• The 25th James Bond movie, "No Time to Die," will be released April 8, 2020. 
• Daniel Craig will return as 007 and be accompanied on screen by Ana de Armas and Lashana Lynch, who will play a "a new type" of Bond woman. Léa Seydoux will reprise her role as Madeleine Swann.
• What happened to the rest of the Bond actresses over the years?
• From Ursula Andress and Jane Seymour to Teri Hatcher and Halle Berry, Insider looks at the Bond women in the 25 Eon-produced movies from 1962 onward.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

"Dr. No" (1962): Ursula Andress popularized the now-iconic scene where she steps out on the beach as Honey Ryder.

Andress was commonly known as the first Bond girl.

Now (Age 83): In 2005, Andress starred in small comedy "The Bird Preachers."

In 2006, Andress was named honorary citizen of her birthplace Ostermundigen.

"Dr. No" / "From Russia With Love" (1962/1963): Eunice Gayson played Bond's girlfriend Sylvia Trench in two films.

Trench meets James Bond during a game of Baccarat in "Dr. No." Bond first uses his trademark "Bond, James Bond" line when introducing himself to Trench. 

Now: Gayson died in 2018. She was 90.

Gayson released an autobiography in 2012 titled "The First Lady of Bond." Gayson's daughter, Kate, appeared as an extra in 1995's "GoldenEye."

"From Russia With Love" (1963): Daniela Bianchi played Soviet Army Intelligence Corporal Tatiana Romanova.

Her voice was dubbed by actress Barbra Jefford due to her heavy Italian accent.

Now (Age 77): Bianchi starred in small Italian and French films after Bond before retiring from acting in 1970.

Bianchi retired from acting in 1970. She appeared in a 2012 documentary called "We're Nothing Like James Bond."

"Goldfinger" (1964): Honor Blackman quit her role on "The Avengers" to appear as Pussy Galore.

United Artists landed Blackman for the role by incorporating her judo experience into the film.

Now (Age 94): Blackman was still starring in films until 2015.

Her last titles include 2012's "Cockneys vs Zombies" and the sitcom "You, Me, and Them," where she described her character as selfish. Blackman has also played Professor Lasky and voiced Queen Anahita on the "Doctor Who" TV series and audio story, respectively.

"Goldfinger" (1964): Model Tania Mallet was cast as Tilly Masterson after her photo was sent to the Bond producer.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Bond producer Cubby Broccoli was sent a photo of her for Vogue lying on "some rocks in a bikini." She originally tested for Bianchi's role in "From Russia With Love."

Now: Mallet died in April 2019 at the age of 77.

Mallet also had an uncredited role on "The New Avengers" in 1976 before returning to modeling.

"Goldfinger" (1964): Margaret Nolan played the small role of Bond's masseuse, Dink.

Despite the small role, Nolan appears on the ads and soundtrack cover for the film as a gold-painted woman.

Now (Age 76): Nolan hasn't starred in films since 1986, but appeared in 2011's "The Power of Three."

Nolan lives in Heampstead, London where she has worked as an artist making photo montages using old publicity photographs. 

"Goldfinger" (1964): Shirley Eaton became a sex symbol in the '60s after playing the role of Jill Masterson.

Masterson was the Bond girl who dies from getting covered in gold.

Now (Age 82): Eaton retired from acting in 1969 to raise her family.

Eaton published an autobiography, "Golden Girl," in 1999. Eaton also released a poetry book in 2006 called "Shirley Eaton's Golden Touch."

"Thunderball" (1965): French actress Claudine Auger is best known for her role as Dominique "Domino" Derval.

Before Bond, she was the first runner-up in the 1958 Miss World contest.

Now (Age 78): Auger was still acting in mostly foreign films up until 1997.

Auger's last credited appearance is on French TV movie "The Red and the Black."

"Thunderball" (1965): Luciana Paluzzi played SPECTRE agent Fiona Volpe.

Paluzzi originally auditioned for the role of Domino.

Now (Age 82): Paluzzi appeared in several movies through the 1960.

The Italian actress is married to Michael Solomon, former president of Warner Bros. international television.

"Thunderball" (1965): British actress Martine Beswick played Bond's assistant Paula Caplan who gets kidnapped.

She also appeared in "From Russia with Love" as the gypsy, Zora.

Now (Age 78): Beswick was in films and television through the '90s including "One Million Years B.C.,""The Six Million Dollar Man," and "Falcon Crest."

Beswick appeared on BBC's "Masterchef" in 2013 with other Bond Girl guests. She also appeared in this year's "House of the Gorgon."

"You Only Live Twice" (1967): Karin Dor played SPECTRE assassin Helga Brandt.

Her character was fed to piranhas.

Now: The German actress died in 2017 at the age of 79.

Dor appeared regularly on screen until the late '80s. However she made a comeback to German screens in 2006's "I Am the Other Woman." She died in a nursing home.

"On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969): Diana Rigg played Bond's wife Tracy (Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo).

Rigg appeared on the popular TV show "The Avengers" before starring in the 1969 movie.

Now (Age 81): Rigg still acts today. "Game of Thrones" fans will recognize her as Lady Olenna Tyrell.

Rigg was also the Chancellor of the University of Stirling for 10 years until 2008. She's set to appear in 2020's "Last Night in Soho."

"Diamonds are Forever" (1971): Jill St. John played diamond smuggler Tiffany Case.

St. John was originally offered the role of Plenty O'Toole which went to Lana Wood.

Now (Age 79): St. John went on to work in five films with husband Robert Wagner before retiring in 2002.

In 2014, she played Mrs. Claus in a made-for-TV movie "Northpole" with Wagner who played Santa Claus. 

"Diamonds are Forever" (1971): Lana Wood played the small, but memorable role of Plenty O'Toole.

Bond meets O'Toole at a casino.

Now (Age 73): Wood retired from acting in the mid-80s but resurfaced in several films since 2008.

Wood wrote the best-selling "Natalie, A Memoir by Her Sister" in 1984.

"Live and Let Die" (1973): Jane Seymour played tarot expert Solitaire.

Gayle Hunnicutt was up for the role, but was pregnant at the time.

Now (Age 68): Seymour's best known for '90s series "Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman."

Seymour keeps busy both as an ambassador for a non-profit Childhelp and in TV and film roles. In 2017, she appeared on Hulu's documentary "Becoming Bond." In 2018, she posed for Playboy.

"Live and Let Die" (1973): Gloria Hendry played CIA double agent Rosie Carver.

Hendry was the first African American Bond girl to have a relationship with Bond.

Now (Age 70): Hendry also starred in films "Black Caesar" and "Hell Up in Harlem."

Hendry has appeared in TV movies and series, most recently appearing on "A Brother's Honor." 

"The Man With the Golden Gun" (1974): Britt Ekland played Bond's assistant, Mary Goodnight.

The actress originally auditioned for the role of Andrea Anders, which eventually went to Maud Adams.

Now (Age 77): Ekland has appeared on TV series since, but has performed in various stage performances of "Cinderella."

Ekland was considered a sex symbol throughout the '70s. She played the Fairy Godmother from 2009 to 2010 at Princess Theatre in the UK. Ekland also appeared on the UK's "Last Dance" in 2018.

"The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977): Barbara Bach played Soviet KGB agent Triple X.

After appearing in the film, Bach said Bond was "a chauvinist pig who uses girls to shield him against bullets."

Now (Age 72): Bach married Beatle drummer Ringo Starr (below).

"I think I love Barbara as much [today] as I did [when we met] – and I'm beyond blessed that she loves me and we're still together,"Starr told People in 2015.

Together, she and Starr created the Lotus Foundation which funds and promotes charities that help those with substance abuse, cancer, homelessness, and more.

"The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977): Caroline Munro was cast as Naomi.

Naomi was the first woman Bond explicitly killed in a film.

Now (Age 70): Munro still acts and is known for her roles in horror and sci-fi films.

Munro recently filmed several movies including "House of the Gorgon" and is set to appear in 2020's "The Fourth Horseman."

"Moonraker" (1979): Lois Chiles played CIA agent Holly Goodhead.

When Bond first meets Goodhead, he's under the impression she's an astronaut.

Now (Age 72): Chiles has appeared in a number of smaller film and TV roles

She appeared on "Speed 2" and in an episode of "CSI."

"For Your Eyes Only" (1981): Carole Bouquet played Melina Havelock, the daughter of murdered marine archaeologists.

Bouquet previously auditioned for the role of Holly Goodhead in "Moonraker."

Now (Age 62): Bouquet modeled for Chanel through the '90s.

Bouquet still acts in French films. She appeared on NBC's 2014 "Rosemary's Baby" miniseries and French TV show "Spin."

"For Your Eyes Only" (1981): Lynn-Holly Johnson's role as Olympic medalist hopeful Bibi Dahl wasn't coincidence.

At the time, interest in the 1980 Lake Placid winter Olympics was high, and, Johnson happened to be a professional skater.

Now (Age 60): Johnson finished her acting career in 1996 to focus on her family.

In 2007, she appeared in a theater production of "It's A Wonderful Life." Johnson has two children.

"Octopussy" (1983): Maud Adams returned to the Bond franchise as the titular character.

She previously played Andrea Anders nearly a decade earlier in "The Man with the Golden Gun."

Now (Age 74): Though Adams doesn't act much anymore she frequents Bond events.

She has made television appearances on "Walker, Texas Ranger" and "That '70s Show."

"Octopussy" (1983): Swedish actress Kristina Wayborn played Octopussy's henchwoman Magda.

Bond lets Magda steal a Fabergé egg with tracking devices in the film.

Now (Age 69): Wayborn went on to appear on television series including "The Love Boat,""Dallas," and "Baywatch."

She reunited with Maud Adams on "That '70s Show."

"A View to a Kill" (1985): Former "Charlie's Angel" Tanya Roberts played geologist Stacey Sutton.

Roger Moore has said in commentary for the film he felt little chemistry between him and Roberts.

Now (Age 64): Roberts starred in a few films before landing a role on "That '70s Show."

Roberts left the show in 2001 when her husband became terminally ill. She has done some interviews in more recent years, but mostly stays out of the spotlight.

"A View to a Kill" (1985): Jamaican singer and model Grace Jones played villain Max Zorin's bodyguard and lover May Day.

May Day appeared to have super strength.

Now (Age 71): The singer continues to perform and

In July, she performed at OnBlackheath seen above. Zendaya also got her to walk the runway in March at her Tommy Hifiger show.

"The Living Daylights" (1987): Former model Maryam d'Abo played Kara Milovy.

She originally auditioned for the part of Pola Ivanova in "A View to Kill."

Now (Age 58): d'Abo co-wrote 2002's "Bond Girls Are Forever" and produced a documentary of the same name with other Bond girls.

The actress recovered from an aneurysm in 2007 and worked on and starred in a documentary, "Rupture: Living With a Broken Brain," about her injury and recovery with her husband, director Hugh Hudson. 

In 2015, d'Abo modeled for retailer JD Williams.

"Licence to Kill" (1989): Carey Lowell played pilot and ex-CIA agent Pam Bouvier.

The 1989 film was the first Bond movie that didn't use a title inspired by one of author Ian Fleming's stories. Bouvier fancies Bond as the two work together.

Now (Age 58): Lowell later starred on "Law & Order."

Lowell retired from acting in the late 2000s. She recently returned to TV in 2018 when she appeared as a guest on "Blue Bloods" and "Bull."

"GoldenEye" (1995): Famke Janssen played murderer Xenia Onatopp.

Onatopp was a member of a crime syndicate. In the film, she attempts to seduce and kill Bond.

Now (Age 55): Janssen was one of the leading ladies in the "X-Men" franchise in the 2000s.

Janssen played Jean Grey for 14 years on and off. She then starred on one of Netflix's first original shows, "Hemlock Grove." She has also appeared on "How to Get Away With Murder" and in the "Taken" film franchise.

"Tomorrow Never Dies" (1997): Michelle Yeoh starred as Colonel Wai Lin.

The Chinese spy worked alongside Bond. The two share a brief, romantic moment in the film.

Now (Age 57): Yeoh starred in Oscar-winning movies "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Memoirs of a Geisha."

She also lends her voice to video games. Yeoh most recently appeared in 2018's "Crazy Rich Asians" and 2019's "Last Christmas" with Emilia Clarke.

"Tomorrow Never Dies" (1997): The "Lois & Clark" star played one of Bond's ex-girlfriends, Paris Carver.

Bond attempts to seduce his old girlfriend in "Tomorrow Never Dies." Instead, Paris winds up dead.

Now (Age 54): Hatcher starred on ABC's hit drama "Desperate Housewives."

Recently, Hatcher has appeared on the CW's "Supergirl" in a recurring role.

"The World Is Not Enough" (1999): Denise Richards starred as nuclear physicist Dr. Christmas Jones.

Richards' role was criticized for her silly name and her outfits that felt reminiscent of a video game character.

Now (Age 48): Richards wrote a memoir called "The Real Girl Next Door" in 2011.

Richards currently stars on "The Bold and the Beautiful" and Bravo's "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills."

"Die Another Day" (2002): Halle Berry plays NSA agent Jinx Johnson.

Jinx and Bond are lovers in the 2002 film. 

Now (Age 53): Berry continued playing Storm in the "X-Men" films in the 2000s.

Berry is also a Revlon spokesperson and recently appeared alongside Keanu Reeves in "John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum."

"Die Another Day" (2002): Rosamund Pike was undercover M16 agent, Miranda Frost.

Miranda Frost also happened to be a double agent.

Now (Age 40): Pike received a best actress Oscar nomination for her role in 2014's "Gone Girl."

After Pike's breakout role, she appeared in "Pride & Prejudice,""An Education," and "Jack Reacher" before her Oscar nod for "Gone Girl."

"Casino Royale" (2006): Eva Green played Bond's lover Vesper Lynd in the newest 007 franchise.

Lynd financed Bond in a high-stakes poker game.

Now (Age 39): The French actress and model starred in the "Sin City" sequel and "Penny Dreadful."

Green appeared in Disney's 2019 live-action "Dumbo" movie. It was her latest collaboration with director Tim Burton after 2012's "Dark Shadows" and 2016's "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children."

• Best Buy's big Cyber Monday sale is over, but you can still grab extended discounts on headphones, TVs, smart speakers, and more. 
• Today only, save on the Amazon Echo Dot ($27 off), the Google Home Mini ($29 off), the Sonos One ($30 off), and much more. We'll be updating this page with the best new deals at Best Buy through the end of Cyber Week. 
• We've also rounded up the best extended Cyber Week deals you can get online and are tracking Amazon, Target, Walmart, Macy's, and more stores. 
• Visit Business Insider Coupons to find the most up-to-date Best Buy coupons and promo codes.

Updated 12/03/19 at 4:45 p.m. ET

Cyber Monday is over, but there are still hundreds of great deals at Best Buy (and Amazon, and Target and Walmart). We're curating all the late Best Buy Cyber Monday deals on TVs, headphones, streaming sticks, and more. 

We'll be updating this page as more Best Buy Cyber Week deals drop, so be sure to check back as the day (and week) goes on. 

Best Buy Cyber Monday deals: 

1. Best TV deal: Vizio 65-inch P-Series Quantum, $,1099.99 (originally $1,199.99) [You save $100]
2. Best smart security deal: August Smart Lock Pro + Connect, $196.99 (originally $279.99) [You save $83] 
3. Best Chromebook deal: Asus Chromebook C433, $369.99 (originally $529)[You save $159.01]
4. Best earbuds deal:Jabra Elite 65t True Wireless Earbud Headphones, $129.99 (originally $169.99) [You save $40] 
5. Best headphones deal: Sennheiser PXC 550 Noise-Cancelling Headphones, $199.99 (originally $349.99) [You save $150] 
6. Best smart home deal: Google Home Mini, $19.99 (originally $49) [You save $29.01]
7. Best gift card deal: Free $150 Best Buy gift card when you buy 2 or more Maytag or Whirlpool appliances totaling $1,999 or more
8. Best peripheral deal: HyperX Pulsefire FPS Pro Wired Optical Gaming Mouse, $24.99 (originally $44.99) [You save $20]

How we selected the best deals at Best Buy:

• We only chose products that meet our high standard of coverage, and that we've either used ourselves or researched carefully.
• We compared the prices against other retailers like The Home Depot and Amazon and only included the deals that are the same or better (not including promotional discounts that come from using certain credit cards).
• All deals are at least 20% off, with the occasional exception for products that are rarely discounted or provide an outsized value.

What makes these deals great buys: 

1. Vizio 65-inch P-Series Quantum, $1,100 (originally $1,200) [You save $100]: Vizio's P-Series is one of our favorite affordable TVs. For $1,100 you'll get an impressive display that supports a wide range of HDR content and a 120Hz panel that's great for gaming.  
2. August Smart Lock Pro + Connect, $196.99 (originally $279.99) [You save $83]: This is our favorite smart lock currently on the market, and it has never been discounted this much. It works with Nest, SmartThings, Alexa, Google Assistant, and HomeKit, and it offers geofencing and a number of other advanced features.   
3. Asus Chromebook C433, $369.99 (originally $529) [You save $159.01]: This brand-new Asus 2-in-1 Chromebook is already seeing a hefty discount for Cyber Monday, making it one of the cheapest new Chromebooks you can buy. The model that's on sale features a Core m3 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage. That won't accommodate any super demanding tasks, but should be fine for running multiple Chrome tabs, or streaming music and video. You'll also get two USB-C ports, one USB Type-A port, and a microSD card reader for extra storage. 
4. Jabra Elite 65t True Wireless Earbud Headphones, $130 (originally $170) [You save $40]: If you're eyeing true wireless earbuds but don't want to shell out for AirPods, try these. They look nice, provide a balanced sound, and can last five hours on a charge.  
5. Google Home Mini, $20 (originally $49) [You save $29]: If you want to get a smart speaker for cheap, the Google Home Mini is an excellent choice. This was part of Google's original line of smart home speakers, and it has stood the test of time since its release, the same was Amazon's Echo Dot has (which is currently on sale for $22 at Amazon). The speaker quality won't blow you away, but it provides great sound for small rooms and brings the power of Google into your home. 
6. Sennheiser PXC 550 Noise-Canceling Headphones, $200 (originally $350) [You save $150]: These are excellent noise-canceling headphones with customizable touch controls, comparable to Bose's QC35. They're cheap because they're a couple of years old, not because they're bad.
7. Free $150 Best Buy gift card when you buy 2 or more Maytag or Whirlpool appliances totaling $1,999 or more: $150 might not seem like a lot in the grand scheme of a large appliance purchase, but it can help you get a pair of headphones or a nice kitchen appliance for free the next time you shop at Best Buy. 
8. HyperX Pulsefire FPS Pro Wired Optical Gaming Mouse, $24.99 (originally $44.99) [You save $20]: This is the lowest price we've ever seen on this gaming mouse, which Tom's Guide called "the best $60 gaming mouse." It sports fantastic textured grips that make it super comfortable to use. You can also customize its color profile and program what each button does.

Shop more of the top Best Buy Cyber Week deals below. 

Best Cyber Week TV deals at Best Buy

• Vizio 65-inch P-Series Quantum, $1,100 (originally $1,200) [You save $100]: Vizio's P-Series is one of our favorite affordable TVs. For $1,100, you'll get an impressive display that supports a wide range of HDR content and a 120Hz panel that's great for gaming.  
• Vizio 75-inch P-Series Quantum, $1,550 (originally $2,000) [You save $450]: This is the same device as above, but 10 inches larger.  
• Samsung 65-inch Smart 4K UHD TV, $480 (originally $550) [You save $70]: If you don't want to spend more than $500 on a TV, this Samsung TV deal is decent.
• Samsung 75-inch Q60R, $1,500 (originally $2,000) [You save $500]: If you're looking for a good deal on a large, high-end Samsung TV, this is a good one for you. It delivers a crisp, bright picture thanks to its 4K resolution and Samsung's Quantum Dot technology. 
• LG 65-inch B9 OLED 4K TV, $2,000 (originally $2,300) [You save $300]: LG's OLED TVs are among the best, and this $500 discount on a 65-inch 4K OLED is very appealing.
• VIZIO 65-inch M-Series Quantum 4K TV, $750 (originally $800) [You save $50]: Vizio's M-Series TVs are more affordable than its high-end P-Series TVs, and for Cyber Monday, they're even more affordable.

