This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Bridget Griswold, the 25-year-old CEO of Lean In, who lives in San Francisco. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I fell in love with technology at Brown University, where I studied computer science and business. I worked with two female professors to build a robot. I interned at a semiconductor manufacturing company and also loved design and art.

Product management felt like a really wonderful combination of all those interests, and that was my role at Meta a year after graduating from college. My team and I redesigned the Instagram search grid, so now when you search for large Instagram accounts, you're routed to the search results page rather than directly to those accounts. I'm very proud of that.

While at Meta, an incredible female mentor connected me to Sheryl Sandberg. Meeting her felt so surreal and is what led me to start my role as CEO at Lean In in March. It feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do mission-driven work.

I was a swimmer as a kid, and as my swim coach used to say: "You get out of swimming what you put into it." I think that applies to many things in life: The more you put in, the more you get out.

Here's a day in my life.

I wake up to my needy, angelic cat around 7:30 a.m.

The second I wake up, I pet my crying and whining cat. She's an angel but very needy.

I'm not a breakfast person, but I need coffee immediately. I have many cups of coffee throughout the day. One of the first things I do is make some at home.

I always tidy up my apartment while brushing my teeth

The most productive two minutes of my day are when I brush my teeth. I clean and tidy my apartment at the same time.

I'm probably not super focused on brushing my teeth, which is maybe a problem, but I'm also making my bed, emptying the dishwasher, feeding my cat, or starting the coffee maker.

I always move really quickly; I don't like to sit still. Brushing my teeth and standing still would make me antsy, so I like to get something else done at the same time.

I'm still adjusting to West Coast hours

I moved from New York City to San Francisco in August.

In New York, I went to Solidcore classes before work every day. Working on the West Coast, the workday starts earlier than on the East Coast, so I'm still learning whether I like to work out in the morning or after work.

When I take the bus to the office three days a week, I often use that time to catch up on personal housekeeping tasks like scheduling appointments or texting back my friends who live on the East Coast.

I come to the office around 8 a.m. or 8:30 a.m.

A majority of my in-person time is spent in meetings. As CEO, I enjoy being involved in all aspects of the team.

I'll meet with our content and research team — we spend a lot of time digging into data, such as some really exciting new research on trad wives in the manosphere. I also often meet with our product and tech team, as well as many of our partners, to help grow our programs.

We have lunch in the office — my favorite is a salad-plus-smoothie combo — and it's a really wonderful time to connect with the team.

I also love connecting with our Lean In community. One thing we're focused on is closing early gender gaps in AI usage. Our flagship program, Circles, consists of groups of 8 to 12 women who meet regularly to support each other in their careers — we have over 170,000 members. It's a perfect forum to hold each other accountable for upskilling in AI.

Every week, I send AI tips to our network leaders. A recent one encouraged the use of AI notetakers, as women are more likely to take notes during meetings and miss out on participating.

Lean In is in over 180 countries, and it's really heartwarming to see that our commitment to our mission has a positive impact on women's careers. Getting to speak with them is really energizing and rewarding.

I rehearse for meetings by talking to myself on walks

Another habit of mine I've been told is weird is how I prepare for big meetings.

If I have a presentation or interview coming up, I'll set up a Zoom and practice speaking to myself. Talking for a long time is sort of an unnatural act, and the first time you do it is probably not going to be your best.

Sometimes, I'll even go on a walk and wear headphones, pretending like I'm in a meeting or on a phone call, but I'm actually talking to myself and practicing.

When there's a bug, I usually fix the code myself

Because of my background in computer science, I spend a lot of my time finding bugs or things I believe we should change on our platform. I'll code and fix those on my own. Thankfully, with AI, it's so much faster to code now than it was a few years ago.

Our team is busy, and my goal is to enable everyone to have as much impact and move as quickly as possible. If I can help unblock the tech team or resolve an issue rather than add it to their plate, I'm always more than happy to do so.

I leave work around 6 p.m.

I continue to work until I go to bed pretty much every night.

It's nice to have that time at home, when I'm not running around between meetings, to focus, give feedback on documents the team has sent, write, respond to emails, and brainstorm my own ideas.

I take breaks to tidy up my apartment and make dinner. Living in New York got me out of the habit of cooking, so I'm taking the initiative to cook more meals, like rice bowls. I would say about half the time I order takeout, like pho, and the other half I cook, which is progress for me.

If my work doesn't require intense focus, I'll do it from the couch and put a happy TV show on, which right now is "Schitt's Creek." I think it's a nice balance between relaxation and getting things done.

I usually get in bed around 10:30 p.m.

I've been trying to make a habit of reading every night instead of going on my phone, which has been a really positive change. I like anything I read to be a distraction. I'm currently reading "Big Little Lies" and enjoying it.

It's nice to spend 30 minutes reading something like fantasy that's completely different from what I think about at work. That way, I'm not spinning on all the things I need to do or coming up with new ideas that can't get done in my sleep anyway.

Weekends are for the beach and farmers market

My boyfriend works in Los Angeles and flies up to San Francisco every weekend. We've made a tradition of going to the Fort Mason Farmers Market on Sundays for fresh produce to cook an at-home meal that night.

I also enjoy seeing friends over the weekend. My preference is to go on a long walk or go to the beach. I also enjoy fitting in some work — emails, deep-focus work, or reading — throughout the weekend.

For decades, hardware was a hard sell in Silicon Valley. Now investors are pouring tens of billions into machines that can do things in the real world.

