Advertiser Disclosure: This site is part of affiliate sales networks and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers.
[2026.10 Update] The new offer is 50k. This is the best ever offer on this card!
[2026.4 Update] There’s a new benefit added on all UA cobranded cards: 10% off on UA award flights. For the no fee card UA Gateway card, you need to spend $10k in a calendar year to get this benefit, while for all other UA cobranded cards with an annual fee, you get this benefit as long as you hold the card.
[2025.11 Update] The new offer is 40k. This is the best ever offer on this card!
Application Link
Benefits
50k offer: get 40,000 United miles after $1,000 spending in 3 months, earn 10k more miles when you add an authorized user in the first 3 months. That’s 50k miles in total. This is the best offer on this card.
Earn 2 miles per $1 spent on United Airlines purchases, at gas stations and on local transit and commuting.
[New] After spending $10,000 in a calendar year, 10% off on UA award flights.
Get 25% bonus miles on MileagePlus X purchases. (You don’t have to use this card to make the purchase; instead, you will get the bonus as long as you have this card under your UA account.)
More award availability (XN cabin) with this card.
[New] Starting from Aug 1, 2025, you don’t have automatic cardmember pricing on award ticket any more, instead, you need to spend $10,000 each calendar year to see it.
Earn 25% back on in flight purchases.
No foreign transaction fee.
No annual fee.
Disadvantage
There’s no free checked bag, priority boarding etc. benefits.
Recommended Application Time
[5/24 Rule] If you have 5 or more new accounts opened in the past 24 months, Chase will not approve your application, no matter how high your credit score is. The number of new accounts includes all credit card accounts, not only Chase accounts. See this post for details about how to possibly bypass this rule.
You are not eligible for this sign-up bonus if you received a sign-up bonus on this card within 24 months. Note that what matters here is the time you got the sign-up bonus, not the time you opened or closed the account.
Don’t apply for more than 2 Chase credit cards within 30 days, or it’s highly likely that you will get rejected.
We recommend you to apply for this card after you have a credit history for more than a year.
Summary
This card is a suitable downgrade option for Chase United Explorer or Chase United Club. We do not recommend to apply for it directly because the 5/24 slots are very valuable. Since holding this card gives you the ability to see expanded award availability (XN cabin), it is worth keeping in the drawer.
Related Credit Cards
Chase UA Gateway
Chase UA Explorer
Chase UA Business
Chase UA Quest
Chase UA Club
Chase UA Club Business
Annual Fee
0
$150
$150
$350
$695
$695
Various Credits
–
$100 United Hotels credit; $60 Rideshare credit; $50 Avis/Budget credit; etc.
$100 United Hotels credit; $100 Rideshare credit; $50 Avis/Budget credit; etc.
$200 United TravelBank cash; 10,000-mile award flight discount; $150 Renowned Hotels and Resorts credit; $100 Rideshare credit; $80 Avis/Budget credit; etc.
$200 Renowned Hotels and Resorts credit; $150 Rideshare credit; $100 Avis/Budget credit; etc.
$200 Renowned Hotels and Resorts credit; $100 Avis/Budget credit; $150 Rideshare credit; etc.
Historical Offers Chart
Application Link
If you like this post, don’t forget to give it a 5 star rating!
Ontario and Alberta recorded the highest mortgage application fraud rates in Q2 as Equifax warned lenders to account for regional differences in financial stress.
The VanEck Pharmaceutical ETF(PPH -0.07%) provides a lower-cost entry and higher yield than the Invesco Pharmaceuticals ETF(PJP -0.30%), which has shown stronger 1-year returns and more concentrated top holdings.
These ETFs target the pharmaceutical industry but take different paths. While they both focus on the research and distribution of drugs, their portfolios and cost structures vary significantly. This comparison examines how they stack up on costs, historical risk, and portfolio concentration as of Sept. 29, 2026, to help determine which strategy aligns with an investor’s goals.