Check out more Cyber Week TV deals here

Best Cyber Week headphones deals at Best Buy

• Amazon Echo Show 5, $49.99 (originally $89.99) [You save $40]: The Echo Show 5 is a great purchase if you're looking for a small multipurpose smart display with Alexa built in. You can use the 5.5-inch screen to watch videos, follow recipes, read along with song lyrics and more, and use the built-in camera to chat with friends.  
• Amazon Echo Dot (3rd-Gen), $22.99 (originally $49.99) [You save $27]: This is one of the best smart speakers on the market, especially at this price. It has Alexa built in, which you can use to set timers, play music, and anything else you might want. 
• August Smart Lock Pro + Connect, $196.99 (originally $279.99) [You save $83]: This is our favorite smart lock currently on the market, and it's never sold for less. It works with Nest, SmartThings, Alexa, Google Assistant, and HomeKit, and it offers geofencing and a number of other advanced features.   
• Ecobee Smart Thermostat with Voice Control, $199.99 (originally $249.99) [You save $50]: The Ecobee is one of our favorite smart thermostats, and you can get it for cheap this Cyber Monday. Using sensors that you can place around your house, the Ecobee keeps each room at its ideal temperature. It has built-in Alexa, and also works with HomeKit, Samsung SmartThings, and IFTTT. 
• Nest Learning Thermostat E, $199.99 (originally $229.99) [You save $30]: This is one of our favorite smart thermostats, and it's more affordable than usual for Cyber Monday.
• Nest Mini, $30 (originally $50) [You save $20]: This is the new version of the Google Home Mini, and it's already on sale. It's got better speakers and the smarts of the Google Assistant.
• Google Home Mini, $19.99 (originally $49) [You save $29.01]: If you want to get a smart speaker for even less, the older Google Home Mini is still an excellent choice.
• Google Nest Protect 2nd-Generation, $99.99 (originally $119.99) [You save $20]: This handy smart smoke and carbon-monoxide alarm integrates with Google's other Nest products. You can turn the alarms off remotely through the Nest app on your smartphone. 
• Logitech Harmony 950 Universal Remote, $200 (originally $250) [You save $50]: Best Buy currently offers a better price on this device than any other store we've seen. It can control all sorts of smart devices, including your lights, your TV, your speakers, your thermostat, and more. The Verge called it "the best universal remote you can buy." 
• Sonos One (Gen 2), $169.99 (originally $199.99) [You save $30]: If you're looking for a speaker that includes Alexa and Google Assistant, works with every major streaming service, and also delivers premium sound, the Sonos One is the best device to buy. It's one of our favorite smart speakers.
• Sonos One SL, $149.99 (originally $179.99) [You save $30]: This speaker is almost identical to the Sonos One described above, but it doesn't have microphones, and no voice assistants are built in. 
• Nest Hub Max smart display, $200 (originally $230) [You save $30]: If you want a smart display, this new bigger one from Nest is a great buy, thanks to the smarts of Google Assistant and that $30 discount.

Check out more Google Cyber Week deals here

Check out more Amazon Cyber Week deals here

Best Cyber Week phone deals

• Unlocked Pixel 4, $749.99-$849.99 (originally $799.99-$899.99), [You save $50]: If you don't want to activate with a carrier and prefer to get your phone unlocked, this $200 discount on the Pixel 4 is great.
• Unlocked Pixel 4 XL, $849.99-$949.99 (originally $899-999), [You save $50]: For those who prefer big-screen phones, the Pixel 4 XL is also on sale unlocked.

Check out more Google Cyber Week deals here

Check out more Apple Cyber Week deals here

Best Cyber Week laptop and tablet deals

• Asus Chromebook C433, $370 (originally $529) [You save $159]: This brand-new Asus 2-in-1 Chromebook is already seeing a hefty discount for Cyber Monday, making it one of the cheapest new Chromebooks you can buy. 

Check out more Amazon Cyber Week deals here

Check out more Apple Cyber Week deals here

Best Cyber Week smart home deals at Best Buy

• Amazon Echo Show 5, $50 (originally $90) [You save $40]: The Echo Show 5 is a great purchase if you're looking for a small multipurpose smart display with Alexa built in. You can use the 5.5-inch screen to watch videos, follow recipes, read along with song lyrics and more, and use the built-in camera to chat with friends.  
• Amazon Echo Dot (3rd-Gen), $23 (originally $50) [You save $27]: This is one of the best smart speakers on the market, especially at this price. It has Alexa built in, which you can use to set timers, play music, and anything else you might want. 
• August Smart Lock Pro + Connect, $197 (originally $280) [You save $83]: This is our favorite smart lock currently on the market, and it's never sold for less. It works with Nest, SmartThings, Alexa, Google Assistant, and HomeKit, and it offers geofencing and a number of other advanced features.   
• Ecobee Smart Thermostat with Voice Control, $200 (originally $250) [You save $50]: The Ecobee is one of our favorite smart thermostats, and you can get it for cheap this Cyber Monday. Using sensors that you can place around your house, the Ecobee keeps each room at its ideal temperature. It has built-in Alexa, and also works with HomeKit, Samsung SmartThings, and IFTTT. 
• Nest Learning Thermostat E, $200 (originally $230) [You save $30]: This is one of our favorite smart thermostats, and it's more affordable than usual for Cyber Monday.
• Nest Mini, $30 (originally $50) [You save $20]: This is the new version of the Google Home Mini, and it's already on sale. It's got better speakers and the smarts of the Google Assistant.
• Google Home Mini, $20 (originally $49) [You save $29]: If you want to get a smart speaker for even less, the older Google Home Mini is still an excellent choice.
• Google Nest Protect 2nd-Generation, $100 (originally $120) [You save $20]: This handy smart smoke and carbon-monoxide alarm integrates with Google's other Nest products. You can turn the alarms off remotely through the Nest app on your smartphone. 
• Logitech Harmony 950 Universal Remote, $130 (originally $250) [You save $120]: Best Buy currently offers a better price on this device than any other store we've seen. It can control all sorts of smart devices, including your lights, your TV, your speakers, your thermostat, and more. The Verge called it "the best universal remote you can buy." 
• Sonos One (Gen 2), $170 (originally $200) [You save $30]: If you're looking for a speaker that includes Alexa and Google Assistant, works with every major streaming service, and also delivers premium sound, the Sonos One is the best device to buy. It's one of our favorite smart speakers.
• Sonos One SL, $150 (originally $180) [You save $30]: This speaker is almost identical to the Sonos One described above, but it doesn't have microphones, and no voice assistants are built in. 
• Nest Hub Max smart display, $200 (originally $230) [You save $30]: If you want a smart display, this new bigger one from Nest is a great buy, thanks to the smarts of Google Assistant and that $30 discount.

Check out more Google Cyber Week deals here

Check out more Amazon Cyber Week deals here

Best Cyber Week kitchen deals at Best Buy

• Anova Precision Cooker Nano, $80 (originally $100) [You save $20]: This is close to the best price we've ever seen on this precision cooker. It's our favorite sous vide machine for high-tech cooking: It can heat up to five gallons of water, and produces juicy, tender, perfectly cooked meats. You can control it with your smartphone or with controls on the device itself.  
• Ninja 10-Cup Coffee Maker, $150 (originally $180) [You save $30]: This coffee maker provides great value because you can make four different types of brew: classic, rich, iced coffee, and specialty (e.g. lattes, cappuccinos). 

Best Cyber Week appliance deals at Best Buy

• Free $150 Best Buy gift card when you buy 2 or more Maytag or Whirlpool appliances totaling $1,999 or more. $150 might not seem like a lot in the grand scheme of a large appliance purchase, but it can help you get a pair of headphones or a nice kitchen appliance for free the next time you shop at Best Buy. 

Best Cyber Week peripheral deals at Best Buy

• HyperX Pulsefire FPS Pro Wired Optical Gaming Mouse, $25 (originally $45) [You save $20]: This is the lowest price we've ever seen on this gaming mouse, which Tom's Guide called "the best $60 gaming mouse." It sports fantastic textured grips that make it super comfortable to use. You can also customize its color profile and program what each button does. 

Best Buy Cyber Monday FAQs

Does Best Buy have Cyber Monday deals?

Best Buy offered Cyber Monday deals, and many are still active. Keep an eye on this page for up-to-date listing.  

What time does Cyber Monday start?

Best Buy's Cyber Monday sale started online at 12 a.m. December 2, 2019. Some deals are still live. 

Is Cyber Monday online only?

Cyber Monday is online only. While you'll find many online deals on Black Friday, you're unlikely to find Cyber Monday deals in a physical Best Buy store. If you want to shop Best Buy on Cyber Monday, your best bet is to visit Best Buy's website.  

Shop Best Buy Cyber Monday deals by category: 

• TVs
• Laptops and computers
• Tablets and e-readers
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See more Cyber Week deals

*Note: Not all of the deals in the articles below are still live, but some may be. We're working to update them through the day with extended deals.

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• The flower company Roseshire has an entire selection of arrangements dedicated to Disney characters and popular films.
• The new "The Nightmare Before Christmas" arrangement features 10 black forever roses in a coffin-shaped box.
• Other arrangements feature Disney favorites like Alice from "Alice in Wonderland" and Ariel and Prince Eric from "The Little Mermaid.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

"The Nightmare Before Christmas" combines Halloween with Christmas ... but you can also add a bit of Valentine's-Day-level romance to the mix. 

In collaboration with Disney, the floral company Roseshire has a special collection of handmade, themed bouquets inspired by famous movies and characters. 

From coffin-shaped "Nightmare Before Christmas" arrangements to colorful "Alice in Wonderland" boxes, here are some of the best Disney bouquets you can order. 

The "Nightmare Before Christmas" box is a great gift for Halloween or Christmas.

This Jack-and-Sally inspired box is one of the coolest — it's shaped like a coffin and features art of the two haunted lovers on the inside.

The collection comes with an exclusive "Nightmare Before Christmas" greeting card where you can put your note, and it's placed in an envelope with a wax seal.

The flowers included are 20 roses, with your choice of red or white. 

Price: $205/20 roses

There's also a darker "Nightmare Before Christmas" box of forever roses.

This coffin-shaped box also features Jack and Sally, but it's part of a special holiday collection. 

The flowers included are 10 black forever roses, which Roseshire says will last one to two years without water. 

Price: $129/10 roses

The "Frozen" bouquet is perfect for winter.

This ice-blue box features Elsa from "Frozen" and it comes filled with two dozen white roses. 

Price: $185/24 roses

The "Beauty and the Beast" box features red, black, and orange.

The collection comes with a greeting card picturing a silhouette of Belle and the inside of the box is a detailed red background featuring the iconic princess and the Beast.

The box comes with a variety of roses and you can even get them in a "checkmate" pattern that alternates red and orange flowers.

Price: $109/dozen, $199/two dozen

Read More: 10 of the best and 10 of the worst animated Disney movies of all time

The "Aladdin" box comes with lavender roses.

By far the best part of the "Aladdin" bouquet box is the lavender flowers.

The color matches the purple of the box's romantic art and the matching "Aladdin" greeting card that reads "Let your dreams soar." 

Price:$109/dozen, $199/two dozen

"Alice in Wonderland" features vibrant rainbow roses.

Winner of the most fun and colorful box, of course, goes to the "Wonderland" bouquet.

The tints of the rainbow roses perfectly match the orange, yellow, and pinks of the box art and greeting card inspired by the classic "Alice in Wonderland" animated movie. 

The front of the card is printed with a phrase from the flick, "Curiosier and curiouser." 

Price: $109/dozen, $199/two dozen

The "Snow White" box comes with two-dozen roses in a variety of colors.

The "Snow White" flower box shows the princess torn between her two homes — the castle on one side and the cottage where she lives with the dwarfs on the other. 

In terms of the box's flowers, you can pick from the pastel orange and lavender mix, the classic red, or the "checkmate" pattern that alternates red and white roses. 

However, make a note that this selection features no special Disney greeting card. 

Price: $195

The "Cinderella" box offers many enchanting options, too.

Prince Charming and Cinderella are on display here in this snazzy dark-blue box, with a matching greeting card.

The box is even printed with a cursive lyric from the flick, "A dream is a wish your heart makes." You can choose between red or white roses, or go out on a limb and try hot pink. 

Price: $105/dozen, $169/two dozen

Read More: Popular 'Cinderella' adaptations, ranked from worst to best

"The Little Mermaid" box has gadgets and gizmos a-plenty.

This box features art from the iconic boat scene between Ariel and Eric from "The Little Mermaid" on the inside.

You can choose from plenty of vibrant roses, including hot pink, lavender, and the red-white checkmate combo.

Plus, it comes with a special greeting card with some great silhouette art of Ariel and lyrics from the film's iconic tune, "Part of Your World." 

Price: $109/dozen, $199/two dozen

The Magic Hearts box is for the Mickey lover in your life.

This flower box is sleek and black and even though it doesn't feature characters from a classic Disney musical, it features the company's most iconic and long-standing couple.

Minnie and Mickey Mouse seem completely in love in this box featuring red or checkmate roses. 

Price:$109/one dozen, $199/two dozen, $245/four dozen

The Villains Box is full of your favorite wicked ladies of Disney.

This flower box features the best of Disney's classic villains, including Cruella de Vil from "101 Dalmatians," Maleficent from "Sleeping Beauty," Ursula from "The Little Mermaid," and the Evil Queen from "Snow White."

The spooky selection is another great way to ring in the Halloween season and you have a choice of purple, red, or checkmate (red and purple) roses. 

Price:$199/2 dozen

• 2019 was a great year for movies, with films like "Parasite,""Marriage Story," and "Booksmart" delighting audiences and critics alike. 
• And major stars like Eddie Murphy and Chris Evans found critical success with movies like "Dolemite Is My Name" and "Knives Out."
• Foreign language films like "Parasite" and "Atlantics" were also beloved by critics. 
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories. 

Numerous films that premiered this year were adored by critics and audiences alike, like Korean thriller/family drama "Parasite" and murder mystery "Knives Out," starring Chris Evans and Daniel Craig. 

While there were plenty of blockbusters and superhero films to keep fans happy, 2019 saw plenty of nuanced, niche dramas and thrillers make waves with reviewers, too. 

We used Rotten Tomatoes data to find the films of 2019 that critics have loved the most. Keep reading for the top 50 movies that were beloved by reviewers in 2019. 

50. "Diane" is a rich and heartfelt drama.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 93% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "Diane fills her days helping others and desperately attempting to bond with her drug-addicted son. As these pieces of her existence begin to fade, she finds herself confronting memories she'd sooner forget than face."

49. "Monos" is set in Latin America and features a "Lord of the Flies"-type concept.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 93% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "On a remote mountaintop, eight kids with guns watch over a hostage and a conscripted milk cow." 

48. Shia LaBeouf's childhood serves as inspiration for "Honey Boy."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 93% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A young actor's stormy childhood and early adult years as he struggles to reconcile with his father and deal with his mental health."

47. "Chernobyl" star Jessie Buckley plays the lead role in "Wild Rose."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 93% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A troubled young Glaswegian woman dreams of becoming a Nashville country star."

46. "The Last Black Man in San Francisco" explores themes of home and belonging.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 93% (certified fresh) 

Synopsis: "A young man searches for home in the changing city that seems to have left him behind."

45. Jordan Peele directed "Us," a chilling and memorable horror film.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 93% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A family's serene beach vacation turns to chaos when their doppelgängers appear and begin to terrorize them." 

44. "Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool" follows the life of a famous jazz musician.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 94% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "Miles Davis: Horn player, bandleader, innovator. Miles was a singular force of nature, the very embodiment of cool. The central theme of Miles Davis' life, and of this film is Davis' restless determination to break boundaries and live life on his own terms." 

43. "Rafiki" follows two girls in Kenya as they fall in love and grow up together.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 94% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "'Good Kenyan girls become good Kenyan wives,' but Kena and Ziki long for something more. When love blossoms between them, the two girls will be forced to choose between happiness and safety."

42. "Ask Dr. Ruth" follows the rise of famous sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 94% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "Charting the incredible life of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, a Holocaust survivor who became America's most famous sex therapist."

41. "The Wild Pear Tree" explores life for a college graduate in modern Turkey.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 94% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "An unpublished writer returns to his hometown after graduating, where he seeks sponsors to publish his book while dealing with his father's deteriorating indulgence into gambling."

40. "Mike Wallace Is Here" focuses on the changing landscape of modern news.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 94% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A look at the career of '60 Minutes' (1968) newsman, Mike Wallace."

39. "Shadow" is set in an ancient Chinese court.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 94% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "Life and intrigue in an ancient Chinese court."

38. "The Mustang" focuses on a prisoner and his relationship to horses.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 94% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "The story of Roman Coleman, a violent convict, who is given the chance to participate in a rehabilitation therapy program involving the training of wild mustangs."

37. "Transit" takes place during WWII.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 94% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A man attempting to escape Nazi-occupied France falls in love with the wife of a dead author whose identity he has assumed."

36. "Avengers: Endgame" was a hit with audiences and critics alike.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 94% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "After the devastating events of 'Avengers: Infinity War' (2018), the universe is in ruins. With the help of remaining allies, the Avengers assemble once more in order to reverse Thanos' actions and restore balance to the universe."

35. "Ray & Liz" focuses on an alcoholic, impoverished family.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 95% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "Photographer Richard Billingham returns to the squalid council flat outside of Birmingham where he and his brother were raised, in a confrontation and reconciliation with parents Ray and Liz." 

34. Shia LaBeouf stars in "Peanut Butter Falcon."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 95% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "Zak runs away from his care home to make his dream of becoming a wrestler come true."

33. "An Elephant Sitting Still" focuses on inhabitants of a Chinese city.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 96% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "Four people in a Chinese city live through a complicated day as their lives intersect."

32. "Harpoon" is a horror film set on a stranded yacht.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 96% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "Rivalries, dark secrets, and sexual tension emerge when three best friends find themselves stranded on a yacht in the middle of the ocean desperate for survival."

31. "Atlantics" is a supernatural drama that touches on real-world social issues.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 96% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "In a popular suburb of Dakar, workers on the construction site of a futuristic tower, without pay for months, decide to leave the country by the ocean for a better future. Among them is Souleiman, the lover of Ada, promised to another."

30. Tessa Thompson stars in "Little Woods."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 96% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A modern Western about two sisters who work outside the law to better their lives." 

29. "Hail Satan?" chronicles the rise of Satanism in the US.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 96% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A look at the quick rise and influence of the controversial religious group known as The Satanic Temple."

28. "Birds of Passage" is a visually striking drug crime thriller."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 96% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "During the marijuana bonanza, a violent decade that saw the origins of drug trafficking in Colombia, Rapayet and his indigenous family get involved in a war to control the business that ends up destroying their lives and their culture."

27. Tom Hanks plays Mr. Rogers in "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 96% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "Based on the true story of a real-life friendship between Fred Rogers and journalist Tom Junod."

26. "Knives Out" is a murder mystery starring Chris Evans.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 97% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A detective investigates the death of a patriarch of an eccentric, combative family."

25. Martin Scorsese's latest film "The Irishman."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 96% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A mob hit man recalls his possible involvement with the slaying of Jimmy Hoffa." 

24. "The Heiresses" is set in Latin America.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 97% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "Chela and Chiquita are both descended from wealthy families in Asunción and have been together for over 30 years. But when their debts lead to Chiquita being imprisoned on fraud charges, Chela is forced to face a new reality."

23. "Tigers Are Not Afraid" blends magical realism with the terrors of Mexico's drug wars.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 97% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A dark fairy tale about a gang of five children trying to survive the horrific violence of the cartels and the ghosts created every day by the drug war."

22. "Woman at War" is set in Iceland.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 97%  (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "Halla becomes a determined environmental activist, but this threatens a long-held hope of hers."

21. Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver play a couple in the midst of a divorce in "Marriage Story."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 97% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "Noah Baumbach's incisive and compassionate look at a marriage breaking up and a family staying together."

20. Eddie Murphy stars in "Dolemite Is My Name."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 97% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "Eddie Murphy portrays real-life legend Rudy Ray Moore, a comedy and rap pioneer who proved naysayers wrong when his hilarious, obscene, kung-fu fighting alter ego, Dolemite, became a 1970s Blaxploitation phenomenon."

19. "Pain & Glory" is the latest film from Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 97% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A film director reflects on the choices he's made in life as past and present come crashing down around him."

18. Actress Olivia Wilde directed the beloved coming-of-age film "Booksmart."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 97%

Synopsis: "On the eve of their high school graduation, two academic superstars and best friends realize they should have worked less and played more. Determined not to fall short of their peers, the girls try to cram four years of fun into one night."

17. "Toy Story 4" was the latest film in the beloved franchise.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 97% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "When a new toy called 'Forky' joins Woody and the gang, a road trip alongside old and new friends reveals how big the world can be for a toy."

16. Thriller "Rojo" was a hit with most reviewers.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 98% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "In Argentina pre-coup d'etat, a successful lawyer starts to feel against the ropes when a secret of the past threatens his present."

15. "Too Late to Die Young" is set in 1990s Chile.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 98% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "In an isolated community, Sofía (16), Lucas (16) and Clara (10), face their first loves and fears, while preparing for New Year's Eve."

14. "Varda by Agnès" is a moving look at an iconic filmmaker's work.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 98% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "Agnès Varda, photographer, installation artist and pioneer of the Nouvelle Vague, is an institution of French cinema. Taking a seat on a theatre stage, she uses photos and film excerpts to provide an insight into her unorthodox oeuvre."

13. "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" is a period piece.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 98% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman."

12. A famous Iranian actress is the focus of "3 Faces."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 98% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "Three actresses at different stages of their career. One from before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, one popular star of today known throughout the country and a young girl longing to attend a drama conservatory."

11. "One Child Nation" explores a painful chapter in Chinese history.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 99% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "After becoming a mother, a filmmaker uncovers the untold history of China's one-child policy and the generations of parents and children forever shaped by this social experiment."

10. "For Sama" focuses on a young woman in Syria.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 99% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "'For Sama' is both an intimate and epic journey into the female experience of war."

9. "Honeyland" offers a relatable perspective even though it's set in a remote village in the Balkans.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 99% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "The last female beehunter in Europe must save the bees and return the natural balance in Honeyland, when a family of nomadic beekeepers invade her land and threaten her livelihood."