A Goldilocks set of conditions has made robotics one of tech's hottest bets. As investors look beyond chatbots to the next frontier in AI, cheaper hardware, smarter AI models, labor shortages, and competition with China are fueling interest in machines capable of performing physical work.

Robotics and physical AI companies raised $33.4 billion globally in the first half of this year alone, according to PitchBook data. That's already more than the $28.7 billion the sector raised in all of last year — and an astronomical rise from 2020, when funding came in at just under $5 billion.

Investors are writing billion-dollar checks to fund both the machines and the AI brains behind them. Defense company Anduril raised $5 billion in May, co-led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. Autonomous shipbuilder Saronic raised $1.75 billion in March in a round led by Kleiner Perkins. Skild AI, which builds software to control different kinds of robots, raised $1.4 billion in January in a round led by SoftBank. Physical Intelligence, which is also building an AI model to command robots, raised about $1 billion in May, co-led by Leopold Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness and Lux Capital.

"This is off the charts," Ken Goldberg, a UC Berkeley robotics professor and cofounder of warehouse robotics startup Ambi Robotics, told Business Insider. "In my 45 years in this field, this is the most funding and energy and interest in robotics that I've ever seen."

This is the first installment of Robonomics, Business Insider's new series on the rise of robots and their impact on business, jobs, and everyday life. We'll go inside factories and warehouses where humans work alongside robots, meet the founders, investors, and workers driving the boom, and examine how the technology is reshaping industries from manufacturing to defense. We'll also ask how close robots are to becoming part of everyday life, and what is still standing in their way.

The prize is enormous. Unlike software, which is largely confined to work done on screens, robotics companies are going after physical labor, from factories and construction sites to robot butlers in every home. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who popularized the term "physical AI," has described robotics as the "technology industry's first opportunity to address a $50 trillion industry that has largely been void of technology until now." Many Nvidia veterans have launched their own robotics startups.

But investors are pricing companies as though the robot revolution has already arrived. Startups still in research and development command multibillion-dollar valuations, often with little revenue and few deployments to show for it. Humanoid maker Figure AI, for example, secured a $39 billion valuation last year, even as its deployments remain limited to small factory pilots.

"Robotics is going to happen, and a lot of money will still be lost," said Sarah Guo, founder of the venture firm Conviction, which is an investor in robotics startups Sunday Robotics and Watney. "Both things are true."

From not to hot

From industrial arms assembling electronics to Roombas cleaning floors, robots have long been part of everyday life.

What venture investors struggled to see was how to make money from them. Building robots required expensive hardware, factories, and supply chains, often to produce machines that could perform just one narrow task. Why fund that when you could back a college dropout building the next viral app?

Guo used to tell fellow investors that robotics was a good way to lose a lot of money over many years. "The models didn't work," she said. "Every robot was a brittle, single-purpose system hand-built for one task."

Ajay Agarwal, a partner at Bain Capital Ventures, was among the few investors willing to bet on robotics during the internet era. In 2004, he backed Kiva Systems, which pioneered warehouse automation with fleets of mobile robots that brought products directly to human workers.

Bain led every successive funding round because Kiva was "not able to raise money on Sand Hill Road," Agarwal told Business Insider. By the time Amazon bought it for $775 million in 2012, Bain was its only institutional investor.

More than two decades later, AI has changed the calculation. Advances in machine learning are helping robots perceive their surroundings, make decisions, and adapt to new tasks, raising hopes that companies can build more versatile machines instead of engineering a different robot for every job. Cheaper computing and hardware are also making the economics more attractive.

Some of Silicon Valley's biggest names are now chasing that vision. Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick's Atoms raised $1.7 billion in July to pursue automation in food, mining, and transportation. Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe's Mind Robotics has raised $900 million this year, while former Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt's home robotics startup, The Bot Company, has raised at least $300 million.

Big Tech and AI labs, too, are joining the rush. OpenAI has advertised robotics jobs with base salaries reaching $500,000 a year. Meta acquired robotics startup Assured Robot Intelligence in May and is testing robots in its data centers. Google has invested in humanoid maker Apptronik, which is also working with DeepMind to develop AI models for robots. Elon Musk, meanwhile, is staking Tesla's future on the Optimus humanoid.

Some venture firms are setting aside dedicated capital for robotics. In August, Andreessen Horowitz raised $1.1 billion for "Machine Age," its first fund focused on the physical infrastructure behind AI, including robotics.

The gold rush

For longtime robotics investors, alarm bells are ringing. Industry veterans whisper about "hardware tourists" piling into robotics deals — investors drawn by AI hype who underestimate how difficult it is to build machines that work reliably in the real world. There is precedent for caution. Venture firms poured billions into autonomous vehicles in the 2010s, only to see startups fold or consolidate as self-driving technology proved harder and more expensive to commercialize than expected. Years later, only a handful of deep-pocketed players have managed to bring robotaxis to the public.

Robotics faces its own formidable obstacles. Unlike large language models trained on vast amounts of internet text and images, robots lack a comparable trove of data showing them how to act in the physical world. Dozens of startups are now scrambling to collect it, but nobody knows how much will be enough. And even smarter AI won't eliminate the challenges of manufacturing, maintaining, and deploying expensive hardware.

"The most difficult part of physical AI is the physical part," said Charly Mwangi, a partner at VC firm Eclipse who has backed The Bot Company and robotics startup Genesis AI. "The next few years are going to be really, really hard for the robotics industry as companies go from the lab to deployments."

