Dream – LSD News

The AI economy is rewriting the American Dream — and blue-collar workers are poised to win

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Tue, 19 May 2026 14:11:49 +0000

From the Dayton, Ohio, suburbs to boardrooms in Dallas, the employees fueling AT&T’s next wave of growth aren’t fresh-faced college graduates with expensive four-year degrees. They’re skilled, blue-collar workers ready to get their hands dirty — and AT&T can’t find enough of them.

“We need people who know how to actually work with electricity. We need people who understand photonics. We need people who can go into folks’ homes and connect this infrastructure to make it work right,” AT&T CEO John Stankey told CNBC during a recent interview from the company’s Dallas headquarters.

“We find that we’ve got to go out and find them, train them, and incent them to come in,” he said. “It’s not like we’re growing them on trees in the United States.”

AT&T’s dilemma — hunting for blue-collar workers at a time when a record number of college students are projected to graduate this spring — underscores the palpable crisis facing new degree holders as the first wave of the AI revolution hits the U.S. economy.

For much of the postwar era, the American bargain was clear: Go to college, get a degree and claim your place in the middle class. As factories gave way to offices and the U.S. economy increasingly rewarded credentials over physical labor, a four-year diploma became one of the clearest symbols of upward mobility. But as AI spreads across corporate America and begins to absorb the entry-level work that once gave graduates their start, that promise is beginning to fracture.

While the rapid spread of AI has not yet led to broad layoffs and empty offices, many new graduates, especially those in AI-exposed industries, are learning their degrees may no longer guarantee the opportunities they once did.

John Stankey, Chairman and CEO at AT&T, speaking at CNBC’s Invest In America Forum in Washington, D.C. on April 15th, 2026.

Aaron Clamage | CNBC

Meanwhile, as AI implementation spreads and CEOs find they can do more with less labor, hiring is slowing. The downturn has hit hardest the workers with little real-world experience and those in industries expected to be most vulnerable to AI replacement, such as marketing, legal, accounting, human resources and IT.

If the trend continues, AI could reorder the U.S. workforce and global economy, redrawing the map of opportunity in ways that even some leading economists and technologists say they are only beginning to understand.

“Is the American Dream going away because of AI?… I think the fears are all very valid,” said May Hu, a 26-year-old tech consultant turned social media influencer who said she was laid off from Deloitte last year for what she described as nonperformance reasons. “I pursued college because… I think [for] most people who want to be working professionals … college is the route,” she continued. “That’s starting to change now.”

Like any technological revolution, the AI boom is expected to create new types of work. But, in a cruel twist for college graduates, many of those jobs will be blue-collar roles that for now don’t require a four-year degree, centered around the construction and maintenance of data centers.

Still, it’s unclear how sustainable the blue-collar job boom will be once companies complete an expected wave of chip factories, data centers and other AI-fueled construction in the coming years.

Major U.S. companies from Ford to Nvidia have stressed the growing need for workers to build out those facilities.

“This is the largest infrastructure buildout in human history that is going to create a lot of jobs,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said during a panel at the World Economic Forum in January. “We are going to have plumbers and electricians and construction and steel workers and network technicians and people who install and fit out the equipment.”

He added that many of those roles will bring six-figure salaries as the U.S. addresses a “great shortage” of workers.

Saline, Michigan, Construction of a $16 billion data center, developed by Related Digital for Oracle and Open AI.

Jim West | Universal Images Group | Getty Images

In March, AT&T announced plans to invest $250 billion over the next five years to expand its fiber network and meet the demands of AI data centers and a surge in network usage, fueled both by AI and a rise in mobile streaming and uploading.

About 15% of that investment will be used for hiring and training employees, but not necessarily for white-collar jobs at its corporate office. Instead, it will primarily be used for blue-collar front-line workers, the majority of whom are skilled technicians, the company said.

“As a society and within the United States, we’ve put a huge premium in value socially on a college degree, maybe for good reason, but in some cases … we maybe have missed the mark,” said Stankey. “That hasn’t been optimal when you see the cost of education increasing at higher than the rate of inflation and yet we’re short HVAC [heating, ventilation and air conditioning] repair people, we’re short electricians, we’re short technicians that can go in and work on fiber.”

The birth of the American Dream

At the beginning of the 20th century, about 1 in 10 17-year-olds in the U.S. had finished high school while far fewer young adults had pursued higher education, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. More time in school meant less food on the table, and few Americans had the privilege of pursuing more comfortable work outside of factories and farms.

That all started to change after World War II, when the GI Bill offered veterans free access to college and public universities began cropping up across the country, fueling what labor historian Shannan Clark called an “explosion” in higher education.

There was “a widespread belief, shared by Democrats and Republicans alike, that this was a good investment. It was good for people to have access to higher education and that this sort of increase in human capital and a more trained, more capable, more knowledgeable workforce would also be a more productive workforce, right?” said Clark, an associate professor of history at Montclair State University.

In the coming decades, millions of Americans would trade sweltering factories for air-conditioned offices, hammers and nails for keyboards and mice, and hourly wages for sustainable salaries. Women and minorities entered the workforce in record numbers, wages grew and quality of life increased, fueling a rise in innovation, globalization and gross domestic product. By the end of the 20th century, society was in near universal agreement that an education and a little bit of grit were a sure path to the American Dream.

Data shows that four-year degrees still lead to higher wages and lower unemployment over a lifetime. Even so, the belief that college is the safest way to the American Dream has changed in recent years. First, the return on investment of a four-year degree came into question amid surging higher education costs and student debt. That return is still around 12.5% as of 2024, making it well worth the cost for many graduates, but it hasn’t budged beyond 13% for the past three decades, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Now, AI could put the value of a diploma under even greater pressure.

“What does AI do best? AI is basically an infinite supply of 21-year-old interns that are smart but have no context,” said consultant Aaron Cheris, the global head of Bain & Company’s retail practice. “The job they used to do is now the one that AI is doing, right? AI is doing the entry-level job.”

