Roughly 17,000 owners received a notice this summer warning they might owe the surcharge, which applies only to non-primary residences amounts, with a rate of 0.8%–1.3% on homes over $5 million and 4%-6.5% on condos and co-ops over $1 million. But 1,210 are now being cleared outright, according to new court filings disclosed this week.

The reason has nothing to do with a change in the law and everything to do with timing: New York State sent the city’s DOF preliminary 2025 income-tax records on Aug. 12, several months earlier than the agency would normally begin receiving them. Of that group, 630 owners were cleared because their 2025 tax returns listed the property as their primary home address; another 580 were cleared using a mix of 2025 extension filings and 2024 returns.

“So by my last count, I think we sent out less than 20,000, ‘you may be subject to’ letters, I think it was about 17,000 or 18,000. And at the time that we sent those out, we did not have access to the 2025 income tax filings,” said Mayor Zohran Mamdani at a Wednesday press conference. He noted the timing wasn’t unusual on the state’s end: 2025 filings are “typically released in February of the next calendar year,” and the state simply gave DOF early access this time.

Randy Mastro, the attorney suing the city over the rollout (and a longtime suer of the city in general), made his thoughts known in the court filing. “There are many thousands fewer property owners subject to this surcharge than this administration originally boasted when it flooded the landscape with 17,000 threatening Mailed Notices.”

“The City has now effectively admitted” that some people who received the letters, Mastro said, “do not actually owe this surcharge.” He also argued the timing undercuts the city’s excuse: “The City admits that, after this lawsuit was filed on August 7, it obtained 2025 tax information within five days,” which is evidence, he claimed, that DOF could have gotten the same data before mailing anything, not just after being sued.

Mamdani laid out three categories of properties the city is targeting. One is properties owned by a corporate entity like an LLC or a trust, about 6,400 households, where DOF doesn’t have enough information on primary residence holder. The 1,210 owners who were being cleared make up the second category. The third category, about 4,400 households, consists of properties where DOF doesn’t have 2025 tax returns that would indicate whether they are primary residences. The first and third categories make up the 10,800 letters going out to people.

A rocky rollout

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who stood alongside Mamdani when the tax was first announced in April, said this week she “wasn’t a fan of the rollout” and that City Hall was working to correct the problems. Mamdani, at the same press conference, held firm on the tax’s revenue target: “We continue to be confident in that assessment of what the annual revenue will look like.”

A DOF spokesperson, defending the process, said: “From the beginning, we have been committed to ensuring that New Yorkers have the time and information they need. Property owners have until October 6th to file an exemption application. We have received the tax information from the state for 2025 and want to give New Yorkers more time to apply for an exemption, if applicable.”

Mamdani noted Oct. 6 isn’t necessarily the final word for owners who miss it. “If New Yorkers still want to appeal an assessment, they can still appeal to the tax commission until early next year.”

New York City’s pied-à-terre tax initially began as a Tax Day pitch. Mamdani and Hochul announced it in April, with Mamdani unveiling the plan in a video filmed outside Citadel billionaire Ken Griffin’s $238 million penthouse. The state legislature passed it May 27, and Hochul signed it the next day.

The rollout is what actually caused the uproar. DOF’s supplemental roll, meant to flag properties that might owe the surcharge, ballooned into an unfiltered list of nearly a million properties, instantly branded a “rich hit list” online, and united the ultrawealthy and merely well-off alike in opposition once thousands of legitimate primary residences got needlessly swept into DOF’s notices. That confusion is now the subject of Mastro’s active lawsuit.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Stars and Stripes publisher Max Lederer, editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and Middle East reporter Lara Korte are named as plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit filed Thursday in Washington, D.C.

The Pentagon, which partially funds the news outlet, fired them last week. A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment on the suit’s allegations.

Slavin says he was dismissed for insubordination after giving an interview to CBS News in which he objected to potential censorship by the U.S. military. Korte participated in the same interview. Their lawsuit says they were punished in retaliation for publishing a report on deteriorating conditions aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.

“Stripes’ historical editorial independence is critical to its core mission of gathering and providing unbiased, credible journalism to the U.S. military community, particularly servicemembers and their families stationed overseas,” the suit says.

