Kairan Quazi, the 14-year-old genius who graduated college eight years early and will soon start a full-time job at Elon Musks SpaceX, has slammed LinkedIn as primitive for deeming him too young for the platform.

Next month, Quazi will be relocating to Washington State with his mom to begin work as a software engineer on SpaceXs Starlink team.

While certain aspects of Quazis life have been accelerated into adulthood, his age still counts for something in certain aspects of his life.

In a recent interview with local newspaper the Mercury News, one of his classmates noted that although Quazi feels like a peer, talk of college parties and drinking in his presence is kept off of the table. And despite landing a full-time position with a prestigious space exploration company, the teenage prodigy is still not allowed to have a LinkedIn account.

In an Instagram post on Tuesday, Quazi shared a screenshot of a message from the professional networking platform, which had informed him his account had been restricted.  

Were excited by your enthusiasm, energy and focus. We cant wait to see what you do in the world, the message read, but it went on to point out that the minimum age requirement for LinkedIn account holders was 16.  

Because you currently do not meet the age eligibility criteria to join, we have restricted your account, the message continued. You are welcome back on the platform once you turn 16 or older.

A spokesperson for LinkedIn confirmed to Fortune on Thursday that Quazi had indeed had his account restricted due to his age.

We appreciate his enthusiasm to join LinkedIn and applaud his incredible success, however we have an age limit in place of 16 years of age and that extends to all members, they said.

The organizations terms and conditions state that LinkedIns services are not for use by anyone under the age of 16.

Quazi, however, suggested in his Instagram post that he should be afforded an exception to LinkedIns minimum age rules, slamming the Microsoft-owned firm as regressive.

This is the illogical, primitive nonsense that I face constantly, he said. I can be qualified enough to land one of the most coveted engineering jobs in the world but not qualified enough to have access to a professional social media platform?

Fortune confirmed that Quazis LinkedIn accountwhich he used to announce last week that he would soon be starting a job as a software engineer at SpaceXis no longer accessible.

Arbitrary and outdated proxy

When announcing his career news via LinkedIn last Thursday, Quazi labeled SpaceX one of the rare companies that did not use my age as an arbitrary and outdated proxy for maturity and ability.

Quazi, who recently graduated with Santa Clara University (SCU)s class of 2023, is the youngest graduate in the institutions 172-year history.

He started attending Las Positas community college in California at 10 years old, landing an internship at the same age with Intel Labs as an A.I. research co-op fellow. He transferred to SCU at age 11, focusing his education on computer science and engineering.

However, Quazis intellectual capabilities havent stopped him from facing obstaclesbefore securing a position with SpaceX, he reportedly applied for dozens of jobs and was left with 95 rejections and three full-time job offers. His academic advisor told the Mercury News that Quazi struggled with being taken seriously because of his youth.

Starbucks has been ordered to pay $25.6 million in damages to a former regional director who sued the company for wrongfully firing her, claiming she was terminated for being white.

Shannon Phillips, who worked for Starbucks for about 13 years, was fired after the highly publicized arrest of two Black men at a Philadelphia Starbucks in April 2018.

Starbucks took steps to punish white employees who had not been involved in the arrests, but who worked in and around the city of Philadelphia, in an effort to convince the community that it had properly responded to the incident, Phillips said in the lawsuit, filed in 2019. 

I was terminated because I am white. If I was black, I would not have been terminated. I was terminated because I complained of and objected to race discrimination.

In closing arguments last week, Phillips lawyer Laura Mattiacci told jurors that Starbucks had been looking for a sacrificial lamb to calm public outrage after the arrests, according to a report in Law360. 

Although the coffee chain denied that the sacking was racially motivated, a jury in US District Court in New Jersey agreed that the employees race was a determining factor in her dismissal and has been ordered to pay her $600,000 in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages. 