That’s made it harder for new graduates to find work, some research and data suggest.

The average unemployment rate for recent college graduates ages 22 to 27 dating back to 1990 is 4.5%, but in 2025, that average jumped to around 5.4%, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The impact appears particularly acute among entry-level employees in AI-exposed fields.

Last year, Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab published a research paper titled “Canaries in the Coal Mine?” that found early-career workers in roles most exposed to AI, such as software developers, marketing professionals and sales managers, saw 16% slower growth in employment than the least exposed young workers between mid-2024 and September 2025.

Using payroll data from ADP, researchers found the trend persisted even when they controlled for company-specific challenges, rising interest rates, remote work and other variables. Those who held jobs where AI was poised to augment their work versus automate saw growing employment in the same time period.

“It is notable that since we came out with the first draft of the paper, the effect has grown from 13% to 16%, so whatever it is, it’s not rebounding, or wasn’t some kind of temporary blip,” said Stanford University economist Erik Brynjolfsson, one of the paper’s authors and a leading expert on the economics of technology and AI. “If you just look at the top line of the ADP data, the overall effect, there wasn’t much going on. It’s only when you narrow in … that you start seeing the different kinds of effects.”

If the trend continues for young workers in AI-exposed roles, “we’re going to see it affect the broader labor market more,” said Brynjolfsson.

Lee Tucker, a senior economist with the Center for Economic Studies at the U.S. Census Bureau, published a paper in April that built on Stanford’s research and found that the impact on early career workers was also showing up in a different data set: the agency’s quarterly workforce indicators.

In his research, Tucker found that the hiring of workers between the ages of 22 and 24 dropped 9% immediately after ChatGPT in late 2022 launched for workers in AI-exposed industries such as finance, insurance and professional services, compared with all other industries.

Between the third quarter of 2022 and the second quarter of 2025, there was a 12% to 15% decline in employment for workers in those industries, leading to about 150,000 fewer early-career jobs, the research found.

While there is some evidence this decline may have started around 2020 and may not be fully attributable to AI, Tucker found the decline in employment was almost entirely due to fewer hires, not layoffs.

“I empathize with early career workers, especially new graduates that are trying to get hired or just starting sort of their first rung on the career ladder,” Tucker told CNBC in an interview. “It is true that it is tough out there, and the data really do back that up.”

The vanishing investment banker

The advent of generative and agentic AI, and the technology’s ability to take over some entry-level work, has raised questions about the future of the junior consultant, the investment banking analyst and the first-year associate at a white-shoe law firm.

Should senior leadership keep recruiting large classes from top schools and devote the time and money needed to train them, knowing those workers will form the bedrock of their future talent pipeline, or should they invest elsewhere and let AI do those jobs?

In a recent interview with Derek Waldron, JPMorgan Chase’s chief analytics officer, CNBC asked if the bank has any plans to cut its recruitment classes. He said he didn’t know the firm’s specific strategy, but acknowledged “there may be some rightsizing.”

“It’ll depend on the pipelines, the opportunities. In some cases, bigger [classes], in some cases, frankly, could be smaller as well,” said Waldron.

Waldron suggested the nature of work could shift for junior employees who do make it through the door — toward managing AI systems instead of doing the underlying work themselves.

“The world is moving to a paradigm where every employee becomes a manager, but a manager of AI systems,” said Waldron. “So whereas a new joiner in the past was basically primarily the worker doing the work, the expectation is that they would be able to come in and begin to act as a manager of sort of AI tools.”

In some ways, that shift could be good news for entry-level employees, because they’re AI natives and may be more tech savvy than their older colleagues.

“I want more of them,” WHP Global CEO Yehuda Shmidman said of entry-level employees at his firm, which counts brands such as Toys “R” Us, Vera Wang and Express among its portfolio. “If you’ve been using AI to help you with that final paper at school, we’re probably going to want to know how you’re going to use AI to help us with the next contract negotiation. So I’m all in favor of it.”

But the shift also highlights how necessary it is for students to be graduating with skills in AI that go beyond using it to write an email or replace a Google search.

“If a kid comes out of school now and is like the expert in Claude and OpenAI … and is able to then say to even, like, an accounting team, ‘Hey, look, I can come in and I can do the job of three people versus you hiring them, because I can use AI,’ OK, that person will still get a job,” said Omair Tariq, the founder and CEO of startup Cart.com, which provides logistics, fulfillment and other services for retailers such as Adidas, Guess and Eddie Bauer, and has about 1,400 employees.

If they can’t, Tariq said, he’s not interested in hiring them.

“When you’re in college, all you know is what’s in your curriculum. The curriculum is available in a book or online. It’s all tangible, it’s all ones and zeros. It’s all the sh– that AI can read in 30 seconds that you took four and a half years to read,” said Tariq. “So tell me again what you can do that AI can’t do, because you don’t have any real-world experience.”

Already, college campuses are feeling the pressure to change their curriculums and even their approach to higher education to adjust to an AI future.

“For graduates to compete effectively, they’re going to need to know how to do at age 22 what they used to do at age 27,” said Matt Sigelman, the president of the Burning Glass Institute, a think tank that studies the future of work. “They’re going to need to be able to start their careers in the middle and not the beginning.”

How quickly colleges can adjust could determine how much AI will disrupt the careers of graduates in the future.

Tobias Sytsma, an economist at the think tank Rand who studies AI and the future of work, said recent graduates, those paying off college loans and students getting ready to enter college will likely face the most issues during this transition period. If the data continues to show an impact on early career workers, they could become victims of economic “scarring,” leading to unemployment, underemployment and lower incomes throughout their lifetimes. If there’s a major disruption to the middle class pipeline — the route young adults take from college to higher-paying jobs — that could have an enormous impact on the economy. Consumption could shrink, housing demand could fall and existing inequality issues could grow.

