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NBA Hall of Famer and “Speak on FS1” host Paul Pierce predicted on Wednesday that his beloved Boston Celtics (where he played for 15 seasons) would win Game 2 of their playoff series against the New York Knicks.

On the air, he said: “If the Celtics lose Game 2 at home, I promise you, I’m walking here tomorrow.”

“In my robe,” he added.

Well, the Celtics lost (now down 0-2 to the Knicks as the series heads to New York for Game 3 on Saturday) and Pierce was stuck setting his alarm for 4 a.m.

?? pic.twitter.com/OriE5sFujR

— Paul Pierce (@paulpierce34) May 8, 2025

The former Boston Celtics star known as “The Truth” chronicled his journey on Thursday. Although he said he’d do the walk barefoot, he did end up putting on some shoes.

Thousands of viewers watched Pierce, in his robe, walk the almost marathon-length journey to his job at Fox Sports, which ended with him sitting outside the studios with his coworkers cheering him on in the background.

Paul Pierce actually walking to work at FS1 after saying he’d do it if Celtics lost Game 2 lmao pic.twitter.com/3I6NxEm9Un

— Ryan Glasspiegel (@sportsrapport) May 8, 2025

“Boston in six,” Pierce said at the end of the journey. “I dropped about five pounds today, I feel it.”

Maybe Pierce should stop making predictions, or he might be swimming to work tomorrow.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg predicts a future where AI will understand you so well that different AI personas will become your “friends.”

In a new interview with podcaster Dwarkesh Patel, Zuckerberg said that he thinks “the average person wants more connectivity, more connection that they actually have,” and thinks AI chatbots trained to have different personalities could help fill that void.

“The average American, I think, has fewer than three friends, three people they’d consider friends, and the average person has demand for meaningfully more, I think it’s like 15 friends,” Zuckerberg told Patel. (He was likely referring to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, which found that 40% of Americans say they have three or fewer friends, while 38% have five or more.)

Zuckerberg says AI has the opportunity to fill that gap.

Related: Meta Is Building AI That Can Write Code Like a Mid-Level Engineer, According to Mark Zuckerberg

Although he said that AI would “probably” not replace in-person or real-life connections, it could help people feel less alone. He added that users are already tapping into AI to prepare for difficult conversations with people in their lives, and other companies are already offering AI personas as virtual therapists and romantic partners.

“For people who don’t have a therapist, I think everyone will have an AI,” Zuckerberg said in a separate podcast with analyst Ben Thompson last week.

Related: Meta Is Testing AI That Can Catch Teenagers Trying to Get Around Age Rules on Instagram

However, not everyone is on board with having AI “friends,” and social media users criticized Zuckerberg for his comments.

The writer Neil Turkewitz wrote on X that Zuckerberg’s perspective “is what happens when you believe that humanity is reducible to binary data — you think of friendship through the lens of supply & demand.”

Other users questioned if AI friends would tell humans how to vote and what to believe, while another tracked Meta’s evolution from a place to connect with friends in 2006 to a place to connect with “imaginary friends” in 2026.

Some were more optimistic, writing that they “wanted an AI friend.”

Carolyn Rogers, head of marketing at the agency Blokhaus, wrote on X that the next step would be for AI friends to start recommending products, enabling Meta to monetize that friendship.

2006 – Join Facebook to connect with your friends
2026 – Join Facebook to connect with your imaginary friends

— WRLB? (@WRLB2) May 1, 2025

Zuckerberg’s comments arrive as Meta released a standalone Meta AI app last week to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and xAI’s Grok.

Zuckerberg revealed in an Instagram video about the app’s release that almost a billion people use Meta AI globally across the company’s apps like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Related: Meta Takes on ChatGPT By Releasing a Standalone AI App: ‘A Long Journey’

Former employees at IBM were replaced with AI, the company’s CEO confirmed earlier this week.

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told The Wall Street Journal on Monday that the tech giant had tapped into AI to take over the work of several hundred human resources employees. However, IBM’s workforce expanded instead of shrinking—the company used the resources freed up by the layoffs to hire more programmers and salespeople.

“Our total employment has actually gone up, because what [AI] does is it gives you more investment to put into other areas,” Krishna told The Journal.

Krishna specified that those “other areas” included software engineering, marketing, and sales or roles focused on “critical thinking,” where employees “face up or against other humans, as opposed to just doing rote process work.”

