There's no telling if Van Halen would have still become one of the most successful rock acts of the 1980s if they had settled on their original choice of band name, "Rat Salad."

A number of other famous bands initially intended to go by names that were equally questionable or cringe-worthy.

From the banal "On a Friday" (Radiohead) to the offensive "The Young Aborigines" (The Beastie Boys), we turned to a comprehensive Billboard article on the subject for this list of some of the many terrible names that bands wisely avoided.

Here are the 19 worst original band names of famous bands:

SEE ALSO: The 50 best-selling music artists of all time

Van Halen

Original name: Rat Salad

Kiss

Original name: Wicked Lester

Destiny's Child

Original name: Girl's Tyme

• Billionaire vacation perks far exceed luxury hotels and first-class flights. 
• Private Farrari driving lessons, after-hour visits to tourist sites, and private art tours are just some of the experiences Nota Bene Global plans for the its wealthiest clients. 
• Nota Bene Global plans vacations for the ultra-wealthy, who have net worths ranging from $10 million to $8 billion.

Billionaires don't vacation like the rest of us. 

Private Farrari driving lessons, after-hour visits to usually tourist-packed historical sites, and private art tours hosted by city's top curators and art historians are just some of the things that Nota Bene Global, a London-based, luxury travel- and lifestyle-management company, help coordinate for their mega-wealthy clientele.

"Ten to $20 million is the starting wealth [of our clients]," Anthony Lassman, the co-founder told Business Insider. "Some of them I know are worth between $1.5 to $8 billion," he said.

Vacation requests from high-end clients can come without much notice. "I once had a client ring me up saying, 'Oh it's really cold in Toronto, we think [we want to go to Brazil.]...on Saturday.' It was a Thursday," said Lassman.

He and his Italy-based agents recently planned a trip for an American billionaire who wanted to explore the food and art scene of Venice and Milan.

"He's the kind of guy who will be on a luxury yacht, but wants to eat in the simplest trattoria — just fresh, simple food," said Lassman. Impressed by the restaurants Nota Bene had chosen during his trip, the client later requested a separate trip and cooking lessons for his personal chef so he could bring the taste of Italy back home.

Below, a look at a sample itinerary of the type of Italian trip that Nota Bene can arrange. 

SEE ALSO: Airbnb for billionaires: Where the world's richest people stay when they travel

Day 1: Arrive in Venice. The mega-rich are generally fast tracked through immigration lines — allowing them to arrive at their hotel suites in no time. A private boat whisks travelers to their suite at the Aman Venice, located on the Canal Grande.

Day 2: All day private tour of Venice's contemporary art scene with one of the city's top curators and an art historian.

Stops include the Prada Foundation's Venice location, and the Punta della Dogana.

• Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, the showrunners for FX's "The Americans," said fans wanted them to kill off Paige Jennings. 
• Paige is the teenage daughter of KGB spies Philip and Elizabeth Jennings in the show.
• The showrunners said this was "very upsetting."
• Paige is still alive, and the show is now in its sixth and final season.

Some fans have great ideas. But many fans of FX's "The Americans," now airing its sixth and final season on FX, wanted teenager Paige Jennings to die, which was "very upsetting" to the showrunners, they told Business Insider. 

On "The Americans," which follows undercover KGB agents Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, there are a lot of deaths. It's not "Game of Thrones" level by any means, but at any time, any character of significance can go.

In season four, Nina Krilova (Annet Mahendru), is abruptly executed in the Soviet Union for working with the FBI. In season three (and in one of the most brutal deaths in television history), Philip and Elizabeth stuff a woman's body into a suitcase to hide the evidence. In season one, one of the main characters, FBI agent Chris Amador, dies after being stabbed by Philip.

But fans wanted at least one more person to die.

Speaking to Business Insider, showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields said that fans wanted them to kill off Paige, the teenage daughter of Philip and Elizabeth Jennings. 

Throughout the series, Paige grows more and more suspicious of her parents, and eventually gets close enough to finding out the truth that her parents tell her. Paige finds a community at a local church, and tells her Pastor (Tim) and his wife that her parents work for the KGB.

This apparently resulted in fans wanting to see her die, likely at the hands of her parents or their bosses. 

"One of the interesting things for us on the show has been to discover that the audience wants the strangest people to die," Weisberg said. "There was a long period of time when they kept wanting us to kill Pastor Tim. And then a lot of people were very bitter about Paige. They wanted Paige to die!"

"It's very upsetting," Fields added. "And from our perspective we're like, 'How many people do we have to kill?' Although that's not how we decide who to kill. But sometimes the nice people have to go."

Paige is alive on the show now, and will probably survive.

But everyone else is fair game.

SEE ALSO: 'The Americans' creators share their feelings on ending the show after 6 seasons — and reveal the character fans wanted them to kill

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why 555 is always used for phone numbers on TV and in movies

• Retail is rife with strategies to get you to spend more, whether you're shopping in a brick-and-mortar store or online.
• Retailers also have tricks to make you use up their products faster.
• Those tactics include offering free shipping, encouraging bulk purchases — and even making the holes in eye drop bottles bigger, so you run out fast.

Retailers are smart. They know your weaknesses and how to capitalize on them.

So every time you go shopping — online or IRL — you're being taunted by infinite reasons to buy more, more, more.

Below is a list of some of the most creative (and frankly, impressive) strategies stores use to make you overspend and run out of products faster. Read on to avoid getting tricked.

SEE ALSO: 27 sneaky tactics stores use to trick you into spending more money

They constantly change the location of products

Can't find the trail mix even though you just picked some up a few weeks ago? Don't be surprised.

Business Insider's Áine Cain reported that Costco moves around its products in order to keep you moving around, scanning the shelves and ultimately buying more.

And it's a tactic that other stores use as well.

They allow you to check out with a single click

Business Insider previously reported on how a one-click checkout process (like on Amazon) can encourage overspending.

Because you don't need to enter billing, shipping, or credit card information, there's no immediate obstacle to buying whatever you want or need. That's great if you're in a rush — but not so great if you're on a budget.

They offer free shipping

Free shipping should be good for our wallets — after all, it means cutting the overall price of a purchase.

Alas, it's not always.

If the free-shipping threshold is, say, $50, you're more inclined to try to spend $50 (instead of the smaller amount you were planning to spend) so you can get them delivered gratis.

Somewhat counterintuitively, "Most people would rather spend more money buying things they don't need than pay for shipping costs," money-saving expert Andrea Woroch previously told Business Insider in an email.

• Meghan Markle is being inducted into a tradition that requires the royal family to avoid eating certain things that could cause food poisoning. 
• Food-poisoning expert Bill Marler has cut certain foods out of his diet after more than two decades as a foodborne-illness attorney.
• Here are eight foods that Markle — and anyone trying to avoid food poisoning — should cut from their diet. 

Meghan Markle is preparing to follow in the footsteps of Queen Elizabeth II as the royal wedding date nears — and that includes culinary traditions. 

A "weird rule prevents the Queen and other royals from eating foods like mussels and rare steak when dining out," The Sun reported. 

The Sun added: "They're advised to steer clear of foods which could cause food poisoning, like shellfish, rare meat and tap water when they're abroad." 

It's a sensible tradition — no one wants to be forced to alert the public that they need to miss a royal function because they have contracted food poisoning from slurping down raw oysters. According to The Sun, Queen Elizabeth follows the tradition closely, while other members of the royal family are more lenient. 

Food-poisoning attorney Bill Marler follows a similarly strict diet, according to past conversations with Business Insider and an article by Health Insider from BottomLine. Marler has won more than $600 million for clients in foodborne-illness cases and has become convinced that some foods aren't worth the risk.