Snapshot (cost & size)
Metric
PJP
PPH
Issuer
Invesco
VanEck
Share price
$127.11 (as of 2026-09-28)
$111.48 (as of 2026-09-28)
Expense ratio
0.58%
0.36%
1-yr return (as of 2026-09-28)
41.0%
31.0%
Dividend yield
0.9%
2.0%
Beta
0.43
0.45
AUM
$569.6 million
$1.0 billion
Beta measures price volatility relative to the S&P 500; beta is calculated from monthly returns over the available fund history (up to five years). The 1-year return represents total return over the trailing 12 months. Dividend yield is the trailing-12-month distribution yield.
The VanEck Pharmaceutical ETF is the more affordable fund with its 0.36% expense ratio, while the Invesco Pharmaceuticals ETF charges 0.58%. Investors also see a higher payout from the VanEck fund, which maintains a 1.06 percentage point lead in dividend yield.
Performance & risk comparison
Metric
PJP
PPH
Max drawdown (5 yr)
(17.5%)
(20.3%)
Growth of $1,000 over 5 years (total return)
$1,722
$1,677
What’s inside
The VanEck Pharmaceutical ETF allocates its assets across 26 holdings, focusing on large-scale pharmaceutical enterprises with a significant concentration in its largest positions. Its biggest positions include Eli Lilly & Co(LLY -0.61%) at 20.82%, Merck & Co Inc(MRK +0.34%) at 13.36%, and Novo Nordisk A/S(NVO -0.21%) at 5.62%. It launched in 2011, and has paid $2.17 per share over the trailing 12 months, which on its recent ~$111.48 share price works out to a 2% yield.
The Invesco Pharmaceuticals ETF tracks 30 U.S. pharmaceutical companies involved in drug development and manufacturing using a more balanced weighting approach. Its largest positions include Gilead Sciences Inc(GILD -1.87%) at 5.58%, Pfizer Inc(PFE -1.14%) at 5.48%, and AbbVie Inc(ABBV +1.11%) at 5.46%. It launched in 2005, and has paid $1.13 per share over the trailing 12 months, which on its recent ~$127.11 share price works out to a 0.9% yield.
For more guidance on ETF investing, check out the full guide at this link.
Which looks like the better buy
Pharmaceutical stocks offer investors a combination of recession-resistant demand, strong growth catalysts from medical innovation, and reliable dividend income from established global giants. Two well-established ETFs targeting the sector are the VanEck Pharmaceutical ETF (PPH) and the Invesco Pharmaceuticals ETF (PJP). Choosing between them comes down to some key differences.
PPH boasts the far larger AUM, delivering superior liquidity, and making it the better fund for active traders. It offers global exposure to the pharmaceutical industry, with 63.7% of the portfolio concentrated in the U.S. and the remainder in international companies. It also offers a greater dividend yield, making it an attractive choice for income-oriented investors. This, combined with its lower fees, makes it a good ETF to buy and hold for the long term.
PJP focuses strictly on the U.S. pharma market, so if you prefer to stick with U.S. stocks, this is the fund for you. Its holdings have been evaluated based on a variety of investment criteria, such as price and earnings momentum, quality, and value. This has helped PJP deliver stronger returns, although the trade-off is a higher expense ratio and lower dividend yield.
If you’d like professional guidance from a SEBI-registered financial advisor, please fill out this short form –
We currently advise portfolios worth ₹1,200+ crore, helping people work towards financial independence.
Checkout Ashwin’s PnL Link here:
Ashwin Raghavan’s story is one of the most unusual journeys in the trading world. A former software engineer and product manager at PhonePe, he walked away from a high-paying corporate career after experiencing burnout and decided to pursue trading full time. What followed was a wild ride. Ashwin went through massive ups and downs, losing a large part of his savings at one point, before eventually turning about ₹7.5 lakh into nearly ₹15 crore within two years.
He also competed in the prestigious US Investing Championship against global traders with million-dollar portfolios and finished among the top performers with extraordinary returns in a short period of time.
In this episode, Ashwin breaks down how he thinks about the markets and why trading is more about understanding psychology than complicated math. He explains the difference between fundamental and technical analysis, how chart patterns reflect the behavior of “smart money,” and why risk management and stop losses are critical for survival in trading.
