• Fei-Fei Li, founder of World Labs, immigrated to the US from China when she was 15.
• She ran her family’s dry-cleaning shop for seven years, helping her parents make ends meet.
• She says the experience helps fuel her ambitions to build the future of AI.

Every influential scientist has an origin story — and the “Godmother of AI” is no different.

Fei-Fei Li, a Stanford professor best known for her work on ImageNet, is now the founder of World Labs, a one-year-old AI startup that’s already valued at over $1 billion.

Her start, however, was far more humble.

Li immigrated to the United States from China at the age of 15 and helped her parents run a dry-cleaning business in Parsippany, New Jersey, to make ends meet.

“We were not financially very well off at all. My parents were doing cashier jobs and I was doing Chinese restaurant jobs,” she told Bloomberg in a Q&A. “My family and I decided to run a little dry cleaner shop to make some money to survive.”

Li said she likes to joke that she was the “CEO.” She ran the shop for seven years, from when she was 18 until the middle of her graduate studies.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Li attended Princeton University for college, keeping her close to her parents’ shop. Later, while pursuing her Ph.D. at Caltech in California, she continued to run the business remotely.

“I was the one who spoke English. So I took all the customer phone calls, I dealt with the billing, the inspections, all the business,” she said.

The experience, she said, taught her the value of resilience — a principle that continues to guide her career.

“As a scientist, you have to be resilient because science is a non-linear journey. Nobody has all the solutions. You have to go through such a challenge to find an answer. And as an immigrant, you learn to be resilient,” she said.

At World Labs, Li has big ambitions. She is working on building world models. These are AI models that leverage spatial intelligence, which Li says is “the ability for AI to understand, perceive, reason and interact [with the world]. It comes from a continuation of visual intelligence.”

A growing number of AI experts believe that world models are what will propel the AI revolution into its next phase. Some believe large-language models, which are trained on, as the name suggests, lanaguage, and which the leading products are now based, are limited.

Li said ImageNet, a comprehensive training dataset of visual information, was a precursor to world models.

At the core of Li’s research is the idea that visual information, a passive way of understanding the world, is a crucial foundation for real-world action, which remains one of the ultimate goals of some top AI builders, like Meta Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun, who recently announced he would step down to launch his own world model startup.

The through-line between Li’s research and her immigrant story is the same.

“I was always a curious kid, and then my curiosity had an outlet, which was science — and that really grounded me,” she told Bloomberg. “I wasn’t curious about nightclubs or other things. I was an avid lover of science.”

• Amanda Yochum, 44, has worked at childcare company Bright Horizons for nearly 23 years.
• She oversees the company’s 24-hour day care centers in Indiana and Kentucky.
• The night shift children stay up all night to match their parents’ schedules.

This story is based on a conversation with Amanda Yochum, 44, of Haubstadt, Indiana. She oversees Bright Horizons’ 24-hour day care in Indiana and Kentucky. The account has been edited for length and clarity.

If you’ve never played football or dodgeball outside at 3 a.m. with preschoolers — or watched the sunrise with them — you’re missing out.

I know this because I’m a regional manager at childcare company Bright Horizons, overseeing the 24-hour day care centers we run in Princeton, Indiana, and Georgetown, Kentucky, which are located at the Toyota manufacturing plants in both areas.

The business of making cars runs 24/7, and so do our day care centers. When you’re a parent on night shift — and need to sleep during the day — you need your child to be on that schedule, too. Especially if both you and your partner are working night shift, or you’re a single parent, which is often the case at these plants, which are some of the largest employers in both regions.

So while some people on a more conventional schedule might baulk at the idea of 3-year-olds staying up playing happily all night long, that’s just what we do here.

Staying up all night is part of the routine

The night shift runs from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m., so when the plant workers drop their children off, we’ll have some that are still half asleep on their parents’ shoulders. However, they typically run excited to see their friends. We’ll have activities that are already planned out on the table to engage them as they transition into the classroom. Once they’re settled in, then they have some free play and can explore our different learning environments.

When these plants were established in 1996 and 1986, respectively, there were few quality childcare centers available, so Toyota recognized the need to provide this service for its employees.