8. Concert footage from an Aretha Franklin concert forms the majority of "Amazing Grace."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 99% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A documentary presenting Aretha Franklin with choir at the New Bethel Baptist Church in Watts, Los Angeles in January 1972."

7. The events of "Ash Is Purest White" unfold over several years.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 99% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A story of violent love within a time frame spanning from 2001 to 2017."

6. "Apollo 11" features never-before-seen footage of NASA trips into space.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 99% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A look at the Apollo 11 mission to land on the moon led by commander Neil Armstrong and pilots Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins."

5. "The Farewell" follows a Chinese family dealing with an impending loss.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 99% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A Chinese family discovers their grandmother has only a short while left to live and decide to keep her in the dark, scheduling a wedding to gather before she dies."

4. "Parasite" is a genre-defying family drama-turned-thriller.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 99% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "All unemployed, Ki-taek and his family take peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks, as they ingratiate themselves into their lives and get entangled in an unexpected incident."

3. "Chained for Life" examines the relationship between a beautiful actress and her disfigured costar.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 100% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A beautiful actress struggles to connect with her disfigured co-star on the set of a European auteur's English-language debut."

2. A young maid in a luxurious Mexico City hotel is the focus of "The Chambermaid."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 100% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "A look at the working environment of a chambermaid in one of Mexico City's most luxurious hotels."

1. "One Cut of the Dead" is a refreshing update to the zombie genre.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 100% (certified fresh)

Synopsis: "Things go badly for a hack director and film crew shooting a low budget zombie movie in an abandoned WWII Japanese facility, when they are attacked by real zombies."

• The tech landscape looks completely different today than it did at the beginning of the decade.
• Numerous tech companies that didn't even exist before 2010 joined the ranks of the unicorns in 2019, reaching the vaunted benchmark of a $1 billion valuation.
• Some of the young companies to reach unicorn status this year include Lyft, Instagram, Casper, Snapchat, and Warby Parker.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

During the decade of the 2010s, future unicorns — a term used to denote startups worth at least $1 billion — were born left and right. 

A unicorn is not a mythical creature in Silicon Valley. With great help from the tech boom and investors with deep pockets, unicorns are everywhere. You see ads for them in the subway, scroll past posts of influencers touting their products on social media, and you may even sleep on one at night. 

The last decade introduced too many startups to count. Only a few hundred of them, though, ever went on to see a $1 billion valuation.

The more notable billion-dollar startups born in the 2010s include ride-hailing app Lyft, millennial-marketing mastermind Glossier, and WeWork. But if you get your insurance from a sleekly designed app called Lemonade, or order your Sweetgreen salad via Postmates, you'll start to realize there are unicorns all around you. 

With that in mind, take a look at 30 companies worth at least $1 billion that didn't exist 10 years ago.

SEE ALSO: Scientists reveal the 13 dark technology scenarios that keep them up at night

Paris-based Meero has become the go-to tool for photo editors since its launch in 2016. The company raised $230 million, pushing its valuation to $1 billion this past June.

Meero is an online editing and production tool assistant for photographers that uses artificial intelligence, akin to Photoshop — but much quicker and more streamlined. The tech behind Meero lets AI edit raw images automatically. It also matches freelance photographers with companies looking for content, with a 24-hour turnaround time. Meero raised $230 million in June, pushing its valuation to $1 billion to become one of Europe's fastest growing companies of the decade. 

Meero CEO Thomas Rebaud wants to host more photographer meet-ups in the future, host masterclasses, and maybe even launch a magazine.

Juul Labs launched in 2015 and has grown into a multi-billion-dollar company, with a valuation of $24 billion. But the company has come under fire over the last few years, making its future uncertain.

One of the more controversial startups of this decade, Juul, the e-cigarette company, sparked national outrage, congressional investigations, and criticism by the Food and Drug Administration, leading to total product bans in some countries. 

Juul's rise was fast, thanks in part to its marketing strategy. Advertisements on social media — depicting young adults in flashy, bright-colored ads promoting e-cigarette flavors like cucumber and mango — are what some critics attribute to the epidemic of teenage nicotine use. A year after Juul's launch, sales rose 700%, selling over 1 million products. 

But in September, Juul's CEO stepped down under increasing scrutiny over vaping's effect on lung health, despite the company touting its product as the safer alternative to cigarettes. The company also recently halted advertising in the US and its lobbying efforts in Washington. Its valuation fell from $38 billion earlier this year. 

DoorDash, the popular food delivery service, is valued at $13 billion.

DoorDash launched in San Francisco in 2013, and has since gained a fair amount of competitors like UberEats, Postmates, and Seamless. This past summer, the company faced backlash for its pay model for delivery workers that sometimes meant workers didn't actually receive customers' tips. The company changed its policy following the criticism.

DoorDash remains a private company and cofounder Tony Xu told Forbes the company will not disclose financials, but is still not profitable. He said the company plans to continue to raise money, launch new products, and expand the service.

WeWork, the commercial real estate and shared workspace company launched in 2010, was the most valuable private tech startup at the beginning of 2019 at $47 billion. Today, it's worth a fraction of that.

When WeWork was first introduced into society's consciousness, it was called revolutionary. WeWork's office spaces, sleek and full of amenities, attracted all kinds of members. Cofounder Adam Neumann proved to be so charming and persuasive that he secured a $4.4 billion investment from SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son.

But when WeWork publicly filed its IPO paperwork in 2019, the public got its first look at the company's financials, which showed mounting losses, in the billions, concerning corporate governance. Combined with reports of erratic behavior by its eccentric CEO, Neumann, the IPO plans hit a wall and initial measures to placate potential investors weren't enough to save the public offering. WeWork eventually shelved its plan to go public indefinitely, and Neumann stepped down, but not without walking away with more than $1 billion. According to CB Insights, WeWork's valuation is around $8 billion now.

The on-demand grocery delivery app Instacart founded in 2012 was last valued at nearly $8 billion.

Instagram's partnerships with large chain grocery stores, like Amazon's Whole Foods, and its willingness to cater to "brick-and-mortar retailers," according to Recode, are essential for its future growth.

Like DoorDash, Instacart's fleet of workers have publicly called out the company for its pay model, which replaced tips with a service fee. The company brought the option to tip back, but the move still drew criticism after the location of the tipping feature changed.

The company's pay model still is an issue of contention for its workers, who just this past summer urged the platform's users to tip in cash instead of through the platform, and have even gone on strike. 

Robinhood, the no-fee stock-trading app popular among millennials, launched in 2013, and as of October 2019 was valued at $8.78 billion.

With a user base of over 6 million, the app also offers the option of buying and trading of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ethereum, and litecoin.

"There were a lot of people who didn't believe in it, and we had to bang down a ton of doors," cofounder Vlad Tenev told Business Insider. Some of Robinhood's flashier investors include Snoop Dogg and San Francisco-based venture capital firm Index Ventures. 

Robinhood's rise didn't come without some roadblocks. Earlier this year, the company had to walk back the launch of its high-yield checking and savings accounts within just one day of its announcement.

SoFi, the US-based online personal money management startup, was founded in 2011 and has a valuation of $4.8 billion.

In 2015, the company announced a $1 billion series F round led by SoftBank, making it the largest "single largest financing round in the fintech space" at the time. 

In 2017, former SoFi CEO Mike Cagney stepped down after a New York Times investigation reported Cagney was at the center of sexual harassment claims and the company's "toxic" environment. Since the scandal, Anthony Noto — former chief operating officer of Twitter and former managing director at Goldman Sachs — has taken over and shown interest in SoFi entering the cryptocurrency game.

Scooter and bike rental startup Lime is valued at $2.4 billion after raising over $777 million since its launch in 2017.

The last two years have seen a rise in e-scooter companies like Lime, which first launched in its hometown of Santa Monica and is now available in 120 markets around the world. Last year, however, was a tumultuous one for Lime, but was also the same year it hit the billion-dollar valuation mark. 

The city of San Francisco sent the company a cease and desist alleging its "current business practices [that] create a public nuisance." Multiple studies examined the number of injuries caused by e-scooters, leading to a very public backlash, while newer reports suggest that cities don't know how to regulate them, or end up banning them completely, and riders don't really know how to ride them.  

Postmates was first introduced in San Francisco in 2011. Today, the company, which employs thousands of couriers who deliver groceries, takeout, and more locally, operates in over 3,000 cities.

This past September, Postmates was valued at $2.4 billion after raising $225 million in funding— raising its total funding to $906 million. It first reached billion-dollar valuation status in 2018 as better-funded competitors entered the market. The company was expected to go public by the end of 2019, but its IPO has reportedly been shelved until 2020 at the earliest.

According to a report by Business Insider, Postmates remains "unprofitable and lags a crowded field of rivals in the food delivery market."

Plant-based food company Impossible Foods is currently valued at $4 billion and is expected to go public soon.

Founded in 2011, Impossible Foods makes plant-based foods to replace meat, dairy, and fish. This past year, the Silicon Valley-based company launched a nationwide partnership with Burger King, bringing its plant-based burgers to thousands of locations across the US. 

Demand for its products led Impossible Foods to complete a $300 million Series E funding round in May, skyrocketing its valuation to $2 billion as the demand for a better vegetarian burger fires up. Some noteworthy investors include pop singer Katy Perry, tennis star Serena Williams, and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates. At the end of 2018, the company said it was turning out a million pounds of the product every month — and there are no signs of demand slowing down.

It it now raising $350 million at a $4 billion valuation, according to PitchBook.

Hims, the online platform where men can order personal care products discreetly, reached unicorn status in January 2019 and is currently valued at $1.1 billion.

The success of Hims, which was founded in San Francisco in 2017, is largely attributed to its splashy, millennial-focused ad campaigns. Hims offer users sexual-health products, birth control, skin care, and hair-loss treatments without having to physically go to the doctor to get a prescription. 

The company has raised nearly $200 million since its launch, but has also sparked concern among some doctors who said the health startup's effort to increase the number of online patients that could be treated with generic Viagra was worrisome. 

Glossier, the online beauty brand that sells makeup and skincare, reached a billion-dollar valuation in the first half of 2019.

Founded in 2010, CEO Emily Weiss harnessed the power of her social media presence to build a community of dedicated makeup and skincare enthusiasts where "less is more" is the motto.

Glossier's products, famous for its "millennial pink" packaging, have been used by countless celebrities, but the company has also made a point of tracking down "micro" and "nano" influencers (those with 1,000 to 100,000 followers) and paying them to promote the brand through their personal Instagram profiles. With a small number of brick-and-mortar stores, Glossier instead does semi-regular pop-ups where customers can come shop IRL.

Casper, the mattress and bedding company, was founded in 2014 and is credited with being one of the first bed-in-a-box startups.

With over $400 million in revenue for 2018, and $355 million in total funding to date, Casper reached a $1.1 billion valuation in March.

The company opened a retail store last year, and plans to open over a hundred more in the coming year, on top of its products being available in most Target stores.

In addition to popularizing the boxed delivery of mattresses, Casper's success can be linked to a marketing strategy taken up by many other popular-among-millennial brands: ads, ads, ads— on the subway, on podcasts, on billboards, on social media. So what's next for the company dedicated to revolutionizing sleep? A possible IPO.

Warby Parker, a direct-to-consumer brand that sells eyeglasses, reached unicorn status just five years after it launched in 2010.

Warby Parker offers a wide variety of stylish eyewear and sunglasses, as well as eye exams, at low costs, attracting millions of customers and raking in nearly $300 million in funding. It was last valued at $1.75 billion. 

Warby Parker has hundreds of stores around the US, but new features such as its"virtual try-on" is an attempt to attract customers outside of metropolitan hotspots and those who just don't have time to make an appointment.  In 2018, the company said it had reached profitability, and its founders are talking about an initial public offering in terms of "when" not "if," according to Recode. 

Ride-hailing giant Lyft went public at $72 a share and a $29 billion valuation in March — the first of its competitors to do so.

Lyft was founded in 2012 and quickly became one of Uber's closest competitors, though Uber remains the leader in the crowded ride-hailing market. Since it launched in San Francisco, the  company went on to raise around $5 billion from big-name investors like General Motors, Andreessen Horowitz, and Google's parent company Alphabet, before eventually going public at $72 a share.

Since then, its share price has traded below the IPO share price. On Friday, it was trading at around $49 a share.

Lyft is available in nearly 700 cities in the US, despite having no clear timeline for reaching profitability. Lyft has also come under fire for some of the same reasons users revolted against Uber. In October, over 30 women filed a lawsuit against the company saying it did not do enough to protect them against sexual assault and, in some cases, kidnapping. Lyft drivers also went on strike in May to protest what they called poor work conditions and low pay rates. 

Founded in early 2015, Away, the suitcase retailer that prides itself on sleek design and durable materials, reached a $1.45 billion valuation in May.

With its products being praised as "Instagram worthy," Away has raised $181 million in total, sold over 1 million of its lightweight, high-tech suitcases, and is backed by models including Karlie Kloss.

Away's cofounder Jen Rubio got her start at Warby Parker. Rubio and the Away team are now working on wellness products and travel-approved apparel in addition to their luggage lineup.

When tech meets mindfulness, you get Calm, the meditation app born in 2012 that reached a $1 billion valuation this year.

As mental health initiatives spread across the country, the Calm app and its many features, like breathing exercises and sleep stories, have gained a lot of traction. Calm got the attention of celebrities like Aston Kutcher and his VC firm Sound Ventures. In July, Calm completed a $115 million Series B raise — bringing its valuation to a bit over $1 billion and making it the first so-called unicorn startup focused on meditation. 

Cofounders Alex Tew and Michael Acton Smith plan to expand Calm through its partnerships with XpresSpa, American Airlines, Sonos, and Uber.

Famously used by human resource professionals, ZipRecruiter was founded in 2010 with the intent to connect candidates to companies looking to hire. It reached a $1.5 billion valuation in October 2018.

ZipRecruiter uses artificial intelligence to connect hiring managers with job seekers. Over 100,000 businesses use ZipRecruiter to find the candidates, according to TechCrunch. With no whispers of a potential IPO just yet, cofounder Ian Siegel said the company will continue to improve its existing software. 

Instagram, founded in 2010, was estimated to be worth over $100 billion in 2018, according to a report from Bloomberg Intelligence. In 2012, Facebook bought the image-sharing platform for $1 billion.

It is safe to say Facebook's $1 billion investment in Instagram paid off. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, Instagram would be worth at least $100 billion as a standalone company. In 2018, the company announced it had reached 1 billion active monthly users, a number many expect to rise. 

Since its launch, Instagram has expanded beyond photo sharing. There's IG TV, shopping, live video, stories, and even the ability to donate to different nonprofit organizations. More recently Instagram announced it was testing a feature that would do away with likes— a move that some praised and others threatened to quit the app over.

New York-based health insurance startup Oscar Health was founded in 2012 and is worth $3.2 billion.

Oscar raised $375 million from Alphabet last year, and said it pulled in nearly $1 billion in revenue. Oscar caters to the digital-savvy in search of adequate health insurance who don't want to deal with too much red tape typically associated with signing up for insurance. The company has a couple hundred thousand users, its biggest age group being those 26 to 35 years old. Alphabet's $375 million in 2018 gave Google's parent company a ~10% stake, and pushed Oscar's valuation to $3.2 billion.

For the first nine months of 2018, according to state insurance filings reviewed by Business Insider, Oscar lost $12 million. That's significantly less of a loss than 2017, when it reported a $96 million loss in the third quarter alone. For the first half of 2019, the company said it took in $678 million in gross premium revenue, and that it generated a gross underwriting profit of $128 million. 

This past summer, CEO Mario Schlosser announced Oscar's marketplace would start selling Obamacare plans, including Medicare Advantage plans, in 12 new markets starting in 2020. 

Additional reporting by Lydia Ramsey and Clarrie Feinstein.

Robotic food-preparation company Zume, known for its pizza-making robots, landed a $375 million investment led by SoftBank in 2018, skyrocketing its valuation to over $2 billion. It's now reportedly seeking additional funding at a $4 billion+ valuation.

A year before Zume hit unicorn status, it was valued at only $170 million. But since its launch in 2015, Zume Pizza set out to revolutionize the pizza-making process — employing robots and artificial intelligence to man the kitchen and send out orders more swiftly at a low cost. CEO and cofounder Julian Collins said from Zume's data collection, it "predict what pizza you want before you even order it."

But the company is now pivoting amid an executive exodus as it restructuring to focus on growing revenues, Business Insider's Megan Hernbroth reported in November. In September, Zume announced a partnership to launch mobile kitchens, expanding into compostable packaging and food-truck services.

Allbirds, the company that manufactures the trendy wool sneakers dubbed "the world's most comfortable shoes," reached a $1.4 billion valuation this year.

Allbirds launched in Silicon Valley in 2014 and has since raised over $77 million from investors including Fidelity and legacy firm Tiger Global Management. The core concept of Allbirds is its commitment to sustainability — the foam in the sneakers are made from sugarcane, and the textile of choice is, of course, Merino wool. Celebrities like Jessica Alba, Amy Adams, and Blake Lively have been seen sporting the sneaker, too. 

The company has recently filed a lawsuit alleging Austrian footwear company Giesswein Walkwaren of copying its iconic kicks. And it wasn't the first time Allbirds went to court over another company over copying concerns. In 2017, the brand settled a suit with footwear giant Steve Madden. Allbirds recently called out Amazon's own wool shoes, and CEO Joey Zwillinger penned an open letter to Jeff Bezos asking the company to "please steal our approach to sustainability."

As for the future of Allbirds, founders of Tim Brown and Joey Zwillinger still plan on challenging "the status quo" of sustainable material innovation. 

Online resale retailer The Real Real was valued at $1.65 billion and went public this summer.

The Real Real got its start in 2011 in San Francisco. At first, the company was only online, but with its success selling items like Adidas Yeezys, Hermes Birkin bags, Chanel shoes, and Louboutin heels, it opened its first store in 2017. 

Consumers eager to buy used designer items led The Real Real to grow quickly, opening new fulfillment centers and three stores in Los Angeles and New York City. 

Julie Wainwright, the company's founder and CEO, told Recode that the luxury resale market remains largely online still — so don't get your hopes up for The Real Real department stores all over the world any time soon. 

Gusto, the platform that makes payroll easier for managers, was founded in 2011 and has a valuation of $3.8 billion.

According to CEO Joshua Reeves, customer service and satisfaction are what drive him and his team to refine Gusto as a product for the average small business owner. Gusto's simplified platform has attracted over 100,000 customers, processing billions of dollars of payroll every year. It even lets business owners offer their employees health insurance, retirement and savings plans. 

This past July, Gusto raised $200 million in funding, bringing its total to over $500 million. The next step for Gusto is to hire more employees and "double down on research and development," according to Crunchbase. 

Fintech insurance startup Lemonade has raised a total of $480 million in funding, launching its valuation to $2.1 billion earlier this year.

Lemonade uses an AI bot to create personalized renters and homeowners insurance policies on a simplified platform where users can be insured starting from $5 and $25 per month. Lemonade's ability to thoughtfully explain technical terminology, like what a deductible is, while making it easy to submit claims has won it the support of many millennials. 

The startup has reportedly sold more than half a million insurance policies and generated more than $57 million in revenue last year. After a successful 2018, Lemonade announced its plans to bring the platform to all 50 states and Europe, as well as hire more employees to help manage its rapid growth. 

Snapchat went public in 2017, and today its market valuation is around $23 billion, making a rebound from its low of $7 billion last December.

Snapchat, the photo-and-video-based messaging app, launched in July 2011, and attracted millions of younger users who loved the platform's disappearing message feature. That's no longer the app's only draw, however. Snapchat has evolved as a social media company, introducing its Discover page, where users can find news and famous internet personalities, and a text chat feature, among other features. The app has almost 200 million daily users and continues to be one of the preferred platforms for Gen Z. 

And though the company is worth around $23 billion today, and is considered to be this year's "best performing" tech stock, the LA Times reported in April that Snapchat has three years to reach profitability before it runs out of cash.

Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange, launched in 2012 and hit unicorn status in October 2018 with an $8 billion valuation.

If you are interested in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin, chances are you're already aware of Coinbase, though the app didn't really take off until 2014 when investors like rapper Nas and VC firms like Andreessen Horowitz began to take notice. 

With more than half a billion dollars in total funding, Coinbase hopes to expand outside of the United States. Coinbase vice president Dan Romero told Business Insider in 2018 that the company's goal was to become the Google of crypto.

With big investments from industry giants like Ford and Volkswagen, Argo AI reached a $7.25 billion valuation in July, just two years after the company launched.

Autonomous vehicles seem to be on the mind of every car maker, including the biggest: VW is the world's biggest automaker by sales volume last year. And that's where Argo AI comes in. The autonomous-driving tech startup caught the eye, and cash, of two of the largest car makers in the world. Ford invested early with $1.6 billion, and with Volkswagen's $2.6 billion total investment, Argo AI's valuation reached new heights in 2019.

These partnerships will help Argo share the cost of getting its autonomous cars to the market, while also turning its attention to the future automation of off-road equipment, too. But with so many other competitors in the field, the race is on. 

Healthcare is a ripe industry to disrupt, and San Francisco-based Clover Health knows it. The company, founded in 2014, is valued at $1.2 billion.

