Southern

Almost $20 trillion in revenue—and a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in profits. Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive list of the biggest companies in America.

Fortune 500

Leaders in all industries rely more than ever on Big Tech—and appreciate the giants that deliver, at scale, without drama.

World's Most Admired Companies

Industries included in the sector are mining, oil and gas exploration and services, pipelines, refining, and utilities.

Fortune Sector Leaders: Energy

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

The 26th edition of the list shows how much esteem Big Tech giants command among other business leaders.

The 25th Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies list suggests that tech giants’ peers respect them as much as ever.

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

Just as it dominates our economy, Big Tech now dominates Fortune’s annual ranking of corporate reputation.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

After a year in which humanity leaned more heavily than ever on tech giants, see which companies topped Fortune's ranking of corporate reputation.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

The second-largest utility company in the U.S. by consumers services over 9 million customers with gas and electric power across six states in the Southeastern U.S.

For an astounding 13th straight year, Apple claims the top spot in Fortune’s annual ranking of corporate reputation, based on a survey of almost 3,800 executives, directors, and analysts.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

F500-2020-153-Southern-Company

This energy holding company produces and sells electricity across the Southeast through subsidiaries Alabama Power, Georgia Power, and Mississippi Power, while also distributing natural gas through other units.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2017 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 63rd running of the list.

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2016 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

Business insiders have spoken: Asked which companies they most admire, more than 4,100 executives, directors, and analysts chose these top 50 All-Stars.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

Fortune Global 500

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The Atlanta-based Southern Co. stays true to its name as the dominant power and utility player in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi with a mix of gas-fired, coal, nuclear, and renewable power generation. Southern also distributes natural gas in Tennessee, Virginia, and elsewhere. But Southern’s power business of wholesale gas and renewables operates in 15 states from California to Maine, showcasing the company’s growth well outside of the legacy Deep South. And its expanding PowerSecure business offers microgrid services nationwide. Likewise, the Southern Linc and Telecom businesses offer telecommunications and fiber-optics services to meet increasing demand.

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Southern (SO): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Companies

Southern | Fortune

Southern (SO): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings | Fortune

Fortune Editors

Fortune 500 Power Moves: Which executives gained and lost power this week, July 12-18, 2025

/2025/07/18/fortune-500-power-moves-july-12-18/

Cheyann Harris

Meet the 8 Black Fortune 500 CEOs leading companies with over $228 billion in combined revenues

/2025/02/28/fortune500-ceos-black-tiaa-lowes-thasunda-brown-duckett-tiaa-southern-exelon-qvc-saic/

https://coins2day.com/2025/02/28/fortune500-ceos-black-tiaa-lowes-thasunda-brown-duckett-tiaa-southern-exelon-qvc-saic/?itm_source=parsely-api

If you think Southern California’s luxury homes are impressive, wait until you see what’s underground. These "iceberg homes" hide lavish basements with wine cellars, home theaters, and even intimate spaces—flooded with sunlight through clever skylights.

California’s Ultra-Wealthy Are Building Secret Mansions Underground

Luxury

If you think Southern California’s luxury homes are impressive, wait until you see the lavish "iceberg homes" with wine cellars, theaters, and sunlit spaces.