That’s why our nighttime day care service is in such high demand. At our Princeton childcare center, 164 children are enrolled during the day, while 44 are enrolled at night. In Georgetown, about 159 kids are enrolled in the day program, and 32 are enrolled at night. The center is also open on Saturdays. Around 25 are booked in the day and around 20 at night.

Keeping our nighttime routine as close as possible to our daytime routine is a strong principle that we have implemented throughout the years. It’s that equity piece. We don’t want our children or our families to feel that they are missing out because of the shift that they are on. For example, if it’s Grandparents Day during the day, we will replicate that at night. We often say that the only difference is that we swap sunscreen for bug spray.

It’s so fun to be outside with the kids in the middle of the night

The rest of the night runs like this: once they have settled in, they will eat breakfast. Then they will play outside, and come back in for some activities and projects. We follow a curriculum, but we also discuss with the children what they are interested in learning.

They typically have lunch around 10:30 p.m. Then, after lunch, just like daytime children, some will take a nap of up to two hours at this point. For those children who don’t nap, they’ll transition into rest time and quiet activities. We offer “inner explorer,” our mindfulness program that helps calm the mind and body, promoting relaxation.

After this, it will be snack time, and we will go outside again. They return for some additional curriculum time, and then, toward the end of the shift, they’ll have some extra learning time. It will then be time to go home.

It’s actually a lot of fun being outside with the children in the middle of the night. We are in the middle of a cornfield, so we have high fencing and stadium lighting. There is nature outside to contend with, but we know how to keep safe. The children like to holler at the deer, and we often get mice wandering in. We might also see the occasional coyote, and the children love it. The lights are so bright you often forget what time of night it is.

Kids can come starting at 7 weeks up to before they start kindergarten

Many children start with us at around 7 weeks old and stay with us until they begin kindergarten. Typically, night shift families have it made in this regard – their babies sleep the best and they don’t struggle.

We are often asked if we plan to open a kindergarten program, but there are no plans at the moment. We do everything we can to support them in their transition into kindergarten and school, where they will have to adhere to more conventional hours. We’ll lengthen naptime, so by the time they’re graduating, they’ll be sleeping for an extended period at night.

Our families will also tend to take off the week before school starts, to get into that new groove and routine. Parents aren’t guaranteed to be moved to the day shift when their children start kindergarten, so they may have to drop their children off at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s or arrange for someone to come to their house.

In Kentucky, though, we do have a school-age program. The children have their own beds, dressers, locker rooms, and showers, and they will go to bed by 9:30 p.m. while their parents work the night shift.

Our facilities are crucial to working parents

We don’t tend to have issues with our children not being rested enough — they have learned to follow their parents’ schedules, and they start young enough that it’s easy for them to adapt. Sometimes, life admin needs to be taken care of during the day, and we might not get a full night’s sleep, but that happens to all of us at times.

However, there is a doctor’s office, pharmacy, and store on-site, and we also have health professionals visit us to support the children. For example, twice a year a local hospital will send in occupational, speech, developmental, social and emotional therapists, and they will come in and do developmental screenings. They will bill the health insurance providers directly at no cost to the families.

We also have optometrists and dentists come on-site. Then we have professional family photographers come too. These events occur both during the day and night, benefiting everyone.

Even though I am a regional manager now, I still will go in and work nights. I just drink an extra Diet Coke. I also have an almost 19-year-old autistic son who has never slept well anyway, so he’s been conditioning me my entire adult life to do this kind of work.

It’s a big misconception that we just keep the kids up all night. Yes, we do that. But that work-life balance is critical for parents who work hard. That’s why we pioneered this style of childcare years ago — and it works for everyone.

• For my 13th birthday, my mom gave me a handmade recipe book with entries from friends and family.
• The recipe book features handwritten recipes, notes, and photos that I still cherish today.
• Once my kids are older, I plan to make a similar book for each of them to enjoy.

For my 13th birthday, my mom compiled a recipe book, filled with recipes and notes from family and friends.

While I didn’t immediately jump up to make all of the recipes, and there are still some that I haven’t touched (I doubt I’ll ever make a salmon loaf), the recipe book has become my go-to for meal planning and baking.