The conversation also covers his biggest wins, painful losses, the dangers of leverage, and the mindset required to survive the emotional rollercoaster of the markets. If you are curious about trading, market psychology, and what it really takes to generate outsized returns, this episode offers a raw and honest look into the life of a professional trader.
Ashwin’s Linkedin Profile:
Ashwin’s Twitter Profile:
—
Subscribe:
The 1% Club:
YouTube:
Instagram:
LinkedIn:
Sharan Hegde:
Instagram:
LinkedIn:
Twitter/X:
–
Sharan Hegde is a personal finance creator & founder of the 1% Club, simplifying money, markets, and mindset for India’s next generation of wealth builders.
–
Timeline:
00:00 – Precap
01:00 – Introducing the guest, Ashwin Raghavan
01:33 – How life changed for him
02:39 – He’s in the world’s top 5 traders?
06:28 – How he missed the 1st position
08:03 – How much of trading is luck vs skill
10:03 – Why he quit his ₹60 LPA job
12:50 – How hard is it to be a successful trader
16:55 – His craziest bet in trading
18:45 – Fundamental vs technical investing
19:35 – Why technical investing works
21:29 – How he learned trading
24:35 – What is the Volatility Contraction Pattern?
27:51 – How Ashwin multiplied his gold returns
29:46 – Why Ashwin still prefers leverage
31:00 – How time works against you in options
35:54 – Ashwin’s return expectations for 2026
37:28 – What’s the caveat he faces to get super rich?
38:11 – Rapid fire round
42:27 – Ending notes
My daughter is a high school senior with a 4.6 GPA, and I just saw that she can only borrow $5,500 her freshman year. Most of the schools she’s looking at require freshmen to live in the dorms, and $5,500 doesn’t even cover tuition at our in-state school.
Is this a new rule? Are we supposed to take out private loans to make up the difference? It feels like they’re making it impossible for middle-class kids to go to college.
— Julia
Welcome to the Friday mailbag, where we take one reader question and answer it. Have one? Send it to us — details at the bottom.
The Short Answer
The $5,500 first-year limit isn’t new. It has been the cap for dependent undergraduates since the 2008-09 school year.
What changed on July 1, 2026 is the parent side: Parent PLUS loans now top out at $20,000 a year and $65,000 total per student. Together, a student and parents can still borrow about $92,000 in federal loans over four years, which is more than most bachelor’s degrees can pay back comfortably.
Would you like to save this?
We’ll email this article to you, so you can come back to it later!
What The Student Loan Borrowing Limits Actually Are
The amount that dependent undergraduates can borrow rises with each year in school, and the current federal student loan borrowing limits are the same ones families saw in 2008.
Parents can add Parent PLUS loans on top, now subject to the new caps. Here’s what the maximum federal package looks like for a dependent student starting this year:
Maximum Federal Borrowing For A Dependent Undergraduate
Maximum Federal Borrowing For A Dependent Undergraduate
Year In School
Student (Direct Loans)
Parent PLUS
Combined Max
Freshman
$5,500
$20,000
$25,500
Sophomore
$6,500
$20,000
$26,500
Junior
$7,500
$20,000
$27,500
Senior
$7,500
$5,000Hits the $65,000 cap
$12,500
Four-Year Total
$27,000
$65,000
$92,000
Student limits have been unchanged since the 2008-09 school year. The student’s lifetime cap is $31,000. Parent PLUS limits of $20,000 per year and $65,000 total apply per student for loans after July 1, 2026. Source: U.S. Department of Education via The College Investor.
The student’s lifetime cap is $31,000, so a fifth year can only be done federally with the students’ own loans. Parent PLUS limits apply per student, not per parent, so two parents cannot each borrow $65,000 for the same child.
Students whose parents are denied a PLUS loan can borrow extra unsubsidized money at the independent-student level, and our Parent PLUS loan explainer covers how that works.
As a side note, we are seeing some schools cap Parent Plus loans at $16,250 per year to allow the parents to spread it equally over 4 years.
These Limits Have Been Frozen Since 2008
It has been nearly two decades since Congress last raised the undergraduate student borrowing limits.
