• People first arrived to Greenland over 4,000 years ago, and it has a unique culture.
• Its population is mostly Inuit, though it’s been part of the Danish kingdom for hundreds of years.
• There are Scandinavian influences, but Inuit traditions remain strong.

President Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire to acquire Greenland, the world’s largest island and an autonomous Danish territory.

The president resurfaced the issue this week by appointing Jeff Landry, the Republican governor of Louisiana, as a special envoy to Greenland.

Trump told the BBC that acquiring the island is necessary for “national protection,” adding, “We have to have it.”

In an interview on Monday, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told TV2 that the appointment was “completely unacceptable.” Denmark said it will summon the US ambassador to explain.

Earlier this year, US Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha, traveled to the island. Following criticism from Denmark and Greenlanders over the trip, the Vances’ itinerary was amended so they only visited the US military base on Greenland, a change the Danish government called “very positive.”

Greenland is known for its long, freezing winters, stunning glaciers, and fishing industry, but in many ways, it remains a frozen mystery to much of the world.

Part of that mystique is because it’s been difficult for some tourists to travel to, except by cruise ship or lengthy plane rides. A new international airport is making the country more accessible, including to US residents.

Marianne A. Stenbaek, a professor of cultural studies at McGill University who studies Greenlandic art and literature, described Greenland as a “modern society with a traditional touch.” That’s because Denmark colonized it hundreds of years ago, but aspects of its Inuit traditions remain.

From its arts to its cuisine, Greenland has a culture all its own.

Greenland is located between Canada and Iceland, with much of the country above the Arctic Circle.

The country is a little bigger than Mexico. It’s also much colder. About 80% of Greenland’s 836,330 square miles are buried in snow and ice. An enormous national park, the world’s largest, covers much of the northeast.

The island has long made it of interest to many other countries for military purposes and as a source of natural resources, from rare minerals to natural gas and oil.

But to Greenlanders, it’s simply home.

Greenland’s first humans arrived over 4,000 years ago.

Pre-Inuit groups, including members of the Saqqaq culture, came to the island around 2,500 BCE via Canada. They settled in northern, western, and southeastern Greenland. Today’s Greenland Inuit population is descended from the Thule people, who moved into the country’s north from Alaska through Canada around 1,000 years ago.

Between 985 and roughly 1450 CE, Vikings lived and then died out in Western Greenland. Erik the Red was the one who called the icy island Greenland. In Greenlandic, its name is Kalaallit Nunaat.

Danish-Norwegian missionary Hans Egede established a settlement in what’s now Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, in 1721. Over the centuries, Denmark’s culture profoundly changed the country.

Greenland remained a Danish colony until 1953 and became an autonomous territory in 1979. It has its own parliament, known as the Inatsisartut.

While the country self-governs its domestic matters, Denmark retains jurisdiction over defense and foreign affairs.

More people live in Ames, Iowa, than in all of Greenland.

Around 56,000 people make Greenland their home.

Just under 90% are Inuit, though most also have some European ancestry, according to genetic testing published by the American Society of Human Genetics in 2015. Danish people make up the rest of the population. Most live in coastal cities or communities.

Residents speak Greenlandic and Danish.

Kalaallisut, also known as Greenlandic, is an Inuit language and is the official language of the country. It’s widely spoken, though some groups in the east speak Tunumiit, according to the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs.

Most residents also speak Danish, which is taught as a second language in schools.

Fishing is the country’s biggest industry.

The population has long depended on fishing for their livelihoods. However, it’s not enough to support the entire country. Denmark heavily supplements its budget with about $511 million annually, according to The BBC.

“The economy has been difficult,” Stenbaek said. Tourism and the country’s natural resources may be its future.

Cruise ships stop by in the summer, but airports are opening around the country, too.

Whether they’re hoping to spot narwhals or want to glimpse glaciers, nature-loving tourists are drawn to Greenland.

For a long time, it was difficult to get to the island by plane. Nuuk only opened its international airport in November 2024. Before that, only a few airports had runways long enough to land large jets. But as of earlier this year, Americans can hop on a direct flight from New York to Nuuk.

Ilulissat, which has an ice fjord on UNESCO’s World Heritage list, and Qaqortoq are also getting international airports, Reuters reported.

To get ready for the surge of tourists, some residents are buying snowmobiles to rent out, The New York Times reported. New hotels are opening, too.

Rich in both rare earth minerals and wildlife, Greenland is divided on what to do.