Julia Child’s cookbook rests prominently on my shelf, and while I daydream of making clafloutis, I’m much more likely to make my mom’s spice cookies or my grandma’s apple crisp from my homemade book.

Notes and photos make the recipes more personal

Some friends and family included little notes on the recipes themselves, like noting if a recipe was a holiday favorite, listing modifications, or mentioning if a specific family member always requested a certain food.

These additions have become even more cherished over the years, as some of these family members are no longer with us. Seeing their handwriting and recipes evokes memories of breaking bread together, cooking together, and even receiving handwritten cards from them.

My mom also included some of the letters she received over the years, along with the recipes, photos, and stickers. There are even a few recipes where she photocopied the originals from generations past. I never knew my paternal grandparents, and having their handwritten recipes helps forge a small connection to them.

The recipes created bonding moments

Some of the recipes, such as my dad’s chili or holiday cookies, were ones I had helped make over the years.

Others, like my aunt’s mother’s tortillas, were not. My aunt often talked about not liking to cook, but she coached me through making the recipe, which included instructions such as “one small bowl of flour.” Thankfully, she had an idea of how much this was!

She often told stories of how her mother would make the tortillas fresh for my cousin as an after-school snack, and how he’d roll them up into a buttered tortilla “burrito.” These are the types of stories and connections that help make great food.

Some of the recipes reflect my great-great-grandparents’ country of origin, Hungary, or my aunt’s grandparents’ homeland in Mexico. Others are recipes that have become holiday “must-haves,” such as birthday cake, Thanksgiving tamales, and Christmas cookies, as well as recipes to warm us in the colder weather.

The book was a way to bond with loved ones, near and far

Living in a military community, we have friends and family spread across the miles, so having these recipes helped me feel closer to those who were far away.

For my birthday party, my mom requested that everyone bring a recipe as part of my gift. This provided unique scrapbook-style additions, with recipes written in loopy cursive by tweens using colorful gel pens.

My mom copied the recipes for my party guests, and one of them told me she still has all the recipes. She, like me, hasn’t made all of them, but kept them because it felt special. It was something different, but fun.

I hope to someday make similar recipe books for my children

Having these recipes easily accessible is amazing, as I don’t have to hunt through multiple recipe books or files to find them. Once in a blue moon, over the years, I’ve found family recipes missing from the book and added them in.

I’ve also added some new favorites over the years, such as sourdough crackers and the ooey gooey butter bars we had at a friend’s wedding.

The binding is starting to show some wear, just like a beloved teddy bear wearing at the seams. I hope to someday create similar books for my children — a blend of my family’s and my husband’s family’s recipes, as well as recipes I’ve discovered, and new recipes that I’ll request from our friends. Food and handmade items are both precious gifts of love, and combining the two has given me a priceless heirloom.

• Matika Wilbur photographed members of every federally recognized Native American tribe.
• She named the series Project 562 for the number of recognized tribes at the time.
• She published a book of her photos titled “Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America.”

Photographer Matika Wilbur was on assignment in South America when her grandmother appeared to her in a dream and told her to go capture her own people.

Wilbur, who is Native American, listened.

She embarked on a yearslong project photographing members of every federally recognized Native tribe in North America. In 2023, she published her collection of photos in a book titled “Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America.”

Wilbur spoke with Business Insider about her project, her photos, and the importance of agency in Native American representation.

Take a look at Wilbur’s powerful portraits.

Photographer Matika Wilbur went on a mission to photograph members of every federally recognized Native tribe in North America.

Wilbur herself is Swinomish and Tulalip.

She drove hundreds of thousands of miles and photographed members of different Native American tribes for Project 562.

When Wilbur began her project in 2012, there were 562 federally recognized Native American tribes. Now, there are 574. 

The project grew from a photo series to a documentary to a full-blown archive of Native people, their communities, and their stories.

“We’re always redrafting the language to describe this project,” Wilbur told Business Insider.

Wilbur photographed her subjects on black-and-white film using a method called the Zone System.

The Zone System creates more dynamic range in the images.

She’s drawn to peer portraiture with simple landscape backdrops.

“I figured that that was sort of irresponsible when I started this project, to travel all over the country and not show the landscape,” Wilbur said.