The Higher Education Reconciliation Act of 2005 raised the dependent freshman limit from $2,625 to $3,500 starting in 2007-08, and the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act of 2008 added another $2,000 a year in unsubsidized loans starting in 2008-09, according to the Government Accountability Office.
That’s where the $5,500, $6,500, and $7,500 comes from, and it hasn’t moved since.
Inflation has been making these numbers more and more out of touch.
Prices are up about 56% since 2008 based on the Consumer Price Index, so the 2008 freshman limit of $5,500 would be roughly $8,560 today and the $31,000 lifetime cap would be about $48,200, according to an inflation calculator using BLS CPI-U data.
Put another way, the student’s own borrowing power has lost about a third of its value in 18 years, which is a big reason more families were leaning on Parent PLUS loans to cover the difference.
What Changed In 2026
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act left undergraduate limits alone, but capped the programs that used to have no ceiling.
Before July 1, 2026, parents could borrow up to the full cost of attendance through Parent PLUS loans. Now the cap is $20,000 a year and $65,000 total per student.
Families already borrowing get a transition window. Parents who took a PLUS loan before July 1, 2026 can keep borrowing under the old rules for the same student in the same program for up to three more academic years, or until expected completion if that’s sooner. Our Parent PLUS timelines for 2026 walks through who qualifies.
Can $92,000 Actually Cover College?
When you add the undergraduate borrowing limits and parent PLUS loan borrowing limits, families can still borrow $92,000 for four years of college with federal student loans.
The College Board puts average published tuition and fees at a public four-year school at $11,950 for in-state students in 2025-26, with a full budget including housing, food, books, and transportation at $30,990, according to College Board’s Trends in College Pricing.
Sticker price also isn’t what most families pay. After grants, first-time, full-time in-state students at public four-year schools paid an estimated $2,300 in net tuition and fees in 2025-26, according to the College Board. In our analysis of what families really pay for college out of pocket, we found that less than 10% of families exceeded $100,000 in out-of-pocket costs for a bachelor’s degree.
If you’re exceeding $92,000, it’s likely that you’re paying for significantly more than education. You’re likely paying for an out-of-state college experience for your child – not just a bachelor’s degree.
Why You Shouldn’t Borrow Past These Limits
The key thing to remember: $92,000 is already more debt than most bachelor’s degrees can support. The most basic rule of thumb is to never borrow more than you expect to earn in your first year after graduation.
More nuanced college ROI data puts the net present value of a bachelor’s degree at being worth between $40,000 and $80,000 in today’s dollars.
The average projected starting salary for computer science majors, the top-paid category, is $81,535, and business majors are projected at $68,873, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Borrowing the full $92,000 means taking on more debt than even the highest-earning first-year graduates make. Our college ROI calculator lets you test this against your student’s intended major.
It all comes down to the monthly payments. Once you graduate college, you’re going to have to start repaying these student loans, and if you don’t earn enough, those monthly payments could be a struggle. Repaid over 10 years, the student’s $27,000 at 6.52% runs about $307 a month, and the parents’ $65,000 at 9.07% runs about $826 a month, for a household total of roughly $1,133.
Our student loan affordability calculator uses the rule of keeping payments below 10% of projected income. For a business graduate earning $68,873, that’s about $574 a month, so the student’s share fits but the full $92,000 doesn’t.
That’s why we recommend families treat the federal limits as a ceiling. Many families end up with the student paying the parents’ loans after graduation, and when that happens, the full package costs nearly 20% of a new graduate’s gross pay.
Our tips on how to minimize college debt are where we’d start before anyone signs for a private loan to supplement even further,
What To Do If The Numbers Don’t Work
Compare net price, not sticker price. Run every school’s net price calculator and line up the award letters side by side once they arrive. Our ways to pay for college covers every funding source in order.
Treat a school that needs private loans as a warning sign. If the federal maximum plus grants and savings doesn’t cover it, look elsewhere.
Look at faster and cheaper paths. Nearly 60 colleges now offer three-year bachelor’s degrees, and some schools offer free tuition below set income levels.
If you do borrow privately, shop carefully. Compare fixed rates from state-based nonprofit lenders alongside the best private student loans, and keep the total inside the starting-salary math above.
