Category: Business

Stop everything!

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Let’s be honest: B2B marketing is facing a trust crisis. Our ebooks and webinars are now met with skepticism. Buyers are drowning in a sea of AI-generated noise and unsupported claims. 

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Last week, former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci offered a surprising assessment of Donald Trump, calling his political comeback historic and cautioning critics not to confuse his communication style with a lack of intelligence.

What Happened: In a video posted to his YouTube channel, Scaramucci—who once described working for Trump as the “biggest mistake” of his life—expressed his stance on the president’s intellect and political savvy.

“If you think the president is stupid, you don’t know the president,” Scaramucci said. “He may talk like a fifth grader … but he’s a very smart and very clever guy.”

Scaramucci, who briefly served as Trump’s White House communications director in 2017, suggested Trump may struggle with conditions like dyslexia or ADHD but compensates with heightened situational awareness.

He also praised Trump’s political strategy, saying, “He understands this trick—the trick is to tell the big lie and to repeat the big lie and to create a mantra and narrative around it.”

See Also: Elon Musk Announces Formation of ‘America Party’ Emerges in Wake of Donald Trump’s Historic Spending Bill

Calling Trump’s return to the White House “the greatest comeback in political history,” Scaramucci noted, “He went from being a reality television star and a moderately successful real estate developer to the American presidency in 18 months—and he just reascended to the presidency.”

Why It’s Important: While Scaramucci has commended Trump for advancing digital asset regulation and establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve without taxpayer funding, he has also criticized several aspects of Trump’s presidency, including tariffs and economic decisions.

He strongly condemned the launch of Trump’s official meme coin, the Official Trump TRUMP, calling it “Idi Amin-level corruption” and likening a related Truth Social post to a market “pump.”

Scaramucci also joined others in questioning the timing of Trump’s crypto-related announcements, suggesting possible manipulation.

Despite his political criticisms, Scaramucci holds substantial crypto investments, with over 55% of his net worth in Bitcoin BTC/USD and a significant stake in Solana SOL/USD.

Earlier this year, Scaramucci also said that his brief 11-day stint in the White House during Trump’s first term rekindled his interest in Bitcoin.

A July 2025 report by Fortune said that, as per sources, Scaramucci’s net worth is estimated to be between $150 million and $200 million, largely tied to volatile crypto assets.

His wealth stems from personal investments and management fees through SkyBridge Capital, which had $2.6 billion in assets at the end of 2024. He also earns royalties from several books, including The Little Book of Hedge Funds.

While some in the crypto industry criticize his financial expertise, others, like SALT CEO John Darsie, credit Scaramucci for strategic pivots that saved SkyBridge—such as shifting from hedge-fund seeding to a fund-of-funds model via a Citi acquisition in 2010 and moving heavily into crypto in 2020.

Earlier this week, Scaramucci also voiced support for Trump’s infrastructure-focused spending—if it creates long-term economic value—calling for “Big, Beautiful Spending” with a real multiplier effect, like Boston’s “Big Dig.”

Read Next:

Photo Courtesy: Al Teich On Shutterstock.com

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

We are still mourning the loss of Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who went above and beyond his well known character as Theo Huxtable. He was recognized as an artist involved in poetry and music while sharing insightful commentary on Black culture that carried significant emotional and intellectual value with his audience. Warner openly discussed topics such as legacy preservation, personal identity, and dealing with loss on various platforms. These reflections offer a peek into his commitment to living a life based on honesty and purpose.

1.) “The hood side, ultimately historically, is what has always created American culture.”

Warner delves into how “the hood” serves as the cornerstone of mainstream culture on his podcast, Not All Hood: Here and Now Archive, 

2.) “Black survival in of itself is Black excellence.”

Warner questions the notion that success is only linked to achievements and emphasizes the determination and courage needed to conquer and overcome obstacles. 

3.) “I will be able to leave this earth knowing—and people knowing—that I was a good person…with all of the darkness in the world—it is possible to maintain your soul and be a good person.”

Warner appeared on the Hot & Bothered podcast and shared the importance of integrity and the value of staying true to one’s principles and moral convictions in challenging situations.