Lederer was dismissed shortly after announcing his impending retirement, effective at the end of September. He said the Pentagon had installed a new deputy publisher, an active duty service member, under him at the newspaper without his prior knowledge.

The suit’s plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from Democracy Defenders Fund, Lawyers for Good Government, Government Accountability Project and a Yale Law School clinic.

The Defense Department and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are among the named defendants.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The Republican president signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to update the lake’s name in the U.S. geographic naming service. Trump cannot force Canada to follow along, however.

Trump has been floating the idea of the name change in recent days as the U.S. announced it was imposing 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods over the weekend after talks between the countries broke down. Trump has been needling America’s northern neighbor since he returned to the White House last year, suggesting the ally with whom the U.S. once had warm relations should instead be absorbed as the 51st state.

Canada responded to Trump’s import taxes this week by imposing retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion worth of American goods, including steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment.

Trump, who signed the order as he was sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, had a large sign behind him propped on a stand with a map of the Great Lakes. Over Lake Ontario, in big red letters, the map read “Lake America.”

On the other side of the president was another map with the words, “MAKING THE GREAT LAKES EVEN GREATER.”

Trump said as he was signing the order that he’d “notified all of the various people that we have to notify. So, we’ve done everything that you have to do.”

“And this is official, effective immediately,” he added.

But the executive order Trump signed shows that the changes are supposed to be made within 30 days.

Canadian officials dismissed Trump’s move.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected the move, invoking the lake’s Indigenous roots and noting that the name predates both Canadian Confederation and the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

“Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario — then, now and always,” he wrote.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has traded insults with Trump, said on X: “It’s Lake Ontario to Canadians and the rest of the world. Now and forever.”

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said, “We’re into some real foolishness now. It’s Lake Ontario, buddy.”

The lake is one of multiple Great Lakes that the U.S. and Canada share borders along. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat whose state shares a border on the lake, wrote on X in response to the White House’s announcement that, “New York won’t be calling it that.”

There is no single international body that determines names of international bodies of water and Trump has wide latitude over how the U.S. government recognizes geographic places and landmarks.

The name Lake Ontario comes from the Huron Indigenous people’s word “oniatarí:io,” which means “lake of shining waters.” The province of Ontario, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.

Trump said that while his action was not meant to send any particular geopolitical message, “Canada’s been ripping us off for a long time” on trade and military issues.

“They wanted to be treated like a state and they’re not a state,” the president said. “We just can’t do that anymore.”

“We love the people of Canada,” Trump added. “I don’t think their representatives do, an appropriate job. Maybe they’ll change. I really don’t know. It doesn’t make much difference.”

The move is reminiscent of his move last year to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”

Trump scribbled his name with a Sharpie pen on the executive order, then held it up for the cameras, offering, “And we filed all the necessary papers, documents, everything else.”

He also suggested his push to rename bodies of water may not be finished.

“So, if you think about it, we have a gulf and we have a lake. Now, all we need is an ocean,” Trump said. “So maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific. Maybe we’ll change them.”

___

Associated Press writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

On Wednesday, the blue-leaning Tempe, Ariz. turned off its Flock automated license plate readers and said the city would not seek another company to replace the system. Three hours later, the nearby red-leaning town of Cave Creek did the same. The same day in Washington, D.C., Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, opened a formal investigation into the company, while independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders posted a lengthy statement pledging to introduce legislation against it.

Tempe’s police department had used Flock’s cameras to help solve crimes, and the city said its own audits, conducted monthly, turned up no misuse. But that wasn’t enough to keep the system running. “These cameras have helped our police officers do their jobs, and we don’t discount that,” Tempe Mayor Corey Woods said in a statement shared with Fortune. “But the risk of misuse is too great. We have to be able to provide public safety in a way that maintains the trust of our community. For Tempe, that means taking these cameras down.”

Tempe Councilmember Bobby Nichols said the decision was a matter of legal principle. “Any law enforcement tool used by the City must not pose a risk of infringing on residents’ civil liberties,” he said. “We have a responsibility to ensure that these technologies are only employed if they present a narrowly tailored solution to a compelling government interest.”