“The size of that transition cohort is important. If it takes 20 years and … basically everyone that was thinking about going to college or just finished college is really struggling, then that’s a huge chunk of the future workforce that’s going through this scarring process,” said Sytsma. “If the transition is really quick and we’re able to kind of rapidly adjust the institution of higher learning so that we maintain value, then maybe the scarring cohort is a little bit smaller and the aggregate effects are a little bit smaller. But at this point, I think it’s pretty hard to tell.”

Suburban daydreams

Kyson Cook, 24, joined AT&T as a premises technician after leaving college and later returned to school with help from the company’s tuition reimbursement program.

Mickey Todiwala | CNBC

In a small Ohio city between Dayton and Columbus, the American Dream is alive and well for 24-year-old Kyson Cook. The father of one owns a three-bedroom home, has no debt beyond his mortgage and ends most workdays around 4:30 p.m., leaving plenty of time to shoot pool, go fishing or spend time with family. He has a small plot of land with space for his daughter to play, along with enough money to buy her whatever toys she wants and regularly contribute to a mutual fund with her name on it, without needing to cut back on new clothes, vacations or eating out.

In an interview, he told CNBC that the “coolest job in the world” pays for it all.

“I’m proud to tell people what I do. I climb telephone poles. It’s awesome,” said Cook, a premises technician with AT&T who helps connect the telecom giant’s fiber infrastructure to customer homes.

“You feel like a superhero up there,” he added. “To other people, it might sound like, ‘Oh, it’s hard work. I don’t want to do that. You have to work in the elements.’ But there’s so many good things that come along with this job.”

Cook, whose father and grandfather both worked at AT&T, said he started at the company in April 2022, a few months after he dropped out of college and realized he’d rather work with his hands. In less than a year, he’d saved up enough to buy his house. When his daughter was on the way about two years later, he said, he went back to college and got a bachelor’s degree — paid for by AT&T — because he thought it could help him get promoted in the future, even if the management roles he’d be aiming for don’t require it.

Cook is one of the thousands of technicians helping AT&T expand its network so the telecom giant can meet the needs of an AI future. AT&T’s global workforce has been cut by more than half over the last decade, but the company is increasing head count in some areas and working to recruit skilled tradespeople who aren’t required to have a college degree to join the company.

Kyson Cook, an AT&T premises technician, walks through an AT&T facility in Kettering, Ohio.

Mickey Todiwala | CNBC

AT&T said it plans to hire around 3,000 technicians this year and is ramping up recruitment in places such as Nashville, San Francisco and North Carolina where it’s finding a dearth of skilled workers. That’s on top of the 10,000 the company has already hired over the last three years. To get employees up to speed, AT&T said it may spend anywhere between $50,000 and $80,000 in training per person.

“We’re investing a huge amount of money. We’re putting fiber out there. This needs to be built,” said Stankey. “And so part of what we’re doing is, we need trade.”

AT&T’s hunt for blue-collar workers comes amid a national shortage for certain skilled tradespeople and a slight uptick in unemployment for college-educated adults.

This year, there’s a shortage of around 350,000 workers necessary to meet the demand for construction services in the U.S., a deficit that’s expected to grow to more than 450,000 next year, according to a January report from Associated Builders and Contractors, a trade association for the construction industry.

By 2030, about 2.1 million skilled trades jobs could go unfilled, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Shortfalls are more severe in areas with major projects such as semiconductor fabrication facilities, exacerbated by the fact that about one-fifth of electricians are over 55, said ABC chief economist Anirban Basu.

“Even if construction spending fails to exceed expectations this year and next, contractors will continue to struggle to fill open positions, especially in certain occupations and regions,” said Basu. “Recent industry efforts to accelerate skilled worker development have helped, but the industry is effectively swimming upstream.”

Meanwhile, college-educated adults over the age of 25 are seeing a slight rise in unemployment.

For nearly a decade other than the Covid pandemic, the unemployment rate for adults 25 and over who have a bachelor’s degree has been at 3% or lower, but in August, that number jumped to 3.2%, the first time the figure was over 3% in around nine years aside from during the pandemic, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.

Since then, the rate has largely hovered at 3% or higher before falling to 2.8% in April.

The unemployment rate for those 25 and up who have a bachelor’s degree or higher shows a similar trend.

Further, white-collar roles such as management, professional and office jobs have seen unemployment rise each year since 2023, while unemployment for blue-collar positions, like construction and maintenance jobs, largely declined or stayed roughly the same last year compared with 2024, BLS data show.

Still, the benefits of a college degree have hardly gone away. College graduates overall enjoy lower lifetime unemployment and higher earnings than those without degrees, who are more likely to be laid off during recessions or slowdowns. Between January 2000 and April 2026, the average unemployment rate for those with just a high school diploma was 5.7%, higher than the 3.2% average for those with a bachelor’s degree, BLS data shows.

It’s tough to draw conclusions from minute changes in noisy data, and the figures are still emblematic of a relatively healthy job market and in line with historical averages.

But the divergence in unemployment among blue- and white-collar workers is a trend economists are closely watching.

“I’d be a little bit careful about drawing too much from these small trends. Maybe it could be indicative of future changes,” said Bharat Chandar, a postdoctoral researcher at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab and one of the authors of the “Canaries in the Coal Mine?” report. “I think we need to wait and see.”

High stakes

To woo more technicians such as Cook and other skilled laborers, AT&T said it’s had to be competitive. For field technicians, it pays sign-on and retention bonuses of between $5,000 and $10,000, and entry-level wages can range between $18.18 and $31.45 per hour, depending on location and experience. The roles can also come with full benefits, including medical insurance, a 401(k) plan, tuition reimbursement, paid parental leave, adoption reimbursement, and up to 50% off AT&T mobile and internet plans, among other perks, according to online job descriptions.

Combating the shortage of skilled tradespeople requires not only government involvement but also a societal shift around whether college is the right move for every worker, Stankey said.

