costs to residents, and school districts can even free operating funds, making more resources available to teachers if less money is spent on energy costs. Other roles look at building energy use too, like brokers, loan underwriters, and policymakers.
The potential end of Energy Star has shaken building owners and operators. Both building owners and sustainability experts have said that the private sector (or the act of privatizing Energy Star itself) cant completely replace the government programs offeringsspecifically Portfolio Manager, which is currently used to track and benchmark the energy use of more than 330,000 buildings.
Measurabl is trying, though. And a crucial step toward offering a similar experience is having a free version. Even before the rumblings of Energy Star coming under Trump’s ax, Measurabl began working on its Free Sustainability Software Solution, which also collects and tracks energy use data, and even integrates with Portfolio Manager.
The leadership at Measurable recognized that in order to build an ecosystem like this, you have to lower the barriers to entry. And the main barrier to entry, and to all the other tools that are out there that build on Portfolio Manager . . . like Measurabl, was that you had to pay, Zatz says. After launching that free software tool in July, Measurabl says new subscribers onboarded more than 12,000 buildings, representing 2.2 billion square feet across 40 countries. It was fastest software adoption Measurabl has seen in its 13 years in business.
Along with the free version, Measurabl offers premium tools, charging for software upgrades that allow building owners to do scenario planning to decarbonize properties, automatically collect data from utilities, help prepare reports to HUD or loan providers, and generally conduct more granular analysis. Across all its offerings, it serves more than 1,000 organizations across 90-plus countries, representing more than $3 trillion in assets and 22 billion square feet of real estate under management. The company has raised a total of more than $235 million in funding since its founding.
Measurabl and Energy Star actually overlap. Even when he worked at Energy Star, Zatz knew of the company, because multiple Energy Star partners are also Measurabl clients. Measurabl was named Energy Stars Partner of the Year six times. And Measurabls software uses and integrates with Portfolio Manager, allowing data to sync between the two.
But to really expand, especially around the world, Measurabl needs to build up its partnerships and connect to all the players in the building industrynot just building owners (which includes Fortune 500 companies to schools to religious congregations) but builders, utilities, state and local governments, product manufacturers and retailers, sustainability consultants, architects and engineers, and so on. This is the kind of ecosystem Zatz created at Energy Star.
Now at Measurabl, Zatz isn’t looking to completely replace Energy Star’s Portfolio Manager. In fact, he hopes it stays around, not just because hes spent nearly 20 years working on it. As far as Measurabl and the ecosystem were trying to put together, I think certainly it will be beneficial to us to have Portfolio Manager running as a tool,” he says.
How government tools are constrained
Portfolio Manager is a useful tool, allowing owners and operators to track changes in their water use, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy costs over time. It gives buildings a score between 1 and 100, and lets them compare their energy use to simila buildings.
But as a government tool, it was also constrained. People were not shy about asking for enhancements. We had a running list of hundreds of enhancements that we wanted to do, and in any given year we could only get to a dozen of them, maybe two dozen, Zatz says. Even before Trump’s attacks, Energy Star’s budget had been shrinking. A decade ago, its funding was $54 million; today, it’s $38 million. (Another constraint was the fact that in previous government shutdowns, like in 2018, Portfolio Manager was also shut down; now its marked as essential to keep running.)
Portfolio Manager was intended to offer buildings the basics. And it was never built to compete with anything, Zatz adds, but to foster more ideas. The EPA knew that the private sector could put more resources towards developing tools, and also create sustainability jobs.
We wanted to build sort of the core, something that everybody could use, Zatz says of Energy Star, but we wanted it to then be something that could feed into other things that would be even more beneficial to the wide variety of stakeholders. Along with building owners and operators, others like lenders, insurers, investors, and auditors like to track this kind of sustainability data.
This is where private companies like Measurabl can come in to offer more features. Energy Stars Portfolio Manager looks at Scope 1 and 2 emissions, for exampledirect emissions from a company’s operations and from buying the electricity, heat, or cooling to power those operations, respectively. But cant incorporate Scope 3, the indirect emissions from up and down a company’s value chain, like business travel or employee commutes, investments, and so on. Thats something Measurabl can offer, Zatz says. Portfolio Manager didnt have the bandwidth to keep a list of which buildings are subject to which emissions laws up to date, but Measurabl can.
Zatz says Measurabl can work off the same model that has made Energy Star so successful: building up partnerships, creating an ecosystem of industry stakeholders, and providing data that anyone can see in useful, clear ways. And when it comes to bringing this tool to buildings around the world, he says it’s in the best position to do so. Measurabl has the most sustainability data in the industry, second only to Portfolio Manager, he says.
Zatz will bring his contacts to the private company to help expand that reach: “I love that in this role, I can keep working with a lot of those same people as partners,” he says. In markets where buildings are already on Portfolio Manager, he’ll leverage that relationship to grow Measurabl. And he’ll also use his decades of experience building Portfolio Manager’s reputation to bring Measurabl to new places, “to take the same concepts and put and send them overseas, where these things don’t really exist.”
Portfolio Manager wouldnt have been expanded that way anyway, even before the Trump administrations threats. “It was not in the vision of the EPA to make it global, Zatz says. But still, he emphasizes he hopes it sticks around for the U.S. and Canada.
Zatz will miss the EPA, and hell miss, most, working as a public servant. Working for Measurabl, a private company, he wont be considered such anymore, but I still view it that way, he says.
He hopes the real estate industry sees him in that way, too. Im hoping Ill have that same support from them, and hopefully we can continue to build on Portfolio Manager, he adds. And if not, well hopefully be there to help the industry if, God forbid, something bad happened with the Energy Star program.