The city’s contract with Flock was worth $80,000; its cameras will remain in place until Flock removes them, though they have stopped collecting data. Any data that was previously collected is stored temporarily and then deleted automatically unless it’s tied to an open case. Tempe already cut off automatic data sharing with other law enforcement agencies earlier in August and launched a public transparency portal, which will now be discontinued.

“Every day, police departments across the country are solving countless serious crimes and making a measurable public safety impact with Flock technology, including as the city shared, in Tempe,” a Flock spokesperson told Fortune.

“When a tool that is actively helping solve violent crimes, locate suspects, and find missing people is removed, public safety moves backward. That has real consequences: cases will take longer to solve, organized retail theft crews will operate with fewer obstacles, an Amber Alert may not be returned home, and victims may wait longer, or indefinitely, for justice.”

The spokesperson added that misuse of Flock’s technology is unacceptable, and that every search is logged and reviewed through the company’s Audit Assistance tool, which flags unusual activity for administrators to review.

Cave Creek’s decision, three hours after Tempe’s, cited privacy concerns, cases of misuse elsewhere in Arizona and around the country, and the theft of one of its own Flock cameras from an intersection. Public works crews removed the town’s remaining cameras for safekeeping after the theft.

But the town’s core objection was structural: Flock’s networked design allows outside law enforcement agencies to search data collected locally, and town officials concluded there was no way to guarantee residents’ privacy once their information left Cave Creek’s jurisdiction.

The town manager and town attorney are set to formally address the decision at a Sept. 1 council meeting. Officials from Cave Creek have not yet responded to Fortune’s request for comment.

Reading between the [partisan] lines

Tempe leans Democratic: roughly 63% of its voters back Democrats, making it one of the more reliably blue cities in a state that has been a purple battleground lately. Cave Creek, a small, affluent town north of Phoenix, leans Republican by comparison. The two towns landed in the same place, becoming at least the ninth and 10th Arizona municipalities to drop or restrict Flock in the past year, following Chandler, Surprise, Pinal County, Sedona, Flagstaff, Sierra Vista, South Tucson and Apache Junction.

In the nation’s capital, Hawley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, sent a letter to Flock CEO Garrett Langley announcing an investigation into the company’s “collection, retention, and dissemination” of data gathered by its cameras.

The letter argued that Flock has built an “unprecedented national surveillance network” of more than 120,000 cameras across 49 states, scanning more than 20 billion vehicles a month, and that “Congress never authorized the network your industry has built.” He gave the company until Sept. 8 to turn over documents. A Flock spokesperson told reporters the company intends to cooperate.

Hours later, Sanders posted a statement of his own on X, describing Flock as part of a system that risks tipping the country into what he called totalitarianism. He also pointed to the number of Flock’s cameras, adding that newer versions of the technology can match images of people and vehicles against databases of phone numbers, relatives and court records.

“We must come together to stop Flock and AI mass surveillance,” Sanders wrote. “That is why I will soon be introducing legislation to do just that.”

Hawley and Sanders sit at opposite ends of the Senate’s ideological spectrum. Their statements arrived within hours of each other, echoing the same split-screen convergence playing out in Arizona.

Flock’s rapid expansion, and the scrutiny now following it, has moved fast. The company’s cameras have helped close roughly a million police investigations and locate about 10,000 missing people over the past year, by its own account.

But an August Washington Post investigation found more than 50 law enforcement officers had been accused, charged with, or convicted of misusing automated license plate readers, including cases where officers used the systems to track former partners. Anti-surveillance group DeFlock says more than 90 cities have moved to cancel or reject Flock contracts as of Wednesday.

Flock has since reduced its default data retention window from 30 days to seven and now requires officers to enter a case code before accessing stored data. Langley told Fox News the country needs “compromise” between privacy and safety concerns. Whether that compromise arrives before more cities, and more members of Congress, act on their own remains to be seen.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Earlier this month, 87-year-old optometrist-turned-businessman-turned-philanthropist Dr. Herbert A. Wertheim bought a Ferrari Luce at a Sotheby’s public auction for $40 million. The auction was part of a charity effort to benefit the Ferrari Foundation, which funds global education initiatives.