Related: IBM Exec Says 7,800 Jobs (or Nearly 30% of Its Workforce) Could Be Replaced By AI

IBM CTO Ji-eun Lee said earlier this year that IBM’s AskHR agent had automated 94% of simple, routine human resources tasks, like vacation requests and pay statements. Meanwhile, IBM’s AskIT agent reduced the number of calls and chats for the IT team by 70%.

IBM saw a “productivity improvement” of $3.5 billion over the past two years by using AI in more than 70 business areas, Lee stated.

IBM did not disclose when the HR layoffs and subsequent hiring in other departments occurred. The company employed 270,300 workers globally as of its 2024 annual report.

^{IBM CEO Arvind Krishna. Photographer: Christopher Pike/Bloomberg via Getty Images}

This week, IBM held its annual Think conference and introduced new products and services to grow its generative AI division, which has become a $6 billion business. The tools allow customers to build their own AI agents, capable of autonomously carrying out complex tasks, in under five minutes.

The service is similar to offerings from Amazon, Nvidia, and Microsoft.

Related: AI Agents Can Help Businesses Be ’10 Times More Productive,’ According to a Nvidia VP. Here’s What They Are and How Much They Cost.

Krishna has worked for IBM for over 34 years and stepped into the CEO role in 2020. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told Business Insider on Wednesday that Krishna was in the process of transforming IBM into an AI company.

“It’s still the first inning in a nine-inning game,” Ives told the publication.

Krishna isn’t the first CEO to say the company has replaced people with AI.

Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski stated last year that its AI chatbot did the work of 700 customer service agents and later announced that the company was undergoing a hiring freeze and filling in the gaps with AI.

Meanwhile, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in September that the company’s new AI agents could replace gig workers during busy seasons.

Money can ruin your relationship — so when you say “I do” at the altar, you need to also say “I DO” with your finances.

I DO is a framework I developed for navigating your finances as a married couple. It goes like this:

Initiate the Conversation
Divvy Up “Yours, Mine and Ours” Accounts
Opt For a Prenup

To show you how it works, I’ll give you a real-life example — with the celebrity couple Sharna Burgess and Brian Austin Green.

Step 1: Initiate the Conversation

Initiating a money conversation seems like it would be a no-brainer — but a lot of couples put it off.

This is what happened with Sharna and Brian. “ We had a baby a lot quicker than we thought we were going to,” Sharna told me on my podcast Money Rehab this week. “I think because it was like going through a tunnel at full speed in the beginning of our relationship, there were some conversations that just got missed.'”

If you haven’t had this conversation yet, have it now. Don’t wait a moment longer. If you wait until the “right time” to have the money talk, it’ll be too late.

So, what should you talk about? Here’s a place to start:

Step 2: Divvy Up Accounts

Here’s the first question that couples face: Whose money is whose?

This is a personal decision, and there’s no system that works for every couple. Some couples combine finances. Some keep them separate. Personally, I like a system I call “Yours, Mine, and Ours”.

It’s simple: You keep a bank account that’s just for you, your spouse keeps an account just for them, and you both contribute to a shared account. This way, you retain some financial independence but also build a financial life together.

This is what Sharna and Brian do. For Sharna, it helps keep the magic alive. “I don’t want to be over his books, because that’s not my job,” she said. “I feel like that takes some of the romance away.”

But as you create a plan to merge finances, you should also create a plan to disentangle them. Which means…

Step 3: Opt for a Prenup

If you have any form of an “Ours” or joint account, a prenup is critical.

This conversation can make people uncomfortable. I first spoke to Sharna a year ago, and asked her whether she and Brian have a prenup plan. She visibly froze, then told me it would be too awkward to discuss with Brian.

But a year later, she’s changed her tune. “ I think protecting yourself is a beautiful thing,” she told me more recently. “Knowing that everything is fair and you’ve made the big decisions, I think it’s incredibly smart.”

I completely agree — but I understand her fear from a year ago.

Prenups feel unromantic and stressful, mostly because people think of prenups as divorce planning. But really, it’s just insurance. You don’t get car insurance because you’re planning on getting into a car accident. You get insurance in case of an emergency, and you hope you’ll never have to use it, but it makes you feel a little more comfortable in your car.