The aftermath of the controversial arrests

The verdict comes over 5 years after a 2018 Starbucks arrest that sparked widespread backlash and allegedly led to Phillips being let go.

Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson were asked to leave the Philadelphia branch after sitting at a table and asking to use the restroom without ordering anything. The two men declined to leave because they were waiting for a business associate.

They were captured on camera being forced out of the coffee shop in handcuffs after a store manager called the police on them for trespassing.

The arrests sparked protests and drew criticism from African American leaders who demanded Starbucks take action.

To try to alleviate the PR crisis on its hands, Starbucks then-CEO Kevin Johnson issued an apology and closed about 8,000 company-owned stores for an afternoon of mandatory anti-bias training for around 175,000 employees.

As part of these efforts, Phillips claimed she was instructed by her superiors to suspend a white employee, even though he was not involved and did not oversee the store where the incident took place.

She argued in the lawsuit that she had no performance-based reason to suspend him and that the store in question was in fact overseen by a Black district manager who was not facing discipline.

Shortly after that, Phillips claimed she was fired and was only told her situation was not recoverable.

Starbucks blamed the managers absence of leadership

Starbucks denied in court filings that Phillips race had anything to do with her dismissal and instead pointed to her leadership skills and handling of the situation that led to her sacking.

Senior leaders and members of Partner Resources all observed Ms. Phillips demonstrate a complete absence of leadership during this crisis, Starbucks said in a 2021 court filing.

Phillips appeared overwhelmed and lacked awareness of how critical the situation had become, the company argued, while adding that Phillips manager ultimately decided to dismiss her because strong leadership was essential during that time. 

However, Phillips claimed in the lawsuit that she engaged in crisis management and took steps to ensure that the retail locations she oversaw were a safe and welcoming environment for all customers, regardless of race in the wake of the arrests. 

Fortune has contacted Starbucks to comment on the verdict.

The coffee conglomerate also previously reached a settlement with Robinson and Nelson for an undisclosed sum and an offer of free college education. Meanwhile, the city of Philadelphia was ordered to pay a symbolic $1 to each man, and officials promised to set up a $200,000 program for young entrepreneurs.

Roughly 6.7 million Americans age 65 or older are living with Alzheimers disease. Many of them could benefit from treatments that could slow the progression of disease. Does Medicare cover treatments and medication to help them? The answer is complicated and continually changing. Heres what you need to know.

Medicare and Alzheimers drugs

There are no drugs or treatments to cure Alzheimers disease. But if you have a Medicare Part D prescription drug plan, you can get Medicare coverage for five medications that treat cognitive symptoms.

Three of themAricept, Exelon and Razadyneare cholinesterase inhibitors, which treat symptoms related to memory, language, judgment and other thought processes. Aricept has been approved by the FDA to treat all stages of Alzheimers. Exelon and Razadyne have received approval for mild to moderate disease.

Namenda and Namzaric are approved for moderate to severe Alzheimers disease. Namenda is a glutamate regulator and Namzaric is a combination cholinesterase inhibitor and glutatmate regulator. Both are prescribed to help improve memory, language and the ability to perform simple tasks.

Does Medicare cover Adulhelm and Leqembi

Theres a new type of Alzheimers treatment receiving enormous attention because it may be able to slow the progression of the disease. Adulhelm and Leqembi are costly, anti-amyloid, antibody intravenous (IV) infusion therapies for people with early Alzheimers.

After a twisty regulatory process over the past few years, Medicare has been covering Adulhelm for certain people with early Alzheimers.

In June 2021, the FDA went against the advice of its advisory committee and gave Adulhelm accelerated approval. CMS [The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs Medicare] then said, Well, lets think about what we want to do about it, says Tricia Neuman, senior vice president of the health policy research and news organization KFF and executive director of its Program on Medicare Policy. 

Typically, Medicare covers what the FDA approves.