Some of the most speculative robotics bets are attracting the biggest checks. Humanoids and general-purpose robot models were the two fastest-growing areas of robotics investment last year, according to venture firm F-Prime. "You cannot raise money on demos forever," said Sanjay Aggarwal, an F-Prime partner and coauthor of the firm's annual robotics report. "I would personally be surprised if all these companies independently exist two or three years from now."

There are signs that some startups are becoming real businesses. Field AI, which is building an AI "brain" that works across robots, has crossed $100 million in revenue and customer contracts from more than 30 customers, including construction firms, data center operators, and defense companies, Business Insider previously reported. Skild AI said last month that it had reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue from more than 60 customers. Its projects include robots assembling Nvidia's Blackwell chips with Foxconn and kitchen pilots with Mitsui, a Japanese conglomerate.

Believers see robotics on the cusp of a breakthrough that could put machines to work in nearly every corner of the economy. Brad Porter, the former head of Amazon Robotics who now runs workplace robotics startup Cobot, says the field could be nine to 18 months away from major advances in dexterous manipulation — the ability of robots to handle objects with the ease of human hands.

"When I think of a 'ChatGPT moment' for robotics, it is cracking dexterous manipulation," Porter said. "Then there will be a Cambrian explosion of robots."

The question is whether these breakthroughs will arrive quickly enough to justify the money pouring in.

At Business Insider's Growth Mode event this month, Menlo Ventures partner Matt Murphy singled out robotics among the fields attracting enormous amounts of financing "before they're really showing traction." Abundant funding, he warned, can make startups "sloppy."

For investors, he said, that means "a lot more opportunity to have a really big crater."

Have a tip? Contact Rya Jetha via email at rjetha@businessinsider.com or Signal at rjetha.07. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jeff Kinney, the 55-year-old author of the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series, who lives in Plainville, Massachusetts. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Every year, when a new "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" book hits the shelves, I'm surprised that kids keep showing up.

I started writing the first book in 1998, while working as a computer programmer and game designer. I wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist, but that didn't work out, so I set out to get my cartoons published somehow. I was inspired by my own childhood experiences.

The first generation of kids who read my books is now almost 30 years old. It's wild to me that there's a new generation of kids encountering these books and finding them fresh.

As an author, I work within a few different spheres: books, my bookstore, movies, and development. I hop from one area to another.

Here's a day in my life.

I wake up before 7 a.m.

I don't set an alarm, so I wake up at that time naturally every day. I stay in bed for a while because after an ankle injury, I have some PT to do, like ankle stretches, while I'm in bed.

I meditate for about 10 minutes, set my intentions for the day, and organize my digital to-do list before I get out of bed.

I do two hours of exercise before breakfast

Right after I get up, I do about two hours of PT yoga, then weightlifting. I do that before I eat breakfast, which is often eggs and sausages.

I'm really committed to my morning physical routine of PT, PT yoga, and exercise. That's now become non-negotiable. I also do some journaling because it orients me toward the day, and it's a calming mechanism.

I've just had my most productive year, during which I wrote two books and two screenplays, so I attribute that to my morning routine. It grounds me.

I stay organized with a habit tracker

I've tried a million different to-do list apps that didn't work, including the pomodoro method and all sorts of others. Then I found a digital habit tracker.

I'm pretty diligent about checking off my daily habits. These include eating enough fiber, drinking enough water, waking up by a certain time, meditating, and doing stretches and yoga.

My workday starts at around 9:30 a.m.

I have about five or six workspaces, and I like to balance between them. One is a really colorful studio with my whole staff on the top floor of my bookstore, which is about three miles away from my home. When I'm not touring or working on a script, I go into the bookstore.

The bookstore is always top of mind for me, though the day-to-day operations are handled by the staff. Every so often, I'll get involved because we'll have a big author that comes to the store, and I'll interview them.

Another is my guest house, where I sit in the quiet living room. I also have a dark room in the basement where I'll go if I need to shut out everything. The other one is sitting in my car at the cemetery, where it's also very quiet. I can't listen to music because it occupies the same part of my brain needed for creating.

Sometimes I write for 8 to 12 hours a day

I feel most creative in the early morning hours, but sometimes I might write for eight to 12 hours a day.

If I'm illustrating, which I basically do all summer, I'll draw from maybe 9 a.m. until about 9 or 10 p.m. every day for months.

When I'm working on a book, I'll write the jokes first, then the manuscript, and finally I'll illustrate. I do all the illustrations myself. I don't usually combine those activities together.

I'm always stuck creatively, so I use a system

When I get stuck, I use something called systematic creative thinking, which helps me to produce material even if I'm not feeling creative.

I start with the components. If I'm writing about an airplane, I'll list the parts of the plane inside and out: the wings, the pilots, the lavatory, everything. Then I'll go through each component with a few different tools like subtraction and multiplication, and that's what gives me my raw material.

I'll use my iPad or my computer, or I have this device called a Freewrite, which is a super simple word processor that's not connected to the internet.

I don't stop for lunch

I only eat two meals a day, so I don't really step away for lunch — this is how I roll.

I do have an energy drink, but it's more of a habit than a need. I also don't typically take breaks.

I don't have many work boundaries

A good day is when I can get my to-do list to under 200 items, which is really hard to do. When I'm not illustrating, my wife might say, "Hey, let's have dinner," and that's my backstop for when I stop working.

