• LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky said “soft skills” are more important as AI takes over routine work.
• He highlighted four communication-specific skills to hone.
• Other Silicon Valley leaders have made more dramatic predictions about AI’s impact on jobs.

Personality hires, rejoice. LinkedIn’s CEO said soft skills are getting a hard rebrand.

In an interview with the “Tools and Weapons” podcast, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky said AI is automating routine tasks. He argued that the shift is elevating four human-centered skills — curiosity, courage, communication, and compassion.

“These turn out to be some really, really important skills to do your job well,” the CEO said. “The focus and emphasis on those, along with the AI, is what I think gives us the opportunity to dream big and paint a much more positive picture that exists with humans and technology together moving forward.”

Roslansky has a broad view of the job market based on LinkedIn data, though he did not cite specific figures in the interview. His view contrasts with some other Silicon Valley voices (and a growing number of Americans).

This year, OpenAI investor Vinod Khosla predicted that today’s five-year-olds won’t need a job. Boris Cherny, the creator of Anthropic’s Claude Code, said the job title “software engineer” will fade away this year. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently said he wants high-paid engineers to spend half their salary on AI tokens.

Roslansky’s vision is less jarring. Instead, he argues that AI is reshaping how people think about their jobs, encouraging workers to view their roles as a “collection of tasks” rather than a fixed title.

He breaks those tasks into three buckets: ones AI can fully automate, ones it can augment, and ones that remain deeply human — like resolving conflict, persuading a team, or setting strategy.

“These skills, they’re important, but they’ve historically been talked about as soft skills,” Roslansky said. “In a professional world where people are actually much better at these skills and have really honed their craft on it, I think that it makes things a lot better.”

As AI handles more automated responsibilities, Roslansky said that agents can free up time for coworker conversations, putting a greater premium on communication, judgment, and emotional intelligence.

He said his thought process has given him a hopeful view of AI’s future. Still, he said he doesn’t have a crystal ball and could ultimately be wrong.

“Sometimes when you’re mired in the technology, and especially with AI, and you kind of draw out where this could potentially go, it leads you to some dark places,” he said. “I believe that humans play such an integral role in shaping where that technology should go.”

• James McMillian is the president of Tone House, a strength training facility in New York City.
• McMillian shared a few tips for building muscle fast, especially if you don’t have a lot of time.
• Compound exercises work multiple muscle groups simultaneously, while explosive movements develop power and speed.

Since childhood, James McMillian has learned the value of slowly getting stronger.

McMillian said he was diagnosed with asthma when he was born, and doctors advised his parents against letting him play sports like youth tackle football. “It made me tell myself that I need to train harder,” McMillian told Business Insider.

Before and after practice, McMillian recalled running up the stadium steps six times. He’d also run to practice or run home with his sports equipment. Even though his asthma wasn’t induced by sports, he noticed that the extra training kept him from being as winded.

McMillian is now the president and a trainer at Tone House, a strength training and conditioning-focused training facility deemed by Business Insider as “the hardest workout in New York City.” He applies that same mentality from his upbringing to Tone House workouts that he coaches.

“You’re going to be exposed for your weaknesses, but then you should always turn your weaknesses into your strengths,” he said.

McMillian believes progressively overloading — slowly adding weight, reps, or intensity — is the best way to build strength.

“I always tell people, ‘If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it,” he said, particularly since we lose muscle mass as we age. “You’re going to want to pick up your kid. You’re going to want to hold those groceries. You’re going to want to hold your Louis Vuitton bag a little bit longer at an event. You have to be strong to do that.”

McMillian shared a few of his favorite quick movements to build muscle, whether you’re a complete beginner, pressed for time at the gym, or wanting to speed up your progress.

Raise a glass to goblet squats

McMillian’s favorite movement for beginners is the goblet squat, or squatting while holding a heavy kettlebell or dumbbell.

“When you’re going into that squat, as you allow those knees to go out, you’re working that lower body, your glutes, your hamstrings,” he said. At the same time, you’re also engaging your lats, triceps, forearms, and upper back from holding the weight.