Here are the foods that Marler says anyone trying to avoid food poisoning should stay away from: 

SEE ALSO: 189 people are dead and hundreds more are seriously ill in the largest listeria outbreak in history

Raw water

Marler told Business Insider that the idea he would have to warn people against drinking unfiltered, untreated water didn't cross his mind until 2018.

"Almost everything conceivable that can make you sick can be found in water," Marler said.

Unfiltered, untreated water — even from the cleanest streams — can contain animal feces, spreading Giardia, which includes symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea and results in roughly 4,600 hospitalizations a year. Hepatitis A, which resulted in 20 deaths in a California outbreak in 2017, can be spread through water if it isn't treated. E. coli and cholera can also be transmitted via untreated water.

Uncooked flour

Uncooked flour is on the other end of the spectrum — something that most people see as harmless, but that can actually spread bacteria, Marler says.

From late 2015 to 2016, 56 people in 24 states developed an E. coli infection from eating raw or uncooked flour, according to Consumer Reports.

Most people think that raw eggs are the biggest food-poisoning threat in cookie dough, Marler says. However, flour can also be a culprit — and you don't even have to eat it. Simply not washing your hands after getting uncooked flour on them can spread E. coli.

Raw oysters

Marler says that he has seen more foodborne illnesses linked to shellfish in the past five years than in the two preceding decades.

The culprit: warming waters. As global waters heat up, they produce microbial growth, which ends up in the raw oysters consumers are slurping down.

• The directors of Netflix's "Wild Wild Country" said they are "definitely" open to doing a follow-up.
• The 6-part docuseries looks at the rise and fall of Rajneeshpuram, a city built in rural Oregon in the 1980s by followers of an Indian guru.
• Directors Chapman and Maclain Way talked to Business Insider about what they had to leave out of the series because they couldn't find a place for it.

The directors of Netflix’s hit docuseries “Wild Wild Country” are “definitely” interested in a potential follow-up, they told Business Insider in a recent interview.

The series looks at the “actually insane” (their words) story of Rajneeshpuram, a utopian city the followers of an Indian guru built in rural Oregon in the 1980s. It includes free love, machine guns, Rolls Royces, and bioterrorism. But it’s not all about the headline-grabbing details. The series works so well because it’s both a wild ride and a nuanced portrait of a struggle between the cult and the local townspeople — complete with compelling interviews with the major players on both sides.

The series has gotten great word-of-mouth buzz since it debuted earlier this month, and fans are clamoring for a follow-up. They might be in luck.

"We are definitely open to a follow-up," co-director Chapman Way told us about a potential “Wild Wild Country” sequel. "I don't know whether we’d do a whole other season two, but maybe a one-off episode." Chapman Way said that because of the popularity of the series — that they weren't quite expecting — they have gotten a wide range of emails of people giving them new information and updates on the story of Rajneeshpuram.

Way also said he and his brother (co-director Maclain Way) were in the process of developing two other documentary series they didn’t want to discuss in detail quite yet.

As to what form a "Wild Wild Country" follow-up would take, the Way brothers were not specific. But they did mention one particular element they left on the cutting-room floor for the 6-part original series: a “day in the life” section.

Here’s how Maclain Way described it:

"We asked our interviewees to walk us through a day in the life in Rajneeshpuram and they gave us some amazing material, almost in the mundaneness of it. But really beautiful answers about how they would wake up, and sometimes they would sleep in, or get a little tea. And after breakfast they would go get some work done in their department, and then they'd come back for lunch. Some people worked as mechanics in Rajneesh Buddhafield garage, some people worked in PR and they would go to their office, some people worked in the legal department, some people worked the farms. [It was] just really interesting to hear them slow-walk you through an average, typical day. It was just something we couldn't find a spot for. But maybe as a DVD extra or something we’ll be able to get it up there."

If “Wild Wild Country” does get a sequel, it will no doubt appear on Netflix. The Ways said they loved their experience working with the streaming giant, who also distributed their previous documentary “The Battered Bastards of Baseball” (2014), after buying it at Sundance.

And the Ways hope others will dig into the Rajneesh story as well.

“We feel no ownership over the story of Rajneeshpuram,” Maclain Way said. “It belongs to the public and there is a ton of footage out there, and archives, and even stories and angles that were not included in ‘Wild Wild Country’ that I would be the first person to buy a book about, or watch another documentary or podcast [about].”

SEE ALSO: How the directors of Netflix’s ‘Wild Wild Country’ unraveled the morally complex story behind a cult famous for sex, Rolls Royces, and bioterrorism

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why 555 is always used for phone numbers on TV and in movies

• Want the best travel tips and packing hacks? There's no one better to ask than flight attendants.
• Flight attendants often spend more than 80 hours a month travelling and have a great deal of experience making the process more efficient and enjoyable.
• From securing upgrades and free goodies to packing lighter, flight attendants shared their best travel tips and packing hacks.

For flight attendants, who often spend more than 80 hours in the air a month, traveling can become almost second nature.

So who better to turn to for travel tips and tricks than the people with extensive knowledge on the matter?

We asked flight attendants to share their best travel hacks and packing tips with us and scoured the internet for more.

Here are 15 things that could help make your travel experiences easier and more enjoyable:

SEE ALSO: A day in the life of a United Airlines flight attendant, who woke up before 3 a.m. and ran circles around me for 9 hours

DON'T MISS: 11 truths about flying only flight attendants know

Get more attentive service from your flight attendants

"While most passengers tend to choose seats that are at the front of the aircraft so that they can disembark first and have a better chance of securing their preferred meal option, flight attendants know that if you're sitting towards the back, you'll receive the most attentive service," a flight attendant with 2.5 years' experience wrote for Oyster.

"The reason is simple: We like to avoid responding to call bells from the front of the plane because answering one means potentially flaunting whatever item the passenger has requested to everyone else along the way," she wrote. "This can cause a problem since planes often don't have enough extra vodka, pillows, earplugs, and toothbrushes, or the time on shorter flights to deviate from the service schedule.

"For passengers sitting near the back of the plane, however, it's much easier to slip in that second mini bottle of wine," she wrote.

Iron your clothes faster

"Use your flat iron to touch up your clothes when you're in a rush and there's no time for the ironing board," a flight attendant with 30 years' experience told Business Insider.

Always sleep in clean sheets

"Don't sleep on hotel sheets that don't have creases from being folded; someone slept on them already," a flight attendant with 19 years' experience told Business Insider.

• Netflix's new 6-part docuseries, "Wild Wild Country," has become its latest sleeper hit.
• Business Insider talked to the directors of the series, which takes an in-depth look at a cult that attempted to build a utopian city in rural Oregon in the 80s.
• The show is filled with "insane" details — from guns, to Rolls Royces, to salad bar poisoning — but the real accomplishment of the series is how it captures compelling characters on both sides of the conflict between the cult and the local townspeople.

When documentary filmmaker brothers Chapman and Maclain Way first heard the story of the rise and fall of Rajneeshpuram, a utopian city in Oregon built in the 1980s by followers of an Indian guru, they thought it was “actually insane.”

It’s not hard to see why.

The story, which started in 1981 when a cult led by mystic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh bought a 65,000-acre ranch in rural Oregon to construct a paradise on Earth, quickly captivated the imagination of the American news media during the 80s.

The guru and his followers (“Rajneeshees” or "sannyasins") had so many attributes that were impossible for the media to resist: free love, machine guns, and a leader with dozens of Rolls Royces and a million-dollar watch.

But the real meat of the news fodder came from their conflicts with local ranchers and other townsfolk, who resisted the cult's attempts to commandeer the municipal government, which included bringing in thousands of homeless people by bus to vote for Rajneeshee candidates.