You have to see the basement of this $40 million home in Brentwood, scoring a home in California is tough enough, but the ultra rich are literally taking it to another level. They're digging deep and building quote unquote iceberg homes where the real luxury lies underground to preserve Ellie's iconic views. Millionaires are building down instead of up to create spacious escapes hidden underground. As writer Candice Jackson noted quote, the once a lowly basement has become the hottest area in home design, these spaces feature everything from wine cellars and home theaters to gyms, spas and secret emergency bunkers. Some homeowners even add natural light wells to bring in that famous California sunshine. The concept of Iceberg homes started in London where zoning laws forced the elite to build down instead of up the trend caught on in places like Palo Alto and now L A has put its own glamorous spin on it. But here no one calls them basements. Instead they're lower levels and they're cooler and more glamorous than you'd ever imagine. Picture billiard rooms, movie theaters, bowling alleys, and even James Bond style hideaways in neighborhoods like Beverly Hills. Be Blair and Malibu these spaces are almost the second house and luxury developers like the Osman brothers say, half of their homes have basements that are fully fledged living spaces. Building one of these spaces doesn't come cheap. A 2000 square foot lower level can easily cost over $1.5 million. And with some homes, the cost climbs into the double digit millions. But for the wealthy, it's worth every penny adding major value and turning their homes into private compounds where they can live, work and play without stepping outside. And it's not just the super rich. Even in more typical neighborhoods, homeowners are getting in on the action, adding cozy lower levels with extra bedrooms and entertainment spaces. So while most of us are dreaming of upgrading, the wealthy are digging deeper, creating entire worlds beneath their homes that redefine luxury living in L A.

Connie Britton,Actress; Producer, Activist; Board Member, Dartmouth, The University of Southern California Interviewer: Mallun Yen, Founder and CEO, Operator Collective; Co-chair, Fortune MPW Summit