In April 2022, CMS decided that Medicare would cover Adulhelm (cost: $28,200 a year, down from the initial $56,000 price) and treatments like it only for beneficiaries with Medicare Part B who are enrolled in a clinical trial approved by the agency or by the National Institutes of Health.

Weve been very disappointed with the way that CMS has chosen to cover or not cover these FDA-approved Alzheimers treatments through Medicare, says Robert Egge, chief public policy officer for the Alzheimers Association. These treatments could make a big difference in the lives of patients with early Alzheimers, he adds.

The Alzheimers group said in statement after the April 2022 CMS decision: With this approach, only the privileged few with access to clinical trials have access to treatment.

It can be hard to find a health care provider that will administer Adulhelm. Some health systems including Cleveland Clinic, Mass General Brigham and Mount Sinai of New York City, have said they wont administer it due to safety and effectiveness concerns, according to The Commonwealth Fund, a health care research group.

When Medicare does cover Adulhelm, it pays 80% of the cost. The beneficiary pays the rest, which would be about $5,640 per year. The average out-of-pocket limit for people with Medicare Advantage plans from health insurersthe private alternative to traditional Medicareis just over $5,100.

In November 2022, CMS raised the monthly Part B premium by $21.60 to $170.10 due to forecasted increased spending by Medicare for Adulhelm coverage. The Part B premium dropped to $164.90 for 2023.

Leqembi, the similar treatment for slowing Alzheimers, was given accelerated approval by the FDA in January 2023. The Veterans Health Administration began covering it for some veterans over 65 in March 2023.

In early June, CMS said that if the FDA grants traditional approval to drugs slowing the progression of Alzheimers, Medicare will cover the cost for qualifying beneficiaries who also have a doctor participating in a special registry.

Some critics think a registry could be cumbersome for doctors and patients and might exclude patients in rural and underserved areas.

Diane Omdahl, author of Medicare for You and CEO of the Medicare advisory firm 65 Incorporated, says a registry is definitely going to be an impediment to people being able to get Alzheimers drugs.

The Alzheimers Association calls a registry an unnecessary barrier to coverage.

You should be entitled to Medicare coverage whether youre in a registry or not, says Egge. Thats always been the case for every other FDA-approved drug without exception.

By July 6, the FDA will decide whether to grant full approval to Leqembi for all people with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia with amyloid plaques.

Then, CMS will need to rule whether, and how, Medicare will cover it and whether to change coverage rules for Aduhelm.

Nearly nine in 10 voters favor requiring Medicare to cover the cost of FDA-approved drugs that can slow the progression of Alzheimers, a recent poll from Lake Research Partners and Public Opinion Strategies found.

In coming months, Medicare will also say whether it will cover Lillys donanemab, another drug thats shown clinical benefit for people with early Alzheimers. A clinical trial showed this drug slowed Alzheimers progression by 35% compared to a placebo.

Will Medicare ultimately grant coverage for all people with Alzheimers who qualify for these drugs? Im feeling guardedly optimistic after being frustrated for so long, says Egge.

At a list price of $26,500, Leqembi could add $8.9 billion to Medicare Part B spending annually if 5% of people with Alzheimers (roughly 335,000) take it, KFF estimates. It would likely raise Part B premiums, too, notes Omdahl.

The Alzheimers Association thinks only about 100,000 people will take Adulhelm and Leqembi over several years, however.

The annual cost of Leqembi and Adulhelm approaches the $30,000 median income of people on Medicare.

It appears as if U.S. economists may have popped the champagne corks on a soft landing too earlyat least, according to Deutsche Bank. 

The German multinational banks top research team believes Washington has sparked a boom-bust cycle that now is nearing its end stage. In its house view, the recession slated to arrive as soon as October is the inevitable consequence of a series of aggressive rate hikes designed to extinguish the very flames of inflation that policymakers ignited through their own actions during the COVID pandemic.

Avoiding a hard landing would be historically unprecedented, warned group chief economist David Folkerts-Landau in a research report entitled The Clock is Ticking published on Wednesday.

