Sydney Sweeney's ad backlash, Wall Street's AI freakout, and my first bachelorette party since getting married

Sydney Sweeney is losing Instagram followers by the thousands, Wall Street had a full meltdown over an AI CEO’s essay, and I'm somehow still not home from my summer travels.

Let's get into it.

Sydney Sweeney is facing ad backlash again, except this time there's no jeans involved.

Another day, another problematic Sydney Sweeney ad. This time, she went from "good jeans" to no jeans in her new Novig sports-betting ad, where she poses nude with some footballs, a hockey net, and not much else. Athletes and fans are calling it out for using the “just sports” framing as a thin excuse for straight-up objectification and hyper-sexualization. But the complaint isn't really about her nudity itself; it's the bait-and-switch: pitch it as a platform all about sports, deliver something that has nothing to do with the athleticism, teamwork or dedication that makes sports great. My take? This is intentional rage bait to get as much buzz as possible, good or bad. So while she's lost over 200K Instagram followers in the fallout, Novig got the publicity it was looking for. I wouldn't feel too bad for Sydney, though; she’s an equity partner in the company and apparently the mastermind behind the whole campaign.

Anthropic's CEO wrote an essay claiming AI development needs to pump the brakes, and it tanked stocks.

Dario Amodei argued over the weekend that AI development needs to slow down over safety concerns. Amodei's argument is that AI has been accelerating dangerously fast this summer, and he pointed to a recent AI-agent hack as proof things are getting harder to control. His biggest red flag? He believes within 6 to 12 months, a coordinated swarm of AI agents could take down huge chunks of the internet and cause hundreds of billions in damage. Yikes. His fix: embed human evaluators inside AI companies the way big banks do, and he says Anthropic is already planning to do it. Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis all publicly backed him, while Nvidia's CEO basically rolled his eyes and suggested the doom talk conveniently benefits companies selling cybersecurity products. Wall Street didn't wait around to find out who's right: chip stocks tanked, with Nvidia losing over 3% of its market cap and SoftBank dropping nearly 11% in a single day.

Companies want you to prove yourself before they'll even give you an offer letter.

Imagine going through the endless slog of job hunting and interviewing just to be offered the job… once you nail the week-long onsite audition. Well, there’s no need to imagine because that’s an increasing reality for anyone currently job hunting. About two-thirds of companies now use some kind of skill-based hiring for entry-level roles. Work trials used to be a technical-field thing, but they're starting to show up everywhere. Some are unpaid mock tasks you complete off-site on your own time; others are a full week embedded in-office with the team, which companies are generally required to pay you for if the work you produce actually benefits them. I get the appeal of being able to find the perfect fit, but asking someone to waste a week of their time on a trial that might not even end in a job or, even worse, might not even pay them for that time, is a huge ask. This sounds particularly problematic for job hunters who are currently employed and need to dip into their PTO to participate in a trial run. Working two jobs and possibly ending up with none? Make it make sense.

Surprise, I'm still not home! I went straight from my Italian honeymoon to a friend's bachelorette in New York (first one I've been to since becoming a wife myself, we love a promotion), and I am now running on zero sleep, unresolved jet lag, and however many espresso martinis it takes to survive a weekend in Manhattan. It was worth it to celebrate with my girls, but just fair warning that I'm going to need a solid four business days to recover once I'm home. So if I look like I'm on my deathbed the next time you see me, mind your business.

HELLOOO, NEW YORK (cue the Hannah Montana voice, not sorry). Came for a bachelorette weekend, stayed for content collabs with some of my favorite comedy creators. Apparently my job is now 80% flights and 20% desk time and I’m not mad. But your girl is still corporate at heart (and in wardrobe), hence this perfect neutral combo. You can't go wrong with a black and tan (both the fit and the drink). Paired with my favorite flats of all time, this is a fit I would happily wear behind a desk or in front of the camera.

Coming back from back-to-back trips means walking into an apartment you don't recognize and an inbox that's actively hostile. I am actively preparing to face both, so let’s walk through it together.

Here's how to not lose half the week to playing catch-up and cleanup at work and at home:

Let’s start with your emails. I know you’re itching to get through them, but don't open your emails chronologically. Search 'urgent,' 'following up,' or anything with a deadline in the subject line first. Handle those, then batch-triage the rest in one 20-minute block the next morning.

Now let’s get headquarters, a.k.a. your home, in order. Do a 10-minute tidy of the space just to make it feel like you’re truly at home. Feeling the warm welcome of your return will hopefully help prevent you from spiraling straight into stress cleaning. But if you can’t resist, any lingering trash you forgot to take out before you left should be first on the hit list. Next on the list: getting unpacked, ASAP. I know it’s the last thing you want to do, but if you can at least get your dirty clothes into the laundry, we’ll count it as a win.

And to hit two birds with one stone, block off your first morning back to work and use that time to help you get back into your regular routine. I’m talking an early morning workout class or a meal-prep session for the week ahead. If you can’t pull off a productive morning, grab that beach read you didn’t finish on your trip and turn in early to give your mind and body some extra rest and hopefully reset your internal clock because, let’s be real, you can’t self-regulate your sleep schedule out of sheer willpower.

Thanks for reading!