The $40 million buying prices on the auto was more than 36 times the model’s presale estimates of $1.1 million. (The Luce retails for $640,000, but the auctioned car had a higher price tag because it had a pre-production chassis.)

Now, it seems Wertheim may end up getting a large chunk of that purchase back, as part of a longtime American tradition of the country incentivizing the nation’s wealthiest philanthropists into giving back.

Large charity donations like Wertheim’s can lend themselves to massive tax write-offs as a result of America’s tax system. Automotive content creator and television presenter Peter Greaves first brought attention to the potential for Wertheim to gain millions back on the purchase of his Luce in a recent Youtube video.

When Wertheim files his 2026 taxes, he would have to subtract the estimated sale value of $1.1 million from the $40 million the car sold for. As of the IRS’s 2026 tax rules, he would then have to take away a 0.5% floor of his adjusted gross income, which Greaves estimated to be $200 million, leaving $37.9 million. The U.S.’s 2/37ths rule created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which caps tax savings of itemized deductions at 35% compared to the previous 37% for top earners, would further reduce the sum to $35.85 million. According to tax law, 37% of that total could be claimed, meaning Wertheim could receive more than $13 million back from the U.S. government for his purchase.

Wertheim, who did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment, has made no public comments about possibly taking advantage of the tax write-off for the Luce, or for any previous charity auction purchases.

The philanthropist has an estimated net worth of $4.8 billion and has previously participated in a previous charity auction for luxury vehicles, reportedly paying $26 million for the Ferrari Daytona SP3, or “599+1.” He has donated more than $200 million to various causes, including  $50 million to UC Berkeley Optometry and $100 million to Baptist Health Foundation. In February, Wertheim paid $2 million at a Mar-a-Lago charity event for a private visit with President Donald Trump at the White House. It’s not his only recent brush with politics: Wertheim briefly launched a Congressional bid in Florida’s 22nd District earlier this year.

For its part, the Maranello, Italy-based carmaker has weathered controversy around the rollout of its EV. Former Ferrari president and chairman Luca di Montezemolo joined analysts and investors in mocking the model as ugly and decidedly un-Ferrari-like at a time where other luxury automakers were scaling back their own EV efforts amid low demand. Ferrari may be getting the last laugh however: the Financial Times reported last month that Ferrari exceeded its short-term sales goal of 500 units. 

How the Trump administration transformed charity tax breaks 

Tax breaks for philanthropy is an American tradition dating back to 1917 after the passage of the War Revenue Act, in which Congress created a federal income tax deduction for charitable gifts as part of an effort to keep private philanthropy alive and well during World War I, which would relieve the U.S. from funding essential social welfare programs. Those benefits have slowly expanded over the last century.

But the Trump administration has made it more for the wealthy to get money back for their donations come tax season, with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act effectively slashing the benefit from 37% to 35%, with itemized taxpayers having to deduct donations only in excess of 0.5% of their adjusted gross income.

The policy changes with lower tax incentives may alter the future of philanthropy itself. The new 35% limit could reduce donations by between $4.1 billion and $6.1 billion, according to the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Experts warn that fewer big donors—or big donors giving less—would place a larger burden on middle-class givers to bridge a gap that isn’t realistic as financial pressures for less-wealthy households increase.

“The nonprofit sector says that every dollar matters, and so incentivizing small donations from every household could have a meaningful impact for certain kinds of organizations,” Elena Patel, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told CNBC last November. “But the truth is that those kinds of contributions, however, just are not the bulk of charitable giving in the charitable sector.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

“But as with other legacies of crises past, I believe the practice has outstayed its welcome. In normal times, the role of forward guidance should be limited and circumscribed; otherwise, it risks creating ambiguity in the name of clarity. Oversharing policy deliberations and overcommitting to future decisions can lead markets, businesses, and households astray, and I believe when policymakers make quasi-commitments on interest rates throughout the cycle, we inhibit our own freedom to make the right calls when it’s time to decide.”

His tone was firm: “We should not indulge a regime in which market participants are looking primarily to the Fed for their next trade.”