Clover Health's incentive is to do away with paperwork and focus more on the patient by using "predictive analytics technology"— a feature Clover promoted as a way to keep costs down using the Medicare Advantage Plan.

But the road hasn't been easy for the startup. Last year, seniors insured on Clover began receiving medical bills for blood work, a surprise experience that was not supposed to happen, according to the company.

And even five years after launching, Clover has managed to make its way into "select counties" in seven states, thanks to the historically slow-moving healthcare industry, one many other startups are attempting to disrupt. But that doesn't mean investors are not interested — in January, Clover raised $500 million, bringing its total funding to over $900 million, with help from Alphabet's venture arm GV. 

Valued at over $3.6 billion when it went public, gene sequencing startup 10x Genomics continues to help doctors and scientists understand cancers and cell therapy.

Launched in 2012, 10x Genomics went public in September after hitting unicorn status in January. The company focuses on "single-cell sequencing" and has worked with institutions like Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

In 2017, the company, backed by investors like Softbank, said its sales reached $71 million. CEO Serge Saxonov was one of the founding researchers at 23andMe, and hopes 10x can help scientists better understand genetics down to a single-cell level. The company continues to sell its handful of products to academic, federal, and drug-development labs across the country, with plans to expand further, and make more DNA-focused acquisitions. 

Check out a list of all the companies that hit $1 billion valuation in 2019 over on PitchBook. 

• The world's largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean'sSymphony of the Seas, has 23 restaurants.
• I spent a week on the ship and tried to eat at all of them.
• I loved the pizza and DIY taco bar, which were both included with a standard cruise ticket.
• If you want to splurge, I suggest the truffle tagliatelle at Jamie's Italian, or the deviled eggs at Wonderland.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

I spent a week on Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas, which boasts the title of the world's largest cruise ship.

I tried my hardest to eat my way through the ship— but with around 30,000 dishes created across 23 dining venues daily, this was no easy feat.

In fact, I would have had to eat at 3.28 different restaurants every single day of my trip to get to all of them.

While I may not have tried every single thing, I did get close. And while the world's largest cruise ship has a dizzying array of options, I managed to narrow it down to my 10 absolute favorite dishes.

Save yourself some time and money and keep scrolling to see which dishes you absolutely cannot miss while on board.

El Loco Fresh is a DIY taco bar with a huge selection of toppings, from cilantro to cheese to jalapeños. The beef tacos were my favorite.

Cost: Included.

While you're here: Grab a bowl of nachos and bring on the toppings for a DIY nacho bowl.

Apparently, Royal Caribbean's team of chefs spent years perfecting the New York-style pizza at Sorrento's. As a New Yorker, I approve.

Cost: Included.

The deviled eggs at Wonderland come in a glass bowl of smoke. They are creamy, smoky, and delicious.

Cost: A six-course dinner is $45 per person.

While you're here: A reconstructed caprese salad with liquid olive, ricotta powder, basil, and tomato water is also worth trying.

The truffle tagliatelle at Jamie's Italian was super creamy, and did not skimp on the truffles.

Cost: A three-course meal here starts at $20 per person for lunch, and $40 for dinner.

While you're here: Round out your three-course meal with truffle arancini or a cured meat plank, then save room for the Amalfi Lemon Meringue Cheesecake, a sort of delicious cross between a key lime pie and a cheesecake.

The Campfire Cookie at Playmakers — a chocolate chip cookie topped with marshmallows and Nutella — takes a few laps around the ship's running track to burn off, but is so worth it.

Cost: $6.

While you're here: Also get the Poke Nachos, which are wonton chips topped with raw ahi tuna, Serrano peppers, cilantro, and avocado with Sriracha aioli.

Izumi's truffle lobster tempura roll is pure, delectable decadence with both creamy truffle and crispy fried lobster.

Cost: $16.

While you're here: The Crispy Rice Spicy Tuna — creamy tuna on crispy rice — is also very, very good.

The Maine lobster roll at Hooked is everything a lobster roll should be: heavy on the lobster, light on the mayo, and served on a grilled bun with a side of homemade chips.

Cost: A three-course dinner starts at $40 per person.

While you're here: The Messy Fish Sandwich, which consists of fried cod topped with coleslaw and tartar sauce, was a very close second.

The lamb kofta meatballs at Solarium Bistro were soft and delicate, and came in a perfectly spiced tomato sauce.

Cost: Included.

While you're here: The moussaka, also lamb, was another favorite dish of mine.

The braised beef short rib at 150 Central Park is cooked for four hours, and literally melts in your mouth.

Cost: A three-course dinner starts at $45.

While you're here: 150 Central Park also makes a mean table-side martini.

The avocado salmon toast at Windjammer Marketplace was my favorite breakfast item besides the giant pile of crispy bacon.

Cost: Included.

• Read more:
• Behind-the-scenes photos show how the world's largest cruise ship makes 30,000 dishes every single day
• I spent a week on the world's largest cruise ship, and while the buffet was exactly as expected the fine dining blew my mind
• I stayed in a 182-square-foot room on the world's largest cruise ship, where no space was left unused. Here's what it's like inside.
• I've traveled all over the world but just went on my very first cruise. Here are the 22 things that surprised me the most, as well as my best tips for first-time cruisers.
• Royal Caribbean has its very own private island in the Bahamas, which just underwent a $250 million revamp. Here's what it's like to go.
• The world's largest cruise ship has a bar with robot bartenders. Here's how my margarita compared to one made by a human.
• The world's largest cruise ship has everything from an ice rink to a zip line, but it's the Starbucks that surprised me most
• I went on the world's largest cruise and found getting onto a giant ship similar to boarding a flight — but way more efficient

• Some of the Baby Yoda toys you've been searching for are finally here.
• Two Funko figures, a stuffed animal from Mattel, and a puzzle were officially announced by Disney on Tuesday and are available for pre-sale on shopDisney.com.
• They won't start shipping until February 2020.
• In a press release, Disney announced more products from Lego, Hasbro, and more centered around the character will be available starting in 2020.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

The first Baby Yoda toys are finally available to pre-order!

Tuesday, Disney announced two Funko figures and a stuffed animal of the popular character from "The Mandalorian" TV series are now available on shopDisney.com.

"We're excited to release new products for pre-order on shopDisney.com, and are continuing to work closely with our licensees and retailers to roll out additional items including toys, collectibles, plush, games, apparel and more, allowing fans to celebrate the newest addition to 'Star Wars,'" said Lucasfilm's svp of licensing and franchise, Paul Southern, to Insider in a statement.

Until now, fans were able to purchase shirts and mugs featuring the 50-year-old creature, who's officially referred to as "The Child" for right now and has won over the hearts of "Star Wars" fans.

Though Funkos and stuffed animals are currently available for pre-sale, don't expect them in time for the holidays. According to Disney, the Funko and plush figures will start shipping in February 2020. Disney and Walmart's websites suggest the items may not arrive until April or May.

Those won't be the only items available based on the popular "Star Wars" character. Later next year, Hasbro's Black Series and Vintage Collections will include "all new unique expressions of the Child." More products from Lego, shopDisney.com, and more will be available starting in the new year. 

Keep reading to see what Baby Yoda toys you can pre-order right now.

Funko is releasing a Pop! Bobblehead figure of the little alien.

Funko's signature black eyes lend themselves perfectly to the little Yoda character. The sack he wears looks a little more stylized here with a zipper. The item is limited to one per customer.

Price: $8.99-$12.99
Ages: 3+
Where to find it:shopDisney.com, Target, Walmart

A second Funko figure is larger, standing at 10 inches.

This large vinyl figure is also a bobblehead.

Price: $29.99
Ages: 3+
Where to find it:shopDisney.com, Target, Walmart

Mattel is releasing the first plush of the character.

The 11-inch plush has a soft body with a bean-filled base. You'll be able to turn its vinyl head manually. The fabric robes are not removable. The character will come in special packaging resembling his crib on the show.

Price: $24.99
Ages: 3+
Where to find it:shopDisney.com, Target

Buffalo Games has a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle featuring the little guy that comes with a poster.

It would make a nice piece of art to frame once finished.

Price: $10.99
Ages: 14+
Where to find it:Amazon

• Sundar Pichai is now the CEO of Alphabet, Google's parent company.
• Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin both announced that they were stepping down from their leadership roles at the company in a letter that announced Pichai will be CEO of both Google and Alphabet moving forward.
• Pichai has been CEO of Google since 2015.
• See the career rise and details of Pichai's life, in photos, below.

Sundar Pichai first took the helm at Google in 2015. On Tuesday, Google's cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced that Pichai would be taking over as Alphabet CEO, as both Page and Brin are stepping down from their leadership roles at the company.

Until December 2, Larry Page was still CEO of Google's parent company, Alphabet, and Pichai had the incredibly important job of making sure that the company's core businesses and cash cow — Search — stayed strong. Now, he's CEO of both Google and Alphabet.

So who is Pichai and how did he scale the ranks to get one of the most important jobs at one of the most important companies in the world?

Here's his story, in photos.

Jillian D'Onfro contributed to an earlier version of this article.

Pichai, whose full name is actually Pichai Sundararajan, grew up in Chennai, India. His father was as an electrical engineer and his mother a stenographer before having him and his younger brother. The family wasn't wealthy, and the boys slept together in the living room of their two-room apartment.

Source: Bloomberg, Inc.

Early on, Pichai had a talent for remembering numbers, which his family realized when he could recall every phone number he had ever dialed on their rotary phone. He will still sometimes show off his memorization skills at meetings.

Source: Bloomberg

After becoming interested in computers — the first software program he wrote was a chess game — Pichai studied metallurgical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. His success there won him a scholarship to Stanford.

Source: YouTube

Moving to California was a huge leap. "I always loved technology and while growing up I had dreams of Silicon Valley," Pichai said in a recent interview. "I used to read about it, hear stories from my uncle."

Sources: Business Insider, Bloomberg

When Pichai got to America in 1993, he couldn't believe how expensive everything was (a backpack cost $60!). He also missed his girlfriend, Anjali.

Source: Bloomberg

The two eventually got married, and now have a son, Kiran, and daughter, Kavya.

Source: The Guardian

Pichai earned his MS from Stanford, and then attended the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School for his MBA. Before Google, he had stints at Applied Materials and consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

Pichai interviewed at the Googleplex on April Fools' Day in 2004 — the same day the company launched Gmail. Everyone, Pichai included, initially thought that the free email service was one of Google's infamous pranks.

Source: Bloomberg

Pichai got his start working on Google's search toolbar. But in 2006, Microsoft created a "Doomsday" scenario for Google by making Bing the new default search engine on Internet Explorer. Pichai helped convince computer manufacturers to preinstall the Toolbar on their hardware to mitigate the effect of this change.

Source: Quora

That Internet Explorer debacle led to another big early achievement for Pichai: convincing cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to make Google build its own browser. The result, Chrome, is now the most-used option out there.

Source: Bloomberg

As a leader, Pichai was always well-liked and more focused on results instead of standing out. That "substance over overt style" attitude attracted attention, though, and he started getting more responsibility.

Source: Business Insider

Pichai then took over the Android division in 2013.

Source: Business Insider

One of the major efforts he spearheaded was Android One, Google's push to make low-cost smartphones for "the next 5 billion" people coming online.

Pichai was also incredibly instrumental in making sure Android was better integrated with Google proper. Before he took over, it was run basically as a completely separate business.

Source: Buzzfeed

Another landmark in Pichai's rise: He was reportedly instrumental in helping put together Google's $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest in 2014.

Here's a prophetic post from 2011:

Source: Bloomberg

Pichai was also behind Chrome OS, the operating system that powers Google's inexpensive Chromebook laptops.

Pichai has remained a loyal Googler despite being approached by Twitter for high-ranking roles a couple of times.

Source: Business Insider

We've been told that he would often act as Larry Page's "interpreter"— understanding Page's vision and then helping to communicate it to other teams.

Source: Business Insider

That knack and his success with Chrome, Apps, and Android led to his next important promotion in late 2014, when Page put him in charge of almost all of the company's product areas, including search, maps, Google+, commerce and ads, and infrastructure. He essentially became Page's second in command.

Source: Business Insider

Page respects Pichai. "Sundar has a tremendous ability to see what's ahead and mobilize teams around the super important stuff," he wrote in a memo announcing Pichai's promotion. "We very much see eye-to-eye when it comes to product, which makes him the perfect fit for this role."

Source: Business Insider

When the company blew up its corporate structure almost a year later, it was no surprise that Pichai got tapped to lead Google, since he was responsible for its core products.

Although he's private, Pichai is willing to speak out about certain causes that he believes in. Following some of Donald Trump's comments about immigration, he wrote a public post expressing his views: "Let's not let fear defeat our values. We must support Muslim and other minority communities in the US and around the world."

Source: Medium

And although Pichai doesn't use Instagram and rarely tweets, he was pretty active Google+ poster over the years, which gave us a little more insight into his personality.

His posts mostly highlight various Chrome rollouts, but they also reveal that he admires people like Nelson Mandela, Anthony Shadid, Dennis Ritchie, Wangari Maathai, John McCarthy, and Aaron Swartz.

We also know that he loves cricket...

...and the game "Flappy Bird." Here he is meeting with creator Dong Nguyen.

Pichai starts his day with a cup of tea and an omelette — plus a copy of the Wall Street Journal.

Source: Business Insider

Pichai was always well-liked as a leader at Google as he rose through the ranks, and was known to be more focused on results than on ego. As CEO, his popularity soared. One Googler on Quora wrote, "He is literally worshipped inside Google. Engineers love him. Product Managers love him. Business people love him."

Source: Business Insider

Pichai was one of the highest-rated CEOs on Glassdoor at one point — he received a 96% approval rating from respondents. But Google has faced ongoing unrest from its employees in recent years. He's since slipped to No. 46, and has faced criticism from Google employees over efforts to create a censored search engine for China.

Source: Business Insider

He's well-compensated for his work. In February 2016, Pichai received roughly $183 million in company stock, which will vest over the next four years. According to Bloomberg, this is the highest pay package that Google has ever given to an executive whose equity grants have been reported in filings.

Source: Business Insider, Bloomberg

In July 2017, Pichai was named to Alphabet's board of directors. "Sundar has been doing a great job as Google's CEO, driving strong growth, partnerships, and tremendous product innovation. I really enjoy working with him and I'm excited that he is joining the Alphabet board," Alphabet CEO Larry Page said at the time.

Source: Business Insider

In his home country, Pichai is seen as something of a hero. "You've done what everyone has dreamed of doing," interviewer Harsha Bhogle said while Pichai did a Q&A session with students at a Delhi University.

Source: YouTube

Here he is meeting with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Throughout his meteoric rise, he's remained incredibly humble: "It is always good to work with people who make you feel insecure about yourself. That way, you will constantly keep pushing your limits."

Source: The Hindu

In December 2019, Alphabet CEO Larry Page and President Sergey Brin announced that were stepping down, and Pichai would become Alphabet CEO.

Page and Brin cofounded Google in 1998. They announced the change in a letter saying that Alphabet and Google "no longer need two CEOs and a President."

Pichai will serve as CEO of both Google and Alphabet. 

• Larry Page founded Google with Sergey Brin in 1998 and has served as CEO of its parent company, Alphabet, since 2015. 
• Page and Brin both stepped down from their roles on Tuesday. They wrote in a letter that "Alphabet and Google no longer need two CEOs and a president," leaving Sundar Pichai to lead both as CEO.
• Here's how Page got his start, and how he built Google into what it is today.  
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Larry Page is one of the most powerful people in the world.

The quirky, soft-spoken computer scientist co-founded Google with Sergey Brin in 1998. As Google evolved into a multi-billion-dollar juggernaut, Page stayed at the helm, first as Google's CEO and later running its parent company, Alphabet. 

But on Tuesday, Page announced that he, along with Brin, would be stepping down from their roles at Alphabet. Brin had served as the company's president. Sundar Pichai will now serve as both Google and Alphabet CEO. 

So who is Larry Page and how did he get to where he is today?

Here's his story.

Jillian D'Onfro contributed to an earlier version of this story. 

DON'T MISS: The eccentric, successful life of Google cofounder Sergey Brin

Gloria and Carl Page had their second son, Lawrence, on March 26, 1973. They both taught computer science at Michigan State University and filled their home with computers and tech magazines that enthralled Larry from a very young age.

They enrolled him in a Montessori school. Such programs are known to foster independence and creativity, and Page now credits "that training of not following rules and orders, and being self-motivated and questioning what's going on in the world" as influencing his later attitudes and work.

Source: YouTube

At 12, Page read a biography about the brilliant inventor Nikola Tesla, who died in debt and obscurity. The ending made him cry, and inspired Page to not only want to build world-changing technologies, but to have the business sense to know how to spread them. "I figured that inventing things wasn't any good," he has said. "You really had to get them out into the world and have people use them to have any effect."

Source: Business Insider, Achievement.org

Besides tinkering with electronics, Page also played saxophone growing up, and he once told Fortune that his musical training in part led "to the high-speed legacy of Google" (Apparently he also tried to pick up percussion in the last few years).

Source: Fortune 

During his time as an undergrad at University of Michigan, Page started mulling the future of transportation, something he's still interested in today. He joined the school's solar-car team (pictured below) and suggested that Michigan build a monorail-like "personal rapid-transit system" between its campuses.

Today, Google parent company Alphabet is working on both self-driving cars through its company, Waymo, and data-driven transportation improvements through Sidewalk Labs. 

Source: Business Insider 

After graduation, Page headed west to Stanford for his Ph.D. There, he met Sergey Brin in 1995. The two became close friends, geeking out about computer science.

After Page suddenly woke up from a dream at 23 wondering if he could "download the whole web," he started working on an idea to rank webpages by their inbound links, instead of how many times they contained a queried word. He enlisted Brin's help and they started collaborating on a search engine they initially called BackRub.

Soon, BackRub became Google — also a mathematical term — because it reflected Page and Brin's mission “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Source: Google

Both Page and Brin are "burners," or avid attendees of the free-wheeling art festival Burning Man. The year after incorporating Google, they created the first-ever Google Doodle to let people know they weren't around to do damage control if the site broke — they had retreated to the Nevada desert for the festival.

Page has admitted that he's better at big-picture ideas than management, in part because he doesn't enjoy dealing with people. As a leader, he focuses on results and has an affinity for ultra-ambitious ideas.

Business Insider's Nich Carlson reported that when Page was first CEO, he wrote down the following management rules that guided him:

• Don't delegate: Do everything you can yourself to make things go faster.
• Don't get in the way if you're not adding value. Let the people actually doing the work talk to each other while you go do something else.
• Don't be a bureaucrat.
• Ideas are more important than age. Just because someone is junior doesn't mean they don't deserve respect and cooperation.
• The worst thing you can do is stop someone from doing something by saying, "No. Period." If you say no, you have to help them find a better way to get it done.

Omid Kordestani, Google's business founder and a confidante of Page, described him as "curious, idealistic" and "focused on changing the world and having an impact through technology." He doesn't shy away from huge goals, like mapping the entire planet or digitizing every book ever published.

Source: Business Insider

Page ran Google as CEO until 2001, when Eric Schmidt was brought in to lead the company as its "adult supervision." Both Brin and Page were wary of all the CEO candidates, but when they learned Schmidt was originally a programmer and a "burner" too, they felt that at least he'd be a "cultural fit" at the company.

Source: Fast Company

Page wasn't happy about having to relinquish his CEO spot at first but gradually became comfortable being less involved in the day-to-day management of the company.

Source: Business Insider 

In 2007, he actually felt like he was still spending too much time in meetings, so he got rid of his assistants so that anyone who wanted to talk to him had to physically track him down.

Source: Business Insider 

But during that time, Page was still very actively involved in Google's product and vision. He orchestrated the acquisition of Andy Rubin's company, Android, without telling Schmidt until he'd sealed the deal.

Source: Business Insider

But after 10 years, Page decided to take back the CEO title in 2011.

He reorganized the company's senior management, and before the end of 2012, the company had launched Google Plus, its first Chromebook laptop, Google Glass, high-speed-internet service Fiber, and more.

Page continued leading Google until 2015 when the company blew up its corporate structure, and Page became the CEO of parent company Alphabet instead.

Page wrote in his letter about the news that becoming Alphabet's CEO would help with "getting more ambitious things done" and "taking the long-term view" to improve "the lives of as many people as we can."

In that role, Page spent much of his time researching new technologies, meeting and enlisting really smart people, and imagining what Alphabet's next moonshot bet might be.

Source: The New York Times

He's currently ranked No. 6 on Forbes' list of billionaires, with a net worth of $58.9 billion.

Source: Forbes 

Throughout it all, Page has kept information about his personal life closely guarded. It was a rare event when he opened up about having vocal-cord paralysis in 2013. The condition makes his voice softer than it used to be and makes long monologues difficult.

Source: Google Plus

In 2007, Page married Lucinda Southworth, a research scientist. The couple rented out a private island in the Caribbean and invited 600 guests. Virgin Group founder Richard Branson was Page's best man.

Source: ABC News

Page isn't particularly showy with his wealth, but he lives well. He, Southworth, and two kids reside in a Palo Alto compound that includes a $7 million home as well as an "eco-mansion" with a rooftop garden and solar panels.

Source: SFGate

Page's flashiest purchase is perhaps the 194-foot super-yacht called "Senses" that he bought for $45 million in 2011. It has a helipad and a Jacuzzi on its deck.

