Being in the C-suite is a high-pressure job with long hours, responsibilities to the board, and intense scrutiny. But what is it like to be a top executive when you’re off the clock?
Fortune’s series, The Good Life, shows how up-and-coming leaders spend their time and money outside of work.
Today we meet the two-time Grand Slam tennis champion, Coco Gauff.
Whether you’ve watched her recently shred the courts in the U.S. Open, or you’ve been following her string of career achievements for years, Gauff is one of the biggest names in tennis. The world tuned into her talent when she was only 15 years old—one year into her professional career—as Gauff made history as the youngest to qualify for Wimbledon’s main draw.
Now at the age of 21, the professional athlete hasn’t quit breaking records and taking names. In 2023, she became the youngest American to win the U.S. Open singles title since Serena Williams in 1999; she’d go on to claim the 2025 French Open singles title, her second Grand Slam singles victory. Gauff has also been crowned the world number one ranking in doubles, and world number two ranking in singles, according to the Women’s Tennis Association. Not to mention the honor of being the U.S. flag bearer for the Paris 2024 Olympics—making Gauff the youngest American flag bearer in U.S. Olympic history.
But beyond the court, the Florida native has expanded her empire into business. The Gen Z tennis star and entrepreneur has her own company, Coco Gauff Enterprise, to manage her business partnerships.
This April, Gauff announced her venture on Instagram, saying how it would mirror “[her] passion for making an impact—not just in tennis but in business, philanthropy and beyond.” The business is powered by WME, a talent representation entity that controls IMG and represents sports icons like Carlos Alcaraz, Iga Świątek, and Gauff’s childhood role model Serena Williams. Some of her main brand sponsors include New Balance, Rolex, and sports equipment business Head.
I’ve actually never been on a real holiday since I was probably 16…My dream holiday would be somewhere tropical, just sitting around doing nothing but drinking piña coladas and doing water sports.
Just in time for the U.S. Open this year, Gauff also launched her own signature protein smoothie with $3.3 billion Naked Juices, Coco’s Protein Pineapple Orange smoothie, inspired by her fruit salad that went viral at the competition two years ago.
To wind down from her electric tennis career and business forays, Gauff journals and treats herself with $3,000 shopping sprees. The multimillionaire also likes to balance luxury with the simple pleasures; she can’t live without her $2 monthly subscription to Trivia Crack and loves to shop on second-hand clothes website Depop. Gauff hasn’t taken a real vacation since she was 16—but dreams of sipping piña coladas and playing water sports.
This interview has been condensed for clarity.
The finances
Fortune: What’s been the best investment you’ve ever bought?
My house was probably the best investment because I feel like that’s something that will only appreciate in value and it’s in my hometown. I can see myself living there for the rest of my life—but who knows. If I don’t end up there forever, I can pass it down to my future kids, my brothers, or someone in my family.
What are your living arrangements like: Swanky apartment in the city or suburban sprawling?
When I’m not traveling for tournaments, I’m back home in Delray Beach, Florida. It’s where I grew up, and I’ve always loved the laid-back vibe—sunshine, palm trees, and space to just breathe. My house is close to my family, which means everything to me. I don’t have a traditional office unless you count the tennis court, but being home gives me time to recharge, stay grounded, and catch up with friends and family.
How do you commute to work?
When I’m home, I usually practice at the court at my parents house which isn’t too far away, so after I wake up I usually grab my kit and a Naked smoothie and drive to their house, listen to music in the car, and eat something small there before I get going.
Do you invest in shares?
In the investing world, I’m still very new. I really just go off the recommendation of my dad. He has a financial advisor he talks to, and then he’ll ask for my input, but I’m very much in the learning phase. If it’s something I absolutely don’t believe in—like a specific company—then I’m like, “Yeah… no thanks.” But most of the time, I trust him. He had a lot of experience at his job when he was working and learned a lot about the market, so I trust his opinion.
What personal finance advice would you give your 20-year-old self?