The tale of Rajneeshpuram was capped off by a wild crescendo, in which the Rajneeshees attempted to suppress voter turnout by poisoning the salad bars of nearby restaurants with salmonella. They ended up poisoning 751 people in the largest bioterrorism attack in US history. The architect of the attack and operational leader of the group, Ma Anand Sheela, spent more than two years in prison. Ranjneesh himself fled to India, where he died in 1990.

Then the story largely faded from memory in the United States.

But interest has been revived by the release of the Way brothers’ 6-part docuseries, which has become a word-of-mouth hit for Netflix since it came out earlier this month.

Part of the reason is that the Ways reached beyond the salacious sound bites to present Rajneeshpuram in all its wonderful complexity. Their interviews with the major players on both sides of the conflict are nuanced, compelling, artfully shot, and simply darn fun to watch.

Business Insider spoke to Chapman and Maclain Way about how they put together the series, what Sheela was like in person, and whether another Rajneeshpuram could spring up in our current time. Fans will be glad to know the brothers said they are "definitely" interested in potentially making a follow-up (though likely not a whole second series), and have gotten a bunch of new tips since the series went live on Netflix.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Nathan McAlone: What first caught your interest about this particular story?

Chapman Way: The whole project started for us about four years ago, in 2014. We were talking to a film archivist in the Northwest, up in Portland, who told us that he had access to this incredible collection of archive footage of what he told us was “the most bizarre story that had ever happened” in the state of Oregon. Mac and I were shocked we hadn’t heard about this story. We were born right after it all ended. Our first initial instinct was, “Holy crap, this is an actually insane story.” But it wasn't until we started searching and found this complex underbelly — what is a religion, what is a cult, fear of the other, immigration rights, and all these thorny topics — that we thought this could make for an interesting deep dive.

McAlone: How did that archivist come to have the footage?

Maclain Way: It was a really interesting story about this particular collection. When the Rajneeshees came to Oregon in 1981, they immediately drew a lot of local news attention to them. [It was a time] when news station were switching from 16 millimeter film to U-matic tapes and one of the big selling points of U-matic tapes was that you could tape over them, and save costs that way. In general, from 1980 to 1985, it’s a time period where there are not a lot of news film archives because news stations were taping over their tapes trying to save a dollar. But with the Rajneeshees, news directors knew how significant this story was, how historical the Rajneeshees were going to be. So they never taped over their Rajneeshee tapes. The whole collection was 525 U-matic tapes, and that in addition to all the other archive footage we were able to track down ended up being about 300 hours of archive footage.

McAlone: Once that happened, did you then start reaching out to set up interviews? Were you nervous some of these people on either side wouldn't want to go on camera?

Chapman Way: The first thing we did was digitize the footage. At worst, we’d release a feature [length], archive-only version of the story. The story is just so incredible. Even if no one wanted to be interviewed, we’d do a 90-minute, archive-only [film]. But then as we started watching the footage, the first character who jumped out at us was not even the guru so much as this Ma Anand Sheela, who was the secretary really responsible for building this huge religious empire in the 80s. She's feisty, she cusses, she speaks her mind, she’s not afraid, she doesn't take sh-- from anyone. We were equally fascinated and terrified, but we knew that if we could talk to her, maybe this had the potential to be something really special. So we reached out to her. We found an email address for some health institutions she runs. We got her on the phone. It became clear immediately that she felt like she hadn't been given an opportunity to tell her version of the events, her side, how she thought it unfolded. Mac and I — and my wife, Julie, who’s a producer — we took about three or four trips to Switzerland before we even interviewed her, just to get to know her, to understand what she's doing today, to meet some of her family members. I think it led to this really intimate interview that we got with her.

McAlone: It must have been strange for her. She got to tell her story a lot [in the 80s], in a combative way on camera, but after the fact it all went away.

Chapman Way: I think she felt like some of her persona at the time, in the 80s, was this cultivated persona. Maybe she was being provocative for a reason. All press is good press. I think there was a value in interviewing her 35 years after the fact. I think there was a lot of new insights into the movement, what was happening, and what their purpose was in Oregon.

McAlone: You had watched all the archival footage of her. Was there anything when you met her in person that stuck out as, “Wow, that was so different than what I thought?”

Chapman Way: Yeah, the first thing that you are really struck by, and it's in the series, is just how tiny she really is. I don't even know if she is over five feet tall. She's very small. And it’s almost shocking cause she's such a larger-than-life figure in the footage, and how everyone speaks about her, that it's almost stunning to see how tiny she is in person. When we met her it was right during the primaries, when Trump was starting to gain steam, and the first thing out of her mouth was she just started roasting us for being from America, and for the rise of Trump, [and saying] how America was falling apart without her. She was funny and charming and witty. And we started immediately diving into her backstory and whole life.

McAlone: Was there anyone it took more to convince, or were people pretty open?

Maclain Way: When we first started, we knew that the sannyasins or former Rajneeshees would be hard to get to open up, especially since we had made a documentary about an Oregon baseball team, so I think from their perspective we were coming from Oregon, a state they had kind of gone to war with. But I think the thing we were most surprised by was the ranchers and the neighbors of Rajneeshpuram, their hesitancy to talk about this. From their perspective, it was a very painful and traumatic time in their life that they didn't want to revisit. I think that the interesting thing was that both sides — Antelope and the neighboring ranchers, or the Rajneeshees themselves — saw the story of Rajneeshpuram as a warning of sorts, and they were realizing how forgotten the story was. Granted, each side looks at the story of Rajneeshpuram as a very different type of warning. I think sannyasins will talk to you about how this was an example of government overreach and religious persecution they were facing, whereas people from Antelope or neighboring ranchers will talk to you about the dangers of cults, and what brainwashing can do to you. Ultimately, everyone who did participate in the documentary series [talked to us because] they didn't want the story of Rajneeshpuram to be totally forgotten. They saw value in it as a warning.

McAlone: There are definitely sympathetic arguments on both sides. But the moment when [the Rajneeshees] started busing in homeless people [to try and sway the election], it seemed that the decision-making was going to places that were illogical. This was clearly not a good idea and would go off the rails. Up until this point, the [decisions of the leadership] seemed rational. What changed?

Maclain Way: It was really interesting, when we talked to sannyasins who were not involved in that decision-making to bring in homeless people, they often talked to me about this, unprompted, as “the beginning of the end.” And that was their reflection 30, 35 years after this happened. That decision was so far off base from what the original intention of the community was, which was kind of “peace, loving, meditation, personal and spiritual growth, we are all on this path walking toward enlightenment — now we are kind of becoming a homeless shelter,” which was really interesting as interviewers.

McAlone: What is the status of the community now generally?

Chapman Way: There’s sort of one main organization, and then there's a bunch of little offshoots. The main organization is the Osho International Foundation. They go by “OIF.” They are run out of the same ashram that they started out in the 70s, and it's not really community living, more of a resort you pay to do some meditation and spa treatment, and psychotherapy is involved. They have completely rebranded. It is no longer Bhagwan’s face all around the area. They changed his name to Osho. It’s an international resort for seekers, and people interested in spirituality and yoga and that sort of thing. But there are still these communes all over. My wife, who produced the series, is from Brazil, and she knows people who live in some of the communes in northern Brazil who are still dedicated to Osho’s teachings. Mac and I during research went to their headquarters in Italy — Osho Miasto — which is one of their communes and spent a few days talking to sannyasins there. They do have these satellite communes all over the world. But their main headquarters and moneymaker is based out of Pune, India.

McAlone: In terms of the sannyasins who were in the Oregon commune, how did they feel about the current organization?