To make the goblet squat more challenging, he said, you can elevate your heels to focus on building quad strength. McMillian also said it’s easy to start with a lighter weight, say 10 pounds, and gradually work your way up.

Save time with compound exercises

Some of the best time-savers are compound exercises, which target multiple parts of the body at once and “allow you to shorten your time at the gym,” McMillian said.

A favorite of McMillian’s is transitioning from a squat to an overhead press, thus targeting both the upper and lower body.

He also likes to string together multiple consecutive movements. He opts for two rounds of 20 shoulder presses, 20 hammer curls, and 20 bent-over rows, all right after each other to activate different parts of his upper body.

“It’s intense, it burns, but it’s something that people can do with a single dumbbell,” he said, thus also saving time on swapping out equipment.

It’s also customizable, he said: You can use lighter weights and do fewer reps, but increase the number of rounds, for example.

Play with tempo

Explosive exercises — deliberately slowing down your tempo and “exploding” at the end of the movement — are also great for improving your strength, McMillian said.

He’s a fan of slowing down his back squats: lowering slowly for five seconds, pausing for another five at the bottom, and then quickly pushing up.

“When you do things a little bit slower, controlled, it builds strength,” he said, noting there’s more than one way to challenge yourself.

• Having children was never high on my priority list.
• I went through some difficult times in my 30s. I’m glad I didn’t have the added stress of kids.
• I’ve chosen to focus on my ambitions, mental health, and other aspects of my fulfilling life.

I always felt like I disappointed my mother. Her lifelong wish was to become a grandmother, but having children was never high on my priority list.

When she died unexpectedly, I was 35 and struggling financially and mentally.

Her death threw my life into even more chaos — and not being a mother helped me survive it.

As I approach 40, I get asked, “Why don’t you just have a baby?” more and more often.

Although well-meaning, the question reduces a complex, private decision to small talk — as though my ambitions, finances, mental health, and grief matter less than my reproductive function.

What I witnessed growing up shaped my decision not to have children

Growing up, I watched my mother work six days a week running her esthetician business while doing all of the cooking, cleaning, and childcare at home. She was so busy being a working wife and mother to two kids that she put off many of her dreams until retirement.

She loved her work and continued tinting eyelashes and applying gel nails for her clients until the pandemic forced her to retire at 68. The prospect of enjoying her retirement kept her going through the UK’s lockdowns — but she died just a few months after restrictions were lifted.

Watching her sacrifice so much time — only to run out of it — shaped how I think about my own life.

Career and financial instability made survival my priority

At 32, I left a stable career in humanitarian aid to pursue my creative ambitions. It didn’t go well at first, but by my mid-30s, I felt like I was finally getting somewhere with my fledgling freelance writing business.

My partner was also out of work at the time, which only intensified the pressure. When we went shopping at our local market, we bought discounted bags of vegetables, and I crossed my fingers that my card payment would go through.

Every day, I struggled with the shame and sometimes-crippling anxiety and depression brought on by prolonged financial hardship.

At a time when many of our friends were having babies, we were simply trying to stay afloat. And since my partner (who’s 17 years my senior) has never wanted children, they weren’t in our plans.

Grief put my life on hold for five years

Then, in October 2021, my world fell apart. My mother and I were close, and I was unprepared for the heartbreak of losing her so suddenly — especially as the pandemic had kept us apart for so long.

Grief consumed me, making it difficult to work, and I mostly lived off the little savings I had scraped together.

Within a year, I landed a remote role at a marketing agency that gave me the stability I needed to start rebuilding my life. When I was made redundant at the end of 2024, not having a child to support gave me time to think about what to do next without additional pressure.

Now, nearly five years after my mother died, I finally have the strength to pursue the dreams I started chasing years ago.

I’m building a life that feels right for me

Last year, my nephew was born — the grandchild my mother never got to meet.