Well, 20 was only a year ago for me, so I’m still figuring it out! But if I had to give myself advice, I’d say don’t be afraid to ask questions and make sure you’re intentional about collaborating with people and brands that truly align with who you are—it makes everything feel more meaningful, authentic and way more fun.
I’ve actually never been on a real holiday since I was probably 16…My dream holiday would be somewhere tropical, just sitting around doing nothing but drinking piña coladas and doing water sports.
The necessities
What’s the one subscription you can’t live without?
I would say Netflix, but I actually don’t pay for my Netflix subscription—I still use my parents’ account. One that I do pay for is a game called Trivia Crack. I can’t stand when there are ads popping up while I’m trying to play, so it probably costs me like $2 a month which doesn’t quite set me back.
Where’s your go-to wristwatch from?
It’s a Rolex—the Oyster Perpetual. I’ve had it since I was 15 years old, and I love it. It’s my everyday watch. It has some wear and tear, but I like to think of it as being loved.
What about eating on the go?
I don’t really ever eat out for lunch. When I do, I just Uber Eats and order lunch. I practice at my parents’ house because that’s where the court is, and my parents will often cook lunch. I don’t really eat much during practice unless it’s a Naked smoothie, fruit, or a protein bar. I usually try to get a lot of protein—I like my lunches to be protein, starch, and vegetables. Typically, it’s chicken, rice, and vegetables; chicken, pasta, and vegetables; or fish, potatoes, and vegetables. It’s always some variation of that.
How often in a week do you dine out versus cook at home?
When I’m home, I order delivery for lunch. For dinner, either my grandparents—who live 15 minutes away—are cooking, or my parents are. When nobody’s cooking, I’ll try a TikTok recipe and cook for myself. I’m not a cook—my dad and grandparents are expert cooks—but I’m learning as I go.
Where do you shop for your work wardrobe?
My work wardrobe consists of basically only tennis clothes—so New Balance. My favorite brands right now are definitely New Balance, MiuMiu, and honestly, Depop. It’s not a brand, but it’s an app where people can resell things, kind of like an online thrift store. You can find some really unique pieces on there.
What would be a typical work outfit for you?
Depends on the day! If I’m practicing or playing, I love my New Balance gear—it’s comfortable, performance-driven, and really aligns with the essence of my street style. For meetings or when I’m filming brand content like with Naked, I like to mix sporty and chic like New Balance sneakers paired with cargo pants or something elevated, like a Miu Miu blazer or cropped jacket. I love blending sporty vibes with high-fashion touches that show off my personality, whether it’s bold colors or fun accessories.
The treats
Are you the proud owner of any futuristic gadgets?
I own the Meta glasses, and I was able to try them before they were ever out because I did a brand shoot for Ray-Ban and they gave me some glasses. I don’t use them that much because I don’t content-create often, but when I do, it’s really cool to get that perspective. I can also play music in them, which is the reason I liked them the most.
I also own an Oculus—the virtual reality headset. I don’t use it a lot because I don’t travel with it, but when I’m home, sometimes I’ll pop in and play a game just to do something different.
How do you unwind from the top job?
I prioritize journaling and have been trying to add more mindfulness habits to my repertoire so that I continue to be at my best. I’ve been journaling since I was little, so I find it helps me get my thoughts out especially when things get overwhelming.
What’s the best bonus treat you’ve bought yourself?
Ooh, that’s a good question. Honestly, just clothes. I’ll give myself like a $3,000 limit and online shop until my fingers fall off. So I would say clothes or a bag. I think bags are a good thing to invest in—although when they’re worn, they depreciate a little, it’s never to the point where you can’t get some of your money back if you decide to resell them.
Take us on holiday with you, what’s next on your vacation list?
I’ve actually never been on a real holiday since I was probably 16. I went to the Bahamas with my best friend and my parents, and that was the last time. Usually when the off-season rolls around, I’m so tired of traveling that I just want to lay in bed. My dream holiday would be somewhere tropical, just sitting around doing nothing but drinking piña coladas and doing water sports. I’d probably want to go to Jamaica.
How many days of annual leave do you take a year?