Chapman Way: They all kind of have their own circles and are still devoted to Osho. One of our talking heads is in northern California and belongs to an Osho group out there in Marin county. Niren, who is the lawyer we interviewed, still travels to India every once and awhile. They all have different thoughts. The interesting thing I found is that while the organization doesn't like talking about this chapter of Osho's biography and history, all of the American sannyasins felt such a traumatic — almost PTSD — response to this failed experiment [that they] wanted to dive back into the story one more time, so they could tell their version.

McAlone: Was there anything you were conscious of avoiding [when making “Wild Wild Country”]?

Chapman Way: I think the most difficult part was that there were just a lot of rumors that had gone around on both sides. I think for the people of Oregon, [there were rumors of] things they had said, that we could have dove into, that really paint these people as horribly racist and bigoted. But you know it’s rumors and there is no evidence of it. In the other direction, the people of Antelope would say horrible things that were rumor-based about the Rajneeshees, and crimes that were committed, that we couldn't find evidence of, and the government could not find evidence of. [But] that didn't mean it didn't happen. As a documentary filmmaker, you are trying to straddle that line by giving the audience the most information that you can. But you are afraid of hearsay seeping into the narrative and things being misinterpreted. It’s always a difficult line.

McAlone: Do you think [the story of Rajneeshpuram] relates particularly to its time period, or do you think anything of that scale would be possible now in a place like Oregon?

Chapman Way: What I've found fascinating — and this is just my armchair take — was that a lot of the sannyasins that we talked to had come to this point in life where they were successful. They had achieved career success, but they were ultimately unfulfilled and were looking for something new, something exciting. And from my own social circle, my own friends, there does seem to be a similarity with the millennial generation, of people that have gone to school, gone to college, gotten a degree, started a family — and then people are asking, “What do we do next, is this really the pinnacle of happiness?” There are definitely always these movements, especially in America, where people start looking for something more, start looking for something more fulfilling. I think something of this scale could be achieved again. And I think this series has some warning signs of what happens when these things unfold.

SEE ALSO: What surprised the creators of Showtime's 'Billions' the most about the world of hedge funds

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why 555 is always used for phone numbers on TV and in movies

Cancer-linked substances are everywhere.

Sometimes it can feel downright unavoidable: Californians now have to read cancer warnings as they sip their morning coffees, and the World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer keeps a running tally of things that definitely cause cancer, seem to cause cancer, and might cause cancer. 

All cancer is a result of damage or genetic mutations in our DNA. It fundamentally affects the way cells grow and divide, changing them in perverse ways. Those toxic, rapidly multiplying cells then grow into unruly tumors, and can spread far and wide through the body. 

Some cases of cancer are out of our control, determined by genetic defects and predispositions passed down from one generation to the next, or spurred by genetic changes we undergo through our lifetime. 

Products like cigarettes are clear cancer-causers, while other consumables like coffee and grilled meat may up your chances of getting cancer by just a tiny fraction, if at all.

The truth is, just about every compound out there could possibly, maybe, one day contribute to cancer. Still, there are some products that scientists are starting to sense we should monitor more closely.

Here's what we know.

SEE ALSO: A study of more than 100,000 people has found that one food group is closely linked with cancer

Birth control

Going on birth control is a mixed bag when it comes to cancer.

While it may increase a woman's risk for developing breast and cervical cancers, studies suggest it might also lower the chances of developing endometrial, ovarian, or colorectal cancers.

Sugar

Scientists now know that eating too much sweet stuff can not only lead to diabetes, it can also actively damage your cells and up your odds of developing cancer.

But that's not all.

New research suggests that sugar may fuel tumor growth in the body, because cancer loves to use sugar as fuel. 

"The hyperactive sugar consumption of cancerous cells leads to a vicious cycle of continued stimulation of cancer development and growth" Belgian molecular biologist Johan Thevelein said when his latest study was released in 2017. Scientists say the groundbreaking research gives us a better understanding of how sugar and cancer interact, and could one day help create targeted diet strategies for patients.

Some plastics

Plastics can be dangerous, especially when they leach chemicals out through scratches or cracks in a container. 

BPA is a synthetic estrogen that's been used in many plastics and resins since the 1960s. And it's a known endocrine disruptor, which means it messes with the natural balance of hormones in our bodies. BPA resins can be used inside products like metal food cans as sealants, while polycarbonate BPA plastics can include water bottles and food storage containers. BPA even shows up on the shiny side of receipt paper, to stabilize the ink.

While many plastic manufacturers have started labeling their products as "BPA-free," there's still a lot of the breast and prostate cancer-causing stuff around.

• Arnold Schwarzenegger underwent an open-heart surgery on Thursday and is currently in stable condition, his spokesman confirmed to The Washington Post.
• Schwarzenegger, 70, underwent a planned procedure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Thursday to replace a pulmonic valve, when complications arose and he required an "emergency" open-heart surgery, as TMZ first reported. 
• The actor and former California governor's surgery on Thursday was  previously had an elective heart surgery in 1997, at the age of 49, to replace the same valve. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger underwent an emergency open-heart surgery on Thursday and is currently in stable condition, his spokesman Daniel Ketchell confirmed to The Washington Post.

Schwarzenegger, 70, first underwent a planned procedure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Thursday to replace a pulmonic valve. Complications arose in the valve replacement, and he required an "emergency" open-heart surgery, as TMZ first reported. 

Ketchell confirmed the report to The Post but downplayed the seriousness of the emergency surgery, saying that open-heart surgeons are "frequently" on hand for this particular procedure, and that "Governor Schwarzenegger's pulmonic valve was successfully replaced."

Schwarzenegger's representatives did not immediately respond to a request for further comment from Business Insider.

The actor and former California governor previously had an elective heart surgery in 1997, at the age of 49, to replace the same valve, which resulted from a congenital condition.

"I've never felt sick or had any symptoms at all, but I knew I'd have to take care of this condition sooner or later. I said to the doctors, 'Let's do it now, while I'm young and healthy.' They agreed this was the way to go," Schwarzenegger said of the surgery in 1997. 

"That 1997 replacement valve was never meant to be permanent, and has outlived its life expectancy, so he chose to replace it yesterday through a less-invasive catheter valve replacement," Ketchell told The Post on Friday.

SEE ALSO: Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about playing his most outlandish character yet in 'Killing Gunther,' and which of his movies he'll stop to watch

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why 555 is always used for phone numbers on TV and in movies

• If you've ever been a patient in the ER or a doctor's office, odds are you've heard a nurse throw around some unusual words or phrases.
• Thanks to popular TV hospital dramas, we're familiar with phrases such as "coding", "stat," and "crash cart".
• But there are other names, phrases, and abbreviations nurses use to describe situations and patients to each other that you just wouldn't know the meaning of unless you asked. So Business Insider asked.

Medical jargon is pretty impossible for anyone outside of the profession to understand.

TV shows and documentaries have gone some way in shining a light on some of the confusing acronyms and phrases used in hospitals and doctors offices.

But there are still plenty of words we're left in the dark about.

Business Insider asked seven nurses and scoured Quora to find out just what the secret phrases nurses use on the job really mean.

DON'T MISS: Nurses share the 12 funniest things they’ve heard patients say

SEE ALSO: I'm a nurse in New York, here's how my salary has changed in the last 10 years

Frequent flyer

In the medical world, patients who show up to the ER time and time again with various different ailments are often referred to as "frequent flyers," Liz, a nurse with two years of experience, told Business Insider.

Rose Cottage or celestially discharged

The Rose Cottage sounds like a lovely place, but you might want to hold off before you book a two-night stay.

Marianne, a nurse with four years of experience, told Business Insider that in the UK, Rose Cottage is what nurses call the mortuary. And they often call the deceased a "Rosey."

When someone dies in the US they're said to have been celestially discharged, Redditor mikenesmith wrote in response to the thread "The secret slang of hospitals."