Work is always on my mind, and I really don't have any boundaries. I don't tell people when I'm going on vacation because they'll reach me anyway, and I don't want to stop them from making progress. I usually make myself available, even if I'm away.

My team mostly communicates with me by text

Texting is how my team communicates with me. Email has become less useful for me because I get so many emails in a day that I feel like I'm a hockey goalie, and pucks keep whizzing past me.

I can really only answer emails right when I get them. Once they get too far down my list, I'll forget about them. I have a lot of challenges with executive functioning. I really struggle with having a lot of choices.

I've always answered my own emails, and I don't use AI to write.

I'm not often bored; I need stimulation

I don't play a lot. I sometimes go to Celtics games, or I'll go out to dinner with my wife, my friends, or my kids. I'm not often bored.

In fact, I feel very understimulated. I often feel like I'm not getting enough information, or there's not enough that's happening. For example, if I were to drive through the McDonald's drive-thru and get my food, I'd turn on the radio, tune in to some news program, and eat while reading the news on my phone.

Chicken McNuggets with sweet and sour sauce are probably my guilty pleasure. As far as watching TV goes, Survivor is always a staple in our house.

I go to sleep around 9:45 p.m.

These days I go to bed pretty early. I get in bed around 9:45 p.m., put in an earbud, and fall asleep with the news in my ear.

Cooley has made billions doing what law firms do: hire great lawyers, bill for their time, and keep clients happy. Artificial intelligence is scrambling that formula. If machines can do in minutes what once took an associate hours, what exactly should clients be paying for?

Rachel Proffitt thinks she has the answer.

On a toasty October afternoon in San Francisco, I met Proffitt for lunch to talk about the future of the global law firm she now leads. When the check arrived, neither of us knew how much the restaurant paid the dishwasher or how many minutes the chef spent preparing our meal. We were paying for the experience, not the labor behind it.

Why, she wondered, should legal services be so different?

"Clients have never been excited about the fact that it took us 82 hours to do something. They don't care," she says. "They just want the outcome. They want the results."

The billable hour is only the beginning. AI is forcing law firms to rethink how many associates they really need and how those young lawyers learn their craft. Client relationships are changing as companies use software to get a head start on the work they send to outside counsel. Some of that work may never reach a lawyer at all.

If tech is about to reinvent law firms, Cooley should be one of the firms with the clearest view of what's coming. From its early days on San Francisco's Market Street, it worked with semiconductor manufacturers and venture capitalists when the valley was still covered in fruit trees and canneries. Cooley grew up alongside the tech industry, and today it is as comfortable defending Meta in court as it is helping Andreessen Horowitz round up billion-dollar funds.

That evolution has been lucrative. Cooley says its gross revenue jumped from $912 million in 2015 to $2.4 billion last fiscal year. Its crosstown rival, Wilson Sonsini, brought in $1.7 billion in 2025, according to The American Lawyer. Still, the gulf between Cooley and Big Law's largest firms remains enormous. Kirkland & Ellis, the industry's revenue leader, cracked $10 billion last year. Latham & Watkins, another go-to firm for Silicon Valley, hit $8.3 billion.

The next wave of tech public listings promises a fortune in legal fees for the chosen few. Gibson Dunn landed SpaceX's IPO. Anthropic tapped Wilson Sonsini for its coming listing. And Cooley is reportedly sharing OpenAI's IPO work with Wachtell Lipton, one of Wall Street's most formidable law firms.

The irony is hard to miss. Big Law is fighting for a piece of the biggest technology companies in the world, even as those companies build the tools that could upend the business of law itself.

Proffitt came up as a lawyer under the old rules. Her next task is to figure out what it will take to build a great law firm under the new ones.

'The winner's circle'

Profitt didn't grow up wanting to be a lawyer but liked how law school taught her to think. Litigation was out of the question: Public speaking during mock trials made her stomach turn. "It was transactional law or bust," she says.

She started her career as a summer associate at Wilson Sonsini and worked her way up to partner. She fell in love with the intensity of the work, pulling all-nighters at the financial printers where she marked up securities filings by hand. She recalls the Christmas Eve when her father marveled that she had made it through the day without taking a work call. After 15 years at the firm, she left for Cooley in 2017.

Three years ago, Proffitt got a call at home that she didn't see coming. Joe Conroy, then Cooley's chief executive, wanted to know whether she would consider succeeding him.

She was flattered, but also "a bit terrified," she says. She spent two decades helping startups, including Unity Software, Procore, and Instacart, raise money and go public. Running a firm with 3,000 employees was another matter. She talked to her family, then put herself forward for the job. She started in 2024.

Proffitt couldn't have guessed how quickly AI would jolt her industry from its steady state. It wasn't too long ago that clients insisted that the technology go nowhere near their work, fearing what would happen if their data disappeared into someone else's model.

"It was clear to me then that we don't get to just exist as we are and continue to be at the top of our game," she says.

Cooley had remade itself once before. The firm's Silicon Valley roots were both a strength and a liability, said Conroy in an interview. Cooley was known for helping startups get off the ground. The conventional wisdom was that as those companies grew, they would graduate to one of the elite New York law firms for their biggest deals and courtroom battles.

To keep clients from the garage to the boardroom, as Conroy put it, Cooley needed to expand. It opened new offices and built out its litigation and capital markets practices. The firm also spent years courting Wall Street banks, says Proffitt, so that when a company asked which law firm to hire for its IPO, Cooley would make its shortlist.