MPW Summit 2023: Renaissance Woman

Conferences

Hello, everyone and welcome back. Now, our next guest says that empowering women is personal for her, whether she's working towards that goal on screen or the United Nations goodwill ambassador. She says that empowered women make the world a better place. She is the actress, producer, activist and five time Emmy nominee, Connie Britton known for her roles in critically acclaimed productions such as the White Lotus Friday Night Lights and Dear Edwards. She is also a board member at Dartmouth and us C. Connie joins us today for a conversation about using her influence for good and she will be sitting down with Malan Yen, founder and CEO of Operator Collective and an MP W CO chair, Connie, welcome. Thank you. Um So I'm so excited to be here with you. Thank you for coming. So I gotta tell you whenever I told anyone that I was interviewing Connie Britton, the response was, oh my God, I love Connie Britton uniformly. So you know whether it's uh whether it's, you know, from men or women, you have this universal appeal, but we know there's this tension between likability and ex success, especially for powerful women. And um it seems to me that you've been able to weave power and likability pretty effortlessly, but I know it doesn't happen. Well, maybe it does happen naturally. Like, how do you, how do you do it? Well, um, I love that question because I think we, as women see that around us all the time, this, this sort of expectation that we must be likable. Um, and we've witnessed it in politics, we've witnessed it in the workplace. Um And certainly on television, you know, there's always, there was always this dictate about, you've got to be likable. You know, you're a woman, woman character, you have to be, she's not likable enough, she's not likable enough, you know, or else or else you're the villain, either you have to be super likable or you're the bad guy or you're just a bitch. But what's really important to me is I never, ever once think about being likable and I never judge my characters from the outside. And um every character that I play, I play from the standpoint of my fundamental belief, which is, I believe that as women, we are always trying to find our own power and that's very authentic for each of us individually. It's different for each of us individually. And so um if, if by by accident, the characters end up becom coming out as likable, great, you know, to some degree, I'm always serving the story that I'm trying to tell. But um it's really important to me that the, the, that I show women who have the complexity that we all have and, um, the drive and determination and flaws and, um, sense of helplessness some days and all of those things. Um, and, and then the hope is that we can see ourselves in that way and say, oh, I like her and I didn't know that I would like her with all those flaws and all those problems and all those questions. And I didn't know that I would like her if she wasn't perfect. Yeah. So that's the goal. It's, it's, well, it's brought us a lot. Um One of the things that I've noticed is that you make choices that are not typical, they're out of the ordinary. Um You lived in communist China in the eighties. No one in the eighties when your roommate was Kirsten. Um You adopted a baby from Ethiopia as a single mom. You're an activist for climate poverty, human rights. You're on the board of Dartmouth and US C and you're also a venture investor and which is actually how we know one another. So I wanna just wanted to ask you, which is why in the world were you interested in investing in a venture fund like operator collective, which focuses on enterprise and B to B software. Whereas most celebrities start um and really focus in consumer an area that, you know, is closer to their daily lives. Um Well, um first of all, because Erica Schultz asked me to and I've learned from working alongside you at the Dartmouth Board that I really wanna do whatever you suggest. Um And also because I didn't, I didn't know anything about it. I mean, nothing, the only thing that I understood about the operator collective was that it was created and founded by and for really incredible women, primarily women and also with an emphasis on women of color and that, that really interested me. So, um you know, but I, I do throughout my life, I've, I've, I've always tried to look at things more globally and um I've been, I've always been intrigued by the thing that I have the least understanding about because I, I just think that I, I think we never stop educating ourselves, you know. Um And especially now at my ripe old age, I, I feel like I'm, I'm always ready to try to learn about something that I never thought I understood before. And boy, it's harder as you get older because like we get, we feel like we're so smart at the things that we're so smart at that's much more comfortable. But I like and, and as an actor too, um taking risks is really important. And so even with my acting roles, um every time I choose a role, I want to make sure that there, it feels like it's going to take me outside my comfort zone in some way and um you know, it's not really a risk if there's not really the possibility of failure. So, you know, a risk is a big deal, but um those are the best opportunities to learn and to grow. So I wanna continue doing that in every regard with everything I do. So, what are some of those things top of mind that you're pushing your, that are pushing you right now challenging you? Well, um you know, um as actors, we've been on strike for a while and um and the writers have been on strike, sort of is we're really at a an inflection point in Hollywood and, and everywhere in the world obviously. Um So, but for the last four or five years, I have been developing um a production company and that is a very different set of skills than my acting work, which is very familiar to me, but I wanted to do it because what I found as an actress, I really enjoy the creative part of the process. Iiw, I was finding myself yearning to be at the very baseline of creation for stories for the stories that we were telling. And so um that was, that was something that made me say, think, OK, I would like to start a