Source: The Daily Mail 

And collectively, Page, Brin, and Schmidt have also purchased at least eight private jets.

Back in 2006, court documents revealed that Schmidt had to help settle an argument between the founders, who were bickering about what size beds the "party plane" needed. They also wanted to outfit the plane with hammocks and a cocktail bar. 

Source: The Mercury News

Page also dedicates part of his wealth to causes he believes in. He's a personal investor in Planetary Resources, which aims to mine asteroids; Tesla; and Twigtale, a personalized children's book startup founded by his sister-in-law.

Source: Forbes, Crunchbase

In 2006, he also started The Carl Victor Page Memorial Foundation in honor of his father. Carl Page died soon after Larry left for grad school because of complications caused by polio he contracted as a child.

Source: Foundation Directory Online, Google

But perhaps the best part of Page's job is that he has also gotten to chase his far-flung aspirations through Alphabet. The company's search engine ads machine pumps out so much money that Alphabet can afford to spend on "other bets" that Page is passionate about, like building smarter home appliances, spreading internet through its Project Loon balloons, and extending human life.

Source: Business Insider

These days, Page seems most interested in flying cars. Page has reportedly invested $100 million of his own money in "Zee.Aero," an aircraft company working on a "revolutionary new form of transportation." Page is also an investor in Kitty Hawk, a mysterious flying-car startup. The company recently built a fully electric, single-person aircraft.

Source: Business Insider, Business Insider

In December 2019, Page and Brin announced in a letter that they were stepping down from their roles as Alphabet CEO and president, respectively. "Alphabet and Google no longer need two CEOs and a President," the pair wrote.

Source: Google

• The London Natural History Museum's annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition offers the public the chance to vote on their favorite images. 
• The front-runners for the people's choice award include images of a rainforest frog enjoying a spidery meal, a lounging leopard, and a curious golden eagle.
• People can vote on their favorites until February 4, 2020.
• Here are 20 of the top photographs in this year's contest. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Humans rarely get to glimpse the the animal kingdom up-close. But each year, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest, which is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum in London, offers a peek into the lives of species around the world.

The contest awards photographers whose work inspires us to consider our place in the natural world and our responsibility to protect it.

This year, photographers from 100 countries submitted 48,000 entries, and contest judges announced a group of winners in October. Now, the public gets to vote on a people's choice award.

The contest organizers curated a shortlist of photographs for this voting process. Many of those images throw into sharp relief the relationships between creatures — mothers and cubs, predators and prey, people and animals. One photo captures a baby jaguar and its mother toting a large anaconda, while another seems to show two mice duking it out on a London Underground platform.

Here are 20 of the best front-runners in this year's people's choice contest. Voting is open until February 4, 2020, and the overall winner will be announced in February after voting ends.

SEE ALSO: The best wildlife photos taken this year reveal a hippo murder, a hungry leopard seal, and a weevil ensnared by zombie fungus

Kenyan photographer Clement Mwangi spent time observing this beautiful leopard as she soaked up the warm rays of the setting sun.

Mwangi said that sometimes as a wildlife photographer, you can miss the exceptional while looking for the unusual.

Photographer Ingo Ardnt captured another serene wildcat on camera in Chile's Torres del Paine National Park. He followed these pumas for over two years.

This female eventually became so used to his presence that one day she fell asleep while Ardnt was nearby. That enabled him to capture this portrait of her relaxed face as she awoke.

Of course, big cats are not known for being peaceful. In this image, a jaguar cub helps its mother carry a giant anaconda out of the Três Irmãos river in Brazil.

The two hunters and their prey mesmerized photographer Michel Zoghzoghi, who was boating on the river. 

Jaguars are known to eat snakes, fish, turtles, deer, tapirs, and caimans.

Mothers and their young make for especially compelling wildlife photography. In this image, Marion Volborn caught a grizzly mother and her cub scratching that unreachable itch.

During a trip to the Nakina River in British Columbia, Volborn spotted this bear and her cub approaching a tree. After the grizzly started to rub her back against the trunk, the cub imitated its mother.

Volborn titled this picture "Mother knows best."

This Caribbean flamingo's shock of pink hides her baby, which pokes out from under its mother's wing to be fed.

The Ría Lagartos Biosphere Reserve in Mexico's Yucatán state is home to the country's largest flock of Caribbean flamingos. This chick is less than five days old; after another week, it will leave its nest and join other youngsters in the colony.

Photographer Steve Levi spent 10 days searching for this polar bear mother and her cubs in Manitoba, Canada.

Levi encountered this polar bear family in March, before they began a long journey north to the sea ice, where the mother could feed. 

But not all animals are lucky enough to live with their mothers or families.

Giant-panda breeding centers like the one pictured above are growing in popularity in China.

According to photographer Marcus Westberg, it's unclear how these centers will benefit the species, since wild pandas are increasing in number and many breeders lack a realistic plan for how to re-release the pandas into the wild.

For this orphaned black rhino, named Kitui, park ranger Elias Mugambi acts as a surrogate parent.

Mugambi often spends weeks away from his own family caring for orphaned black rhinos, which are placed in wildlife sanctuaries like this one after their mothers are killed by poachers.

Some animal moms-to-be, meanwhile, start preparing for the big event before their offspring arrives. At first glance, photographer Stefan Christmann thought these emperor penguins were caring for an egg. It turned out to be a snowball.

The photographer thinks this penguin couple was practicing transferring the snowball between them as if it were an egg.

A female emperor penguin typically lays one egg a year in May or June. Then she must  carefully transfer the egg to her partner, who keeps the egg safe in a pouch between its legs. Males hold and warm the eggs for months while the females return to the sea to feed. 

Emperor penguins form colonies that can include up to 25,000 individuals. Photographer Yaz Loukhal took a helicopter flight then trekked through thick snow in order to photograph this group.

His efforts earned him an incredible view of the colony.

Photographer Michael Schober's image showcases a different type of animal clan: a huddle of Austrian marmots. He titled the photo "Family get-together."

Marmots have become accustomed to the presence of humans in Austria's Hohe Tauern National Park. Allowing people to observe and photograph them at close range benefits the marmots, since human company deters predators like golden eagles.

Whales also travel in groups — theirs are called pods — and hunt cooperatively. Photographer Jake Davis snapped this photo of a humpback whale diving for fish while its pod swam nearby.

This pod was carrying out a type of hunting called bubble-net feeding. Once the leader whale locates fish, the other members of the pod swim in circles while blowing bubbles out their blowholes. This action creates a natural net, trapping the fish for a feast.

Fish often swim in schools for protection from predators. Photographer David Doubilet captured the silhouettes of red tooth triggerfish in the Philippines.

These fish floated above a school of convict blennies, a type of tiny goby fish. The Pacific coral below them is found in the Verde Island Passage: a strait that separates the Philippine islands of Luzon and Mindoro. It's one of the most productive marine ecosystems in the world.

In order to start a family, some males have to first win a partner's affection. In this photo, a female kestrel has accepted an offering from a male suitor.

Photographer Marco Valentini was visiting Hungary's Hortobágyi National Park when he spotted these two kestrels displaying typical courtship behavior. 

The dead lizard could represent the beginning of the kestrels' relationship.

A baby tarantula made for a nice meal for this rainforest frog.

Photographer Lucas Bustamente's spotted this labiated rainfrog enjoying its dinner while he was on a night hike in the Ecuadorian jungle. 

In a distant climate, Norwegian photographer Audun Rikardsen captured a different type of predator: a golden eagle. It took him three years of planning to get this shot.

Finally, the golden eagle became curious about Rikardsen's camera, the photographer said. 

Photographer Valeriy Maleev caught another rarely seen snow-dwelling predator on camera: a Pallas's cat.

Maleev braved negative-44-degree-Fahrenheit temperatures to witness this rare scene in the Mongolian highlands. Pallas's cats are no bigger than a domestic cat; they stalk small rodents, birds, and occasionally even insects.

Elsewhere in Mongolia, Maleev also snapped a photo of a long-eared jerboa scuttling through the Gobi Desert.

The aptly named long-eared jerboa uses its big ears to dissipate excess body heat to stay cool.

Jerboas are hopping rodents that can travel at speeds up to 15 miles per hour. Each critter has its own solitary burrow.

A different type of rodent resides in the London Underground. Photographer Sam Rowley wasn't afraid to lie down on the train platform in order to capture this mouse duel.

The two mice were fighting over scraps of food dropped by passengers, but their squabble only lasted a split second. Then one mouse grabbed a crumb and the subterranean denizens went their separate ways.

Creatures of different species come into conflict, too. In this photo, an aloof kestrel sits above an annoyed magpie on the dead flower spike of an agave plant.

Over several months, photographer Salvador Colvée Nebot watched various birds use this agave bloom in Valencia, Spain as a perch before descending to a nearby pond.

According to Nebot, a pair of kestrels were frequent perchers, though they got hassled by magpies during each visit.

• Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page announced Tuesday they are stepping down from Alphabet, Google's parent company.
• Brin helped found Google in 1998, and has served as Alphabet's president since 2016.
• Here's everything you need to know about the 46-year-old Brin, who has three children, owns property in New York and California, and is worth $56.8 billion.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Google's cofounders are stepping down from their executive positions at the search engine's parent company Alphabet, the pair announced Tuesday.

More than 20 years ago, Sergey Brin and Larry Page first launched Google from a dorm room near Stanford University. Since then, the company has grown into the world's most popular search engine — and branched out into everything from self-driving cars to life-extension research.

It's been a wild ride for both cofounders, but Brin's history is especially intriguing. Keep reading to learn more about the 46-year-old Brin, who served as Alphabet's president and is now worth more than $50 billion.

Jillian D'Onfro contributed to an earlier version of this story.

SEE ALSO: Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer once made an 'Austin Powers' parody video, and it's just as bizarre as you'd imagine

Sergey Brin, 46, is now valued at an estimated $56.8 billion, according to Forbes. But he comes from more humble beginnings.

Source: Forbes

Brin was born in the Soviet Union during the summer of 1973. His father dreamed of being an astrophysicist, but his Jewish background and USSR's anti-Semitism kept him from those ambitions. Instead, he ended up working as an economist for a government planning agency and crunching numbers for Soviet propaganda.

Source: In The Plex 

The family managed to get exit visas and flee the USSR when Brin was six. However, but his family's stressful, troubled experience left the Google cofounder with a lasting appreciation for democracy and freedom.

Source: In The Plex 

The Brin family ended up in Maryland, where the Google cofounder was enrolled in a Montessori school that emphasized independence and fostering creativity. Later on, Brin would discover that his Google cofounder, Larry Page, had also gone to a Montessori school.

Brin didn't revisit Moscow until he was 17, during a class trip led by his father. "Thank you for taking us all out of Russia," Brin told his dad. Spurred by a blossoming defiant streak, he threw pebbles at a police car, and almost got in serious trouble when the officers inside noticed.

Source: Moment Mag

Brin eventually earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science at the University of Maryland, and then flew west to Stanford to get his Ph.D. in computer science. There, his love of high-adrenaline exercise flourished: He tried out skating, skiing, gymnastics, and even trapeze.

Sources: Founders of Google, Moment Mag

Brin's resume from back in 1996, as he was working toward his Ph.D. at Stanford, is still available online. Before Google, Brin was more focused on making an algorithm for personalized movie recommendations, or finding a way to automatically detect cases of copyright infringement.

Source: Business Insider

Brin met Google cofounder Larry Page at Stanford in 1995. The two reportedly found each other "obnoxious" at first, but they later became classmates and close friends who geeked out about computer science.

Source: Wired

Brin and Page started collaborating in 1996 on a search engine they initially called BackRub. They registered the domain Google.com in September 1997 with the mission to organize the world's information, and dropped out of Stanford the following year to work on their search engine. The rest, as we now know, is history.

Source: Wired

The founders created the first Google Doodle ever in 1998 to let people know they weren't around to do damage control if the site broke because they were at Burning Man, the free-wheeling art festival in the middle of the Nevada desert.

Both Brin and Page are "burners," meaning they're devout fans and attendees of Burning Man. When it came around to hiring an outside CEO for Google, they approved the hire of Eric Schmidt in 2001 after learning he had attended the festival. They then brought him to Burning Man with them to "see how he would do."

Source: Business Insider

As Google ballooned from simply a search engine to a huge company with dozens of diverse projects, Brin has been the mastermind behind some of the most ambitious ones as one-time head of X, the company's moonshot factory. His projects included self-driving cars, smart contact lenses, and smart glasses.

Source: The New Yorker 

For a long time, you couldn't spot Brin *without* the computerized Google Glass smart glasses. The New York Times reported that Brin may have played a big role in the product's rocky launch in 2012, rushing it into the world before it was ready for public scrutiny.

Source: The New York Times 

Brin also worked on Google's now-dismantled social network, Google+. He admitted on stage in 2014 that he should have never worked on it because he's "kind of a weirdo" and not very social. "It was probably a mistake for me to be working on anything tangentially related to social to begin with," Brin said.

Source: Verge

Even as Google has grown into a multi-billion dollar company, Brin has stood by his fitness obsession roots. He's known to typically wear workout clothes and Vibram barefoot shoes, and he was frequently seen zipping around the office on roller blades, doing yoga stretches during meetings, or walking around on his hands for fun.

Source: Business Insider 

Brin also has a wild sense of humor. "He conducted job interviews once dressed as a cow," early Google employee Douglas Edwards told Fast Company. As an April Fools' joke, Brin once told pregnant Google employees that he would be offering birthing classes.

Source: Fast Company

However, a 2018 book also said that Brin was known as "the Google playboy" during the company's early days. "He was known for getting his fingers caught in the cookie jar with employees that worked for the company in the masseuse room," a former employee said. "He got around."

Source: Business Insider

Those who have known Brin attest to the fact that he truly does believe in using knowledge and power for the greater good. The Economist once called him the "Enlightenment Man," for his dedication to using reason and science to solve huge world problems.

Source: The Economist

"Obviously everyone wants to be successful, but I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical," Brin has said. "And ultimately making a big difference in the world."

Source: ABC News

Meanwhile, Brin got married in 2007 to Anne Wojcicki, the CEO of genetics company 23andMe and the sister of early Google employee (and now YouTube CEO) Susan Wojcicki. For the wedding, the couple invited guests to a secret location in the Bahamas and wore bathing suits for the ceremony — which took place on a sandbar.

Source: Vanity Fair 

Brin and Wojcicki have two children together, named Chloe and Benji. Both kids have the last name Wojin, a portmanteau of their parents' last names.

Source: The New York Times

The couple donated hundreds of millions of dollars to charity, including at least $160 million to Parkinson's research. The neurodegenerative disease runs in Brin's family (both his great aunt and mother had it) and a test through 23andMe — Wojcicki's company — revealed that Brin has a genetic mutation that makes him predisposed.

Source: Inside Philanthropy

To lower his chances of getting Parkinson's, Brin started exercising even more intensely and drinking green tea twice a day. Due to his health regimen and scientific progress, he estimated in 2010 that he now has only a ~10% chance of getting the disease.

Source: Wired

However, Brin's marriage to Wojcicki hit the rocks in 2013, and the couple separated. The couple officially finalized their divorce in June 2015 after eight years of marriage.

Source: Business Insider

It later came out that around the time of his separation in 2013, Brin started an affair with a Google employee named Amanda Rosenberg, who was also in a relationship with another high-level Google executive at the same time.

Source: Vanity Fair, Business Insider 

In the more than 20 years since founding Google, Brin and Page have accumulated a great deal of dispensable income. In 2005, they bought a 50-person plane together. Brin also owns a superyacht, which he bought back in 2011 for $80 million.

Source: Business Insider

Brin owns real estate in both New York City and Los Altos, California. He's invested quite a bit of money in Los Altos through a real estate investment firm called Passerelle Investment Co., which has helped mom-and-pop, kid-friendly stores and cafes spring up or stay in business.

Source: Wall Street Journal 

As of 2015, Brin employed at least 47 people to manage his personal affairs— including a yacht captain, personal shopper, and a former Navy SEAL — through a company called Bayshore Global Management.

Source: Bloomberg and New Zealand Herald

Brin's position at Google got a massive upgrade in August 2015, when Google became a subsidiary of a parent company named Alphabet. Brin transitioned from "director of special projects" at X to become the president of Alphabet.

Source: Business Insider

Nowadays, Brin is linked to the founder of a legal tech startup named Nicole Shanahan. The couple has been linked together since 2015 — that same year Brin officially divorced Wojcicki — although they didn't make their first public appearance until a year later.

Source: Business Insider

The couple has a baby girl together who was reportedly born in late 2018. It was recently reported that Brin and Shanahan secretly got married sometime last year, although the couple hasn't confirmed it.

Source: Business Insider

On Tuesday, Brin and Page announced in a joint statement they were stepping down from their respective roles at Alphabet. "We've never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there's a better way to run the company," they wrote.

Source: Business Insider

Brin will remain a member of Alphabet's Board of Directors, and he still has controlling voting shares at the company. There's no word on who will replace Brin as Alphabet's president, or if the position will be eliminated as Sundar Pichai becomes CEO of both Google and Alphabet.

Source: Business Insider

• Alphabet CEO Larry Page and President Sergey Brin announced that they were stepping back from managing Google's parent company on Tuesday, ending a 21-year stretch of founding Google, growing its ecosystem of products, and later managing its parent company. 
• Among other things, Page and Brin are widely credited for kickstarting a new age of corporate strategy in Silicon Valley, by ensuring that they always held voting control within the company that they founded. 
• Other founders drew inspiration from Google's dual-class share structure. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Snap's Evan Spiegl, Uber's Travis Kalanick, and WeWork's Adam Neumann all made sure they had 'high-voting' shares, so that they would not be accountable to their company's shareholders. In some cases, that decision has almost driven their companies into the ground. 
• Page and Brin's decision to step back from the company as 'proud parents' comes at a time when Wall Street has grown disillusioned with companies fueled by the leadership and vision of their founders.
• It could be more evidence of the end of the 'founder' era in Silicon Valley: Here's a look at other founders' less graceful exits from their companies. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Alphabet CEO Larry Page and President Sergey Brin's surprise announcement to give up their titles and step away from managing Google's parent company ended their 21-year-long stretch shaping Google's path in Silicon Valley. 

It also added evidence to suggest the end of the 'founder culture' era in Silicon Valley.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin's leadership of Google didn't just shape the technology industry but it also shaped the way in which tech companies were run. Companies drew inspiration from Google's freewheeling corporate culture, to which they credited its ability to take moonshot bets and innovate. 

Startup founders looked to Google's dual-class share structure, as a lesson in how to maintain control over their companies. Page and Brin's determination to hold on to voting control within their companies even after it debuted on the stock market, was seen as a model for other firms to follow, allowing their founder's vision to take precedence over investor or shareholder wishes. (The company would later create a third class of stock, as Page worried that he would lose voting control over the company). 

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg held on to the majority of the company's voting power. Snap's Evan Spiegl and Robert Murphy issued their company shares on the market, but shareholders hold no voting rights at all.  

Page and Brin's announcement comes at a time when Wall Street is far more wary of startup founders leading their companies. 

Although tech giant is a far cry from younger unicorns, and its cofounders have been famously absent from the company's more mundane management responsibilities for years, they still remain the face of the company, according to Andrew Frank, an analyst at Gartner.  

"Even though Google is such a huge company, it's always been identified with its founders," Frank said. Page and Brin's departure from Alphabet is "a rite of passage where the company is no longer really influenced by the culture of the founders."

Page and Brin seemed to embrace that role in their letter announcing that they were stepping down, writing that "we believe it's time to assume the role of proud parents — offering advice and love, but not daily nagging!"

To Wall Street, that's a good thing. Facebook's string of scandals and Snap's continued financial and operational struggles have raised concerns about founder culture in Silicon Valley. 

Founder culture also allowed startup founders to lead their companies unchecked, leading to often-disastrous mismanagement of company finances and strategy. Uber's Travis Kalanick, WeWork's Adam Neumann, and Theranos's Elizabeth Holmes are perhaps the most infamous examples of this scenario. 

Analysts seems to have largely embraced that perspective. 

Ivan Feinseth of Tigress Financial Partners called the announcement a "natural progression for the company's evolution," and said that Google CEO Sundar Pichai, slated to be Alphabet's next CEO, had "done a great job so far." 

Dave Heger, a senior analyst at Edward Jones said the two founders "likely felt the time was right to step down gracefully and let him take over."

Here's a look at the founders who first shook Wall Street's faith in the founder culture, and whose exits have been far less graceful: 

Adam Neumann, WeWork

Neumann's S-1 filing for WeWork's IPO drew attention to not just the company's losses but also his own extravagant lifestyle.

His web of loans, real-estate deals, and family involvement with the company initially drew scrutiny. His bizarre management style and reported alcohol and drug use at the company also weakened investor confidence. 

Neumann stepped down from his position as CEO in September and said intense scrutiny had become a distraction in running the company. He left with an exit package worth over $1 billion.

Meanwhile he left the company in shambles. WeWork's valuation has plummeted by more than 80% in the last fiscal quarter. 

Travis Kalanick, Uber

A series of scandals rocked Uber in 2017, centering around the leadership of the company's cofounder and CEO, Travis Kalanick

Uber faced a federal criminal probe into whether it used software to illegally evade regulators, widespread allegations of workplace harassment of women and people of color on staff, and a pricey lawsuit from Google over self-driving car technology. 