And while Warsh has repeated his commitment to the Fed’s dual mandate of inflation at 2% and maximum employment, neither he nor his central bank staffers are living under a rock: Bond yields tracked higher following Warsh’s July press conference, as markets digested a Fed on hold and the suggestion that markets may be doing some of the legwork for financial tightening that they had come to expect from the Fed.

But more alarmingly—for some corners of the street—were the questions hanging over the established frameworks the Fed uses to make decisions about the base rate. Analysts questioned if these frameworks might be subject to change, searching for answers on how policymakers were thinking, even if they didn’t know what action it might prompt.

Here, Warsh shared insights. While his outlook on the economy wasn’t necessarily rosy, it nevertheless described the balance of priorities within the Fed.

Price stability is front of mind, he suggested, in the balance of risks in the Fed’s mandate. He said: “But on the price-stability side of our mandate, the numbers are more concerning. The Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, the 12-month change in the PCE price index, stands at 3.7%, while the six-month change is 4.1%.

“None of these measures are perfect, but they all tell a similar story: Inflation is running above our 2% target. So the Fed’s predominant focus right now should be on prices.”

The employment side of the Fed’s mandate is doing “well,” he said, courtesy of a robust consumer and a “rematching” of employers and employees after the COVID pandemic. He added: “As of now, I believe the labor markets are broadly consistent with full employment, but on the price stability side of our mandate, the numbers are more concerning.”

With speculation swirling as to how actively the Fed will commit to its mandate, Warsh moved to nix concerns: “There is one signal nobody can miss: The responsibility for 65 months of sustained, elevated inflation sits squarely with the central bank. And that is where it belongs … I stand here today committed to a discipline, not to a decision. My Fed colleagues and I are hardly the first to hold these positions in a time of great consequence. We are determined to redeem the time by doing our very best work.

“We take our responsibility seriously, with humility and with resolve. So much depends on choices we make. Sound monetary policy helps households and businesses to prosper. When carried out effectively, it broadens and deepens the momentum of our economy . . . and helps to secure America’s leadership in the world. And I know that our country needs us to think carefully and act wisely.”

Warsh’s latest speech (at the time of writing) seems to have sidestepped any sharp reaction from markets: the price of gold—a safe-haven asset relied upon during times of volatility—dropped by approximately 1% during Warsh’s speech. The VIX volatility index also declined 1%, while longer-dated Treasuries also lowered. The CME FedWatch index, which tracks Fed fund futures, shows 57% of traders believe the Fed’s next rate move on September will be a hike of 0.25%, to the 3.75% level.

Early reaction from analysts suggests Warsh learned from the pushback earlier this summer. Eric Winograd, chief U.S. economist at AllianceBernstein, wrote that while the Fed chairman’s speech was light on details of central bank transformation, it did “correct a couple of mistakes he made at his last press conference, reinforcing that PCE is the target measure for inflation and that interest rates are the Fed’s primary tool. 

“Those corrections make the speech hawkish compared to his last remarks and should offer some relief to the back end of the yield curve, where some worries about Warsh’s willingness to act with rates to bring inflation down contributed to rising yields.”

‘The productivity pixie’

One thing some Wall Street analysts—unusually—didn’t want to hear too much about was AI. As UBS’s Paul Donovan quipped ahead of the speech: “The worst case would be a reiteration of Warsh’s belief in the productivity pixie, and platitudes about future higher growth. Technology’s impact on macroeconomic productivity is uncertain, and risks of a ‘brain drain’ from the U.S. and lower immigration also affect growth.”

The boomerang central banker hit on the topic early, but with questions rather than expectations as to how it might shape the Fed’s mandate. Warsh said: “We recognize that AI is a new variable—potentially a new factor of production—that will have consequences for both the economy and the conduct of monetary policy. It opens some major lines of inquiry: Will the application of AI cause a significant, sustained rise in productivity across the economy? And if so, when?”

“Among the other yet-unknowns is the resulting market structure. It’s not obvious where the returns on capital will land or on what timescale.”

He added: “We will be thinking through these matters with the help of a task force on productivity and jobs. My early check-ins with the leaders of that task force, and the four others, have been encouraging.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Friends, family, and fans of Parton are reminiscing and celebrating her accomplishments—be it her music, entrepreneurship, or philanthropy—after her nephew and head of security, Bryan Seaver, announced her death in a statement earlier this week.