I can’t deny that watching my brother become a father made me wonder what parenthood might be like. But while I adore my nephew, loving him doesn’t make me yearn for the upheaval motherhood would bring. And without my mom to share in that chapter of life, I simply don’t feel the pull.

As I enter my 40s, I don’t feel like I’m “missing out”. Being child-free helped me survive the darkest time of my life — and gave me the chance to rebuild on my own terms.

• I visited Seattle for the first time in May 2025 after years of dreaming about it.
• The city in the Pacific Northwest surprised me as a New Yorker.
• I found a strange tourist attraction, a free banana stand, and a tech neighborhood full of nature.

When my train arrived at Seattle’s King Street Station on a sunny morning, I didn’t expect the 1-mile walk to my downtown hotel to feel like a hike.

I didn’t think I’d find a chewing-gum-speckled wall in an alley later that afternoon. And when I felt my stomach growl while strolling the bustling streets the next day, the last thing I thought I’d see was a free snack cart.

It was my first time in the Washington city, one I’ve wanted to visit since I was a kid. As I developed a taste for travel in college, I found myself taking road trips from California up the coast to Portland, Oregon, to see more of the Pacific Northwest.

Still, Seattle was always too far north to include in my itinerary. In fact, I’d never had a chance to visit the state of Washington — until recently.

During a weeklong trip from my home in New York City to the West Coast of North America in May 2025, I spent three days in Seattle. As a first-time visitor, I found the city to be full of surprises.

I traveled to Seattle from Vancouver, and I was surprised to find that a train ticket was less than half the price of airfare.

I’ve spent more than 150 hours on Amtrak trains from the Northeast to the Southwest. In my experience, traveling by train in the US is typically more expensive than flying, though it depends on the route.

So when I was booking my travel from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Seattle, I was shocked that a coach train ticket cost $50 compared with the $150 basic economy airfare on the same day.

I certainly paid more in hours — the train ride took four compared with the roughly one-hour flight. Still, I was excited to travel slowly and watch landscapes transform from one country to another.

I was also shocked at how much more comfortable it was to travel in economy compared with planes.

I’d traveled in first and business class on Amtrak trains before, but this was my first trip in coach since I was a kid. So I wasn’t sure how it would compare to my countless experiences flying in basic economy.

Since the ticket was less than half the price, I didn’t expect the train seat to be so much cozier than the stiff, flimsy plane seats I’m used to. I even avoided the neck and back pain I usually get when flying.

On the train, the seats felt wider with more legroom than on a typical economy flight.

Walking a mile in Seattle feels more strenuous than it does in New York.

I stepped off the Amtrak train in Seattle at about noon. It was my first time stretching my legs since I’d boarded in Vancouver four hours earlier. With an indie-rock soundtrack in my earbuds and the sun shining above me, I was excited to lug my suitcase on foot to my hotel a mile away.

But I quickly learned that a mile in Seattle doesn’t feel like a mile in New York. The route was almost entirely uphill. When I stopped to catch my breath at an intersection, I noticed the street to my right climbed up even taller for as far as I could see.

In my city, I walk a lot, but most of the roads are relatively flat. So I wasn’t expecting to feel so exhausted after just one mile.

I was excited to visit the iconic Pike Place Market but surprised to learn it hasn’t always been a car-free space.

Situated next to the coast in Downtown Seattle, Pike Place Market is an iconic outdoor market with more than 200 stores and restaurants. I’ve been hearing about it for decades, so I spent my first afternoon in Seattle perusing the 9-acre shopping hub.

On a sunny Thursday afternoon, the market was crowded with locals and tourists alike. I shuffled my way through what felt like a line to get a peek at the fresh seafood. When I needed a break from the mob, I found refuge inside a used bookstore.

Every so often, a delivery truck would drive through, dividing the crowd into two tightly packed globs, but most cars weren’t allowed to drive through Pike Place Market. This made sense to me, since each passing vehicle halted the pedestrian flow.

But I was surprised to learn that the open-air market’s cobblestone streets are normally open to all cars — the city is testing a ban on cars aside from vendors, delivery drivers, and those with disabilities, The Seattle Times reported in August 2025. The temporary ban began in April 2025 and is set to continue through spring 2026.