She let her subjects choose where and how they’d like to be photographed, giving them agency over how they’d be represented.

“Sometimes I’ll be in the Grand Canyon and I’d rather take somebody’s picture at Havasupai Falls because it’s magnificent and there’s this incredible blue-green water coming out of the ground … and they want to be photographed on their front porch because they love where they live,” she said. “I’ll do what they want to do because people should be represented in a way that is important to them, especially in Indian Country.”

“We’ve been photographed so many times by non-Indians and we’ve had our stories told so many times by people outside our community, and they get the story wrong,” Wilbur said.

In the above portrait, Wilbur photographed three members of the Tulalip tribe: Darkfeather, Bibiana, and Eckos Ancheta.

“We aim to correct that narrative through honest individual agency and storytelling,” she said.

Dine’ (Navajo Nation) member Jaclyn Roessel posed for one of Wilbur’s portraits.

Wilbur asked people questions about themselves and their lives as she took their pictures.

Their conversations touched on family, love, heartbreak, moments that shaped them, and their hopes for the future.

She also asked about their Native American identities.

“I find that people have really interesting things to say when you ask them what it means to be whatever their tribe is, and then when you ask them what it means to be an ‘Indian,'” she said. “I’m fascinated by that.”

Sometimes her subjects wore traditional Native clothing, while others wore everyday outfits.

Ailee Fregoso of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe showed off her colorful fringed shawl.

Wilbur published her work in a book called “Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America.”

The book, published in 2023, became a New York Times bestseller.

What began as a photo series has become an archive rich with history, culture, language, and resilience.

Wilbur also cohosts the podcast All My Relations, in which she and Adrienne Keene — a professor who is also Native American — discuss their relationships to land, ancestors, and other Native peoples.

Wilbur values the connections she’s made throughout the creative process.

“I didn’t know that strangers can become family relatively quickly,” she said. “It’s such a whirlwind of a journey.”

Editor’s note: This story was originally published in 2016. It was updated in 2025.

• Pumpkin pie is a staple on Thanksgiving.
• But if you’re looking for something different, here are other desserts you can make.
• Baked apples with vanilla ice cream and chocolate cream pie are both crowd-pleasing options.

If you’re not a fan of pumpkin pie or want to switch things up this Thanksgiving, there are other easy, crowd-pleasing desserts you can make instead.

Pumpkin pie has been a Thanksgiving staple since the holiday’s early days in the 17th century, when pilgrims and early American settlers frequently used pumpkins in many of their recipes.

However, fewer than a quarter of Thanksgiving tables are expected to feature pumpkin pie this year, per 2025 WalletHub data.

As such, you don’t need to stick to tradition to please your guests. If you’re looking for options that don’t require an oven, you can make slow-cooker cobbler or chocolate cream pie. Adding premium ingredients, such as macadamia nuts, pecans, or walnuts, can also elevate a classic brownie recipe to bakery-quality status.

Here are 10 easy Thanksgiving desserts that aren’t pumpkin pie.

If you still have pie on your mind, you can make an easy chocolate cream pie.

Chocolate cream pie is generally easier to make than pumpkin or apple pie, since many versions, like this recipe by Simply Recipes, don’t even require you to bake it. Instead, you just chill the dessert for a few hours in the fridge, which is perfect when you’re trying to keep the oven free for other Thanksgiving dishes.

You could also make an apple pie.

If you do want to spend a little time making your dessert, but don’t want to make pumpkin pie, apple pie is an excellent option. In fact, around 12% of Thanksgiving tables are going to opt for this dessert, per 2025 WalletHub data.

There are plenty of recipes out there, from more intricate lattice pies to easier versions that use pre-made pie crust.

Business Insider’s Paige Bennett tried three celebrity-chef recipes for apple pie and found Ree Drummond’s recipe to be the most delicious, while Gordon Ramsay’s was the easiest to make.

Apple crisp is another easy and festive dessert.

If you’re looking for a dessert that doesn’t take up a lot of time in the kitchen, apple crisp pairs perfectly with ice cream. Plus, some versions, like this one by All Recipes, require only an hour to make.

Slow-cooker cobbler is ideal if you need to free up oven space.

