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Another weekend, another extraordinarily cringe CEO moment gone completely viral. In case you missed it, Piotr Szczerek, the CEO of Polish paving company Drogbruk, was caught on video doing something arguably worse than cheating at a Coldplay concert. The footage, now viewed by millions, was captured at the U.S. Open in New York City before hitting social media. It shows tennis pro Kamil Majchrzak signing a hat, then handing it to a child. But what would’ve been an exciting moment for any kid was ruined, as Szczerek quickly snatched the hat away. The child, of course, looked stunned and upset. He can be heard asking the grown-man-child, “What are you doing?” and begging for him to give it back. Still, while the kid was visibly upset, and rightfully so, the internet was, unsurprisingly, even more outraged. The almost-unbelievable video quickly made the rounds. It even caught the attention of Kamil Majchrzak, who hadn’t noticed that the hat had been snatched from the boy in real time. With the help of the internet, he found the boy and reached out to him and his family. He posted photos to his Instagram stories, which were captured by Today.com, of him with the child over the weekend. “Together with Brock,” he wrote. “We wish you a great day.”Brock has no doubt recovered from one CEO’s bad behavior, especially given he got some one-on-one time with the tennis pro in the end. However, it may be a while before the hat thief does because, well, the internet doesn’t like entitled CEOs doing sneaky, inappropriate or obscenely entitled things. Case in point: last month’s Coldplay cheating scandal resulted in Astronomer CEO Andy Byron resigning from his position after being ousted online.Already, it seems like Szczerek may have a similar fate. The CEO was quickly exposed, which resulted in a public apology. I would like to unequivocally apologize to the young boy, his family, all the fans, and the player himself, Szczerek said in a post on social media on Monday. I take full responsibility for my extremely poor judgment and hurtful actions. Regardless, his company ratings on the site GoWork have tanked to 1.4 stars out of 5. At present, the CEO’s personal social media accounts have been deleted. What’s with all the shady CEO behavior?The second recent incident involving a CEO doing something mega-cringe begs the question: what is up with CEOs acting up in public? While we know that the wealthy are getting wealthier, and with that, perhaps some higher-ups have a greater sense of entitlement. After all, some studies show that certain personality types tend to become CEOs more often. A 2021 Italian study found that even a slight increase in the presence of a certain personality trait led to a 29% increased chance of becoming a CEO. The personality trait? Narcissism. But it’s hard to say whether CEOs are behaving badly more frequently, or cringe incidents are just being captured more often, as most of the population walks around with recording devices in their hands. Social media expert and founder of OutThinkMedia Cindy Marie Jenkins tells Fast Company that it’s likely a combination. “Part of what we’re seeing are all the invisible perks that a higher-up experiences, including an assumed level of privacy based on their stature that is all but extinct,” Jenkins explains. “What were the chances that there wasnt a camera near the guy at the U.S. Open? Much lower than the chances there were.” When it comes to using bad judgment, Jenkins says that CEOswho may have the expectation of privacymay want to take a page out of Gen Z’s book. The generation who has essentially grown up watching social media influencers film people (who may or may not be aware they’re being filmed), reaction videos, and more, know that everything is documented. Some studies have shown that this phenomenon has led to lower rates of teenage drinking, given teens don’t want to be the viral drunk kid. Jenkins says that kids today carry the weight that “every text message today that could be an embarrassing shared screenshot around school tomorrow.” They also know that when it comes to school, their online activity couldn’t just embarrass them. It could impact their academic careers, too. “It’s known that some universities monitor social media of students, especially highly competitive areas like athletics.” Mainly, the kids of today seem to understand something that these millionaire CEOs don’t. And, if the internet is judging (and, let’s be real, it is), it really doesn’t matter how much money you have. If you ruin a kid’s day at the U.S. Open, you’re gonna pay the price.
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E-Commerce
Here’s some good news coming off a long holiday weekend as we head into the fall: If you missed the northern lights (or aurora borealis) last night, you may get another chance to catch a glimpse tonight, Tuesday, September 2, and early Wednesday morning, September 3, in some 10 U.S. states. That’s on account of a powerful “cannibal” solar storm that hit Earth’s magnetic field on Monday from 1 million miles away, lighting up skies across North America and Europe overnight. The aurora borealis is the result of a geomagnetic storm that occurs when a coronal mass ejection (CME), an eruption of solar material, reaches Earth and causes swaths of purple, blue, and green in the night sky. This years increased solar activity (and thus, more frequent northern lights activity) is likely the result of an 11-year sun cycle peaking now through next month. Where will the northern lights be visible? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecasts the best viewing tonight in Alaska and northern Canada, with a high chance of some visibility in northern and midwestern parts of the U.S. The agency is predicting G1 geomagnetic storms (on a scale of G1 to G5), which are considered minor. According to this map from NOAAs Space Weather Prediction Center, a total of 10 states are in the line of view for the auroras. They are Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Maine. When is the best time to see the aurora borealis? For the best viewing, the NOAA recommends facing north, in a spot away from light pollution, between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time. You can track the aurora on NOAAs page, where the agency is providing updates.
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E-Commerce
Artificial-intelligence company Anthropic said on Tuesday it is now valued at $183 billion post-money, over twice as much as its earlier valuation, as investor enthusiasm towards AI startups stays strong despite some doubts over tech industry spending. The new valuation is a jump from the $61.5 billion post-money valuation in March this year, where it raised $3.5 billion. Anthropic said it raised $13 billion in a Series F round led by investment firm ICONIQ. The “investment will expand our capacity to meet growing enterprise demand, deepen our safety research, and support international expansion as we continue building reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems,” Anthropic said in a blog post. The startup, backed by Google-parent Alphabet and Amazon.com, has distinguished its work, in part, by building AI models that excel at coding. Anthropic’s run-rate revenue, which had grown to approximately $1 billion at the beginning of 2025, was more than $5 billion by August. The startup behind the Claude large language models unveiled Opus 4.1 in August, an upgrade to Opus 4 on agentic tasks, real-world coding, and reasoning. The latest funding round was co-led by Fidelity Management & Research and Lightspeed Venture Partners, Anthropic said. Other major investors include the Qatar Investment Authority, Blackstone and Coatue. U.S. startup funding surged 75.6% in the first half of 2025, driven largely by major AI investments and bold bets from big tech companies, putting it on track for its second-best year ever, a report from PitchBook showed in July. Last month, Anthropic said it will offer Claude to the U.S. government for $1. Claude, along with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, was added to a list of approved AI vendors, the U.S. government’s central purchasing arm said in August. Amazon is considering another multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic to strengthen their strategic partnership, the Financial Times had reported in July. Juby Babu, Reuters
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E-Commerce
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