Many of Uber's board members saw Kalanick's leadership as a reason for the conflicts.

He was ultimately ousted by a host of the company's shareholders, including respected venture capital firms like Benchmark, First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital, and Menlo Ventures, The New York Times reported.

Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos

Elizabeth Holmes founded blood-testing company Theranos in 2003. 

Red flags were raised about her management of the company early on. When two would-be whistleblowers told the board that she exaggerated revenue projections, they considered replacing her with a more experienced manager, according to reporter John Carreyrou, who wrote about the incident in his book "Bad Blood."

But Holmes convinced the board to keep her, and then multiplied her shares to give herself 99% of the company's total voting rights. 

Carreyrou investigated Theranos in October 2015 and exposed how the startup, valued at $9 billion, had systematically lied about its technology to both its investors and clients. It had also lied to its employees developing the technology and fired workers who raised their voices in disagreement.  

Holmes only stepped down as CEO last summer, and the former CEO faces fraud charges from the Department of Justice. The company dissolved by September 2018. 

• President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and and other world leaders appeared at the NATO reception at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday during the annual summit.
• The meeting, which marks the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, started with clashes between French President Emmanuel Macron and Trump.
• At the reception, the Trumps were hosted by Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall at Clarence House, stopped by 10 Downing Street, and later mingled with the British royal family at Buckingham Palace.
• Here is a look inside the NATO reception.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump appeared at the NATO reception at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday during the annual world leader summit.

The meeting, which marks the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, started with clashes between Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron over Macron's comments about NATO and the state of ISIS.

At the reception, the Trumps were hosted by Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, at Clarence House, stopped by 10 Downing Street, and later mingled with British royal family at Buckingham Palace.

Here is a look inside the NATO reception:

President Donald Trump and his wife Melania visited Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, at their home in London.

It is the second time the Trumps have met with Charles and Camilla at the Clarence House.

Source: USA Today

Trump greets Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, alongside Prince Charles, who is next in line for the throne.

Noticeably absent from the event was Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth II's second son, who recently stepped back from royal duties. The Duke of York has been facing heat over his friendship with the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and accusations by one of Epstein's accusers that she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew at age 17.

Prince Andrew has vehemently denied these accusations and Buckingham Palace released a statement in September "emphatically" denying that "the Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts. Any claim to the contrary is false and without foundation."

Trump is seen with Queen Elizabeth II at the NATO reception at Buckingham Palace.

Also missing from the royal family were Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who gave birth to son Archie in May and are taking a break from royal duties for the holidays, CNN reported.

First Lady Melania Trump walks beside Queen Elizabeth II.

The first lady was pictured with the queen and was wearing a yellow coat with a cape by Valentino over a magenta dress, while Queen Elizabeth wore a patterned teal dress, black gloves, and a brooch on her shoulder.

Source: USA Today

Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, appeared at the NATO reception without her husband Prince William.

Prince William, who is next in line for the throne after Prince Charles, was on a four-day trip to Kuwait and Oman representing his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II.

William's brother, Prince Harry, and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, were not at the reception to spend time with their newborn son Archie.

Source: USA Today

• Read more:
• The NATO summit started as uncomfortably as expected, with Trump slamming Macron's 'very, very nasty' statement on the group being brain-dead
• Macron corrects Trump to his face at NATO meeting over his repeated false claims that ISIS is defeated
• Trump slammed Macron for 'insulting' NATO. But the French president was actually attacking Trump for damaging the alliance.

• A new book explores first lady Melania Trump's life and reveals several new behind-the-scenes details about her life in the White House. 
• "Free, Melania: The Unauthorized Biography," captures Trump as a nontraditional first lady at the center of many misconceptions around her fashion, family life, and priorities as first lady. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

First lady Melania Trump is an intriguing figure that has come to be known for keeping to herself, bucking White House tradition, and sparking conspiracy theories. 

From her relationships within the administration, sleeping arrangements within the White House, and the amount of power she flexes within her marriage with the president, the book reveals several details from insiders that shed new light on a private first lady. 

The book, "Free, Melania: The Unauthorized Biography," will be released on Tuesday. Here are the biggest takeaways from the new book. 

First lady Melania Trump has an icy relationship with second lady Karen Pence.

Bennett wrote that on a trip to Corpus Christi, Texas, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, the first lady had not invited Pence to her spacious private cabin at the front of the plane, or Pence didn't accept an invitation. Trump also didn't remove her four-inch heels when the two landed and towered "almost comically" over the second lady, who was in flats. 

This "confirmed" Bennett's suspicions the two weren't close, as Trump, who stands at 5 feet 11 inches, usually wears a low heel or flat when appearing alongside someone shorter or in lower shoes. The incident was not only uncharacteristic, Bennett wrote that it struck her as "strange and telling" about their relationship. 

Read more »

The jacket was that it was a jab directed at the president's oldest daughter and White House adviser, Ivanka.

"I believed, and still do, that the jacket was a facetious jab at Ivanka and her near-constant attempts to attach herself for positive administration talking points,"Bennett wrote.

Bennett also describes the first lady's relationship with Ivanka as "cordial, not close," and the adviser's near-constant presence around her father in the White House as frustrating to the one person Bennett writes can speak without reservation to the president.

Read more »

Overall, there are no coincidences when it comes to the first lady's fashion choices.

Whether it's the "I don't really care" jacket or the pink pussy-bow blouse Melania wore to an October 2016 debate after the release of an audiotape in which then-candidate Trump bragged about grabbing women's genitals, Bennett writes that though the specific message being sent by garments that spark theories may be unclear, any apparent significance isn't an accident.

"Having covered her for as long as I have, each thing she does has meaning to it, even the clothing she wears," Bennett writes.

She also speculates that there are some patterns to Melania's choices, as with her "theory that when the Trumps are unhappy with each other, Melania wears menswear — because Trump notoriously likes to see women in tight, short, ubersexy and feminine dresses."

The first lady doesn't only have her own room, but occupies an entirely separate floor of the White House from her husband.

The book says the president sleeps in the master bedroom on the second level of the White House residence while the first lady stays on the third floor in a two-room space that was previously occupied by former First Lady Michelle Obama's mother, Marian Robinson.

Alongside her bedroom is a "glam room," for Trump to do her daily hair and makeup and a private gym with a Pilates machine.

Bennett notes that this makes the Trumps the first couple since the Kennedys and the Johnsons to have separate bedrooms in the residence.

Read more »

Despite her usually steely demeanor, Melania is friendly and down to earth.

Friends told Bennett that Melania's straight face that can be seen at many of her public appearances is a result of her Slovenian upbringing, and despite some public perception that she is cold or stiff, Melania is a warm friend and notably sends White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham text emojis to "convey her happiness, disappointment or surprise."

Despite White House statements minimizing the stay at the time, Melania's secret hospital trip was a serious medical intervention.

Bennett cites a trusted source, writing that the first lady's five-day stint for an embolization procedure at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center near Washington, DC, in June 2018 was "not minor" and "made for a dangerous and complicated procedure."

"Couple that with the amount of pain she had apparently been in, according to close friends, and how long she had been in pain prior to the surgery, and there was concern that if her recuperation was not careful and extended, her type of condition could possibly result in the loss of her kidney," Bennett writes. 

Her widely ridiculed childhood wellness program, Be Best, is not really a thing.

Trump unveiled the campaign in May 2018, and has traveled in its name to schools, wellness centers, and even throughout an African tour in its name. 

However, Bennett writes that "to this day it has no publicly stated framework, timeline or markers for progress…The likelihood that it will ever have the impact of Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign or Nancy Reagan's Just Say No is slim to none."

Ultimately, Melania has more power in the administration than most people credit her with.

Bennett writes that since Trump embarked on an exhaustive campaign, Melania kept her distance and only participated in events and appearances that she selected, a far more curated agenda than is typical of political spouses. 

Instead of following the typical pattern of a campaign wife-turned-first lady, Melania "leads by her intuition," unapologetically bending the president's ear and expressing her opinions like no one else can.

Her "rule-breaking" time as first lady offers a perfect complement to Trump's "rule-breaking presidency," Bennett writes.

• Much news coverage of Iran focuses on geopolitics and its antagonistic relationship with the US. But people there have ordinary lives too. 
• Here's what a recent trip to Tehran, its capital, showed me about life in Iran.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. 

Iran is frequently the subject of intense international news coverage, be it political tensions with the US over broken trade agreements, oil tanker crises, or recent nationwide protests.

What we don't often see is how ordinary people live in the Islamic Republic. 

People go to work, socialize, and generally live a pretty normal existence. Here's a look into everyday life in the country, based on my own personal experiences.

The pictures in this article were taken largely during two trips to Iran in March and August 2019, prior to the start of recent protests in the country.

Few Westerners travel to Iran, but I have family there and try to visit often.

I live near London, but the current geopolitical situation means that there are no direct flights available. Instead, it is common to fly via connections somewhere like Istanbul or Dubai.

Media coverage of Iran often focuses on how different it is from the West: the rules about what women can and can't wear, its anti-American politics, and how it uses its military.

This photo — often seen illustrating US news coverage of Iran — is not a particularly typical scene, and has drawn criticism for being overused and misleading.

But for most Iranians, everyday life is more similar to somewhere like the UK or America than you might think. One example: Iran has bad traffic too.

As well as catching up with friends and family, when I’m in Iran I spend my time much as I do in London, going out to eat with friends, shopping or reading a book in a local cafe.

A meal shared with friends at Japanese restaurant Kenzo in Vanak, Tehran. 

Many Iranians enjoy going to the mall. This is the Iran Mall in Tehran, which is open despite not being totally finished.

When complete, it will have more than 15 million square feet of floor space.

That's three times the size of the biggest US mall, Minnesota's Mall of America, which is 4.8 million square feet.

According to global travel website Atlas Obscura, the mall will have a mixture of retail stores, cultural centers, public spaces, car parking, and also a hotel. 

There are relatively few shops open at the moment. However, unlike US malls, one of Iran Mall's central features is a large library.

Here it is from another angle.

Having a library in a mall isn't surprising considering the Persian language has a strong literary tradition and people love to read. I also went book shopping at this store in the Bagh Ferdows park.

The sign painted on the television says 'read books instead,' which is funny considering it is located right next to the cinema museum. 

At another store, Shahre Ketab (Book City), foreign novels in translation are featured on a table at the front. Titles include George Orwell's '1984.'

"1984" is at the back on the right.

This store is in the affluent Pasdaran neighborhood.

I also spotted the Persian translation of Michelle Obama's 'Becoming'.

The rest of the titles are mostly self-help and psychology.

When I was in Iran back in November 2018 I also saw the cover for the Persian version of Bob Woodward's 'Fear: Trump in the White House.'

People like to hang out in cafes like this one, Sam Cafe, which has good WiFi.

I'm vegan, which is not a very popular lifestyle in Iran. But some places are starting to embrace it: this cafe had soya milk and vegan carrot cake cookies.

During my last visit a family friend bought us tickets for a concert. We saw Macan Band, a pop group kind of like an Iranian One Direction.

There were many screaming girls. But, unlike a Western concert, everybody was sitting down, since getting up to dance is not allowed.

Here's another shot of the band, whose biggest songs include 'Ki Bodi To' (Who Were You?) and 'Ye Asre Khoob' (One Nice Evening).

Food is very important to Iranians. I share my name with Iran's most popular bakery chain 'Sahar Bakery'.

Lots of storefronts have logos using English words — like with Sahar Bakery here.

Sahar Bakery is best-known for its many types of bread.

The bottom shelf shows walnut-stuffed bread, a particular specialty. The bakery also has gluten-free bread, a relatively new phenomenon.

According to the shop's website the company was started in 1971 and there are now a total of 11 branches across Tehran and in Mazandaran, a nearby region.

More evidence of mainstream veganism: this is the menu from Zamin Vegan, in the residential Shahrake Gharb district.

'Zamin' translates to earth in Persian and is the first all-vegan restaurant in Tehran. 

The menu also tells you something about social media in Iran — Zamin's menu has contact details for Instagram, and Telegram, two of the most popular apps in the country.

Facebook and Twitter, probably the most widespread networks in the UK and US, are difficult to access in Iran.

The menu is in both Persian and English, and features traditional Persian food as well as pizza, pasta and lots of desserts.

Here is what I ordered:

Mirza Ghasemi (bottom right) is traditionally made with tomato and eggs, which were replaced in this recipe with what tasted like aubergine. 

Kashke Bademjan (top right) is a smoked aubergine dish usually mixed in with kashk - a milk product. This was replaced with a soya-based milk substitute instead. 

Both dishes are served with bread. 

There was also a vegan kebab, and traditional saffron rice (the orange part in the top-left).

People get food by app as well: These bikes work for Snapp Box, Iran's answer to Uber Eats.

One difference from a lot of the west is that religion is a more visible part of life. Locals often head to the Imamzadeh Saleh mosque in Tajrish Square to pray on Fridays.

The shrine houses the tomb of Imamzadeh Saleh, the son of the revered 8th-Century Imam Musa al-Kadhim. 

The inside of the mosque is pretty spectacular. It's like walking into a kaleidoscope.

The shimmering walls are thanks to a traditional craft called ayne-kari, a mosaic of mirrors, which extends across the whole building.

Sermons, including from Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are broadcast on a big TV in the courtyard.

But sometimes they run into technical difficulties.

In their free time Iranians in Tehran often travel to different parts of the country. This is a picture of Khansar in Isfahan province, some 230 miles from Tehran.

Most Iranians have Thursday and Friday as their weekend.

Although its ordinary to have a two-day weekend, some people have a six-day week with only Friday off.

This is the Baghkal Dam, near Khansar, a local beauty spot.

This is 'Honey Square,' named in honor of one of the city's main exports.

Part of the water feature on the left looks like a beehive.

People liked the fountain and were taking selfies in front of it.

An alternative to travelling on the weekends is visiting somewhere like Darband in the very north of Tehran.

It was once an old village, but now functions as one of the most popular destinations for people needing an escape from city life. 

It is essentially a hiking trail up into the mountains, on to Mount Tochal which looks over all of Tehran.

Along the way are many restaurants and cafes built into the mountain. These seats are on top of a running river, and people use them to sit on while drinking tea and smoking hookah.

People shop for everyday items such as food at local shops. This shop selling fruits and vegetables is in Vanak, a residential neighbourhood in northern Tehran.

As per the advertisements hanging in the shop, a kilo of Askari grapes are 16,500 toman ($1.50), yellow plumbs are 17,500 toman ($1.60) and white nectarines are going for 25,900 toman ($2.35) a kilo.  

Following US withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal in May 2018, inflation rates have been unusually high and have driven up the price of food.

According to the latest report from the Statistical Center of Iran, the price of fruit, vegetables and meat are said to have risen higher than other, non-food commodities. 

As well as inflated food prices, access to medicine has also been affected by the severe US sanctions.

According to The New York Times this is due to banking restrictions which make it hard for foreign pharmaceutical companies to continue working in the country. 

When I was in Iran I witnessed many conversations about medicine shortages amongst people I know personally.

One way people have been trying to get around the problem is by travelling to nearby countries such as Turkey to get what they need, or asking friends and family to go on their behalf. 

Despite the tough economic environment, Tehran-dwellers are still making the best of the situation, and finding cheap things to do. Like this art exhibition, which is free.

This is an exhibition at Seyhoun Art Gallery from November 2018. 

It features a series on large-scale ink work by Iranian artist Masi Divandari. 

Another artist whose work is well worth seeing in Tehran is Monir Farmanfarmaian—one of the most prominent Iranian artists in the contemporary period.

This the Monir Museum, which is home to over 50 works for the artist's personal collection which are currently open to the public. 

If you're more interested in what an average night in on a weekday might look like it would be something like this. Tea, fruit and a Turkish drama on the TV.

Meanwhile, relations between the US and Iran do not look likely to improve soon, especially as tensions continue over Iran's nuclear program. But, in the country of 81 million people, life goes on.

• Read more:
• From an app store named after the Persian word for 'apple,' to a payments platform called ZarinPal, Iran's most popular apps are strikingly similar to their Western equivalents
• An Iranian Instagram star thought to have had 50 cosmetic surgeries to look like Angelina Jolie was arrested over claims she corrupted youth and incited violence on social media
• 25 photos show what Iran looked like before the 1979 revolution turned the nation into an Islamic republic

• 2019 has been an unexpectedly competitive and vigorous hiring market for top investment bankers, building off an exceptionally active 2018, according to Wall Street headhunters.
• With new leadership gripping the reins at top investment banks, turmoil enveloping others, and a still-scorching dealmaking environment, competition in the US for rainmakers remained at a fever pitch this year. 
• We spoke with investment-banking headhunters and consultants who are in the trenches to determine the 40 biggest hires and departures of the year.

Last year was one of the most competitive and vigorous hiring markets in the US for senior investment bankers in recent memory. So it would only seem natural that the frenetic pace would slow in 2019. 

Except that it didn't, at least not by much, according to top Wall Street recruitment and executive search firms. 

With new leadership gripping the reins at top investment banks, turmoil enveloping others, and a still-scorching dealmaking environment, competition in the US for top rainmakers remained at a fever pitch this year. 

"In America, hiring is widespread and frighteningly competitive," Julian Bell, regional managing director for the Americas for executive search firm Sheffield Haworth, told Business Insider.

While senior dealmaker hiring has declined upwards of 30% in Europe and Asia, it's nearly level with 2018 in the US with one month remaining in the year, according to Sheffield Haworth's data. 

That's in part because the US has been the epicenter of the investment-banking action: While mergers-and-acquisitions deal volumes have cooled in recent months, US-targeted M&A stands at $1.75 trillion, already eclipsing the tally for 2018 and threatening to set a full-year record, according to Dealogic. 

Investment-banking revenues in North America fell slightly to $11.1 billion across the industry through the first three quarters, according to Dealogic, whereas in Europe they fell 26% to $4.2 billion and in Asia (not including Japan) they declined 22% to $1 billion. 

But new regimes and other trends factor in as well:

• Bank of America and Citigroup each announced new investment-banking leadership toward the end of 2018, and have made concerted efforts to stamp their respective imprints and staff up with top dealmakers.
• The turmoil at Deutsche Bank has left the firm vulnerable, and competitors have seized the opportunity to snatch more than 15 managing directors from the firm's investment bank in the US. Barclays and Lazard have also been fertile poaching grounds as they deal with shakeups of their own. 
• Goldman Sachs is culling its partner ranks, making it a propitious time for bankers to jump to a competitor. 
• Firms are increasingly using the vice chairman role to lure veteran bankers with key relationships who want the client impact and big-ticket deal flow of a senior post without all the bureaucracy.

"It's a pragmatic approach to getting senior access to client relationships," Albert Laverge, head of Egon Zehnder's banking and markets practice, told Business Insider. "It gives banks more flexibility, especially since some bankers would rather focus purely on clients than necessarily managing others, and the vice chairman role avoids where to put them in the pyramid."

While technology and healthcare remain the most competitive hiring grounds, mirroring deal activity, other areas are growing in prominence, including activism-defense groups, which provide close access to top brass at major corporations. 

"When an activist situation arises, you don't have a lot of time and have to have a rapid response," Laverge said.  "Additionally, it's a good way to have an ongoing dialogue with clients."

Like we did last year, Business Insider has put together a guide to the most notable moves of 2019. We worked with senior headhunters and consultants who are in the trenches and tracking all the moves to narrow a list of more than 200 hires and departures down to the 40 biggest.

Some caveats: While seniority, title, and platform matter, they aren't the only criteria in play. Well-respected and impactful managing directors may trump investment bankers with more seniority and responsibility. Additionally, only bankers based in the US were included — we didn't consider moves in Europe and Asia. Lastly, our list encompasses only professionals who oversee or work directly in investment banking — senior executive departures like Tim Throsby at Barclays, Jamie Forese at Citi, and Tim Sloane at Wells Fargo, while notable, don't make the cut. 

Read on for Business Insider's list of the 40 most significant and noteworthy hires and departures in investment banking in 2019.

Have thoughts? Think we missed somebody obvious or important? Shoot us a message at amorrell@businessinsider.com.

Steven Barg: Goldman Sachs to Elliott Management

Old role: Partner, global cohead of M&A shareholder advisory

New role: Global head of corporate engagement

Month: August

Barg is switching from protector to predator: At Goldman, he was the top banker defending companies against would-be corporate raiders and other investor antagonists. Now he's teaming up with Paul Singer and Elliott Management, the most feared and prolific activist hedge fund on Wall Street. 

While Goldman has been shedding partners in 2019, Barg was a top player in one of the most influential and in-demand corners of investment banking. His poaching reportedly caught Goldman executives by surprise — and was closely guarded internally at Elliott — and competitors rushed to steal the investment bank's clients after the departure was announced, according to the FT. Goldman lost another top activist banker, Tyler Brooke, to Centerview earlier in the year. 

A long-time capital markets banker, Barg spent a decade at Goldman, largely in Asia, coheading its investment bank for Southeast Asia from 2012 to 2013 and later co-leading ECM operations in the region. 

Eric Bischof: Bank of America to Morgan Stanley

Old role: Global head of financial institutions investment banking

New role: Chairman, investment banking

Month: May

After only two years away, Bischof has returned to Morgan Stanley. The insurance specialist split in 2017 from the Wall Street giant, where he burnished his reputation and spent almost all of his more than two-decade career, to cohead Bank of America's financial institutions group.