That’s how a prenup should feel — it’s an emergency measure that makes you feel more secure in your relationship, not less.

The intersection of love and money can be messy, but if you follow the I DO framework, you’ll be doing right by your partner, yourself and your wallet.

Federal Reserve policymakers announced that they were holding the federal funds rate steady after the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on Wednesday. The target range remains unchanged at 4.25% to 4.5%.

The last time the FOMC cut rates was at its December meeting, when it lowered the target range by 25 basis points, or 0.25%.

The federal funds rate is the borrowing rate that banks charge each other for loans. A lower rate ripples out to lower borrowing costs on credit cards and personal loans, though banks individually choose how to respond to rate changes. The average credit card interest rate is currently around 21%, while car loan rates for new vehicles are around 6%.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said at a news conference following the FOMC meeting that inflation, which was at an annual rate of 2.4% in March, was still above its 2% target and that the Fed was taking a “wait and see” approach to its monetary policy adjustments.

Related: Core Inflation Is at Its Lowest Level in 4 Years — But Will the Fed Cut Rates? Experts Expect the Agency to ‘Stay Humble and Data-Dependent’

“There’s just so much that we don’t know, I think, and we’re in a good position to wait and see, is the thing,” Powell stated at the news conference. “We don’t have to be in a hurry. The economy is resilient and doing fairly well.”

^{Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images}

Industry experts aren’t surprised. Ed Yardeni, head of Yardeni Research consultancy, told NBC News that the best thing for the Fed to do was to wait and see if inflation or unemployment poses more of a problem down the line.

“The evidence so far is that, for now, it’s likely to be more of a cost problem than a labor market problem,” Yardeni told the outlet.

Related: Are Amazon’s Prices Going Up? Here’s How the Company’s CEO Answered Questions About Tariffs.

Last month, President Donald Trump levied a 10% tariff on all trading partners and a tariff as high as 145% on China that could affect consumer prices.

Powell noted at the news conference that there was “a great deal of uncertainty” about tariff policies and stated that the Fed would carefully monitor the effects of tariffs on inflation and unemployment.

The next meeting is on June 17 and 18, and experts are already expecting the Fed to keep rates steady. Barclays estimates that the Fed will keep rates the same in June and make its first rate cut in July, while Morgan Stanley anticipates no rate cuts this year, per USA Today.

What does the Fed’s decision mean for mortgage rates?

Melissa Cohn, regional vice president of William Raveis Mortgage, told Entrepreneur in an email that she predicts mortgage rates should lower this week because the Fed decided to hold rates steady.

“Mortgage rates will drop a bit this week as bonds have cheered the Fed’s decision to leave rates alone,” Cohn stated.

Cohn also noted that May would be “a very telling month” as the Fed gets a better idea of the impact of tariffs on the economy.

“Now, it’s back to data-watching and, of course, to see where the tariff negotiations end up,” Cohn stated.

Your domain name does more than just direct people to your website — it’s your digital first impression. It builds credibility, boosts search visibility and often becomes one of your strongest brand assets.

Let me show you what that looks like in the real world.

One of my clients runs a $1 million e-commerce business. For years, they operated under a decent—but—forgettable domain. After a long negotiation, they bought the exact-match.com for $150,000. Within a year, traffic rose 32%, conversions jumped 18% and revenue increased by nearly $300,000. That single domain upgrade paid for itself.

In my own case, I’ve spent over $1 million on a domain. It wasn’t vanity — it was strategy. That investment returned many multiples in brand equity, inbound traffic and authority.

If you’re serious about building a business, you need to treat your domain like an asset, not an afterthought. And if the name you want is already taken? There’s a playbook for that.

Related: 8 Elements to Consider When Picking Your Domain Name

Step 1: Figure out who owns it

Start with a WHOIS lookup using tools like ICANN Lookup or DomainTools. If it’s public, you’ll see the owner’s info. If it’s private, you’ll often still be able to contact them through domain marketplaces or a broker.

Next, visit the domain:

• If it’s an active business site: Expect a tougher negotiation.
• If it’s parked or covered in ads: It’s likely for sale.
• If it redirects somewhere else: That signals strategic value—possibly for branding or SEO.

Also, check for trademarks via USPTO or WIPO. Legal issues can derail even the best plans.