Today, its client roster reads like a Kiplinger roundup of hot tech stocks: Nvidia, Uber, Snowflake, and Zoom, to name a few listings it worked on. Since 2016, Cooley has advised issuers on 183 IPOs that raised nearly $59 billion, making it the second-most active firm by deal count after Latham, according to Deal Point Data. Proffitt wouldn't discuss reports that Cooley has landed OpenAI's IPO work.

For 16 years, Conroy pushed Cooley toward what he calls Big Law's "winner's circle." Proffitt's job is to get it there.

Startup speed

Her strategy starts with making Cooley move more like the tech companies it represents.

Proffitt recruited David Wang, a former lawyer turned legal technology executive, with an ambitious mandate. She didn't just want to make Cooley's lawyers more productive, Wang said in an interview. She wanted to change how clients interact with them altogether.

Earlier this year, Cooley launched a tool with the startup Legora that lets Y Combinator founders review common contracts without calling a lawyer. OpenAI helped it build a tool for Cooley's lawyers to prepare paperwork for companies going public. Next, Cooley is working with Google on an AI agent that scans documents for confidential information before they're filed in court, then suggests redactions for lawyers to review.

There's something almost cannibalistic about a law firm building software that could eat into its own billable hours. But Cooley sees a bigger risk in letting someone else do it. In-house legal teams are increasingly using chatbots to take the first crack at work they would otherwise send to outside counsel. A new breed of "AI-native" law firms is promising cheaper, faster services.

Big Law does not want to be caught flatfooted. Firms are throwing money at startups like Harvey and Legora, and increasingly, they're building their own technology. Kirkland has committed $500 million to proprietary software, starting with a platform for private equity fundraising built with Palantir. Latham bought its own Nvidia servers so it can customize models in-house. Like Cooley, Wilson Sonsini has self-service tools that let companies handle basic legal work.

For Proffitt, the danger isn't lost billable hours. It's the missed connections. The scrappy startup that needs a contract reviewed today might need help closing an acquisition later. But if the bots take care of the small stuff, Cooley could miss its chance to build the relationship.

Proffitt says Cooley must find new ways to connect with clients. Putting technology in their hands is one option, even if it means giving away a little of the work.

"When you need the next thing that matters, the thing that you don't trust to put into the machine," she says, "how do I ensure that you want to talk to our team?"

The firm is also rethinking its own structure for the new era. Wang now leads Cooley AI, a wholly owned subsidiary designed to operate at something closer to startup speed. The separate company gives his team more freedom to hire engineers and put new technology through its paces, he says, without getting bogged down in the parent firm's bureaucracy.

The irony, Proffitt says, is that all this technology could leave lawyers with more time for the human stuff. Lawyers may visit their clients more. Talk through thorny decisions. Drop in on the strategy session to learn how their advice fits into a client's business.

Keeping those relationships alive might require a little more old-fashioned schmoozing. When I asked Proffitt whether the answer was throwing great parties, she didn't entirely disagree. "Everyone loves a party," she says.

The future of legal work

Proffitt doesn't pretend to have a crystal ball. She has ideas, though.

The billable hour? Not dead yet. She expects law firms to offer clients a menu of pricing options, from hourly rates to flat fees and outcome-based pricing.

Hiring slowdowns at the junior level? "Too early to tell," she says.

The apprenticeship model? That gets trickier. If software can write first drafts and spot issues, how will young lawyers get the practice they need? Proffitt says Cooley is exploring ways for associates to sharpen their skills on simulated legal matters, starting with AI-powered mock depositions.

Proffitt came up in an era when canceled dinners and all-nighters were a badge of honor. She's betting that the next generation won't need quite so many of them to become great lawyers. Her test will come a decade from now, when today's junior associates are ready to make partner.

If Cooley has found a better way to teach them, perhaps the old model won't be missed. If it hasn't, no amount of AI can make up the difference.

Melia Robinson is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, where she writes about how artificial intelligence is changing the legal industry.

The H-1B visa system is one of high stakes, shifting rules, and little certainty.

Over the past year, Business Insider has spoken to more than 20 H-1B visa holders and hopefuls about their decisions to opt in, push through, and sometimes give up on the H-1B American Dream as the Trump administration has become increasingly hostile to foreign workers.

As part of our H-1B Fallout series, published one year after the Trump administration introduced a $100,000 payment for some new H-1B petitions, we are telling the stories of people navigating the visa system. Some left the US and returned to their home countries, while others rebuilt elsewhere or are still trying to build a career in the US.

In a statement, a White House spokesperson said the goal of the $100,000 H-1B fee is to focus on sponsoring "truly highly specialized temporary labor." A Department of State spokesperson said the US is unapologetic about its "America first visa policies" and that the administration is working with partners to facilitate necessary visas. A Department of Labor spokesperson said the administration is protecting American jobs and increasing wages.

Keep reading to see what life has been like for people affected by the US's immigration policy changes.

Soumi Chanda, 35

Soumi Chanda had spent 13 years building a life in the US when a 2025 layoff put her H-1B status at risk.

Chanda moved from Kolkata to Spokane, Washington, in 2013 for graduate school. She was selected for an H-1B on her first attempt in 2021 — "pure luck," she said — and Amazon later took over her sponsorship, prompting her move to Seattle.

