• Taylor Swift announced this week that she wrote an original song for the “Toy Story 5” soundtrack.
• The collaboration makes perfect sense when you consider what Swift and “Toy Story” have in common.
• Both brands have spent decades leveraging creative, original works to sell merchandise.

Imagine a family-friendly brand with the initials “TS” that floods the market with bespoke merchandise. Are you thinking of “Toy Story” or Taylor Swift?

For now, at least, they’re one and the same. Swift confirmed long-simmering speculation this week when she announced her new single for the “Toy Story 5” soundtrack, “I Knew It, I Knew You,” will be released on Friday.

“You knew it! My new original song ‘I Knew It, I Knew You’ for Disney and @Pixar’s @toystory 5 will be yours on June 5th,” Swift wrote on social media, making a nod to her most devoted detectives, who had collected Easter Eggs from across the internet that hinted at the collaboration for months.

“I’ve always dreamed of getting to write for these characters who I’ve adored since I was a 5-year-old kid watching the first Toy Story movie,” Swift continued. “I fell instantly in love with Toy Story 5 when I was lucky enough to see it in its early stages, and I wrote this song as soon as I got home from the screening. Sometimes you just know, right?”

Swift’s admiration for “Toy Story” makes sense not just because she’s a millennial who grew up with the classic movie franchise. The devotion she inspires from her own fan base has a lot in common with that of Woody, Buzz, and the gang. After all, few have proved better at turning sentimental affection into a money-making empire than Pixar.

Swifties inadvertently became Pixar’s promo team — and everybody won

It all started in April with paparazzi shots of Swift wearing the “Toy Story” color palette: a blue-and-white dress, yellow bag, and red shoes. It could have easily been a coincidence. But when billboards emblazoned with “TS,” set against the franchise’s iconic cloud background appeared, the Swiftie cipher machine kicked into high gear.

Soon after, a subtle change was made to the “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” cover art on streaming services, swapping the seagulls above Swift’s head for clouds, and Pixar shared a video of “Toy Story” cowgirl Jessie dancing, captioned with paraphrased lyrics from Swift’s hit “Shake It Off” (“She’s making those moves up as she goes!”).

Finally, a countdown appeared on Swift’s website. When it expired, the site refreshed to reveal three “collector’s edition” CDs of the “Toy Story 5” soundtrack, each featuring a different version of Swift’s new song: standard, acoustic, and piano.

It’s a strategy ripped straight from Swift’s favorite promotional playbook. She’s a master at manufacturing a hoopla, whipping her loyal fans into a frenzy while barely lifting a finger, then channeling that anticipation — the realization that, “She was teasing new music! I was right!” — to sell more merchandise.

Naturally, the CDs were only available for two days on Swift’s website, or while supplies lasted. All three sold out within hours.

Swift’s ‘Toy Story’ collaboration furthers her own career narrative

Only Swift could turn a massive franchise like “Toy Story” into her own personal promo vehicle.

“I Knew It, I Knew You” is already being touted as a triumphant “return to country” for Swift, who launched her songwriting career as a teen in the Nashville country scene before pivoting to pop in her 20s. Not-so-coincidentally, “Toy Story 5” will hit theaters on June 19, which is the 20th anniversary of Swift’s debut single, “Tim McGraw.”

Fans are hoping that Swift will rerelease her self-titled debut album to mark its 20th anniversary later this year. Even though she took ownership of all her music last year, rendering the “Taylor’s Version” rerecording project moot, Swift also confirmed that “Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version)” exists, and said she would consider releasing it “when the time is right.”

The original tracks on “Taylor Swift,” some written solely by Swift, were conceived back when she was a curly-haired tween grappling with all the classic growing pains: crushes, cliques, feeling like an outcast, dreaming of a bigger world. What better way to build hype for Swift’s walk down memory lane than by teaming up with “Toy Story,” a franchise that epitomizes childhood wonder, millennial nostalgia — and masterfully leverages both to make a profit?