Tachy

This isn't a misspelling for "tacky." If you overhear a nurse say "tachy' they're not insulting a patient's dress sense. Marianne said it's short for tachycardia, which means a fast heart rate.

• Costco's food court is home to a number of cheap and tasty menu options that members and food critics love.
• Costco employees themselves have some favorites, too.
• Business Insider reached out to Costco workers and scoured the web to figure out what meals are considered standout hits with employees.

Costco food courts are famous for having cheap, yummy grub.

The food court menus are static in terms of price and offerings. You'll have to travel if you want to find any serious discrepancies between Costco food court menus.

They're definitely a good option for shoppers looking to grab a quick, post-shopping spree meal. And some Costco employees are fans too.

Business Insider recently asked a number of Costco employees to share their favorite food court menu options. We also scoured the internet for employee reviews of the food court items on social media.

Here are the food court menu options that Costco employees love:

SEE ALSO: 30 Costco food court items you'd never guess were on the menu

DON'T MISS: Costco employees share their best food court secrets and hacks

DON'T FORGET: 11 insider facts about shopping at Costco only employees know

Pizza

"Costco's pizzas are pretty incredible considering the price," Costco worker Stefan Winter wrote on Quora. "Crust is yummy, toppings are good quality, what's not to love?"

Nine other Costco workers told Business Insider that the pizza was their favorite food court item. Of those, one worker preferred the pepperoni pizza, while two went with the combo pizza.

"You get sick of the food after awhile, but the combo pizza is always my go-to," one Costco worker in Florida told Business Insider.

During a 2013 Reddit AMA, a Costco employee called the pizza "awesome" and added that "a lot of people don't know you can get vegetarian or do half and half."

The hot dog-and-soda combo

"The hot dog soda combo for $1.50 is a classic," one San Diego-based Costco employee told Business Insider.

Bratwurst

One Costco worker in Illinois told Business Insider that they liked the bratwurst and felt disappointed when their store got rid of it for chili.

Another worker who's been at Costco for 12 years told Business Insider that, while they didn't often eat at the food court, when they did, they opted for the bratwurst.

• A colleague of comedian Zak Toscani's stole someone's lunch from the office refrigerator and threw it in the trash. The victim caught the culprit on camera.
• Toscani's Twitter thread about the debacle is going viral.
• Most employees say they've had food stolen at work — but that doesn't make it OK.

If you've ever worked in an office, and if you've ever brought your lunch to said office, then there's a good chance you've had that lunch stolen by a hungry colleague.

Zak Toscani, a comedian who works at a post-production company specializing in subtitling in Los Angeles, recently saw something similar go down in his office. And his Twitter updates on the all-too-relatable situation are going viral. (As of this writing, he's gotten roughly 50,000 retweets.)

The original tweet reads: "Co-worker got his lunch stolen and they've agreed to let him watch the security camera tape. This is the most excited I've ever been at any job ever. Ever."

Some people are even saying the story is good enough to be a movie.

In an email to Business Insider, Toscani confirmed that the story about the stolen lunch is true.

Toscani bbreaks down the series of events on Twitter: His coworker bought the lunch at 11:30 a.m. and put it in the office refrigerator to keep it cold until he broke for lunch at noon. When he went to retrieve it, it was gone.

When the coworker watched the tape, he not only discovered the culprit, but also learned that she didn't even eat the lunch. Instead, she threw it straight into the trash.

Human resources sent out a company-wide email about not stealing someone's lunch — though by this point, everyone knew who'd committed the crime.

When the coworker confronted the woman the following day, she said only, "Oh, it was your lunch?"

Stealing a coworker's lunch is surprisingly common office behavior

Toscani's coworker is hardly the first person to find himself in this situation: A survey by online grocer Peapod, highlighted in the New York Post, found that 71% of employees have had a snack, drink, or meal stolen from an office kitchen.

In response, NPR reported, victims have taken to leaving "nastygrams" on the refrigerator or planting sandwiches made of cat food as decoys.

Etiquette experts say that swiping someone's lunch — whether you eat it or trash it — isn't cool.

"While stealing a hoagie is not as egregious as robbing a bank, it’s still stealing," Nan DeMars, author of "You've Got to Be Kidding: How to Keep Your Job Without Losing Your Integrity," told The Post. "And the fact that you can get away with it doesn't make it lesser a crime."

The ideal solution here is for people to stop taking food that's not theirs. In the meantime, Jacqueline Whitmore, founder and director of the Protocol School of Palm Beach, told the Post that people should start leaving their lunch in "cute travel bags."

That way, it'll make the crime more obvious to other coworkers, and might even prompt one of them to intervene on your behalf.

SEE ALSO: 12 signs that your coworker is undermining you

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This lunch box for adults could change the way you eat

• Over 13,000 people in the UK are using a new website to get people to do the tasks they don't have time to do.
• While some tasks are mundane like cooking and cleaning, they can be more bizarre.
• Past tasks have included dressing up as a stormtrooper to walk a bride down the aisle on her wedding day and flying to Texas to collect an engagement ring.
• The UK is Airtasker's first market outside of Australia, where its Taskers earn more than $100 million AUD each year.

Over 2 million people around the world — and now thousands in the UK — are using a website to get people to do the tasks they don't have time to get around to (or never dreamed someone would do for them) — and some of them are pretty bizarre.

Over 13,000 people have signed up on Airtasker since it launched in the UK on March 12, its first market outside of Australia.

The "community marketplace" acts as a digital noticeboard of sorts to connect people and businesses with members of the local community who are able to complete tasks to earn some extra cash.

It has more than two million members globally, and claims its Taskers earn more than $100 million AUD through the platform each year.

The most common tasks — of which around 5,000 are uploaded every day around the world — involve cleaning, removal, or jobs for handymen, but some are certainly more creative.

In the first week following its UK launch, tasks being uploaded on the site included re-stringing a squash racket, creating a 100-question pub quiz, and even building a snowman in London's Finsbury Square for £55.

Since then, a lot of the tasks have been food-related.

Here, a Tasker tracked down a sold-out Waitrose chocolate avocado easter egg...

...While another found and delivered two tubs of Ben & Jerry's Karamel Sultra Core within an hour.

Stormtroopers, engagement rings, and fried chicken

Lucas London, Airtasker's UK Country Manager, said: "The traction in terms of tasks/earning opportunities that we’ve seen in the first two weeks in London is what took us two years to achieve in Australia."

The standard of request is even more bizarre in Australia, where tasks have included flying to Texas to collect an engagement ring, dressing up as a stormtrooper to walk a bride down the aisle on her wedding day, and being paid to find the best fried chicken in Sydney. The company expects this to become the case in the UK, too.

That's according to Sydney-born Airtasker cofounder and CEO Tim Fung, who told Business Insider he came up with the idea while chasing success in more traditional ways.

After university, he started his career at investment bank Macquarie. "My soul was crushed, but I learned a lot of great things," he said.

In 2009, he decided he wanted to do something more creative, and joined modelling agency Chic Management — which has worked with the likes of Miranda Kerr — with the goal of being "like [Hollywood agent] Ari Gold from 'Entourage.'"

He also jumped at an opportunity to work on a telecom startup, Amaysim, which he called "like Ryanair in the mobile world."

The idea for Airtasker didn't come about until 2011 when Fung was moving apartments in Sydney.

"I asked one of my friends, Ivan, to come help me move. He runs a chicken nugget factory and he had a truck," he said.

Fung realised that instead of asking friends and family to help us with tasks like moving, assembling furniture, and packing boxes, there's no reason why we can't be asking members of the community who could stand to make some extra cash.

"In our community, we tend to have really low trust," he said. "People are pessimistic about people in their community and talk about them like they're strangers.

"[This is about putting] some simple systems in place to be able to trust people in your community."