That’s a tough question—I don’t have a number. If I do well in a tournament, I’ll take maybe 5–7 days off. If I do a big tournament like a Grand Slam and win, I’ll take a week off. Sometimes I go three or four weeks without taking a day off, and sometimes I get one or two days off per week for three or four weeks. It’s very results-dependent in tennis.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) is a nonpartisan watchdog that regularly estimates how much the U.S. Congress is adding to the $38 trillion national debt.
With enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies due to expire within days, some Senate Democrats are scrambling to protect millions of Americans from getting the unpleasant holiday gift of spiking health insurance premiums. The CRFB says there’s just one problem with the plan: It’s not funded.
“With the national debt as large as the economy and interest payments costing $1 trillion annually, it is absurd to suggest adding hundreds of billions more to the debt,” CRFB President Maya MacGuineas wrote in a statement on Friday afternoon.
The proposal, backed by members of the Senate Democratic caucus, would fully extend the enhanced ACA subsidies for three years, from 2026 through 2028, with no additional income limits on who can qualify. Those subsidies, originally boosted during the pandemic and later renewed, were designed to lower premiums and prevent coverage losses for middle‑ and lower‑income households purchasing insurance on the ACA exchanges.
CRFB estimated that even this three‑year extension alone would add roughly $300 billion to federal deficits over the next decade, largely because the federal government would continue to shoulder a larger share of premium costs while enrollment and subsidy amounts remain elevated. If Congress ultimately moves to make the enhanced subsidies permanent—as many advocates have urged—the total cost could swell to nearly $550 billion in additional borrowing over the next decade.
Reversing recent guardrails
MacGuineas called the Senate bill “far worse than even a debt-financed extension” as it would roll back several “program integrity” measures that were enacted as part of a 2025 reconciliation law and were intended to tighten oversight of ACA subsidies. On top of that, it would be funded by borrowing even more. “This is a bad idea made worse,” MacGuineas added.
The watchdog group’s central critique is that the new Senate plan does not attempt to offset its costs through spending cuts or new revenue and, in their view, goes beyond a simple extension by expanding the underlying subsidy structure.
The legislation would permanently repeal restrictions that eliminated subsidies for certain groups enrolling during special enrollment periods and would scrap rules requiring full repayment of excess advance subsidies and stricter verification of eligibility and tax reconciliation. The bill would also nullify portions of a 2025 federal regulation that loosened limits on the actuarial value of exchange plans and altered how subsidies are calculated, effectively reshaping how generous plans can be and how federal support is determined. CRFB warned these reversals would increase costs further while weakening safeguards designed to reduce misuse and error in the subsidy system.
MacGuineas said that any subsidy extension should be paired with broader reforms to curb health spending and reduce overall borrowing. In her view, lawmakers are missing a chance to redesign ACA support in a way that lowers premiums while also improving the long‑term budget outlook.
The debate over ACA subsidies recently contributed to a government funding standoff, and CRFB argued that the new Senate bill reflects a political compromise that prioritizes short‑term relief over long‑term fiscal responsibility.
“After a pointless government shutdown over this issue, it is beyond disappointing that this is the preferred solution to such an important issue,” MacGuineas wrote.
The off-year elections cast the government shutdown and cost-of-living arguments in a different light. Democrats made stunning gains and almost flipped a deep-red district in Tennessee as politicians from the far left and center coalesced around “affordability.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is reportedly smelling blood in the water and doubling down on the theme heading into the pivotal midterm elections of 2026. President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Pennsylvania soon to discuss pocketbook anxieties. But he is repeating predecessor Joe Biden’s habit of dismissing inflation, despite widespread evidence to the contrary.
“We fixed inflation, and we fixed almost everything,” Trump said in a Tuesday cabinet meeting, in which he also dismissed affordability as a “hoax” pushed by Democrats.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle now face a politically fraught choice: allow premiums to jump sharply—including in swing states like Pennsylvania where ACA enrollees face double‑digit increases—or pass an expensive subsidy extension that would, as CRFB calculates, explode the deficit without addressing underlying health care costs.