When Amazon laid her off, Chanda had 60 days to find a new sponsor or leave the country. "Sixty days sounded impossible from the start," she said. Her search came as debate intensified over the proposed fee. "Even with Amazon on my résumé, I didn't get a single interview the following month," she said.

When preparing to leave the US, Chanda made her two cats her priority. She spent weeks arranging their international travel and paid roughly $5,000 for paperwork, along with thousands more to break her lease, dispose of her belongings, and secure last-minute travel. In total, she estimates the move cost her $18,000.

Now back in Kolkata, she's still working out whether India will be her long-term home. "There's plenty here I value, and other things, as a feminist, I find harder to reconcile."

Even with Amazon on my résumé, I didn't get a single interview the following month.

Read: She was picked for an H-1B visa on her first try, but got laid off

Luciana Pereyra, 26

Luciana Pereyra moved from Peru to the US at 17 on a tennis scholarship. After graduating, she landed a marketing role at Ohio State. Her H-1B was approved in April 2024. She described that time as living in "survival mode," knowing that losing a job could also mean losing her home.

In December 2025, Pereyra said HR contacted her to say that her position would end the following month. She had 60 days to find another employer to sponsor her visa or leave the country. "I treated the job search like the last match of my career," she said.

She focused on university jobs, but the timing worked against her: Many campuses closed for winter break as her grace period began. She said two promising opportunities fell through after prospective employers raised concerns about securing a visa amid the proposed H-1B fees.

Pereyra returned to Peru in March. In Lima, she freelances for a US marketing client, coaches tennis, and is building a small business. She said she would consider moving to the US again, but only if it came with "a real path to permanent residency."

I treated the job search like the last match of my career.

Read: She played college tennis, earned 2 degrees, then lost her H-1B job

Mohamed Zeeshan, 33

Recent changes to US immigration policy have made Mohamed Zeeshan, a green card holder, more concerned about whether immigrants like him can build stable lives in the country.

He's seen relatives and friends consider countries such as Germany and Australia, rather than the US, because of the difficulty of securing jobs and visas after graduation. The instability surrounding H-1B visas — including the proposed $100,000 fee for new applicants — has reinforced his concerns.

Zeeshan self-petitioned for a green card and received it in 2023, enabling him to live in the US without needing employer sponsorship.

In 2025, he started his own consulting firm. Over the past year, Zeeshan said he has watched the immigration landscape become more uncertain.

He still plans to become a US citizen but says that if he had to rely on an H-1B visa today, he doesn't think he'd do it: "When you're on an H-1B here in the US, you're kind of always on tenterhooks."

"You don't know if you're going to be here next month or two months or three months down the line. That's a very difficult position to be in."

His wife is still waiting for her green card, and the couple is holding off on having children until they have more clarity about her status.

When you're on an H-1B here in the US, you're kind of always on tenterhooks.

Read: He moved to the US on a green card and wouldn't do the same on an H-1B

Vivienne Yang, 31

Vivienne Yang found out she was being laid off from her H-1B-sponsored job while she was on vacation in Japan in October 2024.

She spent the rest of the trip speaking with immigration and labor lawyers, emailing her employer, and trying to enjoy sightseeing with her partner.

Yang, who is from Taiwan, managed to get her employment extended for a few weeks, allowing her to fly back to New York. She then switched to a B-2 tourist visa so she could stay in the US longer and search for another job. She went through over 20 job interviews in the next year, all of them unsuccessful.

So, she decided to pivot.

Yang was accepted into a New York acting program, but her application for a US student visa was denied after she returned to Taiwan to apply for it in December 2025. Her American partner now looks after her two cats in Brooklyn while she remains in Taiwan, living with her family and working as a content creator, business English coach, and freelance consultant.

She has put her US plans on hold. "I don't want to deal with visa issues anytime soon," she said.

"Now I can move on with my life without any regrets because I know I have tried," she said. "I have a better understanding of what living abroad looks like and what American dream looks like in reality."

I have a better understanding of what living abroad looks like and what American Dream looks like in reality.

Read: She lost her job and left behind her American dream — and her cats

Watch: Vivienne Yang on letting go of her American dream

Ananya Joshi, 26

Ananya Joshi's plans to build a career in the US came apart in 2025, when a visa setback and a sudden layoff pushed her to look for a future elsewhere.

Joshi had moved from India to Illinois to pursue a master's degree. After graduating in 2024, she joined a Chicago startup developing cultivated meat as a scientist, working on an F-1 Optional Practical Training, or OPT visa.

She was enjoying the work until she learned that her employer could not complete E-Verify, which employers must use to sponsor an extension of STEM graduates' OPT.

From May through July 2025, Joshi interviewed for jobs around the world. She received offers in Canada and Germany and ultimately chose Germany. "Having gone through so much, I realized I needed that stability," she said.

In January, she moved to Rostock, about three hours north of Berlin, to join another lab-grown-meat startup. These days, Joshi is taking German classes and adjusting to what she describes as a slower work culture. She's also learning to navigate a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend, who remains in the US.

Joshi said she would still like to return to the US, but said, "I can't forget what I went through."

I realized I needed that stability.

Read: Her American dream hit a visa roadblock; she found a job in Germany

Watch: H-1B visa hopeful had her life upended, moved to Germany

Gu Yichen, 31

Gu Yichen's path to working in the US began in high school, when he spent a year as an exchange student in Yacolt, a small town in Washington State. He later attended college in the US, interning at Amazon before joining the company full-time after graduation.