Greenland has a history of mining cryolite, which is used in aluminum smelting. A recent documentary, “The White Gold of Greenland,” claimed that for over 100 years, Danish mining companies extracted billions worth of the mineral, and Greenland reaped very little of the benefit, Variety reported.

That’s not a history it would want to repeat if it taps its deposits of uranium, gold, natural gas, lithium, and other resources. While some see mining as an opportunity to enrich the country, others have concerns.

“Greenlanders are very hesitant about many aspects of mining because it impacts the nature so much,” Stenbaek said.

There are also worries about how it could affect the fishing industry, while residents in Narsaq are concerned about their health if a company moves forward with mining radioactive uranium at a nearby proposed site, The Guardian reported.

Colonialism turned some aspects of Greenland Scandinavian while also stamping out some of its Inuit culture.

Danish culture is visible in Greenland’s healthcare system, educational institutions, and government. “To that extent, it has had a huge impact,” Stenbaek said. At the same time, authorities contributed to the loss of many aspects of the Inuits’ way of life.

Between the 1950s and ’70s, the Danish government forced Inuit populations to relocate from smaller settlements and communities to cities, Reuters reported. During this time, doctors implanted IUDs in thousands of Inuit girls and women, sometimes without their consent, The BBC reported. Denmark is investigating the matter and has offered counseling to those affected, AP reported last year.

Members of the Inuit community were also pressured to give up their culture and language.

“We were told to act more Danish, to speak Danish, if we wanted to be something,” Nadja Arnaaraq Kreutzmann, a Nuuk resident, recently told Reuters.

Some Inuits are preserving and reclaiming their culture.

From sewing national costumes to making jewelry to carving animal tusks, Inuit people in Greenland are finding ways to continue traditional practices.

“I’m concerned if we do not give the old traditions to younger people, it’ll die out within 35 years,” Greenlander Vera Mølgaard told National Geographic.

Qupanuk Olsen, a new member of Greenland’s Parliament, has spent over five years gaining more than 320,000 Instagram followers by highlighting the country’s food and traditions.

Most Greenlanders are Lutheran, but Inuit religious practices remain.

Some estimates put Greenland’s Lutheran population at 90%, heavily influenced by Hans Egede, the missionary who came to the island in 1721. His statue stands in Nuuk, and some want it removed, saying it’s a symbol of the start of colonization, the AP reported.

Many Greenlanders incorporate traditional religious practices into their services, Stenbaek said. They also sing hymns in Greenlandic, she said.

About 20,000 people live in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital and biggest city.

The city’s architecture is Scandinavian, but its artwork incorporates Inuit tales, according to Lonely Planet. That duality is Nuuk in a nutshell.

“It’s very much, in many ways, like a modern Scandinavian city,” Stenbaek said. “And at the same time, the Greenlandic culture, the traditional culture, is still there.”

There are plenty of cafés, restaurants, and shopping for residents and tourists to visit.

A more traditional way of life survives in smaller communities.

Small settlements remain along the west and east coasts, Stenbaek said. Some have fewer than 100 people.

“They live very much like they would have lived 100 years ago,” Stenbaek said. That means relying on fishing and other traditional knowledge to survive.

When there are no roads, residents use boats, sleds, and helicopters to get around.

In the more remote areas of the country, it’s not always easy to get from place to place.

“If you have to go from settlement to settlement, it’s either by boat or dog sleigh or skiing,” Stenbaek said.

If the water is too icy for boats, Greenlanders might have to jump in a helicopter. There are dog sled races in Uummannaq, but it’s also a practical mode of transportation in the snowy weather. The same goes for snowmobiles.

Greenland has polar nights and the midnight sun.

Far north regions experience polar nights in the winter, when the sun doesn’t rise above the horizon. The opposite happens in the summer, when Greenland gets nonstop daylight for a couple of months.

Both are significant to Greenlanders.

Since the sun is not visible in the winter, when spring comes it brings life back,” photographer Inuuteq Storch told The Guardian in 2024. “That time of total darkness is very spiritual.”

Weather rules Greenlanders’ worlds.

Greenland is a maritime culture, according to Stenbaek. “Everything depends on ice and water,” she said.

In some parts of the country, winters can last through April. The temperatures can be frigid, with some regions getting down to -30 degrees Fahrenheit.

Summers in northern towns are still chilly, averaging around 41 degrees Fahrenheit, per The Guardian. Temperatures are getting warmer, though.