Netflix Inc. has won the heated takeover battle for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. Now it must convince global antitrust regulators that the deal won’t give it an illegal advantage in the streaming market.
The $72 billion tie-up joins the world’s dominant paid streaming service with one of Hollywood’s most iconic movie studios. It would reshape the market for online video content by combining the No. 1 streaming player with the No. 4 service HBO Max and its blockbuster hits such as Game Of Thrones, Friends, and the DC Universe comics characters franchise.
That could raise red flags for global antitrust regulators over concerns that Netflix would have too much control over the streaming market. The company faces a lengthy Justice Department review and a possible US lawsuit seeking to block the deal if it doesn’t adopt some remedies to get it cleared, analysts said.
“Netflix will have an uphill climb unless it agrees to divest HBO Max as well as additional behavioral commitments — particularly on licensing content,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jennifer Rie. “The streaming overlap is significant,” she added, saying the argument that “the market should be viewed more broadly is a tough one to win.”
By choosing Netflix, Warner Bros. has jilted another bidder, Paramount Skydance Corp., a move that risks touching off a political battle in Washington. Paramount is backed by the world’s second-richest man, Larry Ellison, and his son, David Ellison, and the company has touted their longstanding close ties to President Donald Trump. Their acquisition of Paramount, which closed in August, has won public praise from Trump.
Comcast Corp. also made a bid for Warner Bros., looking to merge it with its NBCUniversal division.
The Justice Department’s antitrust division, which would review the transaction in the US, could argue that the deal is illegal on its face because the combined market share would put Netflix well over a 30% threshold.
The White House, the Justice Department and Comcast didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
US lawmakers from both parties, including Republican Representative Darrell Issa and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren have already faulted the transaction — which would create a global streaming giant with 450 million users — as harmful to consumers.
“This deal looks like an anti-monopoly nightmare,” Warren said after the Netflix announcement. Utah Senator Mike Lee, a Republican, said in a social media post earlier this week that a Warner Bros.-Netflix tie-up would raise more serious competition questions “than any transaction I’ve seen in about a decade.”
European Union regulators are also likely to subject the Netflix proposal to an intensive review amid pressure from legislators. In the UK, the deal has already drawn scrutiny before the announcement, with House of Lords member Baroness Luciana Berger pressing the government on how the transaction would impact competition and consumer prices.
The combined company could raise prices and broadly impact “culture, film, cinemas and theater releases,”said Andreas Schwab, a leading member of the European Parliament on competition issues, after the announcement.
Paramount has sought to frame the Netflix deal as a non-starter. “The simple truth is that a deal with Netflix as the buyer likely will never close, due to antitrust and regulatory challenges in the United States and in most jurisdictions abroad,” Paramount’s antitrust lawyers wrote to their counterparts at Warner Bros. on Dec. 1.
Appealing directly to Trump could help Netflix avoid intense antitrust scrutiny, New Street Research’s Blair Levin wrote in a note on Friday. Levin said it’s possible that Trump could come to see the benefit of switching from a pro-Paramount position to a pro-Netflix position. “And if he does so, we believe the DOJ will follow suit,” Levin wrote.
Netflix co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos had dinner with Trump at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last December, a move other CEOs made after the election in order to win over the administration. In a call with investors Friday morning, Sarandos said that he’s “highly confident in the regulatory process,” contending the deal favors consumers, workers and innovation.
“Our plans here are to work really closely with all the appropriate governments and regulators, but really confident that we’re going to get all the necessary approvals that we need,” he said.
Netflix will likely argue to regulators that other video services such as Google’s YouTube and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok should be included in any analysis of the market, which would dramatically shrink the company’s perceived dominance.
The US Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the transfer of broadcast-TV licenses, isn’t expected to play a role in the deal, as neither hold such licenses. Warner Bros. plans to spin off its cable TV division, which includes channels such as CNN, TBS and TNT, before the sale.