Step 2: Estimate the value

Domain prices vary wildly. Here’s what impacts value most:

• Top-level domain (TLD): .com reigns supreme.
• Keyword relevance: Exact matches in competitive industries drive up price.
• Age: Older domains often carry SEO authority.
• Traffic/backlinks: Existing links or organic traffic make a domain more valuable.

Use tools like GoDaddy Appraisal, EstiBot, and NameBio for comps — but remember they’re estimates. Real sales data is better.

Step 3: Reach out the right way

Keep your first message short and low-pressure:

Hi [Name],
I’m interested in acquiring [domain.com]. Would you be open to discussing a potential sale?
Best,
[Your Name]

Avoid overselling your business or explaining why you want it — that just raises the price.

If you don’t hear back, follow up in a week. Many domain owners simply miss your first email or filter unknown senders as spam.

Related: Do’s and Don’ts of Securing a Domain Name

Step 4: Negotiate smart

Start below market, but not insultingly low. If a domain’s value is around $10,000, consider opening with $3K–$4K. Justify your offer with comparable sales or industry trends.

If the seller’s number is high, explore options:

• Installments: Many owners are fine with payment plans.
• Bundle: Ask if they own related domains you can purchase together.
• Quick-close bonus: A small extra for faster transfer often sweetens the deal.

Step 5: Use a broker (when it makes sense)

If negotiations stall — or if the asking price is way outside your comfort zone — a broker can help.

A good broker keeps your identity anonymous, knows how to value domains, and often gets better pricing. They’ll usually take a 10–20% cut, so weigh that against the time and effort you’d otherwise spend.

Step 6: Lock it down safely

Once you agree on a price, use a trusted escrow service like Escrow.com. They hold the funds until the domain is transferred to your registrar and in your name.

Verify the transfer is complete via WHOIS or your registrar dashboard before releasing payment.

What if it’s not for sale?

If the owner won’t sell, you’re not out of options:

• Set alerts on marketplaces like GoDaddy Auctions.
• Watch for expiration — some domains drop when owners forget to renew.
• Try alternate extensions (.co, .io, etc.), but use with caution — especially if the .com is actively used.
• Rebrand creatively. Some of the strongest brands out there weren’t obvious choices at first.

Final thoughts

Buying a domain — especially one that’s taken — takes persistence, research and sometimes a chunk of cash. But when done right, it’s one of the smartest long-term brand investments you can make.

I’ve bought domains for $2,000 and $1 million. In both cases, the return came from one thing: business impact.

Your domain isn’t just a URL. It’s your first impression, your brand foundation and a 24/7 trust signal.

Make it count.

Several years ago, I was so unhappy in a job that I started “rage applying.” I sat at my desk, making sure my boss wasn’t nearby, applying to job after job after job. I would go home and apply in the evenings and weekends as well. I was frustrated and angry. I felt so stuck in my career that I was spraying my resume everywhere and praying, applying reactively to any opening I could find online. Because how else could I get unstuck and out of this miserable job if I wasn’t actively looking?

Rage applying led me to apply for roles I wasn’t interested in or didn’t have the specific skills to do. I made mistakes on job applications and cover letters (one recruiter was kind enough to point out that I had inserted the wrong company name, in fact, of a competitor). I wasn’t prepared for calls with recruiters because I was exhausted from applying to all of those jobs. Rage applying didn’t help me get unstuck in my career. In fact, it sent me into a deeper spiral. I felt like I was trapped in quicksand with no way to escape and save my career.

It’s time to put an end to rage applying. Walk away from that keyboard and stop yourself from applying to another job in a mad dash, panicked and frenzied state. If you are unhappy in your current job, start by focusing on these three strategies.

Related: I Went Viral for Quitting My Job Because It Was Impacting My Mental Health. Here Are the 4 Things I Did to Prepare for Full-Time Entrepreneurship.

1. Assess your current career situation

Take the time to assess your current situation before immediately firing off another resume. What is the reason you are looking to leave your current job? Are there multiple things at play? Consider the following questions:

• Are you trying to leave a negative or toxic work environment?
• Is your boss not supportive? Are they disengaged? A micromanager? A bully?
• Are you doing twice as much work, covering for team members who have resigned?
• Are you left out of key meetings and conversations, and wonder if your boss and colleagues value you anymore?
• Are you not being paid fairly and equitably?
• Have you repeatedly been passed over for promotions versus your peers?
• Are you no longer growing and learning in your role?