production company because I wanna, I wanna be at the helm and at the foundation of whatever the next things are that I do and it's really been a steep learning curve. But and, and I've learned a lot and it's fantastic as I was saying, you know, this is, this is where I want to be. And I, I'm gonna, I'm always still acting and, and always want, and the, the goal and the dream is that I will be acting in the things that I have created and I have put together and I've had, I've envisioned with all kinds of other great collaborator, collaborators, great writers and great, great directors and studio executives and the rest of it. So um that's been my, my focus right now from the on the work standpoint and then there's of course, the being a mother standpoint, which is, you know, that's like learning something new every day. So especially with a 12 year old boy with a 12 year old boy. Yeah. Yeah. And as a single mom. But, you know, it's, that's the, as we all know, the greatest gift, the hardest job ever, I'm gonna talk to the audience in a sec for, for questions. But, but so the production company. So this is new for you. Um So how has it been? What are there, are there challenges? Are there so many challenges? It's been, you know, it's been incredibly rewarding but also incredibly challenging. And I've been able to see firsthand from a very different vantage point where we bump up against um our own cultural obstacles as women. And seeing that from the standpoint of what we're putting out into the world what we're putting on television. And, um, it's real frustrating and I'm very fortunate because I, I actually feel like I've been able to play incredible characters in almost kind of a golden age of TV. I've, you know, I mean, I started on, not started, but one of my first, my first and favorite things was a show about football and high school football. And I was playing the wife of the coach. And, oh my gosh, I'm going to be literally sitting on the sidelines in this show. And it became a wonderful, powerful role and we were able to show who those women are. Tammy Taylor, a Friday Night Live best character ever. And so what you brought to that, but, but, you know, I, I from, from this sort of, from the sitting in the position of trying to develop programming and as a producer, I am really, really seeing the pushback that is, that is deeply embedded in the structures of Hollywood and Hollywood studios, even as they are celebrating themselves for being so progressive. We had a show. We had this incredible show. You guys are going to love this. It's called hysterical women. And it's basically four generations of women told from the lens of they're hormonal changes. So we've got, we've got a daughter who's getting her period. We've got a mother who's permenopausal. We've got her sister who's trying to go through fertility treatments. And then we've got the mother, the grandmother who's on the other side of menopause and having the best sex of her life. It's a fantastic show. Oh, wait, wait, wait a minute would do that. Who wouldn't watch that show? Do you wanna know what? I'm not gonna tell you who the studio was said when they rejected it. And by the way, there are people in that studio who I know are fantastic and like, feminist women and like want with female programming. Well, we already have a show on the air with four women. So you can't, that show is sex and the city pretty different. Yeah. So anyway, guys, it's like that. So yeah, those are the challenges but that, you know, I respond to those challenges by saying everything I do. I look at from a much more a much really the lens of like, where are we in the culture where we, where are these women in the culture? My goal is always to be telling as un the stories that are as universal as possible and that are really reflecting us back to ourselves. So to, to me the challenge of getting shows like that made or any, any show that is going to help us deepen our understanding of who we are and the culture as women, um poorest human beings. Uh That, that is my goal and I, and, and pushing up against the structures that are in place to, to prevent us from even having those shows on the air is just now part of the new part of the job for me. Well, I'm glad that you're focused on it because I believe Connie, you can do anything we have time for. Uh, probably let's do a quick question or two. Let's grab, um, Erica, Erica Schultz. Hi. Um, so Connie, I have to say you are such an inspiration to so many, I mean, through your acting, through your advocacy, your humanitarian work. I know I speak for the women in this room that you're such an inspiration. So my question is what can the powerful women in this room do for you? Oh, my gosh, I'm gonna start crying. First of all, I'm just so um just honored and blown away to be here with all of you today. And I was really, it was exhilarating to walk in and walk down the hall and see some of you sitting out there making billion dollar deals or whatever it is you're doing or, or, or calling your nannies. I don't know, it doesn't matter. And um so thank you for that and I mean, I, you know, I, I'm, it's always really hard for me to ask for help. I, I think that's also a woman's thing. Um So thank you for asking the question. I think if, as I have been thinking about my production company and been really inspired by actually what you created with the operator operator collective. Like I, I think the idea of creating um a truly independent um company and studio where we have control over the what we're putting out and what we're putting on, on the air and into the world. Um That would be a really exciting um and divergent idea from how the system works right now in Hollywood. Um And to do that um with a collaboration in a community of women would be really exciting. Um Men have done some version of it. Um But I think it'd be really exciting to do that in a collaborative way with some women. So, I mean, if anybody is interested in talking about that with me, I would love to chat about it. Can you raise your hand if you wanna help Connie Britton with her production company? OK, Connie, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it. Oh my God, that was so fast. Thank you guys.