Airtasker has raised $67 million in funding to date, according to the company.

It employs around 165 people around the world and completed a $35 million funding round in October last year for its UK launch.

Fung says some Taskers are earning $5,000 AUD (around £3,000) or more a month.

"You can definitely make a viable career out of it," he said. "Our highest earner made £95,000 in 12 months last year."

How it works

It's a demand-driven marketplace, according to Fung, which means users can say exactly what they're looking for and have people come to them rather than the other way around.

"It's not an agency model where you give your job to the agency and they go and find you someone," he said. "All of the tasks on Airtasker are proactive buy-in — rather than the jobs getting pushed, the jobs just exist and the workers can jump on."

It's free to post a task or sign up as a Tasker.

Once you post a task, you'll receive offers from Taskers, then can pick the one that's right for your job.

Taskers can add a number of verification badges to their profiles — including trade licenses, ID checks, and background checks — to promote themselves on the platform.

"The minimum is a verified phone number. We use more community verification vs. being a centralised background checking business," he said, adding that their verifications come along with reviews of the jobs they've done.

The more badges Taskers have, the more they're able to charge.

"60% of the tasks are not awarded to the person who makes the lowest offer — most of the time people are choosing people who have a bit more skill," he said.

However, the amount of experience and level of verification required is up to you. "It's no different to if you were hiring someone outside of Airtasker," Fung said.

"Of course if you’re having someone come into your house like a babysitter, you want checks done. If you want 20 people to be extras in a movie or hand out flyers in the street, you probably don’t want such rigorous checks."

You pay by credit card when you accept an offer, and once the job has been completed you hit a "release" button and the funds get transferred to the Tasker right away.

If the Tasker has done a great job, you can choose to leave them a bonus and if a task took longer or less time than expected, both parties can agree to adjust the price.

Robots and transparency

While some of the tasks are pretty bizarre — one Australian woman offered $500 AUD for someone willing to give her a secret pasta sauce after losing her grandmother's famous recipe — Fung said the site has a number of tools in place to ensure things don't get out of hand.

Users must agree to the site's guidelines when they register and can flag anything they see on the site as "inappropriate."

Fung said Airtasker has also developed an AI robot, called Alan, who "has learned from tasks that have been posted before, can predict what isn’t going to meet our community guidelines, and pulls down stuff that’s not appropriate."

He said the staff look at the tasks Alan has pulled down to determine whether or not they're OK to be on the site.

Insurance partner XL Catlin also covers cover Taskers for personal injury or property damage whilst completing a task.

"We don’t want it to become something like Craigslist has become in some areas of the world," Fung added. "The number one thing for us is to create a culture of transparency."

SEE ALSO: How 2 Goldman Sachs investment bankers quit their jobs and raised £5 million to cook meals for dogs — including the pets of celebrities

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A neuroscientist explains why reality may just be a hallucination

• Costco stores are reportedly designed in a way that encourages shoppers to wander around.

• The goal, employees say, is to get members to view — and purchase — products that they wouldn't otherwise see.

• Costco refers to the process as a "treasure hunt."

Costco store landscapes often prove to be confusing treks for unassuming shoppers.

On one trip, the light bulbs are in their usual spot. The next, they're gone. What gives? Why do products always seem to be moving around? Why isn't everything easier to find?

It's a question that a number of shoppers have taken to Quora and Reddit to ask — because having to go on a scavenger hunt for certain items can be seriously annoying.

In one thread, a Redditor asked why, while taking their "normal route" through the warehouse, the laundry detergent had been swapped out with baby formula.

"Are these changes made purely to force people like me to walk by stuff I wouldn't normally walk by?" the shopper asked. "I bet it works, but it sure does rustle my jimmies."

As it turns out, that's exactly right. Seemingly nomadic essential products are designed to keep you scanning the shelves and buying more, according to Reader's Digest.

"They purposely move products around to different locations and are constantly rotating a certain percentage of their inventory to new products," Tony Jacobson, who worked at Costco for 13 years, wrote on Quora. "This creates a 'treasure hunt' experience as you shop and helps you discover new products that you may not normally see on your shopping visits."

And moving stuff around isn't the only strategy Costco has up its sleeve. CBS reported that the lack of signage within the warehouse is also meant to encourage people to explore.

In an article for Fast Company, Costco warehouse designer Stan Laegreid compared the layouts of the stores to an elaborate "racetrack" that exposes shoppers to "a greater number of products."

Laegreid wrote that this layout allows customers to cruise past "home, seasonal, and lifestyle selections on low-profile racks that allow for open sight lines across any point of the store."

"The very outside of the track is home to practical staples, including toilet paper, whose location requires consumers to pass many impulse buys," Laegreid wrote.

In general, the retail chain tends to keep fresh food and essentials in the back of the store to draw you in. Meanwhile, many Costco employees place the store's biggest bargains in the "center court" of the store, according to Business Insider's Kate Taylor. The most expensive temporary displays tend pop up near the store's entrance.

So if you're desperate to avoid the siren song of items you don't really need, make a beeline for the middle or back of your local Costco.

Are you a Costco employee with a story to share? Email acain@businessinsider.com.

SEE ALSO: The most surprising things you can eat in Costco food courts around the world, from açaí bowls in Hawaii to corn-topped pizza in Taiwan

DON'T MISS: Costco employees share their best food court secrets and hacks

DON'T FORGET: 11 insider facts about shopping at Costco only employees know

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 5 Costco purchases that make your membership virtually free

• Cofounders Eddy Lu and Daishin Sugano's story doesn't start with the sneaker app GOAT.
• The two developed thick skin from failed venture after failed venture before launching the online sneaker marketplace in 2015.
• Now the company has a fresh $60 million in funding with traction and popularity to match.

Eddy Lu and Daishin Sugano quit their boring corporate jobs on the same day eleven years ago. 

The two college friends had no idea they would eventually run a super-buzzy online sneaker marketplace called GOAT that has scooped up nearly $100 million in funding and has 7 million fervent users. Sneakers were the furthest thing from their minds. And it would be many years, and many failed business ventures, before the duo found the right formula by tapping into the passionate ranks of sneakerheads. 

At the time, the only thing the two budding entrepreneurs knew was that they didn't want their corporate lives and they had a hunch that the recently released iPhone would provide an important platform for new types of businesses. 

"We were just like, ‘Let’s do a business together,'" Lu tells Business Insider. 

The multiyear journey took Lu and Sugano to different cities and different industries, not to mention through the depths of the financial downturn. And the events that led them to create GOAT is a case study in the perseverance, passion and simple chance that often form the basis of a startup success story. 

"In our wildest dreams we never thought this would really happen," says Sugano, 37, shortly after GOAT announced the acquisition of Flight Club, an iconic sneaker store that will give the startup its first retail presence.

Certified tea masters and cream puffs

Lu and Sugano, who both grew up in LA, each had contacts in China. So they first gave the Import/Export business a try.  They launched a golf apparel company, during which time Lu took sewing classes to hone his seamster skills. They ran an online tea business and to this day can call themselves certified tea masters as a result of the endeavor. They built countless 99 cent gaming apps for iPhone users. Nothing stuck.

One day the two wandered into a Beard Papa's restaurant in LA, and, blown away by the flaky, custard-filled cream puffs in their hands, decided to franchise the Japanese chain for some "passive income" while they worked on their projects. But it was 2008, the financial crisis was in full swing and, because of the downturn, they couldn't hire managers. 

“Going through 2008 as a business owner you definitely earn your stripes," said Lu.

Lu and Sugano's cream puff days were painful, but they taught the entrepreneurs fiscal responsibility and resilience. And it provided the spark for their next adventure. 

Who wants to eat with strangers?