Reviewing the answers to these questions will be important as you think about what’s next. Think about what you once enjoyed about your current job and what you are looking for in your next role. Consider the type of work you want to do, the skills you bring and what your non-negotiables are for your next role.

2. Be thoughtful and proactive about your next steps

Taking some time to assess your current situation can help you be thoughtful and proactive about your next steps, versus just applying for every job you see available and open. Here’s a starting roadmap to guide you:

• Make a list of industries you would be interested in working in, and identify which industries are adjacent to where you currently work. Include target companies you would be interested in working at or learning more about.
• Identify the types of roles you would apply for. Start with three types of roles you would consider (you may need to broaden that over time depending on the length of your search). Research titles, roles and responsibilities and salary ranges.
• Outline the current skills you have and what would be transferable, particularly if you are open to transitioning into another function, for example, moving from marketing to sales. If you have a gap in a particular skill set or want to learn a new skill, consider investing the time in this. LinkedIn Learning, Coursera and Udemy are all good places to start.
• Finally, ask for help. Tell your friends and family what you are specifically looking to do next. You can ask for their support and input on the assessment and/or considering your next steps. Those closest to you might have good insights about your candidacy and your career. Be careful about sharing plans with current colleagues, especially if you are concerned about your boss finding out you are looking to leave.

Related: Tired of Applying to Jobs with No Response? Try This Tactic, According to An Expert Who Helps Thousands of People Get Jobs

3. Use smart tools to help your scale your search

Particularly in this job market, we need all the help we can get to scale our search. There are only so many hours in the day we can devote to looking for another job, particularly if we are trying to keep our current job. Take the time to invest in smart tools to land your next opportunity:

• Notion is a great tool to help organize your career audit, career goals and what you want to do next. You can also keep notes of individuals you have connected with in your network, what advice they offered and any follow-ups. It’s a great place to store your roadmap in one place.
• Teal is a great tool to help you build your resume. You can apply for the right jobs faster by tailoring your resume. Teal will help you with your resume structure, the format, the content and more. You can also easily track all of your job applications. This frees up your time to focus on preparing for interviews and continue to build your network.
• Finally, tools like Massive help you auto-apply for roles. It’s your own personal AI recruiter and can help you apply to over 200 jobs a month with its job matching capabilities. The tool hand vets companies and fills out the job application on your behalf.

Smart tools can help you save time and focus on the things that matter the most in the job search: showing up in those moments that matter to share your experience and expertise. And letting recruiters, hiring managers and interview panels know what a strong asset you would be to their organization.

So step away from the keyboard and stop rage applying. Instead, craft and invest in a thoughtful approach to help you get unstuck in your career. And don’t be afraid to ask for help along the way.

On an episode of the Hill & Valley Forum podcast this week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that AI has brought new life to San Francisco.

It’s welcome news, considering that, since 2019, the story has been about San Francisco’s decline, both in population and in businesses. Business Insider reports that as many as 89,000 households left San Francisco during the pandemic, and major businesses like Palantir and Oracle also abandoned the once bustling tech hub.

Major retailers, including Nordstrom, shuttered their downtown locations, and sunny cities like Austin and Miami became the new hot places to establish an HQ.

But then came the AI boom.

Related: Elon Musk Calls San Francisco ‘Post-Apocalyptic’ as Another Major Retailer Leaves Due to Crime

The popularity of ChatGPT since it was released in late 2022 has led to an AI innovation wave, and San Francisco is seeing the benefits, Huang noted.

“It’s because of AI that San Francisco is back,” Huang said on the podcast.

“Okay, anybody who lives in San Francisco, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Just about everybody evacuated San Francisco,” he added. “Now it’s thriving again. It’s all because of AI.”

Related: Here’s How Much a Typical Nvidia Employee Makes in a Year

When it comes to AI taking jobs from humans, Huang said that while roles may be lost, others will be created.

“New jobs will be created, some jobs will be lost, every job will be changed,” he said.

Huang says that AI creates a “new type” of job. And can help bring back cities, apparently.

“It’s software development but done in a different way,” he said.

Related: Check Out Fubu Founder and Longtime ‘Shark’ Daymond John’s Miami Office