“We probably ought not to just assume that sending everybody to a four-year degree is the right answer,” he said. “We should be more thoughtful about what that four-year degree needs to look like, or what that advanced learning needs to look like, and also ask, does all work require that?”

Kyson Cook, an AT&T premises technician, inspects a utility pole in Ohio. Cook helps install and connect fiber service for AT&T customers.

Mickey Todiwala | CNBC

It’s understandable that many people chose offices over more hands-on work decades ago and why some companies struggle to recruit certain blue-collar workers. A long-held prestige and social standing come with a college education and a white-collar profession. Blue-collar work tends to be more physically demanding and often risky.

Workers such as Cook have to scale telephone poles 25 feet or higher off the ground, and though AT&T says its technicians are trained closely on safety, the type of work he does is still dangerous. Telecommunications line installers and repairers have a higher rate of fatal workplace injuries industrywide when compared with workers overall, according to BLS data.

In addition, they need to be able to lift and move up to 60 pounds, be available on holidays, work in small spaces and be prepared to tolerate rain, snow and extreme heat, according to online job descriptions.

During a recent shift, Cook said, he had to work in the rain and was so chilled he couldn’t get warm until he made it home and showered. He said that despite the physical toll his role can take, he’d still choose being a technician over an office job any day. If he’d stayed in college the first time around and pursued a white-collar career path, he said, he’d likely be in debt, wouldn’t own a home and would be making less money than he is now.

Plus, there’s another perk that’s proving to be quite important these days: Cook said he’s not even remotely concerned about AI taking his job.

“I don’t think robots can be climbing poles anytime soon,” he said, laughing. “Computers can’t do what we do.”

— Additional reporting by CNBC’s Steve Liesman, Hugh Son and Charlotte Morabito

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Musk’s xAI needs SpaceX deal for the money. Data centers in space are still a dream

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 03:38:29 +0000

Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., during the US-Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Elon Musk said a primary reason for merging SpaceX with his artificial intelligence startup, xAI, is to more effectively build “orbital data centers.” That’s for a far-off future.

For now, xAI has a much more pressing need: cash.

In Monday’s blog post announcing the combination of his two companies, Musk estimated that “within 2 to 3 years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space.” But xAI requires immense amounts of money to finance its massive infrastructure buildout as the three-year-old company tries to catch up to Google, OpenAI and Anthropic in the booming generative AI market.

SpaceX, which is reportedly aiming to go public this year in what could be a record-setting IPO, may represent Musk’s clearest path to landing that capital. The company is looking to raise up to $50 billion at a valuation as high as $1.5 trillion, according to Reuters.

A major key to SpaceX’s growth is Starlink, its satellite internet service, which has around 9,000 satellites in orbit today and roughly 9 million customers. It recently received authorization from the Federal Communications Commission to put another 7,500 satellites into orbit.

Tim Farrar, president of satellite and telecom industry research firm TMF Associates, said SpaceX can’t put that kind of money to work towards its existing business because there are only so many rocket launches available to get its Starlink satellites up into space each year.

Folding xAI into SpaceX, Farrar said, allows Musk to capitalize on investors’ insatiable appetite for AI holdings, while also securing the AI company’s financial position despite its mounting losses. According to a report from The Information late Monday, xAI has told investors that it burned about $9.5 billion through the first nine months of 2025.

“People are throwing tens of billions of dollars at AI companies right now, and in six months or 12 months time, they might have changed their mind about it,” Farrar said. “Getting the money is feasible” now but may not be forever.

In early January, xAI closed a $20 billion funding round at about a $230 billion valuation. OpenAI was valued at $500 billion in October, and is reportedly looking to bump that up to about $750 billion in its next round. Anthropic signed a term sheet this month for a funding that values the company at $350 billion.

In addition to a friendly capital market, Musk has the benefit of an extremely favorable regulatory landscape, as the Trump administration rolls back environmental, antitrust and other regulations.

Nowhere in Monday’s blog post was there mention of any need for regulatory approval, and Musk suggested in the first sentence of the statement that the transaction is done. Public records with the state of Nevada obtained by CNBC indicate that the deal was completed on Feb. 2, with Space Exploration Technologies Corp. listed as the “managing member” of X.AI Holdings.

Of particular importance to Musk is the recent installation of his business associate and former SpaceX investor and customer Jared Isaacman as the head of NASA. Isaacman has supported speeding up initiatives that would expand the agency’s contracts with SpaceX. And at the FCC, Chairman Brendan Carr has been a vocal proponent of SpaceX’s Starlink.

Commander Jared Isaacman of Polaris Dawn, a private human spaceflight mission, speaks at a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. August 19, 2024.

Joe Skipper | Reuters

The landscape for tech mergers has also changed dramatically, with President Donald Trump in the White House and Republicans controlling both houses of Congress. The Federal Trade Commission is now run by Trump appointee Andrew Ferguson rather than Lina Khan, who was known for blocking big tech deals during Joe Biden’s presidency.

When it comes to AI, Musk’s longtime friend David Sacks is the White House crypto and AI czar, and has pushed the federal government to limit the amount of oversight AI labs face as they pursue aggressive growth strategies. In December, President Trump signed an executive order issuing a single regulation framework for AI, undermining the power of individual states — namely blue states like California and New York — to implement their own rules.

“To win, United States AI companies must be free to innovate without cumbersome regulation,” the order said. “But excessive State regulation thwarts this imperative.”

While Musk still has three years left of a second Trump administration, he may have only a small window of unified Republican control, with the mid-term elections taking place in nine months and the president’s favorability numbers sinking.

Related party transactions

Musk is moving fast. And he likely has the backing of a loyal band of investors who have a long history of supporting his intermingling of resources and merging of companies.

In 2016, Tesla acquired SolarCity for $2.6 billion, rescuing it from a looming liquidity crunch. Before the merger, Musk was a key investor in the solar business and served as chairman of the company, which he started with his cousins.

