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• Robbie Cartwright started selling items when he was about 11.
• He now makes hundreds of thousands reselling sneakers online.
• He was late for his own 21st birthday because he was working, and he rarely sees friends.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Robbie Cartwright, founder of Yorkshire Trainers. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I’ve been selling things since I was a child: candy bars, fidget spinners — you name it.

My middle school had a challenge to see which student could take a small investment of about $10 and make the most profit. I won, selling hooks to hang handbags on. I profited more than $1,000 over the six weeks of the challenge, although it was all for charity.

By the time I was about 14, I was reselling sneakers. Some kids have hobbies or play sports, but I would troll eBay, looking for deals that I could make a profit on. I reinvested what I made, and soon started camping out in line for exclusive sneaker drops. I might spend $200 on a pair of sneakers from the factory, then resell them for $1,000 later that night.

That was my whole weekend: sourcing items to sell. Sometimes I could convince my friends to come camp outside stores with me. My parents weren’t too keen on the idea of me sleeping outside overnight, but they let me do it. I believe it made me a tougher person.

I’m making tons of money, but that’s not what motivates me

If I sold three pairs of sneakers, I’d use the profit to buy five more. I viewed selling as more of a hobby than a job. Still, it was taking up a lot of my time. I didn’t study much and found any excuse I could to get out of school. By about 17, I was all in on the business.

That was four years ago, and the business has grown massively. Today, I do five figures of sales each month, and in May, I hit a record: more than $280,000 in one month.

Money isn’t my main motivator. The industry of reselling online via live-streaming is still young, especially in the UK, where I’m based. I’m chasing that top spot in the industry because it’s still up for grabs.

Friends have drifted because I’m so focused on work

Being so dedicated to work impacts all areas of my personal life. I used to go to watch my favorite football team with my friends every week. Now, I haven’t seen a game in probably three years.

Unsurprisingly, my friends have drifted away. I’m not still friends with anyone I went to school with. I did a vacation with a new group of friends and had a great time, but for the next two years, I didn’t want to take time off work to join their trip.

I just turned 21, and my parents hosted a party beginning at 5 p.m. on a Sunday. I worked until 7, and was late to my own birthday. My parents wish I wouldn’t work so much, but I’m all gas, no brake. I figure that I can be on a yacht at 40; I don’t need to be there at 20. I want a family, eventually, but not for a long time.

I don’t see myself slowing down

Since I’m working all the time, I don’t spend much money. Despite selling high-end sneakers, I don’t spend much on clothes for myself. I’m wearing a $30 pair of sneakers today, and they’re worn out. I also still live at home with my parents. I’ll do that until they kick me out.

Last year, I bought two rental properties. I paid cash, so I don’t have a mortgage. Other entrepreneurs have told me to invest when I’m young. Real estate is my way of doing that. I’ve invested a little in stocks, but mostly want to stick to what I know, and that’s real estate. I’m a simple man.

Too many people my age are focused on instant gratification, but I’m the opposite: I want to build my wealth now. I get my thrill from watching the business grow, not from spending money.

Right now, I’m happy working full throttle. I’ll do that until I hit a wall. I don’t see any reason not to. I know I put a lot of pressure on myself, but I’m young — I have time to make mistakes.

• When we moved to an Italian village, my biggest worry was being far from my parents in the US.
• They were excited to visit us in Sicily, though, and even started looking at properties.
• Now, they’re buying a house here — and the process has brought us closer than ever.

Nearly three years ago, my husband and I moved from New York City to a hillside Sicilian village. We’d bought a house here remotely, without seeing it in person until several months after the closing.

During the unconventional process, my now-75-year-old parents, based in Colorado, were our biggest supporters. We had long phone calls, during which we reviewed the pros and cons of each property.

They were as immersed in the adventure as we were. Sometimes, they’d even talk about “our house in Sicily” — as if we were buying them a Mediterranean home.

Still, I worried about how they’d feel when we decided to move here full-time. My dad’s response: “We thought you’d do it sooner.” Then, my parents started planning their first visit.