Now he's back as a chairman of its investment bank, where he'll have more time to focus on relationships that have helped him execute deals like Ace's $28 billion buyout of Chubb in 2015 and Fortress Investment Group's $3 billion sale to SoftBank in 2017. 

Bischof is also known for co-leading a team of 30 bankers that advised the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on its bailout of AIG during the financial crisis. 

Tyler Brooke: Goldman Sachs to Centerview

Old role: MD, M&A and shareholder activism

New role: MD, M&A and shareholder activism

Month: May

After a five-year run with Goldman Sachs, Brooke joins Centerview Partners amid a ramp up in demand for activist-defense bankers. His resignation landed several months before Goldman's top activist-defense banker, Steven Barg, left to join the industry's most notorious activist, Elliott Management. 

Among Brooke's recent mandates, according to Reuters: ILG in its $4.7 billion sale to Marriott in 2018 and Tribune Publishing in its defense against a hostile bid from Gannett in 2016.

Andrew Callaway: Bank of America to RBC

Old role: Global head of life sciences investment banking

New role: Head of US healthcare investment banking

Month: January

After building out its investment-banking roster in 2018, RBC added senior Bank of America healthcare banker Andrew "Cal" Callaway in early 2019. He brings more than 100 M&A and financing deals worth of experience in biopharma, including previous senior roles at Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank.

Thanks to veteran hires like these, the surging Canadian bank has raced into the top-10 in US M&A deal volume, hitting a goal it had set nearly a decade ago. 

Kristin DeClark: Deutsche Bank to Barclays

Old role: Head of tech ECM

New role: Cohead of US ECM, global head of tech ECM

Month: March

Barclays poached a pair of high-profile bankers to run equity capital markets in the US this year: Taylor Wright and Kristin DeClark.

DeClark, who also moonlights as a competitive ultramarathoner, joined first in March from Deutsche Bank and specializes in hot tech initial public offerings. Among the IPOs she's worked: Dropbox, Snap, Fitbit, Square, and GoDaddy.

Wright, a 24-year veteran of Morgan Stanley and head of its US financial institutions ECM group, joined a couple months later as her cohead. He's worked on public listings for AXA Equitable Holdings, Citizens Financial, Moelis & Company, Tradeweb, and Yext.

Lee Einbinder: Barclays to FinServ

Old role: Vice chairman and head of financial institutions group, Americas

New role: CEO

Month: August

The most senior among a cadre of senior financial institutions investment bankers to all quit the British firm within a month of each other this summer. 

Einbinder, who joined Barclays in 2008 after 12 years with Lehman Brothers, led the firm's investment banking coverage of financial companies in the US. Now, he's running a special-purpose acquisition vehicle called FinServ — a blank-check investment firm that raised $250 million in its November public offering and is looking to buy stakes in financial services companies.

Onur Eken: Barclays to Guggenheim

Old role: Global head of capital goods investment banking

New role: Senior MD, industrials investment banking

Month: June

Guggenheim roped in a pair of senior industrials bankers from Barclays in June: Onur Eken and John Welsh.

Eken, who joined Barclays from Lehman Brothers in 2008 and was the global head of capital goods, will continue on with a similar mandate in his new shop. 

Rahm Emanuel: City of Chicago to Centerview

Old role: Mayor of Chicago

New role: Senior counselor

Month: June

The biggest name hired in investment banking in 2019 comes not from finance, but from politics: Following an eight-year tenure as Chicago's mayor and a 30-year career as a Democratic political bulldog, Rahm Emanuel announced this summer he was joining boutique powerhouse Centerview Partners. 

Emanuel is in charge of launching the firm's Chicago office, where he'll build off a deep well of established connections — including the likes of area billionaires J.B. Pritzker, now Illinois' governor, and Citadel founder Ken Griffin. 

The foundation for the hire was laid in the late 1990s, when Emanuel spent two years at boutique Wasserstein Perella after leaving the Clinton White House in 1998. While there he reportedly met Robert Pruzan, who cofounded Centerview with Blair Effron in 2006. 

John Eydenberg: Deutsche Bank to Citigroup

Old role: Chairman, investment banking, Americas

New role: Vice chairman, investment banking

Month: June

Few have capitalized on Deutsche Bank's mass exodus of bankers as favorably as Citigroup, which nabbed a trio of senior rainmakers this summer: TMT cohead Mark Keene, global IB chairman and capital markets head Mark Hantho, and North America IB chairman John Eydenberg. 

Eydenberg, who'd been with Deutsche since 2001, reportedly has close ties to top-tier private equity clients like Apollo Global as well as Japanese investment giant SoftBank.

Jim Forbes: UBS to Morgan Stanley

Old role: Vice chairman, healthcare investment banking

New role: Vice chairman, healthcare investment banking

Month: July

In Forbes, Morgan Stanley acquired one of the top bankers in one of the hottest M&A sectors. The healthcare dealmaker has a track record with private-equity giants as well, running Bank of America's Global Principal Investments Group for three years before departing for UBS in 2012. 

Forbes has advised clients including Anthem, Ventas, Bain Capital, and KKR, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

He helped orchestrate one of the largest leveraged buyouts in history: Hospital Corporation of America's $33 billion take-private deal in 2006 with a consortium of investors including Bain, KKR, Merrill Lynch, and the Frist family. 

Jeremy Fox: Deutsche Bank to Credit Suisse

Old role: Head of ECM, Americas

New role: Cohead of real estate investment banking, Americas

Month: August

Fox is one of a handful of senior bankers to decamp not long after Deutsche Bank's monumental investment banking overhaul this summer.

The equity capital markets banker already has a stable of real estate relationships — he worked on IPOs for companies including Hilton Worldwide and Blackstone's Invitation Homes — but now he's pivoting to full-time coverage banking as the cohead of the group in the US for Credit Suisse. 

Robert Giammarco: Bank of America to The Amynta Group

Old role: Head of financial institutions investment banking, Americas

New role: Chairman and CEO

Month: April

One of the industry's top insurance dealmakers, Giammarco left Bank of America this spring after two decades for a corporate role in a company he had a hand in creating. 

Giammarco, the head of the financial institutions group in the US at BofA since 2014, advised AmTrust Financial in its 2017 sale of a majority stake in one of its US businesses to Madison Dearborn Partners, according to Bloomberg. He now is chairman and CEO of the new company, an insurance distribution and insurances company called The Amynta Group. 

Jean Greene: Lazard to Bank of America

Old role: MD

New role: MD, industrials M&A

Month: August

After two decades at Lazard orchestrating monster deals, Greene left for Bank of America this summer amid the firm's investment-banking hiring blitz.

Among Greene's deal trophies: Tyco's $16.5 billion sale to Johnson Controls and Anheuser-Busch InBev's more than $100 billion acquisition of SAB Miller, both in 2016. 

Celeste Guth: Deutsche Bank to PJT Partners

Old role: Global head of M&A

New role: Partner

Month: October

Guth lasted all of four months as Deutsche Bank's global head of M&A before ditching the troubled bank for calmer waters at advisory boutique PJT Partners.

Guth was named to the high-profile post this summer amid a massive overhaul that saw the German lender split its investment bank into three divisions and lay off thousands of employees. 

She previously ran the firm's global financial institutions group and was poached in 2015 from Goldman Sachs, where she spent nearly three decades and was made partner in 2002.

Mark Hantho: Deutsche Bank to Citigroup

Old role: Chairman of global capital markets and global head of ECM

New role: Vice chairman, investment banking

Month: June

Few have capitalized on Deutsche Bank's mass exodus of bankers as favorably as Citigroup, which nabbed a trio of senior rainmakers this summer: TMT cohead Mark Keene, global IB chairman and capital markets head Mark Hantho, and North America IB chairman John Eydenberg. 

After 13 years at Deutsche, the Montreal native Hantho — who has spent long stints in both London and Hong Kong— will continue coordinating capital underwriting for large corporates from New York as a vice chairman at Citi. 

Gary Howe: Lazard to Bank of America

Old role: Head of financial institutions investment banking, North America

New role: Cohead of financial institutions investment banking, Americas

Month: October

After an eight-year run, the long-time financial institutions dealmaker left Lazard, which is revamping its merger-advisory business amid declining revenues — cutting jobs and closing several offices. 

He joins a Bank of America dealmaking unit that's been on a hiring spree in 2019 and appears to be on the other side of its own investment-banking overhaul.

Zaheed Kajani: Citigroup to Evercore

Old role: Head of internet and digital media investment banking

New role: Senior MD, internet and digital media investment banking

Month: January

One of the industry's top internet investment bankers, the nearly two-decade veteran Kajani reportedly has more than 100 transactions under his belt, ranging from M&A deals, to IPOs, to private capital injections. 

The Menlo Park-based banker has advised companies including Alibaba, Bonobos, GrubHub, Roku, The Trade Desk, Wayfair, and Zillow. 

Michal Katz: RBC to Mizuho

Old role: Cohead of global technology investment banking

New role: Head of banking, Americas

Month: August

Katz, one of Wall Street's most powerful women, surprised many this summer when she vacated the top technology investment banking role at RBC, which has been gaining momentum and is one of the top tech IPO performers in 2019. 

Now, she has the top banking job in the US at Mizuho, and she'll be responsible for boosting the Japanese giant's relevance in the largest investment banking market. Her ambitions were larger than just technology, but her expertise will be essential as tech disruption redefines companies across sectors.

She told American Banker in September that her experience "has put me in a very unique position to think through this. Whether it be technology as a sector, where my old world used to be, or in my new role, which is going to be touching across nine or 10 industry groups that are being impacted by technology across the board."

Mark Keene: Deutsche Bank to Citigroup

Old role: Global cohead of technology, media, and telecom investment banking

New role: Global cohead of technology investment banking

Month: June

Few have capitalized on Deutsche Bank's mass exodus of bankers as favorably as Citigroup, which nabbed a trio of senior rainmakers this summer: TMT cohead Mark Keene, global IB chairman and capital markets head Mark Hantho, and North America IB chairman John Eydenberg. 

Keene, a 13-year Deutsche veteran and semiconductor expert, will co-run technology investment banking at Citi alongside Herb Yeh. 

Sam Kendall: Departed UBS

Old role: Head of investment banking, Americas

New role: Unclear

Month: October

Another year, another head of investment banking in the US for UBS. Last year, it was Joe Reece who left as head of Corporate Client Solutions in the Americas only four months after replacing Ros Stephenson, who stepped back into an executive vice chairman role.  

Kendall outlasted Reece in the role — during his tenure he also made headlines for cobbling together a handy staff reading list for uncertain times — but it was a brief reign as well. The two-decade UBS veteran stepped down from the role in September amid yet another organizational shakeup at the Swiss giant's investment bank, and in October Kendall reportedly departed to pursue other interests. 

Stephenson, meanwhile, is back on top, coheading the firm's dealmaking unit alongside Javier Oficialdegui. 

Sam Kumar: Citigroup to Bank of America

Old role: Global cohead of software investment banking

New role: Cohead of emerging growth and regional coverage investment banking

Month:  August

As part of its investment banking overhaul, Bank of America is on a mission to chase more middle-market deals in regional locales like Portland and Nashville, as well as provide coverage of emerging, rapidly growing tech firms.

The firm poached Kumar, Citi's head of internet investment banking in North America and global cohead of software, to jointly run the new group alongside Brendan Hanley, a BofA veteran. Kumar's client roster includes heavy hitters like Alibaba, SoftBank, Uber, and Fitbit.  

Amy Lissauer: Evercore to Bank of America

Old role: MD, shareholder defense

New role: Global head of activism and raid defense

Month: August

As investor activism proliferates, investment bankers who can step in and mount a quick and effective defense for companies have become a hot commodity on Wall Street. Lissauer worked alongside star raid-defense banker Bill Anderson at Evercore; now she'll be running the show herself at Bank of America.

At just 35, Lissauer has already advised more than 150 companies facing activism campaigns, according to a Bank of America memo announcing her hire, including Bristol-Myers Squibb, Envision Healthcare, and WageWorks. She also worked with Whole Foods in its defense against Jana Partners and eventual industry-rattling sale to Amazon in 2017.

Kathleen McCabe: Morgan Stanley to PJT

Old role: Head of marketing and business development in investment banking

New role: Partner, strategic advisory group

Month: August

The long-time Morgan Stanley investment banker has most recently held senior posts in investor relations and business development at the firm, but now she's back in an advisory role as a partner in boutique PJT's strategic advisory group. 

During her 21 years at Morgan Stanley, McCabe held relationships with some of the firm's largest clients, especially within the private equity world. 

Umi Mehta: Bank of America to Morgan Stanley

Old role: Head of US internet investment banking

New role: Global cohead of internet investment banking

Month: August

Bank of America has poached talented bankers over the past year, but they haven't been immune to competitors luring away their own: RBC claimed healthcare specialist Andrew Callaway; US FIG head Robert Giammarco left to run an insurance company; and Morgan Stanley hired standouts Eric Bischof, an insurance expert, and Umi Mehta, one of the top internet bankers and nearly 10-year vet of the firm.

Morgan Stanley further bolstered its prodigious tech-banking practice with the hire of Mehta, who will cohead global internet banking in the Menlo Park office alongside veteran Kate Claassen. Mehta has advised the likes of Uber, Carvana, Rent the Runway, and Zynga, according to Bloomberg.

Elizabeth Milonopoulos: Goldman Sachs to Citigroup

Old role: MD, head of digital media and advertising investment banking

New role: Global cohead of internet investment banking

Month: June

Tech is the most competitive sector for talent in investment banking, so landing a top internet banker is a tall order. Citigroup poached two of them this summer amid a flurry of senior hires: Elizabeth Milonopoulos from Goldman Sachs and Brian Yick from Barclays. 

Milonopolous started her career in consulting with Accenture, then she joined Goldman as an associate in 2008 after business school, earning a promotion to managing director in 2015.

She'll now co-run Citi's global internet group alongside Yick.

Gregg Polle: Moelis to Bank of America

Old role: MD

New role: Vice chairman of M&A

Month: June

Polle — a 25-year Citi vet who coheaded M&A and ran the industrials group before retiring in 2008— was part of a slew of senior bankers hired by boutique Moelis & Company in the early 2010s. Now, he's headed back to bulge-bracket investment banking world, where he'll cover industrial giants, as well as other sectors, for Bank of America.

He's part of a wave of splashy, senior hires amid the firm's investment-banking turnaround.  

Michael O'Donovan: UBS to PJT

Old role: Head of ECM, Americas

New role: Partner, strategic advisory group

Month: May

O'Donovan joins PJT as partner after three years running IPOs, private placements, and other equity transactions as UBS' head of ECM in the Americas. 

Before UBS, O'Donovan worked in KKR's capital markets unit, and also had stints with Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, and Bear Stearns. 

Glenn Riedman: RBC to Jefferies

Old role: Cohead of industrials investment banking

New role: Vice chairman, global head of capital goods

Month: June

Jefferies adds depth to its industrials coverage with the hiring this summer of Reidman, who spent eight years at RBC looking after industrial giants, as well as those focused on building products and metals and mining, among others. 

Before RBC, Reidman spent time at JPMorgan and more than a decade at Bear Stearns.

Rick Sherlund: Perella Weinberg to Bank of America

Old role: Partner, cohead of technology investment banking

New role: Vice chairman, technology investment banking

Month: May

The top-ranked-software-research-analyst turned investment banker has been making the rounds since leaving Goldman Sachs in 2007 after a quarter-century at the firm. After a couple hedge fund stops, the ex-Goldman partner spent four years at Nomura before moving on to short stints at Barclays in 2015 and Perella Weinberg in 2017, where he was tasked with building out their tech-investment-banking practice. 

Now, it's on to Bank of America, where Sherlund — along with fellow newcomer Johnny Williams, who joined from UBS in August — will bolster the firm's Palo Alto office with veteran tech expertise. 

Karen Simon: Retired from JPMorgan

Old role: Global head of director advisory services

New role: Retired

Month: August

In her 36 years at JPMorgan, Simon held a number of senior roles, including top jobs at the bank overseeing coverage of oil and gas, debt capital markets, and buyout firms. Up until 2016, she oversaw a team of 25 bankers that advised more than 120 private-equity finds as a vice chairman and head of financial sponsors. 

The past three years she ran the firm's director advisory services group, a Jamie Dimon brainchild launched in 2016 that advises and facilitates connections for corporate boards. Under Simon's leadership, the group recommended more than 700 candidates to 70 companies in its first year, according to The Wall Street Journal.

But after nearly four decades at the firm and its precursors, Simon, one the most senior female investment bankers on Wall Street, retired in August. 

Terry Sullivan: Victory Capital to UBS

Old role: Chief financial officer

New role: Global cohead of financial institutions investment banking

Month: March

Sullivan returns to bulge-bracket investment banking with UBS after nearly two years on the buy-side as CFO for Victory Capital, a Cleveland-based private-equity giant with nearly $150 billion in assets.

He was a regular advisor to Victory's leadership even prior to joining in 2016 from Morgan Stanley, where he spent nearly 15 years as a financial sponsors banker. 

Now, he'll co-run the financial institutions coverage globally for UBS. 

Rob Sweeney: Goldman Sachs to Sycamore Partners

Old role: Global head of consumer and retail investment banking

New role: President

Month: April

A 22-year company veteran and consumer-retail banking heavyweight, Goldman Sachs' Sweeney split for the buy-side this spring, joining private-equity giant Sycamore. He's part of a wave of departures among the partner ranks at Goldman Sachs in 2019. 

Among the clients Sweeney advised during his time at Goldman: Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy, Campbell's, J. Crew, Lululemon, Target, Under Armour, and Yum! Brands, the corporate parent of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut.

As president at Sycamore, he'll continue to work relationships with the CEOs and board members of those firms and others to win business for the investment firm. 

Stephanie Sze: Barclays to Credit Suisse

Old role: MD, M&A

New role: Cohead of sell-side M&A

Month: October

Part of the wave of senior departures in Barclays investment bank in 2019, Sze left for Credit Suisse, where she'll run the firm's sell-side M&A practice, specializing in scenarios where companies — or their private-equity owners — put themselves up for sale or divest assets. 

Sze spent more than a decade at Barclays, joining from Lehman Brothers in 2008. 

Joe Todd: Goldman Sachs to Evercore

Old role: Partner, financial institutions investment banking

New role: Senior MD, financial institutions investment banking

Month: September

Amid Goldman Sachs' efforts to thin its partner ranks, longtime finance dealmaker Todd jumped ship to Evercore — and reportedly secured a six-year contract from the boutique in the process.

Todd started his career with Goldman in 2001 and made partner in the 2014 class. 

Janis Vitols: Barclays to Bank of America

Old role: Global head of asset management investment banking

New role: Global head of asset management investment banking

Month: July

Vitols, a Barclays vet of more than a decade, was among a cadre of senior financial institutions investment bankers to all quit the British bank within a month of each other this summer. 

While Barclays has seen an outflow of talent amid a shakeup to the investment bank and compensation cuts, Bank of America has been snatching senior bankers left and right. Vitols will handle the same remit at BofA that he did at Barclays.  

John Welsh: Barclays to Guggenheim

Old role: Cohead of global industrials investment banking

New role: Senior MD, industrials investment banking

Month: June

Guggenheim roped in a pair of senior industrials bankers from Barclays in June: Onur Eken and John Welsh.

After joining Barclays from Lehman Brothers in 2008, Welsh ascended the ranks and coheaded Barclays' global industrial group prior to joining Guggenheim. 

Johnny Williams: UBS to Bank of America

Old role: Vice chairman, strategic clients and partnerships

New role: Vice chairman, technology investment banking

Month: August

Yet another vice chairman hire for Bank of America, Williams returns to the firm after a six-year stint with UBS, bringing with him more than two decades of tech banking experience. Williams has worked on more than 150 IPOs during his career and has advised clients including Dell, IBM, Workday, Atlassian, and Palantir.  

He'll join forces with Rick Sherlund, who joined the firm on the West Coast as a tech vice chairman earlier in the year from Perella Weinberg. 

Taylor Wright: Morgan Stanley to Barclays

Old role: Head of financial institutions ECM

New role: Cohead of US ECM

Month: May

Barclays poached a pair of high-profile bankers to run equity capital markets in the US this year: Kristin DeClark and Taylor Wright.

Wright, a 24-year veteran of Morgan Stanley and head of its US financial institutions ECM group, joined in May. He's worked on public listings for AXA Equitable Holdings, Citizens Financial, Moelis & Company, Tradeweb, and Yext.

DeClark, who also moonlights as a competitive ultramarathoner, joined a couple months earlier from Deutsche Bank and specializes in hot tech initial public offerings. Among the IPOs she's worked: Dropbox, Snap, Fitbit, Square, and GoDaddy.

Brian Yick: Barclays to Citigroup

Old role: Cohead of internet investment banking, Americas

New role: Global cohead of internet investment banking

Month: June

Tech is the most competitive sector for talent in investment banking, so landing a top internet banker is tall order. Citigroup poached two of them this summer amid a flurry of senior hires: Elizabeth Milonopoulos from Goldman Sachs and Brian Yick from Barclays. 