4.) “If you’ve ever seen someone take their final breath, there’s this peace that comes over them.”

Warner reflects on the memories of his grandfather and how their shared experiences shaped him as a person and developed his beliefs and character. 

5.) “I remember my mother said, ‘Mr. Cosby gave you immortality…but then…there’s another lane of legacy that I get to leave.’”

He shows his respect for his character Theo Huxtable from The Cosby Show and emphasizes the impact the character had on 1980s culture while also recognizing the lasting influence of his personal growth and charitable work outside of television.

Warner talks passionately of experiences across the spectrum of Blackness, pointing out the richness and diversity present in Black communities and emphasizing the importance of presenting the multitude of viewpoints that reflect the true complexity in Black communities.

7.) “Sweetness doesn’t make you weak—it makes you strong.”

Warner looks back on how being compassionate and vulnerable can be sources of strength. He shares stories about Ennis Cosby’s kindness, resilience, and influence.

RELATED CONTENT: Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s ‘Not All Hood’ Podcast Launches ‘More Than A Month’ Black History Series

When I decided to launch a cold plunge company in Italy, I didn’t have much to work with — no team, no warehouse and nowhere in my home to shoot product content. But I believed in the product and knew wellness was a booming category. I’d built companies before, including an e-bike brand that hit eight figures in sales. This time, I relied on a lean repeatable system — and it worked.

Here’s the approach I used to get traction quickly without a massive ad budget or complicated launch strategy.

Pick a product people are already curious about

You don’t need to invent something new. In fact, it’s often better if you don’t. I saw cold plunges picking up steam with athletes, biohackers and wellness creators, but the category hadn’t gone fully mainstream yet. That meant there was room to stand out.

I looked at search trends, scrolled through niche subreddits, followed what health influencers were posting and paid attention to what products were crossing demographic lines — things like collagen for men or hormone tracking for women. The goal is to find something visual, results-driven and culturally relevant that solves a real problem.

Source simply, improve later

Finding a supplier doesn’t need to be a bottleneck. I started with a Chinese manufacturer. The quality was solid but slow communication and long shipping times made me rethink things. Eventually, I moved production to Italy to improve logistics and offer better customer service.

In the early stages, don’t obsess over perfecting every feature. Focus on sourcing a product that’s reliable and good enough to start selling. Keep order quantities low and build systems that let you test, learn and iterate.

Use real people to build trust

Instead of burning cash on ads right away, I turned to influencers. I sent cold plunge units to athletes and fitness creators I respected. Some posted quickly; others waited until they had personal results. That authenticity worked in our favor.

Start with creators who already talk about your niche. It’s not about follower count — it’s about fit. Give them something worth sharing and let them speak in their own voice. One well-timed video or post can outperform a five-figure ad campaign.

Related: Your Follower Count Is Irrelevant When It Comes to True Influence — These Are the Criteria That Really Matter

Add credibility by aligning with experts

In wellness, consumers are skeptical — and rightly so. That’s why I built an expert panel featuring doctors, physiotherapists and sports scientists who believe in the power of cold therapy. They contributed content and lent their names to the brand.

You can replicate this by reaching out to professionals who already talk about the benefits of your product type. Offer to feature them, link to their work and collaborate on educational content. It’s a win-win: they get exposure and your brand earns instant trust and SEO value.

Launch fast with a simple store

When it came time to sell, I built a clean Shopify store with clear product descriptions, a few solid photos and no overthinking. The goal was to start taking orders and gather real feedback — not chase perfection.

Over time, I added customer reviews, expert endorsements and better visuals. But I didn’t wait to launch. Starting fast, let me test pricing, messaging and demand in real-time.

Final thoughts

Launching a wellness brand doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t need a groundbreaking product, a huge team or an investor-backed ad budget. What you do need is a product people care about, a smart sourcing plan, trust-building partnerships and a store that gets the job done.

This playbook helped me grow one business to eight figures — and it’s now fueling the early success of another. Different product. Same system. Still works.

Ready to break through your revenue ceiling? Join us at Level Up, a conference for ambitious business leaders to unlock new growth opportunities.