Parton died at 80 years old, with Seaver telling fans: “She never saw a door she couldn’t open, and the doors she opened made and changed history.” He added: “Dolly called me and said she wants to rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton because after a life wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest.”

Indeed, the famed “9 to 5” singer suggested to Bloomberg she had always put in more than just the standard office hours.

As co-owner of the Dollywood Co., Parton helped oversee the Dollywood Theme Park, the Splash Country water park, several diner ventures, as well as a spa and hospitality venues in the Great Smoky Mountains. Her portfolio also included pet apparel business Doggy Parton, a fragrance brand, and a series of baking kits with Duncan Hines.

Forbes valued Parton—who was also a fierce philanthropist—at $450 million, though other outlets placed her wealth closer to $650 million.

But despite the brand her name became, Parton said she never became the “step on the bossman’s ladder” she once wrote about. When asked how she ran her empire so successfully, Parton said she had been “blessed” in her endeavors, working with great people and letting them get on with it.

Parton never sought to micromanage, she added: “I don’t boss anybody around, because I don’t even have the time or the energy to even do that. I just try to put people that are smarter than me in all the right places, and then I go on about my business.”

Parton, also an author, made it clear her talents lay in the creative side of the business, saying there were aspects of her empire that she didn’t know anything about—but didn’t need to because of the team she had in place.

“I’m more of the creative force and the one that has an overall sense of things,” she said. “I try to find the best people, and I try to trust them to do what they say they can do. Then I have people looking out after all of them.”

The “Islands in the Stream” singer also said her hands-off management approach with senior executives was paired with instinct, and she trusted that if an individual isn’t right for their role, it would eventually be revealed.

“We know if somebody’s not right, they’ll show themselves, or it’ll be pointed out so many times by other people that you do trust, you’ll know it’s time to move on from that person,” she said. “So I depend on my own higher wisdom of knowing if I’m in the right place with the right people.”

‘Looking like a woman and thinking like a man’

Parton, who was awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, said that from her early days performing in Nashville, she knew she had talents she could monetize. Or as Parton put it: “Looking like a woman and thinking like a man, so to speak.”

Appearance is another area in which Parton had some sage advice—which may help Gen Z employees who reportedly are entering the workforce unsure of how they should dress for the office.

For Parton, known to be a big fan of wigs and brightly colored suits, the aim is to be comfortable, adding: “You know what business you’re in, and you pretty much know what’s expected.

“If you’ve got a dress code, just look the best you can, take it right to the limit. You can kind of bend the rules a little bit, but if that’s the job you want and you already know the rules, then go by the rules.”

A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on February 12, 2024.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

But successful entrepreneurs contend that chasing their true ambition inspires them to show up and work every day; those who really love their job, like musician Pharrell Williams, never plan on retiring. 

“I’m so blessed to call this a job. I’ve never stopped loving this job; I’ve never stopped being a student,” Williams said onstage after winning the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award at the 2026 Grammys. “So everyone here, I’ve just got to tell you, never stop grinding. And listen, never stop working.”

Williams has witnessed firsthand how passion plays a huge role in success; the now 53-year-old philanthropist and artist has been releasing, writing, and producing music since the 1990s, amassing more than three decades of chart-topping hits. With an estimated net worth of $250 million, the “Happy” singer’s years of musical prowess and business collaborations have resulted in a lifelong fortune. But Williams said he doesn’t think too much about the number in his bank account—what really keeps the Gen Xer working is his love for the job.

“Stop doing anything else but working. Work, man,” Williams continued. “I’m 52, I get to do this every day—I love what I do. And if you do what you love every day, you’ll get paid for free.”

Williams says the American Dream isn’t about making millions

Generations of workers have bucked their true calling for a tolerable job with a solid paycheck. With nearly half of U.S. citizens believing the American Dream is no longer possible, or never even existed, many are stuck in a lifeless, steady job rather than a profession that makes them happy. 

Growing up in Virginia Beach, Williams said he often heard the same rhetoric: that careers should be centered around stability and making money. But the Grammy winner wants to change that narrative. Chasing the biggest paychecks, he said, is a misnomer. 