Lots of Greenlanders read through those long, dark nights.

Greenland has a very literary culture, Stenbaek said. “It’s an old tradition that goes back 100 years,” she said. It’s long been a good way to pass a polar night. Local authors are published in both Greenlandic and Danish.

There are plenty of other types of Greenlandic art, too, including theater, sculpture, and music.

“Greenlanders are very artistic,” Stenbaek said.

Locals love to get outdoors, too.

Plenty of Greenlanders’ pastimes involve braving the cold.

“Many of them are connected directly to nature, like fishing, hunting, skiing,” Stenbaek said.

Greenland is rich in biodiversity.

The snowy landscape and arctic waters surrounding the island are habitats for musk ox, reindeer, seals, polar bears, whales, and dozens of bird species.

Berries, flowers, and cottongrass also grow in some parts of the country.

The Greenland dog is an ancient breed.

Sled dogs aren’t just companions. They’re often working animals, and have a long history of surviving alongside humans. Greenland’s first dogs arrived with the Thule people hundreds of years ago.

The husky-like dogs have thick coats, muscular bodies for pulling sleds, and a digestive system suited to high-fat diets, as reported by Newsweek.

Some dog sled races ban the use of other breeds, according to the Greenlandic Broadcasting Corporation.

Lamb, ox, and lots of seafood are all part of Arctic cuisine.

Long before there were grocery stores in Greenland, locals survived by hunting and fishing. Since the island doesn’t have a lot of plant life, they got their vitamin C from whale skin, The New York Times reported.

Even today, there isn’t much farming in Greenland, though people do raise sheep in the south.

While supermarkets sell imported food, like milk and vegetables, they’ll also stock local fare, including fish, seal, and whale. Some Greenlanders also supplement their shopping by hunting reindeer, ox, and other animals.

“In Greenland, we have the world’s wildest kitchen,” chef Inunnguaq Hegelund recently told NPR.

The warming world is already affecting Greenland.

As the planet heats up, Greenland has started to melt. Its glaciers are shrinking, and the permafrost is disappearing. In 2016, researchers found that the Greenland ice sheet was losing the equivalent of 110 million Olympic-sized swimming pools of water each year.

“It had an influence on roads and airports and houses when all of a sudden the earth starts to unfreeze,” Stenbaek said.

It’s started to change animals’ migration patterns, and polar bears have had to adapt to a new way of hunting without sea ice.

It’s a hotbed of scientific research.

The US National Science Foundation has been studying Greenland’s ice sheet for decades.

The country’s location also makes it the perfect location to obtain ice cores, test cold-weather engineering, monitor climate change, and study the elusive Greenland shark.

Most Greenlanders want to break away from Denmark.

Over the years, Greenland has become increasingly independent from Denmark. In 2008, it voted for a referendum granting them more autonomy. Many want to go even further and become completely independent from the Danish kingdom.

About 80% of Greenlanders support the move, according to recent polling. Yet one longtime backer of the movement has recently become a bit more hesitant.

Aqqaluk Lynge is the former president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, a nongovernmental organization representing Inuit people in several countries. He told NPR in February 2025 that he now supports Greenland staying tied to Denmark because “if Greenland secedes from Denmark, it will be taken by United States.”

“This is surprising because Aqqaluk used to be head of much of the independence movement,” Stenbaek said.

Some want to stay independent from the US, too.

Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to buy Greenland. In a speech to the US Congress earlier this year, he said that if Greenland chose to join, “we welcome you into the United States of America.”

It may be one of the reasons the Democratic party, which advocates for a slow approach to independence, won in recent elections, Stenbaek said. The majority of Greenlanders, 85%, according to a January 2025 opinion poll, don’t want to become part of the US.

“Greenlanders want to remain Greenlandic,” Stenbaek said.

She said she thought it was important for Greenland to strengthen connections with other countries, Canada in particular. They have a lot in common in terms of environmental concerns and large Inuit populations, she said.

“Both are Arctic countries,” she said. “They would be quite strong.”

• Andrej Karpathy led AI at Tesla and cofounded OpenAI. He also also coined the term “vibe coding.”
• Reflecting on the last year, Karpathy wrote that vibe-coding has produced a new type of code that is “free” and “discardable.”
• He predicted that vibe coding will “terraform software and alter job descriptions.”

He coined “vibe coding” earlier this year. Now, he has something to say about it.