You already know the stakes: a misrouted file, a missed transfer, or a permissions slip-up can create compliance headaches or worse. Even when there’s no breach, human error in file transfers can quietly derail operations or damage client trust. (more…)

The social media landscape is increasingly fragmented, a result of both regulatory changes and evolving algorithms. This is fueling a race among brands to establish equity and relevance in emerging digital spaces, a prospect that understandably worries social marketers. For most of them, their biggest fear is their audiences migrating to private, closed, or niche platforms.

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Kevin O’Leary, the famed investor and star of “Shark Tank,” urged students at Harvard to forgo the traditional consulting route and instead establish their own businesses.

What Happened: In his role as an Executive Fellow at the prestigious Ivy League school, O’Leary expressed his belief that dedicating two years to a consulting firm could result in a mediocre career.

He suggested that consultants are often viewed as indecisive, which could hinder their professional growth.

O’Leary, who is also the founder of the $4.2 billion company, SoftKey Software Products, is committed to motivating his students to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset. He acknowledged that his teaching method involves revealing some hard truths about the consulting sector.

“Look, if you want to drift into hell on Earth, stay 24 months in a consulting firm and you are tainted meat for the rest of your life. No one’s going to hire you to make a decision because you never have made one,” O’Leary told Fortune.

Also Read: Kevin O’Leary Told Student To Pick Business Over Fiancée: ‘She’s Easier To Replace’

“Why would anybody burn all those hours while someone else makes money, and you do nothing of consequence? I respect all the consulting firms that are out there, but I’m going to do my best to keep people from going into that,” he added.

Despite the appealing starting salaries ranging from $250,000 to $350,000, O’Leary cautioned that consultants frequently work long hours without creating anything of their own. He went on to say that consultants are unlikely to attain financial independence while working for someone else.

O’Leary’s advice comes at a time when many students are grappling with career decisions. His emphasis on entrepreneurship over consulting reflects a broader trend in the business world, where innovation and self-starting are increasingly valued.

His course, The Founder Mindset, could potentially shape the next generation of entrepreneurs, steering them away from traditional career paths and towards creating their own ventures.

Read Next

Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary Outraged Over Fine Against Donald Trump In NY Civil Fraud Case: ‘It’s Appalling. It’s Unjust … It’s Un-American’

Image: Shutterstock/Vivvi Smak

Protestors honored the memory of the late congressman and civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis by protesting President Donald Trump’s controversial policies in the streets for “Good Trouble Lives On” national day of action held July 17, NBC News reported. 

The peaceful protests and events were held along streets, courthouses, and other public spaces in cities throughout the U.S., including cities targeted by Trump ICE raids like Atlanta and St. Louis, Missouri. Organized by a coalition of nonprofits like Public Citizen, co-president Lisa Gilbert said, given the state of the political climate, showcasing the grievances of the country on a national day of action is necessary. “We are navigating one of the most terrifying moments in our nation’s history,” Gilbert said. 

“We are all grappling with a rise of authoritarianism and lawlessness within our administration … as the rights, freedoms, and expectations of our very democracy are being challenged.”

NOW | Hundreds of people rallying in Annapolis right now chanting “No Kings in America.” This is part of the “Good Trouble Lives On,” national day of action. It’s in honor of Civil Rights Leader & Congressman John Lewis. More on @wbaltv11 at 10/11 tonight. pic.twitter.com/REZPL0mg66

— Tori Yorgey WBAL (@toriyorgeytv) July 17, 2025

Lewis, who was the youngest and last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists — a group led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr — passed away in 2020 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Efforts from King and Lewis led to then-President Lyndon Johnson pressing Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act in 1965, just days after Lewis and 600 protesters were beaten by police while crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, a day now known as Bloody Sunday. 

Before his passing, Lewis was able to commemorate the 1965 voting rights marches. “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem the soul of America,” Lewis said. 