In 2010 Lu and Sugano moved to Chicago with the intent of expanding upon Beard Papa's presence in the Windy City. Once there, they discovered how difficult it can be to meet people in a new city.

So they founded GrubWithUs, a dining app that arranges meals between strangers. The concept was innovative: reserve a seat at a participating restaurant for a meal that piques the user’s interest. When four people reserve a spot for the same meal at the same table, the meeting is set, and a handful of lonely strangers could socialize with their peers over dinner.

The startup got funding from Y Combinator, and the two moved back to California in 2011 to run GrubWithUs from there. But the app never became very popular. Users either had too many dietary restrictions for the meals listed in the app, didn't like the menu, thought the restaurant was too far away, or were too skittish about having dinner with unfamiliar faces. GrubWithUs gradually fizzled out over the next few years. 

Everything changed thanks to a pair of fake Air Jordans. 

Sugano has been a bona fide sneaker enthusiast and basketball player since at least ten years old when his dad bought him his first pair of Air Jordan 5 Grapes. In 2013, the shoe was re-released 23 years after its debut (Michael Jordan’s jersey number was 23). 

When he saw the Grapes were made available once again, he acted fast.

“Nostalgia hit me, I saw the photos: I had to have the shoe again,” Sugano recalls. So he turned to eBay, which was then the largest sneaker marketplace. He mined the site for the shoe, ordered it, and when it showed up on his doorstep, he realized it was a fake.

When he complained to Lu about how the online sneaker market had no authentication process, Lu asked him if there was room in the industry for a brand devoted to monitoring fraudulence between sellers and buyers.

“I did my due diligence and came up with nobody,” said Sugano. “From that point on, we decided that this is something we could solve.”

They launched GOAT shortly after in July of 2015, hoping the sneaker app would live up to its namesake (Greatest Of All Time.)

A Black Friday fiasco that turned into a blessing

The founders started off with $7.6 million in funding from a handful of venture firms, including Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian.

Their first step was to build and refine an authentication process to combat fraud in the online sneaker market.

Both sellers and buyers use the app, with sellers required to apply before they can sell their sneakers. They’re also required to take standardized photos from different angles of the shoe, i.e. the heel, the sole and the lateral sides, which are then processed. GOAT uses these images to build a database of what authentic sneaker models look like - and how to spot replicas.

“It’s a combination of image recognition with machine learning because we get so many of the same type of shoes in our building every single day,” said Lu.

Only once the sneaker passes the authentication process does it become activated for sale. From then on the seller interacts with buyer offers and receives a shipping label from GOAT once a sale has been made. Then the item is sent to either the company's Culver City or New Jersey distribution center, quality controlled, further authenticated and shipped out to the customer in a GOAT-designed shoe box all in one day.

Lu and Sugano had learned their lesson with GrubWithUs: remove as much friction as possible for consumers in the marketplace and make it easy for the product to leave the seller's hands and ship to the buyer's door.

After four months of operation, in November of 2015, the then-nobody company launched a Black Friday campaign discounting the hottest styles of the year at retail prices.

“That year we were talking about the Turtle Doves, the Supreme Fives,” said Lu. “The internet picked it up and it kind of blew up, and every kind of blog picked up this Black Friday campaign.”

Over a hundred thousand users installed the app to take advantage of the sale, causing the newly-launched startup app to crash repeatedly. Some users got in, but mostly everyone was shut out from access to the discounted sneaks.

“We were pretty hated in the community then, but at that point it was better to be hated than to be unknown,” said Lu.

Tapping into star power on court and off court

The Black Friday fiasco put GOAT on the map, and the company hasn't stopped growing since. 

The app currently has 7 million users, up from one million at this time last year. There are 100,000 sellers on the app and the marketplace has more than 400,000 sneakers, including iconic kicks like the Yeezy Boosts, Nike Air Max’s and the Chanel X Pharrell’s, which are listed at $20,000.

The company does not disclose its financial results, other than saying it's revenue last year increased 500%. The company says that several individual sellers on its platform have raked in as much as $2 million in sneaker sales. 

The brand is building its buzz through events like the after party it hosted during the NBA All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles this year. Houston Rockets point guard James Harden hosted the event. 

And GOAT is building up its bench internally, bringing on former Twitter COO Adam Bain to its board last year.  The company's headcount has swelled to 300 employees on staff, up from 20 employees two years ago. 

After raising $60 million in fresh funding from Index Ventures, Accel and other venture capital firms last month, GOAT is embarking on its next phase of growth beyond the app. In February it acquired Flight Club, which has retail locations in Los Angeles and New York. 

GOAT also recently launched a bi-annual, 150 plus-page lifestyle magazine for the brand called “Greatest” spotlighting people across various industries that are defining their own success stories.

But despite the company’s wild success, the founders know they've been fortunate. They know they've caught a culture wave, one that paying sneakerheads are glad to ride. It's a humbling experience that the guys work to keep in mind.

"It is funny because we did an all-hands meeting yesterday and you’re talking and there’s a hundred something people in the audience as opposed to just two years ago when we had less than twenty people," said Lu. "Yeah, we’ve just been very fortunate."

SEE ALSO: Silicon Valley's ultimate status symbol is the sneaker — here are the rare, expensive, and goofy sneakers worn by the top tech CEOs

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A neuroscientist explains why reality may just be a hallucination

• Millennials are generally defined as people born from 1981 and 1996.
• While many aspects of life have changed since their parents were young, others have stayed exactly the same.
• For example, attitudes around gender roles have barely budged and young people are still seeking meaningful work beyond a paycheck.

You could reasonably argue that millennials— the generation born between 1981 and 1996 — have it easier than those before them.

You could also reasonably argue that they have it worse.

It's not quite as catchy to talk about all the ways that life has, well, stagnated. But in many ways, research suggests, life is largely the same as it was 30 years ago.

Young people are still job-hopping, everyone's still calling them selfish, and there's still no magic bullet for finding love. Read on for some of the biggest commonalities between millennials and their parents.

SEE ALSO: 11 things millennials do completely differently from their parents

It's still hard for young people to find love

Which is harder: Choosing from thousands of Tinder profiles or choosing from a smaller pool of classmates, coworkers, and friends?

Trick question: They can both be pretty awful.

As Mandy Ginsberg, CEO of Match Group North America, previously told Business Insider, no matter what medium you use to meet people, you're still going to face the same challenges finding a relationship. 

That is to say, Baby Boomers and Generation X probably didn't have an easier or harder time dating than Millennials. People have always been flaky, and clingy, and just plain mean — and they will be for the foreseeable future.

Young people are still job-hopping

Millennials have gotten a rap for treating the job market like a game of leap frog. This is pretty undeserved: Young professionals have always been more inclined to switch jobs than older workers.

As Ben Casselman points out on FiveThirtyEight, job tenure for Americans in their 20s is roughly the same today as it was in the 1980s, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In fact, Casselman notes that millennials are actually changing jobs slightly less often than their predecessors. That suggests they probably aren't moving around enough, given that changing jobs can be a way to both earn more money and find the best fit.

Many young men still struggle with the concept of gender equality

Young people's attitudes around gender equality have shifted — but not in the direction you might think.

A 2017 report from the Council on Contemporary Families found that young adults ages 18 to 25 have grown only slightly more supportive of gender equality in the home since the mid-70s and slightly less supportive since the mid-90s.

Consider: In 1977, approximately 45% of men ages 18 to 25 disagreed with the notion that the man should be the breadwinner and the woman should be the homemaker. In 1994, it was 83%. In 2014, only 55% disagreed.

Other reports suggest that millennial men do support gender equality in the home, but they have a hard time putting those beliefs into action. An article in The New York Times reads:

"Millennial men — ages 18 to early 30s — have much more egalitarian attitudes about family, career and gender roles inside marriage than generations before them, according to a variety of research by social scientists. Yet they struggle to achieve their goals once they start families, researchers say."