Andrej Karpathy led AI at Tesla for five years, steering the company’s Autopilot effort and briefly working on its humanoid robot Optimus. He sandwiched his Tesla job with two stints at OpenAI, making Karpathy a cofounder of the AI pioneer.

As 2025 comes to a close, Karpathy published his year-in-review for large language models on X. He reflected on the famous term he originated in February, a term that has since shaken up the software engineering industry.

“With vibe coding, programming is not strictly reserved for highly trained professionals,” Karpathy wrote. He called it an example of how “regular people benefit a lot more from LLMs compared to professionals, corporations and governments.”

Vibe coding has likely benefited businesses, too. Tech companies have equipped their engineers with tools like Cursor, Claude Code, and OpenAI’s Codex, aiming for productivity gains.

Karpathy wrote that vibe coding “empowers trained professionals to write a lot more (vibe coded) software that would otherwise never be written.”

It may also change the makeup — or the use case — of the code itself. Karpathy threw out a slew of adjectives to describe this new body of code: It is “free, ephemeral, malleable, discardable after single use.”

“Vibe coding will terraform software and alter job descriptions,” he wrote.

How does Karpathy feel about being the term’s origin?

“Amusingly, I coined the term “vibe coding” in this shower of thoughts tweet totally oblivious to how far it would go,” he wrote.

It’s not yet clear how efficient vibe coding is making engineers. In a METR study published in July, AI coding assistants were found to decrease the productivity of participating experienced software developers by 19%. The developers in that study were also overconfident in the tools, its authors said, expecting a 20% productivity boost even after using them.

What is clear, though, is that the practice is unlocking a whole new form of tech products. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey vibe-coded a new messaging app this year. Non-technical workers are easily building, shipping, and, in some cases, even selling apps they build in hours, if not minutes.

Karpathy gave some other reflections. He praised Google Gemini’s Nano Banana image model, and wrote that Claude Code was the “first convincing demonstration of what an LLM Agent looks like.”

Overall, Karpathy wrote that 2025 was an “exciting and mildly surprising year of LLMs.”

• I visited TJ Maxx and Marshalls this holiday season.
• I found good deals at both stores, but the Marshalls seemed disorganized and had smaller selections.
• The TJ Maxx I visited had higher-quality products and was more organized.

TJ Maxx and Marshalls are two of the best-known discount department stores in the US, but they are not the same, as I discovered this holiday season.

While the two stores are owned by the same parent company, The TJX Companies, each has a different mission. TJ Maxx calls itself “a one-stop for quality, value, and the coveted brands you know and love,” and focuses on higher-end brands, jewelry, and accessories, while Marshalls has an “expanded men’s department, as well as a larger shoe department where you’ll find styles for women, men, and kids, too.”

During visits to the stores in New York City in December, I noticed the difference in quality between the two, but that wasn’t the only contrast. The Marshalls I visited was more crowded, perhaps contributing to my feeling it was in disarray, while TJ Maxx was emptier, but also felt more organized.

Marshalls and TJ Maxx stores vary between locations, so while my experience was consistent with my previous visits to the stores, it may not be true of all locations. The TJX Companies did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

I get easily overwhelmed by the options available at stores like these, so I greatly preferred TJ Maxx, even though some items were more expensive.

Here’s what it was like at both Marshalls and TJ Maxx during peak shopping season.

Marshalls and TJ Maxx share a location in Manhattan, so I decided to visit both on the same day to compare the experiences.

The Marshalls was in the basement, while the TJ Maxx was on the second floor.

This Marshalls was so large that I couldn’t see the back of the store.

Signs everywhere proclaimed holiday deals.

There were also plenty of holiday sweaters.

This Marshalls was somewhat disorganized, and I was baffled by the location of some of the displays.

The women’s shoes were tucked in a corner. The selection was a bit limited.

I also found a table offering skincare options.

But there wasn’t a centralized beauty section. Across the store, another table featured spa sets, such as these from Mario Badescu.

There were some good gift ideas here. This makeup brush set was $40.

Most of the aisles were filled with home goods, like this “Harry Potter” x Rae Dunn cookie jar.

There was also a small selection of Yankees merch, perfect for any baseball fan.

There were a lot of candles and scented products. I particularly liked this Sand + Fog jar of apple-spice-scented gel beads.

In another aisle, I spotted a Smeg standing mixer for $500. This was the most expensive thing I saw at Marshalls.