With a STEM degree, Gu had three chances to enter the H-1B lottery. He was selected on his third try.

In late 2022, Gu left Amazon for a job at Google, despite his manager's warning that the market was becoming unstable. He was laid off the following month, before he had done "a single day of real work."

Gu faced pressure to find a new employer within the 60-day grace period. Rather than take a stopgap role, he returned to China for a break before ultimately rejoining his former Amazon team in the US on an I-140, an immigration petition that can support a green-card application.

He has since applied for a green card, hoping it will give him "more freedom in both my personal life and my career."

Over the past year, he said the biggest challenge has remained the same: His ability to stay in the US is tied to his job. "I've been thinking what kind of life I really want to live and what is my real interest in life."

I've been thinking what kind of life I really want to live and what is my real interest in life.

Read: Google laid him off a month after hiring him; he was on an H-1B visa

Disha Lamba, 28

Leaving a six-figure data-scientist job in New York and returning to India in May was not an easy decision for Disha Lamba, but she says being closer to her family — and free from the limits of an employment visa — made it worthwhile.

Lamba moved to the US in 2021 to pursue a master's degree. She later joined CVS Health as a data scientist and learned that she had been selected in the H-1B lottery in March 2026.

By then, however, Lamba had already decided to move home. Though she had a fulfilling job and social life in New York, she struggled with the distance from her parents.

The prospect of managing an H-1B long-term reinforced her decision. Lamba was concerned about the difficulty of obtaining visa stamps to travel, as well as the limits the visa can place on changing employers, taking a career break, or pursuing additional income.

"Anything comes with its pros and cons. H-1B has its pros but also has its cons. I wasn't OK with the cons of being in these restrictions," she said.

After resigning, Lamba moved back to live with her parents and brother. She took a two-month career break and secured a short-term contract role, but she's still looking for a permanent job. Nonetheless, she's still happy about her decision.

"Every moment when I get to hug my parents, that's when I realize, no, this was all worth it," she said.

H-1B has its pros but also has its cons.

Read: She moved back to India to be near family and leave H-1B limits behind

Sunjana Ramana, 27

After three failed attempts to obtain an H-1B visa, Sunjana Ramana is reinventing her "American Dream."

Ramana moved from Hyderabad, India, to New York in 2021 for her master's degree. After graduating in 2023, she joined a global insurance company. Her employer entered her in the H-1B lottery in 2023, 2024, and 2025. She was not selected.

When her work authorization ended in early 2026, Ramana had to leave the US.

"When I didn't get the visa, I was really, really clueless. I thought that was the end of everything that I had built for three years," she said, adding, "but I realized just a couple of months later that there are so many additional options that I didn't know existed."

Instead of returning to India, Ramana secured a 2-year UK visa that is not tied to one employer. She chose London as her base, where she could pursue the entrepreneurship she had wanted to explore in the US.

Ramana was accepted into Antler's founder-in-residence program and spent two months building Flax, a two-person tech company that helps AI founders and builders. In May, she moved into a product-management role in fintech.

"I want to go back and tell my younger self not to associate the 'dream' with America or a country for that matter, because it doesn't matter where you are. The dream should be aligned to you and your goals."

When I didn't get the visa, I was really, really clueless. I thought that was the end of everything that I had built for three years

Read: She left the US when she didn't get an H-1B visa. Now, she's living a new dream.

Madhur Mehta, 36

An H-1B selection brought immediate relief for Madhur Mehta this year, but it has not resolved the uncertainty that shapes his and his fiancée's plans in the US.

Mehta moved to the US in 2021, earned a master's degree in 2023, and was eligible for three years of student work authorization. Amazon offered him both a job and sponsorship.

He joined the company in 2025 as a program manager.

But over the past year, while the company was trying to get him an H-1B, Mehta grew concerned about changes to the lottery. He began exploring backup plans for his US life, including an EB-1A visa and opportunities in Canada and Australia.

He learned he was selected for an H-1B in March, potentially giving him the chance to work and remain in the US for another three years.

"It was a big relief," he said, adding, "It's like someone has taken a 100-pound load off your mind," he said.

Mehta's fiancée, who is also from India, has one remaining chance in the H-1B lottery before her work authorization expires.

"It's hard, you know, obviously you can't plan," Mehta said, adding, "unless we are both very clear on what our visa status is."

It's like someone has taken a 100-pound load off your mind.

Read: He got an H-1B visa, but uncertainty makes it hard to plan his future

Shreya Mishra Reddy, 34

Shreya Mishra Reddy left the US in January after not being selected for an H-1B visa. Her plan was to leave the country and keep applying for US jobs from abroad.

That plan, however, started to feel unrealistic after the Trump administration proposed the $100,000 fee on some H-1B applicants.

Though the fee has been challenged in court and is not being enforced, she said the uncertainty changed her mind: "I've decided not to pursue H-1B or any role in the US right now."

Reddy had moved to the US in 2021 for a master's degree in engineering management at Duke University. After graduating, she was hired by Visa, but her student work authorization expired before she could secure an H-1B visa.

She's now in Toronto with her husband on a tourist visa and weighing whether to base herself in Canada or India. During a career break, Reddy has been writing a fiction book and building a handloom brand while exploring fintech roles.

In March, Reddy was accepted into a master's program in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She decided not to attend, citing uncertainty around student visas and the US job market.