During his leveraged buyout of Twitter (which later became X) in 2022, Musk sold billions of dollars worth of his Tesla shares to finance the deal. He also tapped dozens of employees, even some executives, from SpaceX, Tesla and tunneling venture The Boring Co., to help him with the takeover and to make sweeping changes to the platform.

At Tesla, Musk has engaged in a number of related party transactions with SpaceX and, more recently, xAI. For example, Tesla has sold car parts and solar equipment to SpaceX, and the automaker relied on SpaceX to develop a special alloy for its Cybertruck.

In 2025, Tesla sold $430 million worth of its giant backup batteries called Megapacks to xAI, according to a filing out last week, accounting for about 3.4% of Tesla’s energy business revenue for the year. The batteries help power xAI’s data infrastructure that it’s building out around Memphis, Tennessee.

Shortly before that filing landed, Tesla said it was investing $2 billion into xAI as part of the company’s latest financing round. In July 2025, SpaceX reportedly invested $2 billion into xAI as well.

Farrar said that Musk’s biggest fans and institutional investors are willing to support the tangled web of transactions, or the “Muskonomy,” in part because they understand the symbolic importance of keeping his entire portfolio strong.

“The whole thing relies on confidence in him,” Farrar said. “If any piece of his empire was to fall by the wayside or go bankrupt, then it would undermine everything.”

WATCH: SpaceX could be the first $500 billion IPO, says Lerer Hippeau’s Eric Hippeau

Even college graduates no longer think a degree is worth the cost as the once-safe path to the American dream is now seen as a risky venture | Fortune

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 21:03:43 +0000

Americans’ views on higher education have reversed sharply in less than a generation, as the enormous cost and uncertainty about finding work have turned college into a significant life risk.

According to a recent poll from NBC News, 63% of registered voters agreed that a four-year degree is “not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off.” That’s up from 47% in 2017 and 40% in 2013.

Meanwhile, just 33% agreed with the idea that a degree is “worth the cost because people have a better chance to get a good job and earn more money over their lifetime.” That’s down from 49% in 2017 and 53% in 2013.

Even Americans who have earned college degrees flipped, with only 46% now saying that obtaining one is worth the cost versus 63% in 2013.

“It’s just remarkable to see attitudes on any issue shift this dramatically, and particularly on a central tenet of the American dream, which is a college degree. Americans used to view a college degree as aspirational — it provided an opportunity for a better life. And now that promise is really in doubt,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the poll with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.

“What is really surprising about it is that everybody has moved. It’s not just people who don’t have a college degree,” Horwitt added.

Even college graduates no longer think a degree is worth the cost as the once-safe path to the American dream is now seen as a risky venture | Fortune 10

In fact, attitudes among Republicans, independents and Democrats have all shifted against getting a four-year degree, but especially among Republicans.

And 71% of Americans without a college degree now say it’s not worth the cost versus 26% who think it is, after splitting almost evenly in 2013.

Separate data still shows that college graduates overall earn more money and have lower rates of unemployment than non-graduates.

But joblessness among recent grads has been climbing since 2022—the year OpenAI’s ChagGPT came out—and now exceeds the total unemployment rate.

And an analysis from Goldman Sachs revealed that the labor market for recent graduates has weakened to the point where their traditional edge over non-degree peers is at historic lows.

As evidence mounts that AI is shrinking opportunities for entry-level positions, more young Americans are considering vocational schools and going into more hands-on trades.

That’s as student loan debt continues to saddle borrowers for decades, while tuition has doubled at public colleges and surged 75% at private schools since 1995.

Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told NBC News that the long-held view that bachelor’s degrees pay off in the job market has eroded.

“I think students are more wary about taking on the risk of a four-year or even a two-year degree,” he said. “They’re now more interested in any pathway that can get them into the labor force more quickly.”

Confidence in higher education has been waning for years. According to a Gallup Poll in September, only 35% said going to college is “very important” — a record low — down from 51% in 2019 and 75% in 2010.

At the same time, the student-debt explosion has crushed the value proposition: a Pew Research survey last year showed only 22% said the cost of a four-year degree is worth it in spite of loans while 47% said it’s only worth if without loans and 29% said the cost is not worth it either way.

NBC’s polling data points to dimmer views compared to a survey by Indeed earlier this year that found that a third of all graduates said their degree was a “waste of money.” And among Gen Zers, 51% expressed remorse, versus 41% of millennials and just 20% of baby boomers.

“Colleges and universities have lost that connection they’ve had with a large swath of the American people based on affordability,” pollster Horwitt told NBC News. “They’re now seen as out of touch and not accessible to many Americans.”

This OpenAI engineer left her dream job and San Francisco home to move to Stockholm—all because of Trump 2.0

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 19:27:15 +0000

Miki Habryn can finally sleep at night. For many months, in the run-up to and after President Trump had won the election, that wasn’t the case.

Up until June this year Habryn was living what many would call the American dream. She had a job at ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, surrounded by some of the brightest minds in artificial intelligence. Her pay was comfortably in the six-figures, and she owned a house in San Francisco, the first city she had ever lived in which felt like home.

Her six-year old daughter, Steffi, was enjoying school and her wife, Eden, was thriving in her career as an artist.

But the family couldn’t shake their concern about the direction U.S. politics was moving in. While Habryn was born in Poland and raised in Australia from the age of five, her partner and child had only ever known life in the States.

When President Trump returned to the Oval Office, the family made the decision to leave San Francisco—and Habryn’s dream job—and move to Stockholm, Sweden. There they hope to stay indefinitely.

Habryn said she made the choice to leave the the U.S., where she had lived since 2007, one night in March. She said: “My wife was traveling on the East Coast and I was home with Steffi. And something about that particular night, I was awake worrying about things which was not uncommon, and I just got to the point of: It’s time to go, I can’t just stay here and do nothing, but doing anything comes with such terrible risks for me because of my status.”

“If I came to the attention of, or got arrested by the federal authorities, the outcome of that could be tragic. It turns out that my wife, on the same day, reached the same conclusion.”