“The American Dream is not about making the most money. In fact, the human dream and the consumers’ dream shouldn’t be about making the most money,” Williams said at the 2024 Web Summit. “It should be about spending the most time doing something that you love.”

The philanthropist pointed out that many young people are pressured to pursue high-paying careers in college, such as medicine and law, whether they want to or not. Some are able to switch tracks despite the chagrin of their family, Williams explained, but the vast majority “go after it, and they don’t get it.” After that, they might be stuck in a job they hate, prioritizing a paycheck over their true passions. Williams advised that professionals can avoid this identity crisis by working in a role or industry that interests them. 

“If you can find a vocation around something that you love, you now have a dream job. You will be the first one there, and you’ll be the last one to leave,” Williams continued. “To me, that is what we should be telling our children—that is the way that we should be leading society—for people to do what they love.”

‘Pursue a career that does not feel like work’

Williams is one of many leaders who have proved that sticking with a career you love can pay off. Walmart’s former CEO, Doug McMillon, who stepped down from the top role earlier this year, spent four decades climbing the ranks of the now–$819 billion retail giant. And during his ascent from being an hourly worker all the way up to chief executive, McMillon said he’s never “been bored one single day.”

“Pursue a career that does not feel like work. Life is too short to invest so much time doing something you don’t enjoy,” McMillon told graduates during a commencement address at the University of Arkansas in 2024. “I hope you find your spot quickly like I did, but if you don’t, my advice is that you shouldn’t give up until you do … If you’re in the right place, most days, work won’t even feel like work.”

Christian Toetzke, cofounder and CEO of global fitness race Hyrox, also said that he loves his job so much that it doesn’t feel like a chore. His best advice for professionals hoping to strike the right work-life balance is to actually enjoy their careers; that way, it’s never a drag to show up at the office. 

“I’m a massive believer in work-life balance, but the question is always how we look at this. And I’m a very privileged person because I don’t consider what I do as work,” Toetzke said on the Opening Bid Unfiltered podcast last year. “I do what I really love. It’s also my hobby. For me, work is not a punishment. It’s almost kind of a reward.”

A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on February 3, 2025.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Even at 78, the self-made billionaire restaurateur has long embraced the demanding schedules and relentless work ethic that helped him build the largest Asian-American restaurant chain in the U.S.

“It was hard when I had no business, there was no income,” he said after recently being asked by NBC News on how to avoid burnout. “But even then, I wasn’t burned out because, you just work, go to work, and [if] you have a like a 12-hour day, you go home, you sleep well—I mean that’s life.”

And that mindset helped him and his wife, Peggy, turn a single family-run restaurant into a nearly $7 billion-a-year global chain over five decades. It has also helped propel their net worths to an estimated $6.6 billion collectively.

How two immigrants turned $60,000 into an empire serving 148 million pounds of orange chicken a year

Andrew Cherng was born in Yangzhou, China, in 1948. When he was 5, his family fled to Taiwan, and eight years later, they moved again, this time to Japan.

He eventually made his way to the U.S., enrolling at Baker University in Kansas to study mathematics. There, he met his future wife, Peggy, who was Burmese-born and would go on to become his business partner and now serves as Panda Express’ co-CEO. The couple later earned master’s degrees from the University of Missouri.

“Every holiday I had, I worked in New York, waiting tables in a restaurant,” Andrew recalled to Fortune in 2013. “My father was a chef but hadn’t owned his own business. I didn’t like that. In my heart of hearts, I knew I wanted to be in business.”

Peggy went on to pursue her PhD and work a brief career as an engineer for McDonnell Douglas and Comtal (acquired by 3M), while Andrew began pursuing his own path in the restaurant industry. He moved to California to work for his cousin, putting in seven days a week at the restaurant for $800 a month.

After a year, Andrew decided to strike out on his own with his parents. Together, the family scraped together $60,000 from savings and a Small Business Administration loan and opened Panda Inn in Pasadena, California, in 1973.

“The whole family—my parents, a brother and sister—all worked at the restaurant for free,” he recalled. “We lived in a two-bedroom apartment in San Gabriel and didn’t have any money. Peggy would come to visit, and we got married in 1975.”