I was lucky enough to inadvertently schedule my trip during the ban. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if cars could freely move through the already crowded market.

I stumbled upon the popular tourist attraction, The Gum Wall, in Seattle.

While wandering the narrow alleyways around Pike Place Market, I was slowed down by groups of tourists stopping to take selfies in front of a vibrant brick wall. The wall was spackled with an array of hues from peach to periwinkle.

At first, I thought the specks of color were dried-up chunks of paint. But when I saw a pedestrian pull a gooey wad out of their mouth and stick it on the brick wall, I realized the wall was a gum canvas.

I was shocked and a little grossed out upon my realization, but when I focused on how the wall actually looked rather than the germ-infested materials, I thought it was a playful work of art.

Before you ask, no, I didn’t add my own contribution to the Seattle gum wall.

I was surprised to find a three-story target downtown.

I lost my charging port somewhere between Vancouver and Seattle, so I headed to a Target near my downtown hotel. Back home in NYC, the Targets I frequent are small and offer little more than a drugstore.

So, I was shocked to learn that this location was a 96,000-square-foot, three-story establishment. While still smaller than Targets you’ll find outside cities, The Seattle Times reported, the store had a wide variety of groceries, toiletries, and tech products.

There were so many aisles of home goods that I thought I could decorate my entire apartment with its offerings.

I wasn’t expecting the tech neighborhood to be so full of nature.

Seattle has long been known as a tech hub where software engineers move in droves to work at big companies such as Amazon and Google.

Locals told me I could find the booming scene in the South Lake Union neighborhood, home of the original Amazon headquarters. The company’s presence in more than 30 office buildings led to the neighborhood’s nickname, “Amazonia.”

Before visiting, I expected to find nothing but business-centric streets lined with glass skyscrapers in a tech-fueled neighborhood. So I was surprised by the large presence of nature in South Lake Union.

The neighborhood borders Lake Union, where I explored a waterfront park filled with runners, bicyclists, picnickers, and geese. Locals said the park is dead on the weekends, but tech workers frequent it during the week. Nearby, the Google building had a whole forest of trees on the rooftop.

I’d never seen a free banana stand before.

The pop of color caught my eye while strolling through “Amazonia.” In an outdoor space between Amazon buildings in South Lake Union, the bright yellow trailer is hard to miss.

I got a closer look and saw boxes full of bananas beneath the awning, and a sign that read, “Take one — not just for Amazonians but for anyone in the community.”

I didn’t expect to find a free snack stand in the middle of a city. Amazon previously told Business Insider that founder Jeff Bezos came up with the idea to provide a complimentary healthy snack with no wrapper. The stand first opened in 2015.

I wasn’t expecting to see an active volcano so close to a major city.

From a hotel rooftop deck, a local pointed to a distant mountain and told me it was an active volcano.

I could hardly see the volcano through the haze, but they told me Mount Rainier, which last erupted in 1894, was more visible on clear days.

I was shocked to learn that this city, home to nearly 800,000 people, is so close to what could be a natural disaster. According to the Seattle Office of Emergency Management, the city is a safe distance away from a blast’s flow, but water and power resources could be affected.

My trip to Seattle was everything I hoped it would be and more.

Seattle’s mix of natural and urban lifestyles reminded me of my previous trips to Pacific Northwest cities, which comforted me.

But I was surprised by Seattle’s unique attributes, including Pike Place Market and the oddly alluring gum wall.

And since it was so different from NYC, I definitely plan to return to Seattle to get another break from the Big Apple.

• Daniel Moreno-Gama is facing federal charges in connection with the Molotov attack on Sam Altman’s home.
• The FBI said the suspect mentioned other AI CEOs in an “anti-AI” document found on him.
• The suspect has also been accused of threatening to burn down OpenAI’s headquarters.

The man accused of tossing a Molotov cocktail at the San Francisco home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was found with an “anti-AI” document that listed off the names and addresses of other AI CEOs and investors, according to the feds.