Habryn explains the “status” she refers to: “During the campaign it was immigrants and transgender people that was occupying the airways and since I’m both, they’ve got me coming and going effectively.”

The family are not alone in their decision to leave Trump’s America. While it’s hard to pin down the number of people leaving the U.S. every year (the Department of State previously told Fortune it does not keep such records) in 2024 applications from Americans to live in the United Kingdom alone spiked 26% compared to a year prior. More than 6,100 Americans applied for British citizenship last year, a record number.

Immigration experts also previously told Fortune their phones had been ringing off the hook—particularly since that infamous Trump and Biden debate, when many people felt the fate of the November election had been decided. Montreal-based immigration experts Moving2Canada, for example, saw inquiries spike in both 2016 and 2020 and in 2024 saw enquiries triple in volume after the Trump vs. Biden debate.

Life at OpenAI

Habryn is no stranger to working in America’s tech elite: She moved to the U.S. originally to work for Google in Mountain View where she stayed for the next 12 years. Her experience at OpenAI, where she worked from May 2024 to July 2025, is a familiar story to many in Big Tech: An intense atmosphere, “wonderful” people and riveting work.

“It’s challenging,” Habryn said. “I think it’s exciting but I was lucky enough to have a lot of security and confidence in my own abilities—I think without that it would have been very, very hard.”

The prospect of losing her dream role in the research department of one of the world’s most-talked about companies was a key issue which held Habryn back from making the move earlier. While her team was supportive of the decision, ultimately the legalities of Habryn’s work meant it couldn’t move with her.

“It was really hard,” she said. “That was probably the reason it took me as long as it did to make the decision, because honestly I had this period of grief stepping away from this. I’ve been working in tech for a long time … and really the only thing I want to be working on is AI.

“It was hard and I didn’t love making that decision but, ultimately, it was just a question of priority.”

Habryn is confident she will find interesting work when she needs to, and the family are settling into their newly purchased home in Stockholm—the family doubt they will ever return to the U.S. That comes with “guilt”, Habryn says: “I buy the narrative that you should fight for the things that you believe in and that there is value to staying and fighting for that. If it were not for Steffi, I think we would have.”

Ultimately her six-year-old daughter is their focus: “We set aside a lot of things that we love to do [because] we want Steffi to have a routine, a stable home, a stable school and all those things. The hardest thing about this whole move has been worrying about the impact on her and so the priority was that we don’t want to do this again, we’re going to move once, and we want to put down roots and spend the next 15/20 years there.”

Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world. Explore this year’s list.

CEO Says He’ll Fulfill $1 Billion Bitcoin Buy Dream in One Bid

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 08:08:16 +0000

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A Nasdaq-listed holding company preparing to pile into Bitcoin set off a social-media countdown this week, teasing a large purchase that has drawn wide attention across crypto circles.

The company’s CEO posted that he planned to “smash buy $1 billion of bitcoin in a single bid,” then later clarified the real figure is closer to $760 million.

The teaser follows a recent merger and a financing round that the company says includes up to $710 million in capital commitments.

Countdown Sparks Speculation

According to David Bailey, CEO of Bitcoin-native holding company Nakamoto, the countdown ran for more than 14 days and was extended by one day before the flagged execution window.

Based on reports, the public messaging mixed bravado with strategy: a headline figure of $1 billion was used first, then adjusted to about $760 million as filings and timing were clarified.

That gap — roughly $240 million — has become a focal point for investors and commentators trying to parse whether the stunt is mostly marketing or a firm trading plan.

Ever since getting into Bitcoin I’ve always had this dream of smash buying $1b of bitcoin in a single bid. Tomorrow that dream comes true.

Gotta start dreaming bigger

— David Bailey $1.0mm/btc is the floor (@DavidFBailey) August 11, 2025

The Financing & The Merger

Reports have disclosed that the company reached its current public form after a merger with a Nasdaq-listed firm, and that the combined business announced up to $710 million in commitments to back its Bitcoin accumulation plan.

The deal also enabled the group to access public markets and list under a new ticker, positioning itself beside other public companies that hold large amounts of BTC on their balance sheets.

Bitcoin is currently trading at $119,206. Chart: TradingView

Execution Questions Loom

Public statements so far do not explain how a purchase near $760 million would be executed, or whether the company will use an over-the-counter desk, a block trade, or a public exchange order.

That detail matters. A single large market order placed on an exchange could move prices and create heavy slippage, while off-exchange methods are typically used to limit market impact.

Observers will be looking for any disclosures about trading partners, custody arrangements, or firm funding sources.

Comparison & Context

The CEO has publicly praised well-known corporate Bitcoin buyers as role models, and he explicitly cited leading figures in the space as influences on the company’s strategy.

The combination of a public countdown and large stated sums has made the firm’s planned accumulation a talking point among investors and on industry message boards.

Whether the move is primarily about building a treasury or about raising visibility for a newly public company remains unclear.

Featured image from Flickr, chart from TradingView

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Ethereum’s Failed Golden Cross Triggers Fears, Is $3,000 A Pipe Dream? | Bitcoinist.com

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 17:41:00 +0000

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Technical analysis shows Ethereum has just exhibited a failed golden cross on the 1-day candlestick timeframe chart. The golden cross is widely regarded as a bullish momentum signal. This technical formation, where the 50-day moving average climbs above the 200-day moving average, last occurred on Ethereum’s daily candlestick chart in December 2024 and resulted in an 18% surge.

This time, though, the story is very different. Rather than triggering another rally, Ethereum’s price action has been quite flat, which makes it difficult to imagine a break above $3,000 very soon.

Lack Of Follow-Through Shows Ethereum’s Weakness

According to technical analysis initially noted on the social media platform X, Ethereum recently exhibited a golden cross. However, according to the analyst, this was a failed golden cross, as Ethereum’s price barely moved when it happened on the daily timeframe.