The hardest part of moving to Italy was leaving my aging parents

Supporting aging parents is emotionally fraught in the best of circumstances. Most of my friends in the US are struggling with it right now. Since my husband had recently lost both of his parents, we spent two months visiting mine before our one-way flight to Italy.

As if to drive home my worries, one night during this time, my dad had a health scare. He lost consciousness, and it took what felt like an eternity to revive him.

Paramedics rushed him to the hospital, and we learned that thankfully, he’d be OK — but for a few moments, I thought I was losing my dad.

Leaving felt like abandoning my family. In the years ahead, more care responsibilities would likely fall to my younger sister, who lives in Colorado near my parents.

My own chronic health issues also meant regular trips back to the US wouldn’t be realistic. I just hoped that I could be helpful and supportive from afar.

My parents’ first visit to Italy was a semi-disaster

After giving us a year to settle in Sicily, my parents planned their first monthlong visit. They arrived in mid-January 2025, and from the get-go, almost everything went awry.

They caught a norovirus while traveling, most excursions were rained out, and I mixed up the dates for the festival we’d scheduled their stay around. Oh, and the stray cat we’d been feeding had a litter of kittens in our kitchen! There was one unique highlight: My parents attended the oath ceremony for my Italian citizenship by marriage.

Despite that silver lining, I thought they would never want to return after so much chaos. But my parents are adventurous people — my dad worked as a Merchant Marine to put himself through college, then became a king crabber in Alaska. My mom spent years as a free-spirited hippie in California before studying art history.

On the days I worked, they explored our village on their own. They bought fresh bread at the bakery and picked up meat, cheese, and new friends at the macelleria.

Then my dad proposed an unexpected excursion: property viewings.

A surprise chance to become neighbors changed our thinking

Our local real estate agent said she had something special to show us: a newly listed three-bedroom house in our neighborhood.

Updated for one-floor living to support aging in place, the house even had a sizable (by Italian standards) walk-in shower. Upstairs were two more bedrooms, a half bath, and two enormous terraces perfect for gardening and grilling, some of my dad’s favorite pastimes.

The best part? It was a 30-second walk from my home.

We all knew this house was the one. We loved the property, and also what it represented: a chance to reimagine our future yet again. Our offer was quickly accepted, though the path to closing has been slow.

My move to Italy brought us closer together

My parents returned for another month that spring and for three months this year. We were still waiting for the house to close, so finding short-term rentals in our non-touristy village was stressful but worth it.

We saw snow on Mount Etna, toured UNESCO World Heritage sites, shopped at bustling fish and produce markets, and spent hours getting lost on scenic backroads. My parents shared stories about their lives, some I’d never heard before.

For now, my parents plan to spend part of the year here, splitting their time near both of their daughters. A full-time move is a future possibility, though, so I’ve been keeping an eye on visa requirements.

I’m grateful that my 75-year-old parents are discovering new opportunities here in Italy. Now, instead of growing more distant — separated by an ocean and two continents — we’re making lists of age- and mobility-appropriate future adventures.

• Pope Leo XIV spoke to diplomats in France on Friday.
• The Pope cautioned against losing our humanity “amid a paradise of machines.”
• Addressing potential risks of AI has become a central theme of his papacy.

Pope Leo XIV has a new warning about AI.

The Pope cautioned against an overreliance on artificial intelligence and other technology during a speech to French diplomats, including President Emmanuel Macron, on Friday. Earlier that day, he traveled from Rome to Paris as part of an apostolic journey.

“If we are to avoid losing our humanity amid a ‘paradise of machines’ invading and conditioning our daily lives, there is an urgent need for education in ethical discernment and the capacity to acknowledge the moral good,” Pope Leo XIV said. “This is indispensable if we are to recognize the genuine good that enables human beings to flourish in accordance with their primordial vocation, with unconditional respect for their interior freedom and their sacred dignity.”

During a separate speech at the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization on Friday, Pope Leo XIV said AI can amplify misinformation.

“Indeed, without truth, language becomes subject to the logic of violence and to the arbitrary will of the powerful,” he said.