This bleak view contrasts with the recent investor bullishness that the Federal Reserve has seemingly pulled off the impossible by cooling off an overheated economy without sparking a recession and leaving only deflated asset prices as collateral damagea non-recession recession as private equity firm Apollo Global Management called it last month.

Germanys only bulge bracket bank uses an indicator that attempts to measure the probability of a recession in the next 12 months. Currently it is handicapping the chances of a contraction in U.S. economic activity near 100%in other words, a virtual certainty. But in order for this to occur, one thing has to happen first: consumers must exhaust their last of their savings stored up from the COVID lockdowns. 

These will not be depleted until nearer year end, Folkerts-Landau wrote, so things are going to script for our Q4 recession timeline. 

Additional headwinds in the latter half of the year will come from the government mandate for college graduates to resume repaying their federal student debt. For more than the past three years, there has been a moratorium on payments and interest accrual in place due to the pandemic.

Fed reversal expected for March with aggressive easing to come

Worse, Deutsche estimates the United States will stay there in the year to comejust as the November presidential election campaign kicks off with the Iowa caucus. In fact, it believes the U.S. will be the only leading industrial nation to see its economy shrink in 2024, when activity will contract by four tenths of a percent after adjusting for inflation. By comparison, it should still grow by 1.4% this year, according to Folkerts-Landaus team.

Other G7 countries have little reason to cheer either, though. The rosiest 2024 performance could top out at a tepid 0.8% in Japan, while both Germany and the eurozone as a whole should expand at a rate of just half of one percent.

Deutsche believes that businesses and consumers have not yet adjusted to the current higher interest-rate regime following a decade or more with rates either negative or effectively zero, as well as near-continuous quantitative easing across the U.S. and Europe.

Geopolitical tensions, in particular with regard to the war in Ukraine, as well as food price inflation from a possible El Niño weather phenomenon could pose additional curve balls that are difficult to calculate but could have major implications for growth. 

Markets might however brush the disappointing performance aside, as the bank expects the Federal Reserve will embark on an aggressive policy-easing cycle starting in March that brings the Fed Funds Rate from its 5.4% terminal level down to 2.625% in the third quarter. On Wednesday, the Fed did not hike for the first time after 10 straight meetings.

As a result, the S&P 500which typically prices in future developments roughly six months in advanceshould finish this year at 4,500, up from 4,373 currently and 3,840 at the start of this year.

We expect the grind higher to be choppy, Deutsche cautioned.

Business leaders, technologists and A.I. experts are divided on whether the technology of the moment will serve as a renaissance for humanity or the source of its downfall.

At the invitation-only Yale CEO summit this week, 42% of CEOs surveyed at the event said they believed A.I. has the potential to destroy humanity within the next five to 10 years.

The results of the survey were exclusively shared with CNN, to whom Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld described the findings as pretty dark and alarming.  

Respondents included Walmart CEO Doug McMillion, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincy, and the leaders of businesses in industries from IT and pharmaceuticals to media and manufacturing. A total of 119 CEOs took part in the survey.

However, while 34% said A.I. had the potential to wipe out mankind within a decade and 8% said the dystopian outcome could occur in as little as five years, 58% of polled CEOs said that this could never happen and that they were not worried.

It isnt just CEOs who are concerned about what rapidly developing artificial intelligence might unleash upon the world.

Back in March, 1,100 prominent technologists and A.I. researchers, including Elon Musk and Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, signed an open letter calling for a six-month pause on the development of powerful A.I. systems.

As well as raising concerns about the impact of A.I. on the workforce, the letters signatories pointed to the possibility of these systems already being on a path to superintelligence that could threaten human civilization.

Meanwhile, Musk, cofounder of Tesla and SpaceX and the worlds richest person, separately said the tech will hit people like an asteroid and that there is a chance that it will go Terminator.