Start or keep funding a 529 plan. Every dollar saved is a dollar nobody borrows, and our 529 savings targets by age give you a benchmark.
Where People Get This Wrong
The biggest misconception we are seeing is that the $5,500 limit was just imposed. Freshmen have been capped at $5,500 since 2008-09, and the 2026 changes landed on parents and graduate students.
The second mistake is assuming private loans must fill whatever federal loans don’t. Private lenders approve based on credit, usually with a cosigner, and those loans lack income-driven repayment and federal forgiveness options. Our explainer on private student loans covers the tradeoffs.
If your college plan requires $200,000 in private debt for a bachelor’s degree, the problem is the school’s price, not the federal cap, and you should apply elsewhere.
Send Us Your Question
Got a student loan, financial aid, or money question you can’t get a straight answer on? Send it to us and we may answer it in a future Friday mailbag.
var gform;gform||(document.addEventListener(“gform_main_scripts_loaded”,function(){gform.scriptsLoaded=!0}),document.addEventListener(“gform/theme/scripts_loaded”,function(){gform.themeScriptsLoaded=!0}),window.addEventListener(“DOMContentLoaded”,function(){gform.domLoaded=!0}),gform={domLoaded:!1,scriptsLoaded:!1,themeScriptsLoaded:!1,isFormEditor:()=>”function”==typeof InitializeEditor,callIfLoaded:function(o){return!(!gform.domLoaded||!gform.scriptsLoaded||!gform.themeScriptsLoaded&&!gform.isFormEditor()||(gform.isFormEditor()&&console.warn(“The use of gform.initializeOnLoaded() is deprecated in the form editor context and will be removed in Gravity Forms 3.1.”),o(),0))},initializeOnLoaded:function(o){gform.callIfLoaded(o)||(document.addEventListener(“gform_main_scripts_loaded”,()=>{gform.scriptsLoaded=!0,gform.callIfLoaded(o)}),document.addEventListener(“gform/theme/scripts_loaded”,()=>{gform.themeScriptsLoaded=!0,gform.callIfLoaded(o)}),window.addEventListener(“DOMContentLoaded”,()=>{gform.domLoaded=!0,gform.callIfLoaded(o)}))},hooks:{action:{},filter:{}},addAction:function(o,r,e,t){gform.addHook(“action”,o,r,e,t)},addFilter:function(o,r,e,t){gform.addHook(“filter”,o,r,e,t)},doAction:function(o){gform.doHook(“action”,o,arguments)},applyFilters:function(o){return gform.doHook(“filter”,o,arguments)},removeAction:function(o,r){gform.removeHook(“action”,o,r)},removeFilter:function(o,r,e){gform.removeHook(“filter”,o,r,e)},addHook:function(o,r,e,t,n){null==gform.hooks[o][r]&&(gform.hooks[o][r]=[]);var d=gform.hooks[o][r];null==n&&(n=r+”_”+d.length),gform.hooks[o][r].push({tag:n,callable:e,priority:t=null==t?10:t})},doHook:function(r,o,e){var t;if(e=Array.prototype.slice.call(e,1),null!=gform.hooks[r][o]&&((o=gform.hooks[r][o]).sort(function(o,r){return o.priority-r.priority}),o.forEach(function(o){“function”!=typeof(t=o.callable)&&(t=window[t]),”action”==r?t.apply(null,e):e[0]=t.apply(null,e)})),”filter”==r)return e[0]},removeHook:function(o,r,t,n){var e;null!=gform.hooks[o][r]&&(e=(e=gform.hooks[o][r]).filter(function(o,r,e){return!!(null!=n&&n!=o.tag||null!=t&&t!=o.priority)}),gform.hooks[o][r]=e)}});
Reader Mailbag
Have a question for us? Ask away. Questions submitted may appear articles on The College Investor. We may not answer every question. We reserve the right to edit and publish your questions. But don’t worry — your identity will remain anonymous.
Editor: Colin Graves
The post Is $5,500 Really All My Kid Can Borrow For College? appeared first on The College Investor.