The analyst, who goes by the name Honey on the social media platform, noted that the lack of movement shows more profound issues in current market conditions, especially in terms of liquidity and sentiment. The golden cross should have injected life into Ethereum’s price action, but instead, it shows the absence of momentum.

Source: Honey on X

Ethereum’s price performance following the crossover has made the pattern feel more like a false signal than what the golden crossover is mostly known as. The chart below shows that while the moving averages did cross, the price action around that moment was uneventful and even slightly bearish. This is a huge difference from what happened in December 2024, when the same pattern was followed by a quick upside push. Back then, Ethereum’s price surged by about 18% to touch $4,000 very briefly.

Return To $3,000 Might Take Longer Than Expected

The bigger takeaway is not just the failed breakout, but what it implies about the coming quarter. According to the analyst, this entire crypto market might witness a sluggish and choppy Q3, particularly if Bitcoin is below the $111,000 mark.

In this environment, it’s difficult to imagine Ethereum making a clean run to the $3,000 milestone any time soon. The lack of momentum does not bode well for bullish forecasts, even though Ethereum has so far held its ground at support levels around $2,400.

At the time of writing, Ethereum is trading at $2,548, down by 2.1% in the past 24 hours. Data from CoinGecko shows that the leading altcoin reached an intraday high of $2,630 in the past 24 hours, but it has failed to hold up this momentum. For Ethereum to break out of its current zone and move to $3,000, it would need a wave of liquidity and confidence.

This recent volatility is tough for Ethereum’s bullish prospects, but its long-term outlook is relatively strong. Interestingly, one particular analyst believes that Ethereum is going above $10,000 this cycle.

ETH trading at $2,553 on the 1D chart | Source: ETHUSDT on Tradingview.com

Featured image from iStock, chart from Tradingview.com

A basketball fan’s dream vacation: Michael Jordan’s onetime Chicago mansion listed on Airbnb

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 22:26:57 +0000

A Chicago-area mansion once owned by all-time NBA great Michael Jordan is now listed on Airbnb, offering high-end travelers the chance to vacation like a six-time champion.

Champions Point is a seven-bedroom, 17.5-bath estate on 7.39 acres that can accommodate 12 guests, according to the Airbnb listing and property owner John Cooper.

The home, in Highland Park, Illinois, has a stunning price tag and requires a minimum seven-night stay. For example, a weeklong respite over Labor Day weekend, checking in on Aug. 29 and out on Sept. 5, would cost $120,920.

The grand entry to the mansion in Highland Park, Ill.Champions Point LLC

The mansion features a movie theater, commercial gym, cigar lounge, wine cellar, pool tables, bars, salon, saltwater aquariums and — of course — a full-size basketball court.

“This estate was built with privacy, security, and luxury in mind — a private oasis on 7.39 acres surrounded by mature pines, fenced and gated,” according to the listing.

The property was purchased by the real estate investor Cooper for $9.5 million late last year. The Airbnb listing says the house is “Hosted by John.”

Cooper said he’s still not sure what he wants to do with the property long term. But he’s offering it up for vacation rentals now to at least get some cash rolling his direction.

“I am still considering many different uses for the property,” Cooper said in a statement to NBC News on Tuesday. “Some great uses require zoning relief, but in the meantime short-term rentals are a permitted use to bring exposure to the property and generate some revenue.”

There were no bookings as of Tuesday afternoon.

Cooper said he foresees this property being rented for “a family or group of friends celebrating a milestone.”

Jordan’s iconic No. 23 is on the property’s front gate.

“Enjoy putting on your professional-grade putting green, fishing in your private pond stocked with bass and bluegill, and swimming in your zero-entry infinity edge pool.”

The full-size basketball court in the mansion in Highland Park, Ill.Champions Point LLC

The property is about 27 miles north of the United Center, home of the Chicago Bulls and once the workplace of the NBA legend Jordan.

He led the Bulls to six world titles in a pair of three-peats, 1991-93 and 1996-98.

Jordan’s 32,292 career regular-season points are fifth all-time, trailing only LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone and the late Kobe Bryant.

The five-time MVP Jordan’s average of 30.1 points per game is No. 1 in NBA history.

That trophy that was handed to Jordan five times is now named after him.

David K. Li

Senior Breaking News Reporter

Polly DeFrank and Austin Mullen contributed.

Square To Accept Bitcoin By 2026—Jack Dorsey’s Crypto Dream Lives On

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Wed, 28 May 2025 21:24:57 +0000

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Jack Dorsey’s financial services company Block is set to let shops take bitcoin right at the cash register. It’s a new twist on how you pay, and it might change small businesses’ options.

Bitcoin Payments On Square Hardware

According to Block, starting in the second half of 2025, merchants using Square Point of Sale can accept bitcoin. The push rests on the Lightning Network, which handles payments in under a second and keeps fees low.

At Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas from May 27–29, shoppers can try it out at the BTC Inc. merchandise store.

A Two-Phase Rollout

Based on reports, the first phase rolls out later this year. Then, subject to approvals, every eligible seller could be live by 2026. That means millions of Square users may add bitcoin to their checkouts alongside credit cards and cash. It’s a big step for a tool many small shops already use.

Today: we’re accepting bitcoin payments at @TheBitcoinConf
Soon: you can accept bitcoin payments wherever you are

Details here: https://t.co/ko2S9hFpih pic.twitter.com/IYlYV6XM2S

— Square (@Square) May 27, 2025

From Conversions To Checkout

Block first let merchants convert part of their daily takings into bitcoin in 2024. Now they’ll take crypto up front. When a customer pays, Square’s app handles the exchange rate and confirmation. Stores see payouts faster. And customers who hold bitcoin get to use it without extra steps.

Filling Out A Bitcoin Toolbox

Block isn’t stopping at payments. Its Cash App has had bitcoin buy, sell, and send features for years. Then there’s Bitkey, launched in March 2024, a self-custody wallet without tricky seed phrases.