Both Swift and ‘Toy Story’ expertly turn fans into consumers

Both Swift and the minds behind “Toy Story” endeared themselves to audiences through true creative genius — crafting sincere, moving, original works that appeal to a wide age range. Swift’s earliest releases, including 2006’s “Taylor Swift” and 2008’s “Fearless,” received widespread acclaim and ushered in a new era of confessional songwriting. Similarly, 1995’s “Toy Story” and 1999’s “Toy Story 2” were so successful that they changed how animated movies were made and how they were appraised by critics.

Monoculture is inextricably tied to consumerism, because it matters where people spend their money. Neither Swift nor the minds behind “Toy Story” relied on creative output alone; they built wildly popular brands over decades through commercial savvy. In short, both are very good at getting fans to buy stuff.

Swift’s volume of physical sales is unparalleled in the music industry. She uses every Billboard-approved tactic in the book to push vinyls and CDs, turning fans — of all ages, as long as they have money to burn or parents to persuade — into ravenous archivists and collectors. As one Swiftie in her 50s told me, “There’s something about Taylor, being her fan, that just makes me uncharacteristically acquisitive.”

Meanwhile, “Toy Story” is a series that literally revolves around physical products. The beloved characters, from Woody and Buzz to Jessie and Bullseye, are all the more appealing to kids because they exist in the real world, trapped in plastic boxes, begging to be freed and handled and played with and loved.

Together, Swift and “Toy Story” are the perfect storm of mass consumer appeal. It’s a wonder we haven’t already gotten “You’ve Got a Friend in Me (Taylor’s Version)” — but if there’s anything both brands have taught us, it’s that there’s always a chance it will end up on the soundtrack’s deluxe edition.

• “60 Minutes” lost another correspondent on Tuesday night.
• CBS News fired longtime reporter Scott Pelley after comments he made about the network’s leadership.
• Here’s which correspondents are still with “60 Minutes,” and who’s left recently.

Top CBS News editor Bari Weiss is making her mark on “60 Minutes.”

CBS News has dropped three correspondents in the last week. Those departing correspondents have each described clashes or deep disagreements with CBS News leadership about the network’s direction.

“The collapse of values at the top has become untenable,” fired correspondent Scott Pelley said in a statement Tuesday. “The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.”

Longtime contributor Anderson Cooper recently stepped down as well. CBS also let go of “60 Minutes” executive producer Tanya Simon and executive editor Draggan Mihailovich last week.

Weiss was brought in by Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison with a mandate to transform the legacy media institution for the digital age.

“Our strategy until now has been to cling to the audience that remains on broadcast television. I’m here to tell you that if we stick to that strategy, we’re toast,” Weiss told employees earlier this year.

Weiss has shaken up many corners of CBS News and laid off dozens of employees.

“It’s no secret that the news business is changing radically, and that we need to change along with it,” Weiss and network president Tom Cibrowski said in a memo about the layoffs in March.

Weiss’ critics say some of her changes are designed to make CBS News, and “60 Minutes” in particular, more palatable to President Donald Trump. Weiss has denied that her actions have been politically motivated.

Weiss didn’t have a TV news background before taking the helm at CBS News. She worked as an opinion editor at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and founded The Free Press, a news and opinion site with an anti-establishment spirit.

Here are the full-time correspondents for “60 Minutes” who are still at CBS News, sorted by length of tenure, and those who’ve recently departed.

This list doesn’t include part-time contributors, like Norah O’Donnell, or include Major Garrett, who recently interviewed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Lesley Stahl (since 1991)

Stahl, 84, has racked up accolades in her five decades at CBS News, including 13 Emmys and the Edward R. Murrow Award.

She’s interviewed world leaders like Donald Trump, former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and former Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, plus business leaders like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

Stahl has historically focused on politics, investigations, and foreign reporting.

Bill Whitaker (since 2014)

Whitaker joined CBS News in 1984 and has been with “60 Minutes” for over a decade. In that span, he’s won Emmys and a Peabody Award.

He’s covered major domestic and foreign stories, from the war in Ukraine to the US opioid crisis.

Jon Wertheim (since 2017)

Wertheim has covered a range of topics in his nearly 10 years at “60 Minutes,” with a focus on sports, culture, and the Middle East.

He’s done reporting on how countries like Saudi Arabia are investing in entertainment, a practice that critics call “sportswashing.”