There’s a new Best Buy Citi Offer available on select Citi cards that gives $10 back after spending $200 or more at Best Buy.
The offer is valid in-store and online through October 31, 2026, and can be redeemed up to two times. That means you can earn up to $20 back in total if you make two qualifying $200+ purchases.
For Citi Strata Elite cardholders, this can be even better since you may be able to stack the offer with the card’s Splurge Credit on qualifying Best Buy purchases. Check out the details below.
Offer Details
Earn $10 back on a purchase of $200 or more at Best Buy.
May be redeemed at Best Buy®, online at BestBuy.com® or on the Best Buy App.
Offer expires on October 31, 2026.
Find your Citi Merchant Offers here.
Important Terms
Limit of one enrolled card and one statement credit per card member.
Offer valid in-store and online.
Cashback is limited to $10 per transaction and 2 redemption(s) per Offer Cycle.
Offer expires October 31 2026.
Not valid on Best Buy Gift Card purchases.
Not valid on Best Buy® Gift Card purchases.
Offer not valid at Best Buy Outlet locations. Excludes Best Buy® Business, Best Buy® partnerships, and Pacific Sales® stores.
Guru’s Wrap-up
You can take advantage of this offer by simply using your Citi credit cards for eligible transactions. Just make sure you enroll in the offer first, before making a purchase. You can enroll multiple Citi credit cards for this same offer, as long as the offer shows up in that account. The deal gets better for Strata Elite cardholders.
Every borrower’s financial picture is different, and sometimes finding the right mortgage solution requires looking beyond traditional lending options.
Mortgage Loan Originator Saltanat Turabayeva recently helped a self-employed professional stock market trader secure financing for an investment property despite a unique income structure and the additional requirements associated with foreign national financing.
A significant portion of the borrower’s income comes from managing and trading accounts for clients overseas. Because this type of income does not fit neatly into traditional employment categories, the lender needed a clearer understanding of how the business operated and generated revenue.
Saltanat worked closely with the borrower to provide the additional information needed to explain the business model. This included demonstrating that the income was generated through professional client account management rather than simply trading the borrower’s personal assets.
Another challenge involved explaining how the borrower attracts new clients without traditional advertising. Saltanat helped establish how the borrower’s business works alongside her spouse’s significant online presence in the trading industry, providing important context around the company’s client acquisition strategy.
Even after addressing the income questions, Saltanat faced another obstacle: finding foreign national financing that would allow the borrower to move forward with 30% down on a substantial loan amount. One available option required 35% down, putting it outside the borrower’s budget.
Rather than settling for a financing structure that didn’t meet her client’s needs, Saltanat continued exploring alternatives and ultimately secured a solution at 70% LTV, allowing the borrower to complete the investment property purchase with the planned 30% down payment.
Facing a complex mortgage scenario or having difficulty finding financing that fits your needs? Contact Saltanat Turabayeva to discuss your options and find a solution designed around your financial situation.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Key Takeaways
Motion isn’t progress. Networking can feel productive, but no introduction will make up for a weak product, poor service or a lack of customer trust.
Build first, and the right relationships follow. Doing great work, collaborating well and following through on specific outreach earn the trust that turns contacts into lasting relationships.
Most entrepreneurs spend a lot of time thinking about networking, and it makes sense. Industry events, conferences, panels, coffee meetings and dinners can lead to customers, partners, hires and investors that would never come through a cold channel.
But I think many founders misunderstand what kind of networking actually pays off.
In my view, the best networking is a byproduct of doing excellent work, serving customers well and becoming known for something specific. When that happens, the right relationships tend to find you. Investors reach out because the company is working. Customers refer you because the experience was great. Other operators want to meet you because you’ve built something worth understanding. The strongest networks rarely come from handing out the most business cards. They come from trust earned again and again over time.
The problem with networking before you have traction
Networking can become a distraction, especially early on. It can look like spending time at panels and conferences hoping one meeting will fix the underlying challenge of building the business, while the fundamentals, such as the product, customer experience and follow-up, aren’t where they need to be.