She said she's optimistic about her future and wishes she'd been more open to opportunities in other countries earlier, rather than banking everything on the US.

"I was thinking that H-1B would pan out for me, it didn't, and it's something that I definitely regret."

I was thinking that H-1B would pan out for me, it didn't, and it's something that I definitely regret.

Read: She gave up on H-1B amid $100K fee; now she's weighing Canada or India

Watch: Why an H-1B visa hopeful decided to give up on work in the US

I was thinking that H-1B would pan out for me, it didn't, and it's something that I definitely regret.

Read: I changed course on my H-1B plans because of the proposed $100,000 fee. Why I'm optimistic about my life outside the US.

Watch: Why an H-1B visa hopeful decided to give up on work in the US

• Los Tacos No. 1 came under fire on social media after receiving a private equity investment.
• Some fans feared the beloved New York City Tijuana-style taco chain would lose its iconic flavor.
• The chain's CEO told Business Insider they will scale cautiously, preserving quality and low prices.

Christian Pineda, CEO and cofounder of Los Tacos No. 1, couldn't fall asleep.

He was caught in a scroll of enraged social media posts. The storm of customer indignation followed news last month that the beloved New York City taco chain had received an investment from the private equity firm TSG Consumer. The internet seemed convinced their favorite carne asada and adobada tacos would lose their quality, and Pineda had not expected the reaction.

To remedy the situation, he said he felt it was his duty to address his customers directly. He woke up at 4:30 the next morning to clear the air.

"No, we're not going to start charging extra for guac. We're not switching to horse meat. And no, we're definitely not messing with the tacos," read the Instagram post published September 4.

"I wanted to keep it simple, honest, and comical too at the same time," Pineda told Business Insider. "I saw it as inspiring, honestly, to really prove our customers wrong — that private equity is not always bad."

Colin Welch, managing director and head of New York at TSG Consumer, said the backlash among some underscored what TSG saw in the taco business to begin with: a "cultlike following" customer base protective of the food, and an experience that made Los Tacos a "New York institution."

"It's our responsibility to show those skeptics that it's going to be exactly the same Los Tacos experience, and that nothing's going to change for the worse," Welch said. "We got to show them, not tell them, and that'll happen over time."

The PE firm, founded in 1986 and with $14 billion in assets under management, also has investments in food names Pura Vida Miami, Crumbl, and Dutch Bros Coffee. TSG declined to disclose the terms of the deal or the amount it paid for its investment in or stake in Los Tacos No. 1, which opened in 2013.

Welch said the firm plans to let Pineda and his team run the show, while TSG will provide guidance on future expansion. He pointed to Pura Vida Miami, a lifestyle café chain founded in Miami. It grew from locations in two states to seven since TSG announced its minority stake in 2025.

Pineda said the chain focused on finding an investor that would allow Los Tacos No. 1 to scale in a "cautiously smart" way. With 10 locations in Manhattan and a sister location, Los Mariscos, at Chelsea Market, the taco chain wants to continue expanding into other boroughs and markets. It's looking to open a new location in Brooklyn before the end of the year, and another three new locations are planned to open in 2027.

The PE investment comes after 13 years of growth in New York City — a journey that began with three architects and the search for a good taco.

Selling an experience

Pineda and his co-founders, Tyler Sanders and Kyle Cameron, moved from California to New York City in 2010. They lived together in a one-bedroom apartment in the West Village, where Pineda and Sanders, both architects, spent days knocking on doors to find jobs. They found jobs, but there was one thing they could not find wherever they looked — a good taco.

The three men had been raised on Tijuana-style tacos. Pineda was born in San Diego but was raised between there and Tijuana, where his parents are from. Meanwhile, Sanders and Cameron were born in Brawley, California, a city near the border with Mexicali.

Thus, the "No ticket, No taco" order model was born. Customers get a ticket from the cashier, and then have to find and give it to one of the many "taqueros," or cooks, working at once. They can then give the taquero specific instructions for their tacos and watch them prepare the food in front of them. The interactive experience is designed to induce an organized chaos, brought to life by Mexican folk music in the background as the staff speaks in Spanish among themselves.

Growing and scaling a business in NYC

It's no secret that the Big Apple is expensive, and as the cost of living increases, so do expenses for businesses like Los Tacos No. 1.

Since they opened, annual revenue has grown by around 30% each year, and they currently serve about 1,200 customers per day, with an average check of about $20, Pineda said.

In recent months, the expenses that have increased the most are beef, limes, avocados, and tomatoes, Pineda said. Beef prices were 5.9% higher in August 2026 than in August 2025, and they are forecast to increase a total of 9.4% this year, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

To adjust to these increases, the chain keeps other expenses "tight, lean and sustainable," and will not raise prices or cut quality because of a temporary spike, Pineda said. To keep up, the business has to "be efficient in everything else," Pineda said.

"Our idea was always you need to have the best taco and the cheapest taco," Pineda said. "Our carne asada started at $3.50 in 2013. Now our carne asada tacos are $5.95 after 13 years, so we take pride in that."

Pineda sees the new partnership with TSG Consumer as an opportunity to grow the company while preserving its quality, and maybe going public one day, debuting by ringing the opening bell on a stock exchange.

"We want to be in a room where we're with people who have done 100, 200, 1,000 locations. We haven't done that," he said. "We partner up with them because of their knowledge and the people that they've worked with, the brands that they've helped with — a big goal has been if we can ring the bell — that'd be amazing."