Anderson Cooper (left in mid-May)

Cooper decided to leave his role at “60 Minutes” in February after 20 years, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family. The veteran newscaster will continue to host “Anderson Cooper 360°” on CNN, which he’s done for the last 25 years.

“Being a correspondent at 60 Minutes has been one of the great honors of my career,” Cooper said in a statement at the time.

A CBS spokesperson told Business Insider in February that the network was “grateful to him for dedicating so much of his life to this broadcast, and understand the importance of spending more time with family,” adding that “60 Minutes will be here if he ever wants to return.”

Cooper focused his reporting on major news events, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sharyn Alfonsi (contract not renewed in late May)

Alfonsi left “60 Minutes” last week after more than a decade, in what she said was “not a routine corporate transition.”

“It was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting, and it sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom,” Alfonsi said in an exit memo, which was obtained by Business Insider.

In her memo, Alfonsi cited “an intense editorial dispute” with Weiss about a segment spotlighting the Trump administration’s migrant deportation tactics, specifically with the CECOT prison in El Salvador. Weiss held Alfonsi’s story, seeking additional commentary from the Trump administration, though it later aired with minimal changes.

“Repeated attempts by my representation to establish a path forward were met with absolute silence from network executives,” Alfonsi wrote in the memo.

Alfonsi covered war in the Middle East, including Gaza, and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan under President Joe Biden.

Cecilia Vega (fired in late May)

Vega said in an exit memo that her departure from “60 Minutes” last week was due to “censorship, both imposed and self-driven.”

“I have the utmost respect and admiration for my colleagues at 60 Minutes and the stories that air every Sunday. But I very much fear what comes next for and the future of the legendary broadcast,” Vega wrote.

Vega said that she and her colleagues had “experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories” from leaders at CBS News, a characterization that the network denies.

CBS News brought on Vega in 2023, where she often covered US politics and immigration.

Scott Pelley (fired in early June)

Pelley made headlines for vocally challenging Nick Bilton, the new executive producer at “60 Minutes,” and calling out Weiss.

The veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent, who’d been with CBS for over three decades, reportedly said that Weiss was “murdering” “60 Minutes.”

Bilton fired Pelley on Tuesday night, saying that the correspondent’s “antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear.”

“Despite yesterday’s misconduct, I had hoped that in sitting down with you today we could find a path forward together,” Bilton wrote to Pelley. “You made clear that you are not interested in such a path.”

Pelley said in a statement after his dismissal that CBS leaders had directed him to “inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story.”

Weiss told staffers in a Wednesday morning meeting that CBS News “had to part ways” with Pelley after his comments earlier in the week.

“Despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately, we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways. We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose,” Weiss said on the call.

Pelley disputed that characterization in a statement to The New York Times, saying, “Bari Weiss knows what she said is not true.”

“In the meeting on Tuesday, in which I was effectively fired, there was no effort of any kind to ‘find a way back,’ as Weiss said in the editorial meeting,” Pelley said in his statement. “At no point did anyone in the Tuesday meeting suggest that there could be steps taken by either side that would lead to a resolution.”

• Uber is laying off 23% of its People and Places staff, the company said Wednesday.
• The layoffs affected employees in HR and recruitment roles.
• The cuts weren’t connected to Uber’s AI use, a spokesperson said.

Uber is laying off nearly a quarter of its People and Places staff — but not because of AI, the company said.

The department oversees teams from human resources to recruitment. The job cuts amount to less than 1% of Uber’s global workforce of 34,000 employees, a spokesperson said.

The layoffs come less than a month after Uber named Jill Hazelbaker to the newly created role of chief corporate affairs officer and president.

Hazelbaker, who has worked at Uber since 2015, said in a memo to staff on Wednesday that the layoffs reorganize teams that “have become too complex and fragmented, with overlapping responsibilities, unclear ownership, and teams operating too far from the businesses and partners they support.”

While other major companies have cited AI as the reason for layoffs this year, the cuts to Uber’s people division weren’t due to the technology, the spokesperson said.

“These changes are necessary to maximize the effectiveness of the People team and the enormous potential ahead of us,” CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in her own memo to staff explaining the layoffs.

Like many tech companies, Uber is using AI — and wrestling with its implications.