Even Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAIthe company behind chatbot phenomenon ChatGPThas painted a bleak picture of what he thinks could happen if the technology goes wrong.

The bad caseand I think this is important to sayis, like, lights-out for all of us, he said in an interview with StrictlyVC earlier this year.

A Godfather of A.I. begs to differ

Yann LeCun has a different opinion.

LeCun, along with Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, became known as the godfathers of A.I. after they won the prestigious $1 million Turing Award in 2018 for their pioneering work in artificial intelligence.

Two of these three so-called Godfathers have, in light of the recent buzz around the technology, publicly stated that they have regrets about their lifes work and are fearful about artificial intelligence being misused.

In a recent interview, Benigo said seeing A.I. mutate into a possible threat had left him feeling lost, while Hintonwho resigned from Google to speak openly about the risks posed by A.I.has been warning about a nightmare scenario advanced artificial intelligence could create.

LeCun, however, is more optimistic.

Unlike his fellow A.I. pioneers, he does not see artificial intelligence triggering Doomsday.

Speaking at a press event in Paris on Tuesday, LeCunwho is now the chief A.I. scientist at Facebook parent company Metalabeled the concept of A.I. posing a grave threat to humanity preposterously ridiculous.

While he conceded that there was no question machines would eventually outsmart people, he argued that this would not happen for many years, but he argued experts could be trusted to keep A.I. safe.

Will A.I. take over the world? No, this is a projection of human nature on machines, said LeCun, who is also a professor at NYU. Its still going to run on a data center somewhere with an off switch and if you realize its not safe, you just dont build it.

He said that anxieties around A.I. were surfacing because people struggled to imagine how technology that does not yet exist could be safe.

Its as if you asked in 1930 how are you going to make a turbo-jet safe? he explained. Turbojets were not invented yet in 1930, same as human level A.I. has not been invented yet. Turbojets were eventually made incredibly reliable and safe.

LeCun also rejected the notion of regulations being introduced to stall A.I. developments, asserting that it would be a mistake to keep research under lock and key.

On Wednesdayafter LeCuns talkEU lawmakers approved rules aimed at regulating A.I. technology. Officials will now craft the finer details of the regulation before the draft rules become law.

After protracted labor negotiations in 2022 and a much-covered derailment in Ohio this year, critics of the railroad industry have sought to advance their narrative, arguing that railroads are deeply flawed. The root cause, detractors posit, is an operational model called Precision Schedule Railroading (PSR), which aims for efficiencybut is now cartoonishly cast as the downfall of the industry.

Critics claim that railroads, propelled by the dark magic of PSR, care too much about making money and not enough about employees or safety. It is easy to get lost in the invective, hyperbole, and misleading oversimplifications. But it is critical to keep an eye on the facts, and to know the whole story.

For instance, detractors like to cite the figure of 1,000 derailments per year, because it sounds alarming.  But the rest of the story is that 76% of those derailments were in rail yards, not on the main rail lines that carry freight around the country. Yard derailments are akin to parking lot fender benders. While work clearly remains to drive all incidents lower, rail is by far the safest way to move freight on land. According to federal data, the industry saw the lowest number of hazmat incidents in its history last year. Additionally, large railroads mainline accident and employee injury rates in 2022 continued an era of all-time lows.

While were considering the rest of the story: We estimate that unionized rail employees earn more than 93% of U.S. workers across industries. At the end of the current contract, the average total compensation for a rail employee will be $160,000. And railroad employees enjoy premium healthcare plans, far richer than those offered to most U.S. workers. 

While public attention was narrowly focused last fall on short-term sick leave, rail employees have long enjoyed generous long-term leave policies. And just as railroads said they would, they continue to ink new sick leave policies with unions. To date, nearly 40 such agreements have already been reached as carriers also address scheduling issues.

As in other industries, the size of the rail workforce has been reduced from its historic high. But the rest of the story is that rail employment today is at its highest level in three years, and railroads continue to hire amid an economic slowdown.