For Yick it's something of a homecoming. He started his career at Citigroup in 1999, leaving in 2006 to join Lehman Brothers and then joining Barclays in 2008, where he rose to become the head of the internet group in the Americas. 

He'll now co-run Citi's global internet group alongside Milonopoulos.  

Tommaso Zanobini: Deutsche Bank to Moelis

Old role: Global head of fintech investment banking

New role: Managing director, fintech investment banking

Month: September

Yet another senior Deutsche defection, Zanobini's departure for Moelis leaves a hole for the firm in the simmering financial technology sector. 

Zanobini, who joined the German bank in 2017, has 25 years of tech investment banking experience, holding senior roles at Jefferies, Barclays, and Lehman Brothers during his career. 

• The popular grocery chain Aldi is releasing a number of cheesy things this month. 
• The grocer is selling a collection of festive, shaped cheese that come in a few different flavors. 
• You can also pick up cheese-filled ornaments and vodka-infused or whiskey-infused cheddars.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

If you're looking for an affordable way to incorporate more cheese into the holiday season, Aldi has you covered.

The grocery chain is launching several cheesy items this December, from festive options to add to a cheeseboard to ornaments filled with cheese.

Here are some of the most exciting cheeses hitting shelves at Aldi this month.

Get everyone on your list an adorable Emporium Selection Holiday Cheese Ornament.

Price: $4.99

You'll be hard-pressed to name a better, more functional gift than an ornament filled with cheese.

Each clear ornament is filled with 2 ounces of cheese and they come in two designs — a holiday tree or a snowflake. 

Fill your cheeseboards with the Emporium Selection assortment of cheddar cheeses in fun, holiday shapes.

Price: $3.99

For those who really love to get into the holiday spirit, these festive cheeses will do just the trick.

Each of these cheddars come in special shapes, so they will look great on a cheeseboard at your ugly-sweater party or at a holiday dinner.

The first flavor in the collection is a classic matured cheddar in the shape of a star.

You can also pick up a cheese that's decorated like Santa's coat.

Price: $3.99

This 6-ounce block of cheddar cheese is infused with port wine. 

One of the most festive blocks in the collection is this snowman-shaped cheese.

Price: $3.99

This 6-ounce hunk of cheddar cheese contains caramelized onion and it comes in the shape of a snowman. 

You may want to make a toast to the Emporium Selection of alcohol-infused cheddars.

Price: $3.99

This December, Aldi is making it pretty easy to pair booze and cheese with its collection of alcohol-infused cheddars. 

The first cheese in this boozy collection is Whiskey Business, a cheddar that's infused with whiskey flavor. 

The Gaelic Glory block is infused with Irish-creme liquor.

Price: $3.99

This 7-ounce block is an Irish cheddar that's infused with Irish-creme liqueur.

This Boozeberry Vodka Cheddar has some fruity flavors.

Price: $3.99

The last cheese in this collection, Boozeberry Vodka Cheddar is infused with the flavors of blueberry and vodka. 

There are also some cheeses for fans of sparkling wine.

Price: $4.99

This month, Aldi's Specially Selected brand is also introducing two cheeses that are soaked in either sparkling red wine or sparkling white wine before they are packaged.

Each 7-ounce package of these wine-soaked cheeses is only $4.99, so don't be afraid to try both.

• Younger billionaires give their money away differently when compared with their older peers, research firm Wealth-X found in its 2019 Trends in Ultra-High Net Worth Giving report.
• Ultra-wealthy people under age 45 are not only less interested in bankrolling museums and theaters than those who are older, but also want to be more personally involved in the organizations they do support.
• Billionaire philanthropists and the institutions they support have faced increasing scrutiny from the public in 2019.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Public opinion is swinging against billionaire donors, and a new generation of ultra-wealthy people are changing how they give back as a result.

Young billionaires are making philanthropy a more hands-on and transparent process, research firm Wealth-X concluded in its 2019 Trends in Ultra-High Net Worth Giving report. "They are allocating their time and skills
in a way that has not been done before,"Wealth-X wrote. Older billionaires however, tend to focus on philanthropy after retiring instead of weaving it in throughout their careers, according to Wealth-X.

These trends among young philanthropists are especially noteworthy after three of New York's leading museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art all faced protests in 2019 for accepting donations from controversial billionaires. 

The report analyzed the philanthropic habits of individuals under 45 with net worths above $30 million, who, according to Wealth-X's researchers, have pledged to donate at least $50,000 to charity between 2014 and 2018. Wealth-X expects the trends observed in the report to only grow stronger with time, as young ultra-high net worth individuals currently comprise just 8% of the world's ultra-wealthy population.

Do you work with the ultra-wealthy and have a story to share? Contact the reporter via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (646) 768-4725 using a non-work phone, email at trogers@businessinsider.com, or Twitter DM at @TaylorNRogers. (PR pitches by email only, please.)

SEE ALSO: Here's exactly how much money each of America's 10 wealthiest people gave away to charity in 2018

DON'T MISS: White Claw billionaire Anthony von Mandl got his start selling wine out of his car. Here's how he built a $3.4 billion fortune off the hard seltzers and lemonades that have redefined booze for bros.

1. While older billionaires often write checks and (figuratively) walk away, younger billionaires want to be actively involved with the organizations they support.

This trend, called "co-creation" by philanthropy experts, has resulted in fewer buildings named after billionaires and more billionaires sitting on the boards of non-profits, Wealth-X found. Rising scrutiny of billionaire philanthropy has led donors to crave close oversight of how their funds are spent, according to Wealth-X.

Houston-based philanthropist Laura Arnold, now 46, joined the board of REFORM Alliance, the criminal justice-focused advocacy group founded by Jay-Z and Meek Mill, after making a multimillion dollar donation to the group, Business Insider previously reported. Arnold told Business Insider in August that the group's diverse leadership, which also includes CNN host Van Jones and Vista Equity Partners CEO Robert F. Smith, is one of its greatest strengths.

"The group has brought together people with different political perspectives and people with lived experience in the justice system," Arnold said.

2. Younger billionaires are less likely to fund the arts than older ones.

Education is the top cause for donors of all ages, according to Wealth-X, but the arts and cultural institutions come in second for ultra-wealthy people who are over the age of 65. Over 65% of ultra-wealthy seniors have donated money to the arts, compared with just 35% of ultra-wealthy people under 45, Wealth-X found.

One of the United States' most prominent arts donors, David Koch, passed away in August at 79 after a battle with cancer, Business Insider previously reported. Koch was a major patron of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but his donations were often mired in controversy as he and his brother Charles also gave millions to fund conservative causes.

3. Ultra-wealthy people under 45 are also more interested in collaborating on philanthropic projects than their predecessors.

Despite this finding, one of the most well-known examples of collaborative giving — The Giving Pledge — was actually spearheaded by two billionaires who fall outside of Wealth-X's definition of "young." Bill Gates and Warren Buffett launched The Pledge in 2010, and have since gotten 204 ultra-wealthy people across the globe to commit to giving away the majority of their fortunes, according to the organization's website.

But per Wealth-X's recent findings, this style of giving is generally more popular among the younger generation of billionaires than older ones.

4. Younger billionaires tend to focus their philanthropy on one area, while older billionaires are more likely to give to a wide variety of causes.

Younger billionaires' singular focus on one area of philanthropy is a result of their desire to become more involved in the work they fund, according to Wealth-X. They also begin their philanthropy at a younger age, according to Wealth-X, giving them more time to build an expertise in a particular field.

The trend is expected to escalate as more young people accumulate wealth, but it can already been seen among a group of young Asian billionaires focusing on climate change, the World Wild Fund's Laura Weeks told Wealth-X. Bloomberg's David Ramli similarly reported in September that a group of five Chinese heirs has made climate change the singular focus of their philanthropy, despite being the fifth most popular cause for Chinese philanthropists across all age ranges.

• Elaine Welteroth is a journalist, social media personality, author, and a judge on Bravo's "Project Runway." 
• Before she joined "Project Runway," Welteroth was the editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue— the fashion and beauty magazine owned by Condé Nast. 
• Welteroth's promotion to the publication's highest executive ranks in 2017 made her, at the time, only the second black editor-in-chief in Condé Nast's 107-year history.
• In addition, the promotion made 29-year-old Welteroth the youngest EIC in company history. 
• In 2018, she left Condé Nast and a year later, published her memoir, "More Than Enough," which recounts her journey to the top of the editorial industry. 
• According to the book, here are five ways she was able to quickly rise through the ranks. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

At 29, Elaine Welteroth became not just the youngest Editor-in-Chief in Condé Nast's 107-year-old history, but also only the second black person to ever hold an EIC title at the company.

Her promotion was praised throughout media circles as being a step forward in the publishing industry, and marked a new era in media representation. She is credited with transforming Teen Vogue into a political and social outlet, noted for its inclusivity with editorials that highlighted a diverse array of voices. 

However, Welteroth makes it known in her 2019 memoir, "More than Enough," that her road to the top was not a glamorous one, and that at nearly every turn, there was a struggle. In fact, she writes, even after she had reached the top, there was still much fighting to be done. 

"Women aren't taught to get comfortable with making people uncomfortable," she wrote in her book. 

Thus the title of her memoir, "More than Enough", is supposed to speak to those who have always felt like the underdogs — reminding each and every person that they are "more than enough" for the world in which they live, and "more than enough" to qualify for any dream they want to chase.

At the same time, "more than enough" is what Welteroth gave as she climbed through the editorial ranks, starting from her small city of Newark, California all the way to the big leagues in New York. It's the type of career trajectory that serves to inspire, producing a memoir unlike the rest.

Keep reading to find out five ways Welteroth was able to quickly rise through the ranks of the editorial industry.

Welteroth didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. 

SEE ALSO: Lower pay, more harassment: How work in America has failed women of color

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5. Giving 'more than enough'

Welteroth started off as an editorial intern at Ebony magazine.

At the time, Ebony was a small company with fewer resources than the "mainstream" publications. Welteroth took this to her advantage and began pick up more projects to help Ebony make up for the fact that they were severly understaffed. 

In doing this, she acquired skills early on that allowed her to thrive once she left the magazine. 

Later, she assumed the role of production assistant and then, at the age of 22, she was formally promoted to beauty and style editor.

"There is hustle and there is flow," she wrote in her book. "And you cannot successfully achieve one without the other."

4. Taking risks

Once Welteroth left Ebony, she knew the jump from a traditional black magazine to other publications was going to be hard.

She wrote that on her journey to find a new job, hiring managers would often tell her that she was "overqualified" for the position. 

"My fears of being pigeonholed in Black media were being legitimized with every closed door," she wrote. "But I kept knocking anyway, pulling all-nighters on edit tests and hustling even harder at work to beef up my clip book — producing up to twenty-five pages an issue." 

Eventually, with intense networking and a  clip book, she was offered a position at Glamour magazine as a beauty writer and editor. This position allowed her to enter the Condé Nast realm. Condé Nast is one of the most prestigious mass media companies in the world, and own publications such as Glamour, Teen Vogue, and Vogue. 

3. Learning from past mistakes

At one of her first major photoshoots for Teen Vogue, Welteroth quickly learned that in the age of the internet, images often speak louder than words.

She published a magazine spread about black natural hair meant to reflect the diversity of black hair, only to accidentally exclude dark-skinned black girls. The spread caused controversy and revived debates about colorism in the magazine industry. But rather than hide from the controversy, Welteroth took it head on.

She posted an op-ed on Teen Vogue's website stating:

"I will be the first to say that the industry still has a long way to go in addressing the deep need for more affirming messages .... As one of the few Black beauty editors, it is a responsibility that I do not take lightly," she said.

Later in her book she also wrote, "As writers, as magazine editors, as people with public platforms, we are the cultural agenda setters. We signal with our editorial decisions what the priorities are." 

2. Speaking to be heard

When she was promoted to editor-in-chief, Welteroth was initially told she would have to split her responsibilities and salary with two other people. She wrote this was something she would "fall on her sword" for, so she requested to at least be paid with "dignity."

"Women are taught to work hard and to play by the rules. We are taught to never overstep, to stay in our lane, to keep our head down, to go with the flow, to never be too loud or disagreeable. Not to be bossy. Not to be pushy. We are not encouraged to know our worth, let alone demand it," she wrote. "Women aren't taught to get comfortable with making people uncomfortable."

1. Never standing down

After less than two years, Welteroth became known as the driving force behind Teen Vogue's transition into a political and inclusive publication. Her fearlessness was driven by her mantra to just "do it anyway" and, as result, she ended up making big changes in the publishing industry. 

"In order to change the stories," she wrote in her book. "You must first change the storytellers."  

Welteroth said she always believed that her purpose was greater than her fear, so when it was time for her to finally leave Teen Vogue and venture into the unknown, she said was ready for what was to come next.   

In the end, she didn't stand down; she stood up, and walked. 

"My mission at Teen Vogue was to make young people whose voices had been marginalized feel seen, centered, and celebrated," she wrote in her book. "I did what I came to do. I had done enough. I was enough. And I was ready for more." 

The new season of Bravo's "Project Runway" airs on December 5th at 9:30pm. Welteroth 's memoir "More than Enough" is available for purchase on Amazon. 

• This year Hanukkah will begin on December 22 and end on December 30. If you or someone you know will be celebrating, you'll probably need to find a gift to give over the course of the eight nights.
• We rounded up the best Hanukkah gifts that anyone on your list will love, from techy gadgets to party games and classy cookware. 
• Keep reading for 24 Hanukkah gifts anyone will love. Check out all of our 2019 holiday gift ideas here.

If you've ever heard Adam Sandler's festive anthem "The Chanukah Song," you know that "instead of one day of presents, we have eight crazy nights." 

While the eight-day celebration of Hanukkah isn't rooted in gifting, it's become commonplace to give gifts over the course of the holiday. Some may choose to give and receive gifts on all eight nights while others may choose to do just one; some may have traditions of giving lots of small, stocking stuffer-like trinkets, while others may gift big-ticket items. There's no right or wrong way to go about Hanukkah gifting, but with the holiday right around the corner, now is a good time to think about what you're going to give those in your life who celebrate. 

To make it easy, we rounded 24 Hanukkah gifts that work for everyone on your list. From luxury beauty products they can take on their next vacation to fun games that'll add excitement to their holiday parties, we've got you covered with plenty of gift ideas.

Keep reading for 24 of the best Hanukkah gifts anyone will be happy to receive:

SEE ALSO: All of Insider Picks' holiday gift ideas, in one place

A candle inspired by holiday delicacies

Homesick Hanukkah Candle, available at Amazon, $29.49

Layered with notes of butter, apple, and potato, this candle will take them back to Hanukkah parties spent celebrating with loved ones, with fresh potato latkes and jelly doughnuts frying. If you want to add some humor, go for the Jewish Christmas option instead. Notes of butter, popcorn, and clove will remind them of their favorite Christmas Eve tradition— Chinese food and a movie — every time they light the candle. 

A set of high-quality olive oils

The Alive Duo, available at Brightland, $70

The fresh flavors of Brightland's quality olive oils are the perfect companion to their array of fried Hanukkah treats and all of the other dishes they enjoy year-round. 

A comfortable travel pillow

Trtl Pillow, available at Amazon, $17.99

Do they have a holiday vacation planned? If so, they'll appreciate this smart travel pillow. Small and compact, the Trtl Pillow wraps around their neck like a scarf but provides serious support, so they can actually get some sleep on the go. 

A hilarious game for holiday parties

What Do You Meme?, available at Amazon, $29.99

The holidays mean lots of time spent with family and friends. Give them a fun card game that's sure to provide ample laughs — they'll be the holiday party hero. 

A plush blanket for cold nights

Nordstrom at Home Kennebunk Bliss Plush Throw, available at Nordstrom, $39.50

Nothing says holidays like cuddling up by the fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate and some cozy accessories to keep them warm. This plush throw is the perfect addition to their cold-weather rituals. 

A great read

"Educated" by Tara Westover, available at Amazon, $13.99

Give them a page-turner to add some excitement to their holiday vacation. "Educated" has received consistent praise, but there are plenty of other great books you can find on Amazon whether you want to go with a hardcover, paperback, Kindle, or audiobook version. 

A small smart speaker

Echo Dot (3rd generation), available at Amazon, $22 (originally $49.99)

Whether they're tech experts or novices, they'll love the small but mighty Echo Dot. It's a great speaker for its size, and they can use it to create a smart home system or add to their pre-existing setup. 

A stylish and practical desk accessory

Smartphone Valet & Planter, available at Uncommon Goods, $60

This ceramic phone dock is an elegant way to keep their important tech within arm's reach while they work. The vase can be used to add some greenery to their desk, or to store pens, pencils, and other small office goods. 

Sustainable and affordable cashmere

Essential Cashmere Sweater, available at Naadam, $75

At just $75, Naadam's Essential Cashmere Sweater is a luxury that won't break the bank. Naadam calls the sweater "heavenly soft" and Insider Picks reporter Mara Leighton agrees, making this a cozy piece anyone will love to receive. 

A Disney+ subscription

Subscribe for $6.99/month or $69.99/year

It gives you unlimited access to movies and shows from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, and 20th Century Fox, and costs just $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year after a free seven-day trial. Read everything there is to know about Disney+ over here.

And if you need some binge-spiration, here are all the new movies available to stream.

A really nice water bottle

Hydro Flask 32-ounce Wide Mouth Bottle, available at Amazon, $39.95

Hydro Flask's signature double-wall vacuum insulation will keep their hot beverages hot and their cold ones cold for hours. With 18-, 32-, 40-, and 64-ounce options, there's a right size of this trending water bottle for everyone. 

A camera that makes instant memories

Fujifilm Instax Mini 9 Instant Camera, available at Amazon, from $54.59

Smartphones may have taken away the need for cameras for the most part, but there's still something fun about getting to snap pictures on a camera and watch them develop. With this small Fujifilm instant camera, they can snap away and get their physical prints on the spot. 

Nice socks that give back

Bombas Socks, available at Bombas, from $10.50

Socks are an underrated, but seriously important part of any wardrobe. Bombas has mastered the art of the sock with its thoughtful details and design. While pricier than most socks, for every pair of Bombas sold, the brand donates a pair to a homeless shelter — something you can feel good about, especially over the holiday season. 

A convenient port that takes away the pain points of charging electronics

Elago 3-in-1 Charging Hub, available at Amazon, $24.99

Three devices, but just one outlet? That's no longer an issue with this charging hub, which has enough room for all of their most-used electronics. 

A custom reel viewer filled with their favorite memories

Create Your Own Reel Viewer, available at Uncommon Goods, from $14.95

The ultimate in nostalgia, this grown-up version of the classic reel viewer makes a sweet, personal gift. Fill the reel with snapshots of their favorite memories that they'll love to flip through for years to come. 

A unique cooking kit

Make Your Own Hot Sauce Kit, available at Uncommon Goods, $35

Give them the chance to create their own condiments with this hot-sauce-making kit. It's filled with bottles, labels, and all the special ingredients they need to make the spicy sauces. 

A travel set of luxe scents

Le Labo Fragrance Discovery Set, available at Nordstrom, $98

This limited edition set from Nordstrom features four of Le Labo's most popular unisex scents in travel sizes made for when you need a fresh scent on the go. 

Shirts inspired by their favorite Jewish foods

Boots Tees Hanukkah Shirts, available at Etsy, from $22.95

Ugly Christmas sweaters get most of the spotlight around the holidays, but these funny tees are a great Hanukkah-appropriate alternative. The shirts are inspired by beloved Jewish dishes, like brisket, challah, and matzo balls, and are sure to give them a laugh. 

A retro-looking wireless speaker

Lofree Vintage Bluetooth Speaker, available at Amazon, $69.99

Vintage aesthetics paired with modern technology make this a unique piece that looks and sounds great. It's small enough to take on the go, making it a nice addition to pool parties, picnics, and all kinds of activities. 

A small gadget that cooks eggs quickly

Dash Rapid Egg Cooker, available at Amazon, $14.99

Whether they like their eggs poached, boiled, scrambled, or in omelet form, egg lovers can make their favorite preparations with this small gadget. All they have to do is choose their preparation, set the timer, and their breakfast will be ready in a flash. 

Cookware inspired by their favorite film

Le Creuset Mini Round Cocotte Set, available for pre-order at Williams Sonoma, $90

The highly anticipated Le Creuset x Star Wars collection is set to debut on November 1. These mini dishes are perfect for baking and serving individual portions, plus they're adorned with designs inspired by their favorite Star Wars characters. 

Relaxing and detoxifying bath salts

Herbivore Botanicals Natural Soaking Bath Salts, available at Amazon, $18

Who doesn't love to relax? These calming bath salts make a great gift for anyone on your list. Inside there's vanilla, ylang ylang essential oil, and Himalayan pink salt crystals, which will soothe the body and flood the room with a calming scent. 

A journal they'll use for years to come

One Line a Day Journal, available at Amazon, $10.13

This little journal will eventually hold five year's worth of memories. Each date in the diary has five blank spaces (one for each year) that they can fill with random musings, ideas, and memories. Even after five years pass, this will be a fun keepsake they can look back at. 

An armband that keeps their important belongings safe while they run

Tribe Water Resistant Armband Case, available at Amazon, $10.98

Runners and fitness enthusiasts will appreciate this practical gift. The armband keeps their important things like a phone and set of house keys nearby and secure. Plus, it can fit just about any phone. 

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