The uncomfortable truth is that no amount of networking will make up for a weak product, inconsistent service or a lack of customer trust. If the product isn’t working, more introductions usually won’t fix it. If customers don’t feel taken care of, more surface-level relationships won’t create a lasting business.
I’ve been there myself. A coffee meeting can feel productive because it creates motion. You had a conversation, made a new contact and maybe got some advice. But motion isn’t progress, and it’s easy to confuse the two when the real work is harder to face.
For a founder, the real work might be talking to customers, improving the product, tightening the business model or making a hard hiring decision. These tasks may not feel as exciting as meeting new people, but they’re usually what make networking work later.
Why founder friendships are different
I don’t want to dismiss relationships altogether. I’ve benefited enormously from a core group of founder friends, and that’s very different from general networking.
These are people who know me, understand my business and have lived through enough of the founder journey that I can be honest with them in ways that are harder with employees, investors or board members. They understand the pressure of making decisions with incomplete information, being responsible for other people’s livelihoods and pushing forward when the answer isn’t obvious. Peers like that challenge your thinking and share what they’ve learned, which is incredibly valuable.
What makes these relationships work is depth, trust and shared context. They aren’t random contacts collected at events. They’re people who have seen how you work, understand what you’re building and have a reason to stay invested in your progress.
How to build the network that actually matters
For some people, that network already exists through school, past companies, former colleagues or years in the same industry. Others have to build it more intentionally.
If you’re an early founder without a real network, I recommend spending time in a high-talent environment before starting your own company. Work at a great startup. Join a team with excellent engineers, operators, salespeople and product thinkers. Learn how strong people work, build trust with them and form relationships based on doing hard things together.
The same principle applies in any industry: the best relationships come from real collaboration and follow-through. Take real estate. The agents with the strongest referral networks usually aren’t the ones at every event. They’re the ones who make the lender’s job easier, communicate well with attorneys and vendors, and protect the client experience when a deal gets stressful. Over time, people remember who made the work smoother and who handled pressure well.
Targeted outreach can work
Targeted outreach still has value when it’s done well. If you reach out to someone a few years ahead of you, in a relevant market, with a specific reason for wanting their perspective, many people will respond. Most founders had help along the way, and there’s a natural instinct to pay it forward when a request feels genuine.
A thoughtful, specific question will usually get a better response than a vague request to “pick your brain.” Someone who studies how another founder built their business and asks about one relevant decision is far more likely to make a real connection than someone sending the same message to 50 people.
Follow-through is what turns that first conversation into something meaningful. When someone asks for advice, acts on it, reports back on what happened and keeps the other person updated, the relationship changes. That’s the kind of networking that works: specific, earned and grounded in action.
The best network is usually a byproduct of doing the work so well that people want to be close to it. Build something strong, serve people well, follow through and become known for a clear standard. The relationships that matter will follow.
Key Takeaways
Motion isn’t progress. Networking can feel productive, but no introduction will make up for a weak product, poor service or a lack of customer trust.
Build first, and the right relationships follow. Doing great work, collaborating well and following through on specific outreach earn the trust that turns contacts into lasting relationships.
Most entrepreneurs spend a lot of time thinking about networking, and it makes sense. Industry events, conferences, panels, coffee meetings and dinners can lead to customers, partners, hires and investors that would never come through a cold channel.
But I think many founders misunderstand what kind of networking actually pays off.
In my view, the best networking is a byproduct of doing excellent work, serving customers well and becoming known for something specific. When that happens, the right relationships tend to find you. Investors reach out because the company is working. Customers refer you because the experience was great. Other operators want to meet you because you’ve built something worth understanding. The strongest networks rarely come from handing out the most business cards. They come from trust earned again and again over time.
Predictions that AI will wipe out white-collar work have almost become routine. Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said most professional work could be automated within 18 months. Ford CEO Jim Farley said AI will replace half of all white-collar workers, while Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei spent much of 2025 warning that AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs, before softening that talking point this spring.