Railroads capital spending is six times that of the average manufacturer. That continual investment is the source of the undeniable rail safety gains over the last two decades.

This reality has not appeased the loudest critics, beholden to a set of dated anti-corporate talking points from 2017. Not all railroads embrace the tenets of PSR, and no railroad deploys the same operating plan, but all railroads share the same goal: making the most of available resources and delivering freight at a reasonable rate. Topline growth is a constant refrain among rail leaders, and multiple railroads have announced that executive compensation will hinge more on safety, service, and growth, and less on efficiency.

Feeling a need to act swiftly following the February derailment, some lawmakers are pursuing far-reaching policy changes. While some legislative proposals include sensible ideas, many would needlessly hamstring railroads. Prescriptive inspection protocols, shortsighted technology mandates, and even a provision that freezes current staffing models into place in perpetuity have no place in safety legislation.

Facts are stubborn things, especially if they dont advance a convenient storyline. This is especially true in the case of U.S. freight railroads, which have historically operated out of sight of many Americans. Its time they know the whole story.

Ian Jefferies is the president and CEO of the Association of American Railroads.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

More must-read commentary published by Fortune:

New artificial intelligence technologies can help end our period of record inflation, the head of the worlds largest asset manager argued on Wednesday.

A global slowdown in productivity is a reason why we have such sticky inflation, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said during the companys investor day event, according to Bloomberg.

A.I. has the huge potential to increase productivity, and transform margins across sectors, he predicted, which would bring down the inflation, reports the Financial Times.

U.S. prices rose 4% year-on-year in May, which is the lowest rate of inflation reported in over two years. Yet core inflationwhich excludes more volatile energy and food pricescame in at 5.3%, staying above 5% for the 18th consecutive motnh.

Fink warned a few weeks ago that inflation was still too strong, too sticky, and so would lead to two to four more interest rate hikes from the U.S. Federal Reserve. (The Fed on Wednesday held off on raising rates again, but forecast two more increases before the end of the year.)

A.I. and productivity

Companies hope that generative A.I.a category of tools that include OpenAIs viral chatbot ChatGPTcould automate a large swathe of knowledge work. 

The new technology could add anywhere between $2.6 trillion to $4.2 trillion to the global economy, estimates McKinsey Global Institute in a report released Wednesday. Critically, the firm estimates that A.I. could automate work activities that absorb 60% to 70% of employees time today, and in turn grow labor productivity by between 0.2% to 3.3% each year. 

Yet this improvement could come at the expense of higher-wage knowledge workers previously considered to be relatively immune to automation, the consulting firm warns. 

Remote work

Fink might see A.I. as a way to reverse a fall in productivity caused by a very different phenomenon: The rise of remote work. 

Last September, BlackRocks CEO blamed the rising trend of working-from-home for sticky inflation. We have to get our employees back in the office, he said in a Fox Business interview. 

At the time, the asset manager was pushing its employees to follow its mandate to come into the office three days a week. Fink said the request was a key element in bringing down inflation: rising productivity. 

Labor productivity has continued to decline since then, dropping by 2.1% in the first quarter of the year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Surveys find that managers often report lower or unchanged productivity from remote workers, and CEOs like Metas Mark Zuckerberg and Salesforces Marc Benioff argue that working-from-home is particularly harmful to new hires. 

However, economists warn against tightly connecting declines in labor productivity and remote work. One reason for a fall in productivity could be imperfect hybrid work arrangements, such as when companies ask people to come in for a few days a week without determining how such a system would work in practice. 

But increased labor churn from job-hopping individuals during the Great Resignation could also lead to reduced productivity, EY-Parthenon chief economist Gregory Daco previously suggested to Fortune.

Because people were job-hopping so regularly, there wasnt really a chance to bring them up to the speed, or productivity, that a former worker wouldve had, he said. 

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