Uber is hiring fewer employees as its employees use AI to become more productive, Khosrowshahi said last month. COO Andrew Macdonald, meanwhile, said that those productivity gains aren’t proportional to what the company is spending on AI tokens.

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• Some Microsoft workers are questioning results of recent employee sentiment surveys.
• Microsoft survey results omitted key questions, these employees said.
• The debate reflects broader tensions inside a company undergoing rapid change.

After Microsoft released findings from its latest employee surveys, some workers took to an internal message board to question the results, according to comments viewed by Business Insider.

These employees wondered whether the surveyed had been watered-down, especially when it comes to issues around compensation at the software giant.

For years, one question in particular served as a barometer for employee sentiment. It asked whether employees felt they were getting a “good deal at Microsoft (i.e. there is a reasonable balance between what I contribute to Microsoft and what I get in return).”

In previous years, after low and declining responses to this question Microsoft announced significant pay raises to address growing dissatisfaction with compensation and stop employees from leaving to competitors including Amazon.

Since then, there’s been a sea change across the tech industry, with big job cuts and more pressure on employees to perform. Microsoft has embraced this new approach, too, and froze salaries the year after the raises.

When Microsoft released the results of its latest employee surveys recently, the question about getting a good deal at Microsoft was excluded, according to a copy of the results viewed by Business Insider.

Some employees took to the company’s internal message board to ask what was up.

“Can you please provide clarity on whether or not the question has been removed and why,” one Microsoft employee wrote in a comment with more than 200 “thumbs up” reactions.

“I don’t think they value getting an answer to a question they already know the answer to,” another employee commented, with a meme of the famous line from the movie A Few Good Men, “You can’t handle the truth!”

Other employees queried the apparent omission of another question about whether staff have confidence in company leadership.

A person whose title is “Head of Employee Listening” responded that the company received questions about where to find those specific survey questions and said, “Those questions are still being asked and acted on; they just show up in different surveys based on how our listening programs are designed.”

The good deal question, for example, was included but sent only to a subset of employees “so we can cover more topics without increasing survey length for employees,” this person added. Microsoft confirmed this person’s response and did not provide further comment.

The debate over Microsoft’s survey results reflects broader tensions inside a company undergoing rapid change. Under CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into AI and data centers while simultaneously tightening employee performance expectations and cutting costs.

Another employee questioned the results overall, which they said didn’t seem to track with employee sentiment in other forums like “Ask Me Anything” meetings with executives.

“Really confusing results,” the employee wrote in a comment with more than 70 “thumbs up” reactions. “It seems like employees essentially have zero concerns about the company, but in every single public forum, AMA, petition, etc., thousands of employees are raising concerns about Microsoft’s contracts with the Israeli military, ICE, US military, and so on, with ethical questions being by far the most upvoted discussion topics.”

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• I’ve been a freelancer for nearly 10 years, and my career is stable.
• However, I always feel a low-grade uncertainty.
• I make sure I’m constantly adapting along with my industry and looking for new opportunities.

When I became a freelance writer nearly a decade ago, I assumed the uncertainty would eventually fade. I imagined there would come a point where I’d built enough relationships, landed enough recurring clients, and published enough work that I’d finally feel secure.

But that moment never really came.

Today, I make a stable living as a freelance health and fitness writer. I write for major publications, have long-term editorial relationships, and often have more work than I can realistically take on. On paper, my career looks stable.

And yet, I still approach my work as if I were trying to land my next job.

Part of that is practicality. Freelancing teaches you quickly that stability is often temporary. Editors leave. Budgets shrink. Publications pivot. Consistent work can disappear overnight. I’ve had stretches where everything felt solid, only to lose multiple clients within weeks through no fault of my own.

Once you experience that a few times, it permanently changes the way you think and approach your work.

The mindset never fully turns off

Even during busy periods, part of my brain is always scanning for what’s next. I’m pitching editors, maintaining relationships, updating lists of ideas, and paying attention to industry shifts.

The rise of AI has intensified that feeling over the last few years. As someone who writes for a living, I’ve had to adapt quickly, learn new tools, and think carefully about what still makes human-driven writing valuable.