That's possibly because of a relative lack of family-friendly policies in the American workplace.

• I regularly spend $800 per week on food and drink, about half my income.
• Living in Seattle gives me access to great markets and restaurants; food is my greatest passion.
• I'm remaining anonymous for privacy reasons.

I know, I know. I spend way too much on food and going out. The thing is, I love food, live alone, and work from home, so I need few excuses to entertain or go out. This social being needs human interaction — preferably over food and drink.

I live in Seattle and make $1,640 weekly, pretax. I freelance on the side, but that income varies greatly. The rent for my one-bedroom apartment is $1,425 a month, plus utilities. Other monthly expenses include my dog ($100), Pilates ($160), cellphone ($80), internet ($80), and occasional travel.

I steer clear of caffeine, so I don’t have a daily Starbucks fix. Water is my beverage of choice, sometimes carbonated courtesy of my SodaStream. Booze is my runner-up, and I admittedly spend big money to drink well.

I got rid of my wheels several years ago, and my company provides a transit pass, so I don’t have to worry about that expense. Also, I’m not a big shopper, nor into acquiring “stuff,” so my retail expenses are minimal.

A big chunk of my income goes to shared experiences, so what my savings lacks in zeros my quality of life makes up for in spades. Here’s what I spend on food, drinks, groceries, and dining out in a typical week. Totals include 9.6% sales tax where applicable.

Friday

Breakfast

I have a work hard/play hard attitude toward life. I don’t diet, but try to squeeze in healthy meals where I can. The Green Dream smoothie atPCC Natural Markets ($5.99), the community co-op that’s one block from my apartment, gives me the energy boost I need to start the day.

(Total: $6.57)

Lunch

I don’t work until 1 p.m. on Fridays, so I’ll frequently take myself out for lunch before starting my shift. One of my favorite go-tos is the Columbia City Ale House. Their Reuben ($14.95) is to die for, especially when paired with one of the brew pub’s many selections. I’m partial to the Hales Kolsch ($6.75).

Total (with $5.00 tip): = $28.89

Groceries

I made a post-work repeat appearance at PCC to pick up beer and fruit garnishes for cocktails for the weekend. Think: Negronis, my cocktail of choice.

12-pack of Aslan Light Lager ($19.50), organic Meyer lemon ($1.30), organic heirloom orange ($1.17), organic Anjou pear ($1.91)

Total: $23.88

Dinner

My boyfriend came over and we decided to check out the neighborhood newcomer, Bua 9 Thai. We ordered take-out gyoza, Pad Thai, and a luscious green curry with chicken that didn’t disappoint.

Total (with $5.00 tip): $37.50

Saturday

Brunch

I had a bunch of freelance work on my plate for the day, but a dear friend had just returned from a work trip to Thailand and had eschewed yoga in lieu of day drinking. We met at Super Six for brunch, where I indulged in the “Big Blue” Benny ($14) and a Super Michelada ($6).

Total (with $5.00 tip): $26.92

Dinner

Still full from brunch, I decided to go light for dinner and hit the salad bar, at yep, you guessed it, PCC. (I jokingly refer to it as my pantry, since it’s commonly a three times a day habit.)

Total: $8.99

Sunday

Brunch

It’s a known fact that I make the best breakfast sandwich on the planet. It costs waaay more than an Egg McMuffin, but is seriously so darn delicious. My boyfriend regularly comes over to indulge in breakfast sandwich brunch, complete with mimosas.

English muffins ($3.19), eggs ($3.89), Tillamook cheddar cheese ($5.99), arugula ($3.99), Mama Lil’s peppers ($7.99), Karam’s Original garlic sauce ($12.99), pound of black forest bacon ($7.99), two bottles of Prosecco (2 at $10 = $20), organic grapefruit juice ($7.99)

Total: $82.19

Lunch

I unapologetically love cheese. And although I love the Pacific Northwest, not a day goes by when I don’t long for the heirloom tomatoes I had living on the Central Coast of California. Whenever I can get my hands on a good-enough tomato, I turn into a caprese salad. So simple, so good.

Heirloom tomatoes ($6.82), whole milk mozzarella ($5.99) and basil ($4.99)

(I had olive oil and balsamic vinegar on hand)

Total: $19.51

Dinner

Chef Joel DeBilzan puts together themed Sunday feasts at Seafood Feast at Tavolàta. The Seafood Feast was off-the-hook featuring all of the Pacific Northwest’s finest from spot prawns to King salmon, Total knockout of an 11-course tasting menu!

$120.00 + Manhattan ($11), glass of La Spinetta Vermentino ($15) + 20% service charge

Total: $160.80

• Many of the world's richest people and most recognizable business moguls are also parents.
• They raise their kids just like everyone else, but with billions of dollars to do so.
• Education is usually a priority: Bill Gates sent his children to the private school he graduated from, and Elon Musk's five sons attend a secret school founded by their father.

Most kids face the same problems growing up, but some do so with a billionaire parent.

When not running their tech company and managing other executives, many of the world's richest people and most recognizable business moguls have the universal job of taking care of their children.

The kids of the richest business moguls have many of the same experiences as everyone else. They go to school, relax on vacation, date, and eventually have children and careers of their own. 

However, they may also attend secret schools, pursue expensive hobbies like riding horses, or head up their father's charity organization — less than ordinary experiences that make their childhood the opposite of average. 

Below, find out more about the children of some of the most successful billionaire business moguls: Mark Cuban, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett. 

SEE ALSO: Meet the kids of the world's richest tech billionaires

DON'T MISS: Meet the kids of the richest black billionaires in the world

Mark Cuban is a father to three children — Alexis, Alyssa, and Jake.

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Cuban and his wife, Tiffany, keep family time fun. Last summer, the Cuban family took a vacation to Disneyland.

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Cuban has admitted that it is difficult to get his children off their phones. He limits Netflix time for his kids and has instituted a technology curfew.

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Source: CNBC

Spanning more than 40 years, Steven Spielberg's work boasts an extremely diverse array of stories, characters, and themes.

He's made whimsical fantasies aimed squarely at children ("E.T.," "The Adventures of Tintin"), complex morality stories ("Bridge of Spies," "Amistad"), and graphically violent dramas ("Munich," "Saving Private Ryan").

For his latest, "Ready Player One," the Oscar winner returns to his popcorn blockbuster roots and proves that he's still the king of the genre.

Here we take on the difficult task of ranking from worst to best all 32 of Spielberg's feature-length movies. 

SEE ALSO: All 30 Steven Spielberg movies, ranked by how much money they made at the US box office

32. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (2008)

Earning its rightful place at the bottom of this list is the fourth entry in Spielberg's "Indiana Jones" anthology. There are so many problems with this movie. If you really want to understand all of them, we suggest watching Red Letter Media's in-depth analysis of why it's so bad. Disney announced that Spielberg and star Harrison Ford will reunite for a fifth "Indy" movie. Hopefully, in the words of Max Von Sydow's character in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," it "will begin to make things right."

31. "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" (1997)

Spielberg rushed to deliver a sequel to his 1993 record-breaking box-office smash "Jurassic Park." In the process, he failed to produce a worthy successor to the groundbreaking original. He also created a scene in which a little girl uses gymnastics to fight a dinosaur that many refer to as the worst thing he's ever done.

30. "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" (2001)

Stanley Kubrick originally intended to direct this project, but Spielberg took it over after Kubrick passed away in 1999. While it possesses many solid attributes, such as a superb John Williams score, the marriage of Spielberg's sensibilities with those of Kubrick result in an uneven mess that will hopefully improve with repeated viewings.