The restaurant’s expansion was slow at first, but by 1983, the first Panda Express was opened in a shopping male in Glendale, California, and the concept gradually exploded. In 1985, Panda grew from five locations to nine in a single year.

Bob Riha, Jr./Getty Images

Today, Panda has more than 2,600 locations around the world and employs over 55,000 people. In 2025 alone, the chain served up 148 million pounds of its signature orange chicken. But perhaps more remarkably, the Cherngs built the empire without ever taking money from outside investors.

Work-life balance is rejected by many of the world’s top founders

The Cherngs aren’t the only business leaders who have embraced an all-consuming approach to work—and credited that commitment with helping fuel their success.

Nvidia co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang has similarly said that work-life balance is essentially nonexistent for him. Huang is constantly thinking about his chip-making business.

“I work from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. I work seven days a week,” Huang said in a 2024 interview with Stripe CEO Patrick Collison.

That relentless focus has helped transform Nvidia from a computer graphics company first conceived at a Denny’s into one of the world’s most valuable companies, with a market capitalization of more than $5.5 trillion. Huang’s personal net worth is estimated at nearly $190 billion.

Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington recently echoed that sentiment to Fortune, saying that she doesn’t believe people with truly engaging jobs can simply shut their laptops at 5 p.m.

“I don’t think there is anybody with an interesting job who can do that,” Huffington said. “For you, or me, or most people with interesting jobs, there is never a time when you have a natural ending to the day.”

The same idea extends beyond core business. Will.i.am, the Grammy Award-winning music artist previously shared with Fortune that if Gen Z want to aspire for success, they should forget about work-life balance.

“If you’re trying to build something that doesn’t exist, it’s about dream-reality balance,” he said. “Work-life balance means that you’re working for somebody else’s dream. You just have a job supporting somebody else’s dream, and you want to balance your work and your life.

“But if it’s dream-reality balance, then it’s not work,” Will.i.am added. “It’s a dream that you’re trying to put into reality, and you’re ignoring your current reality.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

DeSantis on Thursday did not dispute the legitimacy of the secret grand jury report obtained and published online by CBS News Miami, but he insisted no laws were broken and said whoever leaked the sealed documents would face “consequences.”

The Leon County grand jury completed its report in January on investigations into Hope Florida, the charity started in 2021 by Florida first lady Casey DeSantis. Despite the lack of charges, the report ignited a new round of criticism aimed at DeSantis and other top state Republicans over the charity receiving $10 million from a state Medicaid settlement intended to help poor children get health insurance.

David Jolly, the Democratic nominee for governor, called for the grand jury probe to be reopened. He faces Republican Byron Donalds in November. DeSantis, under Florida law, cannot seek a third term.

The Hope Florida charity is supposed to help financially struggling families connect with churches and aid groups to help keep them off publicly-financed assistance programs. The $10 million was instead moved to political action committees that used the money to oppose a 2024 statewide ballot measure that would have legalized marijuana for adults in the state.

DeSantis opposed the measure, and it fell just short of the 60% supermajority it needed to become law.

“Despite our finding that the money was misappropriated, we find insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally,” the report concluded.

The grand jury said no one would take responsibility for sending the money to the charity or had any memory of who did.

“We recognize that this would be an impediment to criminal prosecution,” the report noted. “While we can’t prove who is responsible, we can plainly see that taxpayer money was misused for political purposes and we would like to see changes made to prevent this from happening again.”

The grand jury report concluded that James Uthmeier, who was DeSantis’ chief of staff at the time, “was in a position of authority over those involved in settling,” and that his Keep Florida Clean PAC was the prime recipient of the $10 million. The grand jury said then-state Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office knew of the plans to divert the money. She was later appointed by DeSantis to the U.S. Senate.

Uthmeier and Moody are both seeking reelection.

In a news conference Thursday, Uthmeier suggested Democrats were behind the grand jury report leak and called renewed interest in its findings “a politically motivated hoax.”

In a post on X on Thursday, Moody said her office was only one of several agencies that signed off on the initial settlement, and “had no knowledge of how funds would be spent” by Hope Florida, state lawmakers or any other group.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com