BTC is now trading at $109,059. Chart: TradingView

Soon it will add stronger privacy and smarter recovery tools, including ways to pass funds on to heirs. There’s also Proto mining gear and Spiral, which backs bitcoin projects. Together, they cover buying, storing, spending, and even building with bitcoin.

Image: iStock

Merchants will still face price swings if they choose to hold bitcoin. But automatic conversions remain an option. And for those who do hold, using the Lightning Network can cut costs versus 2%–3% credit-card fees.

Meanwhile, regulators will watch closely. Approvals may vary by region. But if all goes as planned, shoppers will see a new “bitcoin” button on Square screens in early 2026.

It’s early days, but this looks like a real test of bitcoin’s original peer-to-peer idea. Some will welcome lower fees and fast settlement. Others will wait and see if it sticks. Either way, small shops soon have a fresh way to get paid.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView

Bitcoin Must Hold This Support Level To Retain $100,000 Dream – Details

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Sun, 24 Nov 2024 00:06:47 +0000

Bitcoin continues to record significant price leaps following a 19.28% gain in the past seven days. The premier cryptocurrency is replicating another bullish Q4 particularly boosted by multiple factors as it gradually approaches the $100,000 price target. However, crypto analyst Ali Martinez has revealed a vital condition for the market bulls to sustain the current momentum.

Why $91,900 Is Crucial To Bitcoin

Donald Trump’s electoral victory coupled with recent Federal Reserve rate cuts have spurred Bitcoin to multiple all-time highs over the last two weeks. On Thursday, the crypto market leader hit a new peak of $93,434 and has since retraced by 2.25% to remain in consolidation above $91,000.

Commenting on Bitcoin’s future price movement, Ali Martinez shared that the TD Sequential, a trading indicator for identifying trend exhaustion and market reversals, had recently flashed a sell signal indicating that BTC may be due for some significant price recorrection.

However, the analyst explains the leading cryptocurrency can avoid such a downturn if the market bulls ensure a daily close above $91,900. Martinez states that holding this price level would allow Bitcoin to maintain its current trajectory and potentially climb to $100,680.

Source: ali_charts on X

Bitcoin To Fall Or Not?

Martinez’s predictions counter wider beliefs that the premier cryptocurrency is set for a re-correction following a prolonged price rally that has lasted since early October.

In a separate post on X, the analyst notes the Bitcoin Long/Short ratio currently stands at 0.79 with 55.94% of traders opening short positions in anticipation of a price fall. Bitcoin’s relative strength index also remains above 70, signaling it’s in the overbought zone and is due for a price reversal. However, the asset’s price is also well above its 20-SMA showing potential for a trend continuation.

Moreover, the impending return of Trump to the White House which is expected to usher in new pro-crypto appointments in terms of agencies such as SEC and CFTC also continues to spur investors who will now anticipate a less regulatory hostile regime. This factor, combined with the ongoing impressive performance of the Bitcoin spot ETFs which have now accumulated total inflows of $6.18 billion in Q4 2024. Therefore, the premier cryptocurrency may remain yet resilient reaching another all-time high in no time.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin trades at $91,166 reflecting a 2.10% in the past day. Meanwhile, the asset’s trading volume is down by 18.88% and valued at $68.54 billion.

BTC trading at $91,072 on the daily chart | Source: BTCUSDT chart on Tradingview.com

Featured image from Medium, chart from Tradingview

Satoshi Nakamoto Tells NBA Legend In His Dream: Bitcoin To Slam Dunk To $84K! | Bitcoinist.com

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Thu, 05 Sep 2024 20:56:07 +0000

NBA legend Scottie Pippen recently made headlines for claiming that he had dreamt of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto telling him that the cryptocurrency would reach $84,650 by November 5.

His comments have generated a lot of reactions, from some ridiculing at how outrageous such a dream can get to others questioning the timing when Bitcoin just fell to about $55,602.

Pippen’s revelation follows his past correspondence with the crypto community, which included dropping an NFT collection in 2022 and indicating interest in Ethereum and Solana. Though fans on social media have poked fun of the assertion and how horrible a timing it is, his most recent endeavor seems to be an intriguing one.

Satoshi Nakamoto visited me in my dream last night and predicted that #Bitcoin would be at $84,650 on November 5, 2024. Not financial advice.

— Scottie Pippen (@ScottiePippen) September 3, 2024

Possible Catalysts For A Bitcoin Rally

A prelude to a bull run could be triggered by a perceived pivot of the US Federal Reserve. Its probable rate cut in the September 18 FOMC meeting, after the Bank of England and European Central Bank, will be the most closely watched event this week.

BTCUSD trading at $57,170 on the daily chart: TradingView.com

A rate cut would decrease the cost of borrowing, and possibly even embolden investors to take more risks on Bitcoin. US presidential elections may also weigh in on November 5 in the crypto market, with one of the front-runners for the presidential seat, Donald Trump, being pro-crypto and promising to let the industry thrive.

Analyst’s Bleak Outlook For Bitcoin

Meanwhile, analyst and former crypto exchange CEO Arthur Hayes recently shared his views: the market will be bearish in the near future, at least until the end of September. He suggests Bitcoin could make its way down to the US$50,000 mark in the worst case.

He bases his logic on macroeconomic elements like the US government’s spending habits and the futility of the tightening policy of the Federal Reserve. He says this will lead to the reprising of the bond market, especially as 10-year Treasury yields are already nearing the risky mark of 5%, which the Fed hasn’t done.

On Forecasts And Dreams

Despite the mixed forecast, not all analysts are yet bearish on the long-term prospects of Bitcoin. According to Crypto Titan, projections point to a surge in BTC up to as much as $120,000 in the coming months.

Scottie Pippen’s weird Bitcoin dream unraveled his quite complicated relationship with the digital gold and the volatility of the market. Perhaps, his motive demonstrates an actual interest in crypto, but that uncertainty and criticism brought into sharp focus the need for transparency and legitimacy within all discourses on finances.

Featured image from Self-Awareness Blog, chart from TradingView