5 years ago today, the great civil rights activist and representative, John Lewis passed away. Today, let us honor and remember him. Let us recommit to getting in “good trouble.” To standing up for what is right. For speaking out against hate. To fighting for what matters. To… pic.twitter.com/dUa7Difr6f

— Maria Shriver (@mariashriver) July 17, 2025

The “Good Trouble Lives On” protests are added to the growing protests across the country amid Trump’s policies. In early July 2025, federal law enforcement and protestors engaged in a tense standoff due to a chaotic raid and arrests of immigrants on two Southern California marijuana farms, resulting in one farmworker dying after falling from a greenhouse roof, according to The Associated Press. 

As demonstrators labeled Trump as a dictator and wannabe king for honoring his birthday with a military parade, “No Kings” demonstrations launched protests with millions of people marching in cities like New York and Charlotte. Thousands of people took over the streets of Los Angeles in early June 2025 after Trump sent the National Guard against them for taking a stance against illegal deportations. 

Members of Congress like Rep. Raphael Warnock took to social media to remember their legendary colleague, saying he hoped Lewis’s memory prompts everyone to “continue getting into #GoodTrouble.”

RELATED CONTENT: John Lewis Honored With Forever Stamp, Ceremony

ChatGPT can now create a PowerPoint presentation or make purchases online for you — with just a prompt.

OpenAI released the new ChatGPT agent on Thursday, a general-purpose AI tool that can complete complex tasks on a user’s behalf, like searching the web, running code, and creating slideshows and spreadsheets. The AI agent can click, type, and submit forms on its own based on a natural language prompt, and users can interrupt it at any time. It’s part of OpenAI’s effort to make ChatGPT more of a tool capable of handling autonomous tasks instead of just a chatbot that answers questions. As of March, ChatGPT had over 500 million global weekly users.

Related: AI Could Replace 200,000 Jobs on Wall Street, According to a New Report. These Are the Jobs Most at Risk.

ChatGPT agent can also act as a virtual assistant, connecting to apps like Gmail and Google Calendar to carry out tasks like drafting emails and making appointments. It completes tasks using its own virtual computer and shifts on its own between reasoning and action to carry out instructions.

OpenAI says the new tool can “analyze three competitors and make a slide deck” — the agent will chart out a course of action, go through websites, and create an editable slideshow.

It can also create editable Excel spreadsheets by taking in a prompt like “make a spreadsheet based on the San Francisco annual comprehensive financial reports (ACFR).”

The agent can also shop online for users, though it will always ask for approval before carrying out a sensitive action, like entering personal information or making a purchase.

OpenAI is embedding the agent within ChatGPT and allowing paying users to access it immediately by selecting “agent mode” in ChatGPT’s dropdown tool menu. The agent starts rolling out today for Pro, Plus, and Team users, with plans to become available to Enterprise and Education customers over the summer.

^{OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images}

OpenAI says the agent could help workers, like financial analysts, complete tasks more quickly.

“We think that this model is actually going to be quite good at low-level, first-, second-year, financial analysis type work that might have taken someone a night to do if they’re getting pinged by their boss late at night,” ChatGPT agent product manager Neel Ajjarapu told The Wall Street Journal.

Related: ChatGPT Can Now Complete a Major Task That Would Take a Human Up to 30 Days. Here’s How it Works.

ChatGPT isn’t the first AI tool to be able to make PowerPoint presentations, but it is the most mainstream AI product to offer the agentic capability. Other AI presentation tools include Microsoft Copilot, which is integrated into PowerPoint and can generate presentations from prompts, and Google Workspace add-on SlidesAI.io, which converts any text into a Google Slides presentation.

Meanwhile, other companies are leveraging internal AI tools to create slide decks. For example, McKinsey consultants are using an internal AI tool to create PowerPoint presentations, taking over junior employee tasks.

OpenAI was valued at $300 billion in March following a $40 billion funding round.

ChatGPT agent is a combination of two other agents OpenAI released earlier this year: Operator, which can browse the web to fill out forms and take action like a virtual assistant, and Deep Research, which searches the web for answers to research questions and presents the findings in a paper with citations — though it far exceeds the capabilities of both.

Related: The CEO of $61 Billion Anthropic Says AI Will Take Over a Crucial Part of Software Engineers’ Jobs Within a Year

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