But I spotted some good deals in the store. This Nespresso machine cost $350 — on Nespresso’s website, it’s on sale for $390, down from $650.

At another table, a Breville air fryer was priced at $280. It’s $300 on Breville’s website.

In a beauty aisle, I found a Dyson hairdryer for $300. Dyson’s website has it on sale for $380, down from $550.

There was a selection of Yeti tumblers, but they seem a bit outdated — the water-bottle wars have moved on to Owala and Hydro Flask.

There was a small selection of luggage, but this display felt disorganized, too.

Even though Christmas isn’t over, there was already a small aisle for Valentine’s Day merch.

Next, I headed upstairs to TJ Maxx.

The first thing I saw was a much larger, more organized luggage selection than the one in Marshalls.

The rest of the store looked similar to Marshalls, if not a bit more organized and brighter.

There were some of the same products, like this Juicy Couture gift set.

An Ed Hardy bag made me believe that the 2000s are truly back.

Source: Business Insider

The beauty selection was much less chaotic than at the store downstairs.

Instead of one aisle, there were multiple shelves for skincare and perfume.

I didn’t spot any Dyson products, though.

In the shoes section, there were more options in stock at TJ Maxx, as well as a larger selection.

As opposed to Yetis, there was a large selection of the trendier Owalas. Prices were comparable with both brands, though.

There were also Hydro Flasks.

Instead of plain mugs, I spotted bedazzled Mets tumblers. In general, there was a larger selection of sports merchandise at this store.

Some other items were of slightly higher quality as well. Nest candles retail higher than Sand + Fog ones do.

There were also large candles like this Martha Stewart holiday candle.

There was also a huge toy section, whereas Marshalls’ was much more cramped.

In the appliance section, I noted both stores had the same brands, but the TJ Maxx products were more expensive. This coffeemaker was $999.

The Nespresso available here was $549, a full $200 more than the model at Marshalls. On the website, this one is on sale for $455.

I was surprised to find a larger Valentine’s Day selection here.

I was even tempted to buy some of these candles.

Both stores were packed with deals, but I was less overstimulated at TJ Maxx. It felt more organized and elevated, and less overwhelming.

• Trump’s Education Department completed an update to income-based repayment plans.
• It removed the partial financial hardship requirement, expanding eligibility to borrowers with higher incomes.
• It’s part of the department’s overhaul of student-loan repayment that Trump signed into law.

An affordable student-loan repayment plan is now available to more borrowers.

On December 22, President Donald Trump’s Department of Education said that it had completed a key update to income-based repayment plans, removing the requirement to be in partial financial hardship to enroll.

Trump’s “big beautiful” spending legislation included a provision to remove the financial hardship requirement, which meant that the borrower’s monthly payment had to be less than the amount needed to pay off their full balance over a 10-year period.

Now that the update is complete, borrowers with higher incomes should soon become eligible to enroll in IBR plans. The department said that it encourages borrowers who were previously denied from IBR plans due to a lack of partial financial hardship to reapply using the online income-driven repayment application.

“If you applied for IBR and your servicer is holding your application, your servicer will process your application in the order in which it was received,” the department said.

IBR plans give borrowers monthly payments based on their incomes, with student-loan forgiveness after 20 or 25 years, depending on when they first took out the loan. Specifically, borrowers who took out loans before July 1, 2014, will receive IBR payments based on 15% of their income with a 25-year repayment period. Borrowers who took out loans after that date will receive payments based on 10% of their income with a 20-year repayment period.

After a backlog of IBR application processing, the Department of Education restarted student-loan forgiveness in the fall for borrowers who had reached their payment thresholds.

In addition to the IBR changes, the department is also working to implement other repayment changes, including new borrowing caps for graduate and professional students, as well as a new Repayment Assistance Plan intended to replace existing income-driven repayment plans. Those changes are set to roll out in July 2026.

• Social media is shedding light on this year’s company holiday parties.
• Two consulting firms appeared to use the same venue, complete with oysters and ice skating.
• Some of Elon Musk’s companies went big on tech-themed bashes, according to posts on TikTok.

Corporate wellness may be in, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping companies from splurging on champagne and steak this holiday season.

TikTokers are giving the internet a glimpse into consulting and tech companies’ holiday parties, from ice skating to raves.

It appears that some consulting firms consulted with the same venue — Deloitte and KPMG’s parties both seem to take place at Le Grand Palais des Glaces, an indoor ice skating rink with a mock Eiffel Tower, according to videos on TikTok.