Pope Leo XIV became head of the Catholic Church in 2025, three years after OpenAI launched ChatGPT and changed the AI landscape. Since then, tech companies like Google, Meta, and Anthropic have invested billions of dollars in a race to become the industry leader. Doing so could secure profits and market dominance, a massive victory for whichever company comes out on top.

Critics have expressed concerns that AI could exacerbate cybersecurity and privacy issues. An OpenAI agent escaped its system and hacked another AI company, Hugging Face, in July. Earlier this month, a research team at a small AI startup said it used Anthropic’s Claude to hack into OpenAI’s codebase. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google’s Gemini had hacked three companies this spring.

And on Wednesday, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said an OpenAI agent gained unauthorized access to a government website in June.

While tech leaders go back and forth on how to pace AI development, Pope Leo XIV has repeatedly advocated putting humans first as the frontier AI model revolution rages on. In August, he warned that AI could become a new form of “economic colonialism.”

“The rapid development of artificial intelligence risks creating new forms of technological dependence, with poorer nations increasingly reliant on wealthier ones,” he said during a speech to Christian lawmakers. “We must remain vigilant in this regard, lest innovation become another vehicle for ideological or economic colonialism.”

He’s also discussed how AI could impact jobs, family units, and the environment.

• The White House is blocking CNN from traveling on Air Force One with President Trump on Saturday.
• CNN had been scheduled to travel with Trump to Knoxville, Tennessee.
• The move is the latest development in the Trump administration’s ongoing fight with CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO.

The White House is blocking CNN from traveling aboard Air Force One with President Donald Trump on Saturday, a CNN spokesperson confirmed, days after a federal judge ordered the administration to restore the network’s access to the White House, along with POLITICO and MS NOW.

CNN had been scheduled to travel with Trump to Knoxville, Tennessee, where the president is expected to attend a college football game, as part of the rotating television press pool that covers the president in settings where space is limited. The pool’s reporting and video are shared with other television networks.

But CNN was left off White House guidance for Saturday’s trip, preventing the network from carrying out its scheduled pool duties aboard the president’s plane. Such interventions in the television rotation have historically been rare. Typically, the five networks decide who is up for rotation.

A Saturday pool report noted that there would be no TV pool for the Tennessee trip, “meaning there won’t be widely available independent video of events.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The move marks the latest development in the Trump administration’s ongoing fight with CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO over access to the president. Trump announced last week that he was barring all three news organizations from the White House, accusing them of repeatedly reporting “FAKE NEWS.”

CNN was also prevented from traveling aboard Air Force One when Trump traveled to New York for the United Nations General Assembly earlier this week. In response, the four other members of the five-network television pool — ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News — declined to take CNN’s place.

But a federal judge early on Thursday stepped in and ordered the White House to immediately restore the three news organizations’ press credentials.

On Saturday morning, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “FAKE NEWS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!! IT HAS GONE ON FAR TOO LONG, AT A TREMENDOUS COST TO OUR COUNTRY.”

This story originally appeared on POLITICO and is courtesy of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which harnesses the resources of the company’s newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces, and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, Onet, and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms.

• Airlines are waiving change fees as a nor’easter bears down on the Northeast.
• The airlines include American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, and United Airlines.
• Over 88,000 customers in the region had lost power as of Saturday morning.

Major airlines are letting customers rebook flights around the Northeast for free as a nor’easter threatens the region.

American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, and United Airlines have issued travel advisories for passengers flying this weekend to, from, or through several airports in the area, including LaGuardia Airport in New York and Logan Airport in Boston.

Travelers will be able to change their flights to new dates as late as September 29 or 30, depending on the airline. Airports affected by the travel advisories span from Virginia to Maine.

The advisories come as a major Nor’easter storm is hitting the East Coast on Saturday. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency for portions of the state on Friday.

“The rain is underway, and while it’s only a half an inch or so thus far, mark my words: Much more is coming,” Hochul said at a press briefing Saturday morning.

By Saturday morning, over 88,000 customers in the region had lost power, according to PowerOutage.com, including nearly 26,000 in New York.

Over 250 flights to or from Boston Logan have been canceled as of Saturday morning.

• A version of this story originally appeared in the AI Insider newsletter.
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My colleague Pranav Dixit attended Meta Connect this week and he stopped by AI Insider to share his thoughts with newsletter subscribers.