Even if antitrust reviews just focus on streaming, Netflix believes it will ultimately prevail, pointing to Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime and Walt Disney Co. as other major competitors, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking.
Netflix is expected to argue that more than 75% of HBO Max subscribers already subscribe to Netflix, making them complementary offerings rather than competitors, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing confidential deliberations. The company is expected to make the case that reducing its content costs through owning Warner Bros., eliminating redundant back-end technology and bundling Netflix with Max will yield lower prices.
Nearly all leading artificial intelligence developers are focused on building AI models that mimic the way humans reason, but new research shows these cutting-edge systems can be far more energy intensive, adding to concerns about AI’s strain on power grids.
AI reasoning models used 30 times more power on average to respond to 1,000 written prompts than alternatives without this reasoning capability or which had it disabled, according to a study released Thursday. The work was carried out by the AI Energy Score project, led by Hugging Face research scientist Sasha Luccioni and Salesforce Inc. head of AI sustainability Boris Gamazaychikov.
The researchers evaluated 40 open, freely available AI models, including software from OpenAI, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft Corp. Some models were found to have a much wider disparity in energy consumption, including one from Chinese upstart DeepSeek. A slimmed-down version of DeepSeek’s R1 model used just 50 watt hours to respond to the prompts when reasoning was turned off, or about as much power as is needed to run a 50 watt lightbulb for an hour. With the reasoning feature enabled, the same model required 7,626 watt hours to complete the tasks.
The soaring energy needs of AI have increasingly come under scrutiny. As tech companies race to build more and bigger data centers to support AI, industry watchers have raised concerns about straining power grids and raising energy costs for consumers. A Bloomberg investigation in September found that wholesale electricity prices rose as much as 267% over the past five years in areas near data centers. There are also environmental drawbacks, as Microsoft, Google and Amazon.com Inc. have previously acknowledged the data center buildout could complicate their long-term climate objectives.
More than a year ago, OpenAI released its first reasoning model, called o1. Where its prior software replied almost instantly to queries, o1 spent more time computing an answer before responding. Many other AI companies have since released similar systems, with the goal of solving more complex multistep problems for fields like science, math and coding.
Though reasoning systems have quickly become the industry norm for carrying out more complicated tasks, there has been little research into their energy demands. Much of the increase in power consumption is due to reasoning models generating much more text when responding, the researchers said.
The new report aims to better understand how AI energy needs are evolving, Luccioni said. She also hopes it helps people better understand that there are different types of AI models suited to different actions. Not every query requires tapping the most computationally intensive AI reasoning systems.
“We should be smarter about the way that we use AI,” Luccioni said. “Choosing the right model for the right task is important.”
To test the difference in power use, the researchers ran all the models on the same computer hardware. They used the same prompts for each, ranging from simple questions — such as asking which team won the Super Bowl in a particular year — to more complex math problems. They also used a software tool called CodeCarbon to track how much energy was being consumed in real time.
The results varied considerably. The researchers found one of Microsoft’s Phi 4 reasoning models used 9,462 watt hours with reasoning turned on, compared with about 18 watt hours with it off. OpenAI’s largest gpt-oss model, meanwhile, had a less stark difference. It used 8,504 watt hours with reasoning on the most computationally intensive “high” setting and 5,313 watt hours with the setting turned down to “low.”
OpenAI, Microsoft, Google and DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Google released internal research in August that estimated the median text prompt for its Gemini AI service used 0.24 watt-hours of energy, roughly equal to watching TV for less than nine seconds. Google said that figure was “substantially lower than many public estimates.”
Much of the discussion about AI power consumption has focused on large-scale facilities set up to train artificial intelligence systems. Increasingly, however, tech firms are shifting more resources to inference, or the process of running AI systems after they’ve been trained. The push toward reasoning models is a big piece of that as these systems are more reliant on inference.
Recently, some tech leaders have acknowledged that AI’s power draw needs to be reckoned with. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the industry must earn the “social permission to consume energy” for AI data centers in a November interview. To do that, he argued tech must use AI to do good and foster broad economic growth.
Politics8 years ago