From the outside, freelancing can look flexible and relaxed. And in many ways, it is. It allows me to drop off and pick up my kids from school, coach their soccer teams, and handle daily life in a way a traditional job likely wouldn’t.

But mentally, I rarely feel fully “off.” There’s always a low-level awareness that I should be working and that if I stop pushing for too long, opportunities could dry up.

The stress doesn’t disappear when things are going well

One of the strangest things about freelancing is that external success doesn’t automatically create internal security.

I still feel anxious when I send a pitch email or submit a story draft. I still overanalyze unanswered messages. I still wonder, occasionally, whether the work will eventually dry up despite years of evidence suggesting otherwise. And I still regularly deal with imposter syndrome.

Some of that is probably tied to my personality. But I also think many freelancers quietly carry this same low-grade uncertainty, especially those of us supporting families.

I’m 39 years old now. I have a wife, two kids, a mortgage, and responsibilities that feel very real every month. There’s no corporate structure absorbing the risk for me. If work slows down, I feel it directly. That pressure has made me more disciplined, proactive, and resilient. But it’s also made it difficult to completely relax professionally, even during good periods.

It’s become part of my identity

At this point, I’m not sure I could fully shut off the “feast or famine” mindset even if I wanted to. Freelancing has conditioned me to constantly adapt, reinvent myself, and prepare for change.

In some ways, I think that’s kept me sharp. I’m always learning new skills, studying trends, and thinking about how to evolve. One day, I’m interviewing a researcher about blood sugar regulation; the next, I’m writing about fitness trends or trying to understand how AI might reshape media over the next decade. That constant motion can be exhausting. But it can also feel energizing.

The trade-off I’ve accepted

There are days when I envy people like my wife, who have clearly defined careers, predictable paychecks, and the ability to leave work at work. That kind of work stability sounds incredibly appealing.

But freelancing has also given me things I’m not willing to give up: flexibility, autonomy, and the ability to shape my life around my family instead of structuring my family around work.

The uncertainty is the price I pay for that freedom.

I still approach my career like I’m job hunting because, in some ways, I always am. Not out of desperation, but because freelancing requires you to stay engaged, visible, and adaptable at all times. At some point, I stopped seeing that mindset as a temporary phase and started recognizing it as part of the job itself, which has been both relieving and nerve-racking.

• Mercor’s CEO says the $10 billion startup now spends more on AI tokens than employee pay.
• Before long, he says, the average company could be spending more on AI compute than on salaries.
• Some tech leaders are questioning whether soaring AI costs are producing returns.

What happens when a company spends more on AI than on its workers? Mercor’s CEO says his startup is already finding out.

“Right now we’re spending more on tokens for our internal agents than we are on employee head count,” Foody said during an appearance on the “20VC” podcast on Monday.

When host Harry Stebbings asked if Mercor’s token spending on AI agents exceeded salaries, Foody replied: “That’s correct. It’s pretty incredible.”

Mercor — a $10 billion startup that helps companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic train AI models through a network of its human experts — has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the AI ecosystem since its 2023 launch.

As of October 2025, per PitchBook, it had around 300 employees. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Foody said Mercor uses AI agents across a wide range of functions, including project management, recruiting, accounting, fraud detection, and candidate evaluation. The company has conducted more than 5 million AI-assisted interviews, he said.

The executive believes Mercor’s spending patterns foreshadow a broader shift across corporate America.

“I would bet that in five years the average enterprise spends more on compute than headcount,” Foody said.

When AI costs more than employees

Foody’s comments come amid a broader debate among executives over whether rising AI spending is translating into meaningful business returns.

Uber COO Andrew Macdonald recently said he has yet to see a clear link between rising AI spending and proportional productivity gains.

Foody said that falling costs and rapidly improving model capabilities are driving a Jevons paradox-style effect, where cheaper AI leads to significantly more consumption rather than less.

He said Mercor measures the performance of different AI models for specific business tasks and evaluates whether newer models offer better value.

The result, he said, is a future in which AI becomes a core operating expense for companies, potentially rivaling or surpassing the cost of human labor itself.

“Humans will still play an important role at the things models can’t do,” he said. “But I expect that cost of inference, cost of compute will exceed that.”