KPMG confirmed that more than 3,000 people attended its party in Paris at Le Grand Palais des Glaces. None of the other companies responded to a request for comment from Business Insider, and the videos saying they’re of the parties have not been verified.

The post about KPMG’s party includes a figure skating performance, drinks, and oysters lying on a bed of ice. A post that said it was of Deloitte’s event also featured a figure skating show, with a group of performers in yellow dresses, rather than the duet performance for KPMG employees. In terms of food, the apparent Deloitte bash offered bubbly, oysters, and a dish featuring truffle mushrooms, according to one video.

A representative for KPMG said that the firm’s New York City holiday party took place at The Overview, an event space in the Javits Center, and featured live music, a holiday menu, and photo stations. In San Fransico, the Cirque du Soleil-themed party was at the San Francisco Design Center.

A video that said it showed a PWC bash in New York City features a disco ball, dance floor, full bar, strips of rare steak, and accessories befitting a typical middle school graduation party, like light-up shutter shades and necklaces. (The TikToker told Business Insider the video is not affiliated with their work at PWC.)

Some of Elon Musk‘s companies also pulled out all the stops, according to social media. TikTok videos that said they showed SpaceX’s holiday party included a rave around a Mars-themed stage — fitting since the rocket company aims to reach the red planet by 2026. There seemed to be carnival rides, sledding on fake snow, and performers dancing in cyber trucks.

The party appeared to take place in an outdoor arena, as some can be seen milling around largely empty bleachers in another video.

xAI employees hung out with Optimus robots, according to posts on X. Photos and videos purportedly from the event show the robots handing out items and fighting.

• Mark Hirschberg’s grandparents started making pet toys in the 1950s.
• His father took over the company and talked about business all the time, he said.
• Mark’s three grown kids now work for a related pet toy company that he started.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Mark Hirschberg, president of Multipet. It has been edited for length and clarity.

My grandparents started a company from scraps — quite literally.

In the 1950s, they were immigrants from Germany, living in the basement of a man who made belts. They repurposed the scraps from those leather belts to make dog toys. They called it Vo Toys, after their last name, Vogel. They only spoke broken English and thought the name was very catchy.

My grandfather died when I was 10, and my father took over the business. That’s when our living room became his office, and his office sometimes felt like our living room. There were no boundaries between work and home. He talked about business 24/7. It was a point of frustration.

As I got older, I rebelled against joining the family business. My dad and brother were running the company, and they were very close. I didn’t feel like there was room for me. I attended New York University to study finance and then began working for a real estate company.

I joined the family business, then created my own company

Sometimes I think working for the family business was a self-fulfilling prophecy. By the time I had a wife and child, I returned to Vo Toys. It felt like my birthright, to a degree. It also gave me the opportunity for more financial security.

I worked at the family company for about nine years. At the time, most major pet toy manufacturers were buying from the same trade companies in China. To stand out in the US market, you had to offer the lowest price.

I wanted to try another approach: creating uniquely designed toys that were unlike anything else. That way, we could avoid the price war. In 1993, I left Vo Toys to found Multipet.

My dad and I met on Fridays to talk business

For a while, my dad and brother were waiting for me to come running back. I was driven by the desire to prove myself. I’m 66, and even today, that drives me.

I was really good about putting Multipet in a niche that meant we weren’t competing directly with Vo Toys. After I left the family business, my dad and I would meet each Friday for breakfast and talk transparently about the companies.

My dad and I get along fine, but my biggest fear is that I’m turning into him. So, I vowed to keep business and my personal life separate. I didn’t want my three kids to experience what I had growing up. I wanted them to follow their own hearts and not feel obligated to join the family business.

I would love to see my grandkids join the business, too

I wanted my children to experience the world, so I created a rule: if they wanted to join the family business, they had to work for someone else for three years first. It’s not healthy for anyone to have the same job forever, and I wanted them to have exposure.

They each did that, and now my two sons and daughter all work with me. We see each other frequently at work, but when we’re around the dinner table, we’re not talking business. I have five grandkids now, so that makes it hard to have too much conversation anyway.

In a lot of ways, things haven’t changed since my grandparents. My grandmother had the ability to look at a spool of thread, or a scrap of leather, and see a toy. I inherited that ability to look at an item and see its potential.

I would love it if my grandkids become the fifth generation in the pet toy business — if not, what are we doing it for?