Taste of Home’s slow-cooker berry cobbler uses frozen berries and cinnamon. Despite being a slow-cooker recipe, it also only takes about two hours to cook, with just 15 minutes of prep time.

Bread pudding is an often-forgotten dessert.

Bread pudding is a nostalgic dessert for many, although it usually doesn’t get the recognition it deserves around the holidays. This delicious, stick-to-your-bones dessert is perfect for Thanksgiving and uses festive ingredients like raisins and cinnamon. 

Chocolate-chip pumpkin bread is a delicious option that will keep for days after the holiday.

While chocolate-chip pumpkin bread, like this contest-winning recipe by Taste of Home, can be made practically any time throughout the fall season, it’s also an easy Thanksgiving dessert that can be paired with ice cream or coffee or served on its own.

It’s also easy to transport if you’re traveling for Thanksgiving or want to send some slices home with your guests.

Pumpkin chocolate-chip cookies are also great to send home with your guests.

Adding pumpkin to chocolate-chip cookies takes them to the next level. There are plenty of recipes available, but Delish’s recipe for pumpkin chocolate-chip cookies uses pumpkin purée, pumpkin spice, and semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Coffee cake is another easy-to-make sweet treat that you’ll be just as thankful for the morning after.

Coffee cake pairs well with after-dinner coffee or tea, is easy to transport, and will keep until the morning after Thanksgiving for a delicious breakfast. While it might not seem as decadent as pumpkin pie, celebrity chef Ina Garten’s version packs a ton of fall flavor with ingredients like cinnamon and sour cream.

Adding nuts like macadamia nuts, pecans, or walnuts can elevate a standard brownie recipe.

Brownies might seem like a cop-out when it comes to a Thanksgiving dessert, but there are ways to elevate this otherwise simple recipe. Try adding nuts to take brownies to the next level, or pair them with ice cream for homemade brownie sundaes. 

For example, Kris Jenner’s brownies, which Business Insider’s Paige Bennett called “chewy and fudgy,” feature walnuts.

Baked apples with vanilla ice cream is another easy dessert.

Baked apple slices with cinnamon are easy to make and give all the delicious flavors of other apple desserts, without the stress of making and rolling out pie crust. You can pair baked apple slices with vanilla ice cream for a delicious take on Thanksgiving dessert, or serve them on their own.

• Cook County, which includes Chicago, ran a two-year basic income experiment in 2022.
• During the pilot, thousands of residents received $500 a month to spend however they wanted.
• The county has now made that basic income program permanent in its 2026 budget.

Many American cities and counties have been experimenting with a novel concept: Giving financially vulnerable residents free money every month without expecting anything in return.

The goal is to let those people decide for themselves how best to spend the extra cash, rather than requiring them to spend it on certain kinds of food or other necessities.

When those programs end, many report largely positive results. Few, however, are ever made permanent.

Cook County in Illinois, which includes Chicago, is now an exception.

The Cook County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved its 2026 budget proposal on Thursday, and it includes $7.5 million for a guaranteed basic income program.

Cook County had earlier run a basic income experiment for two years. It provided $500 a month to 3,200 households during that time. The last payment went out in January.

“The County will invest $7.5 million to continue supporting the Guaranteed Income program, providing direct unconditional monetary support to help residents live healthier and more stable lives,” the county’s now-approved budget proposal says.

A guaranteed basic income is a social safety net program in which a government provides certain residents with recurring, no-strings-attached cash payments for a set period. Often, the eligible recipients fit specific criteria, such as having a household income near the poverty line.

A guaranteed basic income differs from a universal basic income, which is when a government provides all individuals in a population with recurring, no-strings-attached cash payments, regardless of their socioeconomic status.

AI leaders, such as Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, have publicly advocated for basic income programs to mitigate the potential impact of AI on human jobs.

Governments worldwide have toyed with basic income programs. Ireland recently made its basic income for artists permanent, and South Korea is poised to launch one of the world’s largest programs.

Cook County released survey findings based on responses from those who received cash payments between 2022 and 2025. The majority said the payments made them more financially secure, reduced their stress, and improved their mental health.

The top reported uses for the payments were food, rent, utilities, and transportation.