Daniel Moreno-Gama, who was booked on multiple state charges, including attempted murder, is now facing federal charges in connection with Friday’s attack. A criminal complaint viewed by Business Insider charged him with possession of an unregistered firearm and attempted damage and destruction of property by means of explosives.

It was not immediately clear whether Moreno-Gama has retained an attorney.

According to an affidavit by an FBI agent, authorities said the 20-year-old traveled from Texas to California and, in the early morning hours, threw a Molotov cocktail at two neighboring homes owned by Altman. The device caused a fire at the top of the driveway gate, and the suspect fled the scene, the affidavit says.

About an hour and a half later, the feds say the suspect arrived at OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters, took a chair and used it to strike the glass doors.

On-site security personnel reported that the suspect said he came to “burn it down and kill anyone inside,” the affidavit says.

Officers with the San Francisco Police Department ultimately arrested Moreno-Gama and recovered “incendiary devices,” a jug of kerosene, a blue lighter, and the anti-AI document, the court papers say.

The affidavit says the document was a three-part series that “identified views opposed to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the executives of various AI companies, including Victim-1.” Victim-1 refers to Altman, who confirmed the attack on his blog.

The first part of the document was titled “Your Last Warning” followed by the suspect’s name, and in that part of the missive, it was it said that the suspect “killed/attempted to kill” Victim-1,” according to the affidavit.

“Also if I am going to advocate for others to kill and commit crimes, then I must lead by example and show that I am fully sincere in my message,” the document read, the affidavit says.

The document then listed the names of apparent board members, AI company CEOs, and investors, the court papers say.

The second part of the document was titled, “Some more words on the matter of our impending extinction,” and detailed the “purported risk AI poses to humanity,” the feds said.

The third part was a letter addressed to Altman that began with “if you make it,” according to the court papers. “If by some miracle you live, then I would take this as a sign from the divine to redeem yourself,” the letter said, according to the affidavit.

• LinkedIn is paying up to $150 an hour for people to train AI on coding, nursing, finance, and more.
• It’s conducting early tests to launch an “AI labor marketplace,” LinkedIn confirmed.
• The move would put LinkedIn in direct competition with startups like Mercor and Scale AI.

AI training is booming — and LinkedIn wants a piece of the pie.

The careers networking site is in the early stages of launching an “AI labor marketplace” where people can make up to $150 an hour training AI chatbots to get better at everything from coding to nursing to finance, LinkedIn confirmed to Business Insider.

A spokesperson for LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft, said AI training is one of the fastest-growing jobs in the US right now and that it’s doing early testing.

AI trainers are humans who help improve chatbots by rating their answers and testing their limits. It’s a new type of gig work spurred by the AI boom and has led to the creation of several rapidly-growing AI training startups that serve clients like Anthropic.

LinkedIn has over a dozen public listings asking for AI trainers.

Someone with expertise in Excel and finance can make up to $100 an hour, while a nurse can make similar rates. The highest-paid position, for a senior software engineer AI trainer, pays up to $150 an hour. Other roles include a Germanic and Nordic Linguists trainer, which pays up to $100, and someone who “red teams” — or tests — AI systems for $40-$50 an hour.

LinkedIn has also rolled out a feature that lets people receive notifications whenever an AI training opportunity pops up.

The move puts LinkedIn in direct competition with a host of fast-growing AI training startups that match frontier AI labs like OpenAI with human talent to improve their models.

Mercor quintupled its valuation in less than a year to $10 billion. Another AI training startup, Surge AI, which owns the human-expert marketplace Data Annotation, is valued at $24 billion, Forbes reported.

The sector’s breakneck growth — and vast armies of contributors — have also contributed to serious cybersecurity issues.

Scale AI, for example, left confidential contractor and client information wide open across hundreds of Google Docs last year, locking them down after Business Insider revealed the practice. Mercor was recently hit by a serious data breach that compromised its contractors’ data and led to five class-action lawsuits in a single week.