That’s particularly anxiety-inducing for some creative workers, who have perhaps spent a good portion of their college and young adult lives explaining to their parents that, yes, they would be pursuing what they were pursuing, and yes, there would be a job in that field. A Fortune review of BLS data found three creative sectors (film and sound recording, broadcasting and streaming, and newspaper, magazine, and book publishing) lost roughly 189,000 jobs. Film and sound recording alone fell 27%, by 120,000 jobs between August 2022 and August 2026. Broadcasting and content providers, which include streaming services, lost about 29,000 while publishers shed about 40,000 between 2022 and 2025.
This week, Joseph Politano, who writes the economics newsletter Apricitas Economics, said the country lost more than 200,000 jobs in creative industries over the past four years. He calls it one of the worst stretches for media employment in modern U.S. history, matched only during the 2001 and 2008 recessions. But because there’s no broad recession this time around, he instead notes the losses coincide with the rise of AI tools that can produce novels, images, and music at very low cost, and asks whether this is “the fall of the creative class.”
For the man who coined “the creative class,” not so.
“I’m not sure his numbers are right,” Richard Florida, the urbanist who coined the term in his 2002 book The Rise of the Creative Class, told Fortune. “But I don’t think it’s going to eliminate those jobs. I think it’s going to make certain kinds of creative work more valuable.”
Downtown is for the people
The damage is deepest in film and TV production, where employment peaked at 289,100 in October 2022 and has since fallen by more than a third, according to the BLS. In June, the broader film and sound recording sector fell to 322,300 jobs nationally, its lowest level since 1995 aside from the pandemic. In Los Angeles, shoot days fell from 36,792 in 2022 to 19,694 in 2025, and about 41,000 film and TV workers left the industry between 2022 and 2024, (the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes drove part of that decline).
Despite this, employment in performing arts and spectator sports, which depends on people gathering in one place, grew by about 67,000 jobs over the same four years.
Florida says he believes it’s because AI gives cities the chance to do what cities do best. He divides work into three types: manual work, cognitive work, and what he called “social skills, people skills, human skills, entrepreneurial skills.” AI is automating the first two while making the third more valuable. Social skills, he said, cluster in big cities.
“That’s why you’re seeing cities like New York and San Francisco become more important, not less,” Florida said. The AI industry follows the same map: “They’re based in San Francisco. Their application occurs in New York.”
New York’s mix of neighborhoods is part of his case. “Brooklyn and Queens and maybe the Bronx now are some of the few places in the world where the creative class and the service class live together,” Florida said.
Florida, who joined Vanderbilt University this fall to lead its work on the future of cities, said remote work was turning London and New York into “global superstar hubs.” Meanwhile, Hollywood was the other side of that argument: Los Angeles is losing one of the world’s great industry clusters as production scatters.
Florida also revised one of his own early ideas. “I thought that cities could be just Jane Jacobs’ kind of live-work cute neighborhoods,” he said of the famed activist who encouraged people to build community by working, playing, eating, and spending in their neighborhoods. “I completely minimized the importance of entertainment and spectacle in downtowns.” Downtowns now need sports teams and venues because “people are not going downtown to work; they have to go downtown for fun.”
AI will give cities new life
The growth in live events is not reaching every kind of gathering place. The U.S. lost one-fifth of its movie theaters and nearly one-third of its bowling alleys since 2001. These neighborhood third places are becoming too expensive both to operate and to visit, while big-ticket venues draw crowds downtown. That, in turn, is driving away the very community Jacobs advocated for: People are talking to each other less, going out and having fun less, spending more time at home, and as a result, are as unhappy as ever.
Florida said that’s partially due to AI itself. “AI is both an enhancing technology and eliminating technology,” he said. “We don’t know what the net will be, but the net’s better.”
AI will hit parts of the creative class hard, Florida said, especially entry-level work built on brute mental effort: “the grind-out jobs that people work till midnight in a consulting firm or in a financial firm, because AI can do that kind of stuff really efficiently.”
“It changes the role of an accountant or an engineer or an artist. It doesn’t eliminate that job. It makes that job different,” he said. The abilities that gain value are traits of the creative class. “Judgment, taste, originality, imagination, asking the right questions, being able to mobilize people.”
“I don’t think it’ll kill the creative class,” Florida said. “It’ll change the creative class, but in many ways, it’ll also liberate the creative class.”