Here’s how the Q&A went down, in longer form:

What was your biggest surprise while at the event?

The biggest surprise was how good Meta’s upcoming VR glasses were. They’re not coming out until spring 2027, and they’ll cost around $1,300, so they’re definitely not a mass-market product yet. But after spending about half an hour with them, I walked away really impressed.

I watched 3D movies, played Beat Saber, and even paired the glasses with a laptop so I suddenly had three giant virtual monitors floating in front of me.

The whole thing weighs about 100 grams, and after a few minutes, you kind of stop thinking about the hardware and just use it.

More than anything, it made me realize how far Meta has come. I kept thinking, this is what Apple should have released instead of the Vision Pro.

It obviously won’t be for everyone, especially at that price, but it was the first time I’d tried something that made me think lightweight VR glasses might actually be getting close.

Which product/device were you most impressed by and why?

I already use Muse quite a lot for surprisingly complex tasks. I’ll ask it to place a hold on a library book, send the ebook to my Kindle, or handle little chores that would otherwise have me bouncing between apps. It feels less like using a chatbot and more like having an assistant.

That’s why I think bringing Muse to the glasses is such a big deal. The glasses themselves are just a tool. The real magic is being able to ask for something while you’re walking down the street, cooking dinner, or driving, and have it quietly take care of it without you ever reaching for your phone. That starts to feel less like software and more like a superpower.

That feature hasn’t launched yet. Meta says it’s coming in the next few weeks. I can’t say how well it works in the real world. But if it does work well, it’s the first AI glasses feature I’ve seen that feels genuinely useful rather than just a gimmick.

Folks seem to like Muse much better than the metaverse. Why?

Can anyone really explain what the metaverse was? Was it a giant virtual world we were all supposed to hang out in? The vision always felt a little fuzzy. And to experience it, you had to buy an expensive VR headset and strap it to your face.

Muse is the opposite. It’s an actual product you can use today. It lives on your phone, you can ask it to do things, and it actually gets things done.

Meta has also been moving incredibly fast. It’s building Muse into all of its glasses, signing partnerships that let it book flights, order groceries, buy products, and connect to more and more services. You can see the road map unfolding in real time.

I think the biggest difference is that Muse solves a problem people already have. Everyone has little digital chores they don’t want to do. The metaverse always felt like it was asking people to change their behavior. Muse fits into behavior people already have and just makes it easier.

That’s why this feels much more tangible. It’s here now, and you can actually imagine yourself using it every day in a way that was always harder with the metaverse.

Do you think Muse can become a true top-of-the-funnel platform like iOS and Google Search, with a huge user base and loads of developers?

I think there’s definitely potential, but it’s way too early to say. One thing Meta has going for it is distribution. It already has billions of people using WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger every day, and it’s now weaving Muse into all of those products, plus its glasses. That’s a pretty unique advantage.

But building a great AI product and building the next iPhone or Google Search are two very different things. Those became platforms because millions of developers, businesses, and consumers built their lives around them over many years.

Muse is off to a promising start, but I think the real test is whether it becomes something people use dozens of times a day without even thinking about it. If it gets there, then you can start talking about it as a new computing platform. We’re just not there yet

Any concerns/doubts? What could make Muse fizzle or fail?

Two big things I’m watching.

The first is platform risk. Meta is trying to build what could become a new computing platform, but today it’s still living on someone else’s platforms — iOS and Android. If Apple or Google decides AI agents are becoming a competitive threat, they could change App Store or operating system rules in ways that make Muse, or AI agents more broadly, much less capable. We’ve seen platform owners do that before.

The second is that the web wasn’t really built for AI agents. It was built for humans. If websites decide they don’t want agents browsing, clicking, or completing transactions on behalf of users, these products become a lot less useful. We’re already seeing some early signs of that. Amazon has blocked Muse from shopping on its site, and services like Goodreads aren’t available either.

Ultimately, AI agents are only as useful as the parts of the internet they can access. If the broader web decides not to play ball, that’s a problem for not just Muse but for all AI agents.

Sign up for the AI Insider newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com