In certain pockets of the world, so-called blue zones, people live longer and healthier lives on average than the rest of us. The U.S. has only one: Loma Linda, Calif. Home to the world’s largest concentration of Seventh-day Adventists, the Southern California city boasts a mature population that’s serious about health and wellness.

What the only U.S. ‘blue zone’ city can teach us about long life

Health

Home to the world’s largest concentration of Seventh-day Adventists, this blue zone city is serious about health and wellness.

What the only U.S. ‘blue zone’ can teach us about long life

Home to the world’s largest concentration of Seventh-day Adventists, the Southern California city boasts a mature population that’s serious about health and wellness.

Statistically here in Loma Linda, people live some 8 to 10 years longer than average. It's a beautiful place to live. Lomeli, California is about 70 miles southeast of Los Angeles. It's a warm sunny climate, rolling hills, easy access to nature and it has the highest concentration of seventh day adventist in the world. Seventh day admins worship on Saturday the seventh day rather than Sunday the first day. And they believe in the second coming of Jesus. Unlike other Christians, they celebrate their Sabbath on Saturday. And you said to yourself, what does that have to do with longevity? Well, it makes them a little bit different. They tend to hang out with other adventists because their kids can't play football during the Sabbath. They have these potlucks every Saturday afternoon. So they tend to have a, a tighter bond. The history of the evidence church began in the early 18 forties and one of their primary principles had to do with health, very health conscious. Pretty much from the beginning, they advocated a vegetarian diet, adventists take their diet directly from the Bible. Essentially the diet of the garden ven and every tree that bears fruit and every plant that bears seeds. And so the adventists take that quite literally and they're mostly vegetarian. The reason they had here do it is because they surround themselves with other adventists that makes it easy. Indeed. Mindless to follow the right sort of dietary pattern to stay on track when it comes to avoiding too much alcohol or drugs or tobacco makes it easier for them to stay physically active. In fact, right, in their scriptures in their religious writings is a prescriptive to take a nature walk every Saturday afternoon, I walk 20 minutes twice a day. And I was born as 1/7 day Adventist. So I'm very used to this kind of lifestyle. When we were young. We had no car. I didn't even have a bicycle. I didn't have to go out and say, oh, I need to exercise today. Life was exercise. I have my own acronym called the Safe Road System to health and fitness. The s is for sunshine. We need to get out in the sun, get the rays and then air naturally. Fresh air f is for fluids, water, primarily at least, you know, eight glasses a day. E is exercise every morning. I do 25 push ups and 25 knee bends and walk for 45 minutes. Then rest. We need to get good night's sleep, take time off. Relax. O for me is very important and that's to be open, to be open to new ideas. And then a abstinence to abstain from drugs, alcohol, tobacco, things such as that. And then diet 70 Advent is, are quite vegetarian. We eat eggs and fish and we don't drink alcohol. Of course, we don't smoke. Now, of course, I exercise six days a week and it's, it's mostly moving limbs to some, it's difficult. But to me it's, it's all easy so far. So I'm very grateful for that. Also. It's a community that warm and friendly and caring, the people I associate with give me a lot of compliments. I don't know why we joke a lot. We are honest and we go to church on Saturday. You can't measure spirituality, but you can measure religiosity. And that's essentially how often people show up to church, temple or mosque. And we know that people who show up at least four times per month, live 4 to 14 years longer. And we don't exactly know why it might be because people who belong to a faith based community are less likely to engage in risky behaviors. It might be because they have a better social community. It might be because they downshift and destress one day a week during their Sabbath. But it seems to work and it's worked for centuries. Not everybody lives this long. And I can't say that I have done something marvelously special. I can only thank God for his blessings by God's grace. You know, you got to love people. You got to be open to people, be open to seeking be open to a higher power.

Presenter: Taryn Southern, Chief Storytelling Officer, Blackrock Neurotech 

Brainstorm Tech 2023: The World's First Superhumans

We are moving along to another fascinating conversation. Imagine being able to type, create and operate with just your thoughts. Long considered the stuff of sci fi lore. Thanks to implantable brain computer interfaces, also known as BCIS, superhuman abilities are now a reality. A new surge of investment in the fields of neurotechnology and an A I of course, is bound to enable BCIS with new capabilities. But what are they going to be? And more importantly, are we ready for them? Our next present has one of the most awesome titles around Karen Southern is Black Rock Neuro Tech's Chief storytelling officer. She's a strategist, a pioneering creator and award winning filmmaker who's passionate about the intersection of humans and tech as chief storytelling officer at Blackrock Neuro Tech. Her work gives audiences a front row seat to the future. So here to tell us more about the world's first superhumans. Please welcome Karen Southern. Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here to talk about one of my favorite subjects and a topic that quite frankly has long fascinated the public imagination. So first and foremost, I wanted to see how many of you have been asked this question in elementary school. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Quite a few of you? Right. And we all had our answers. We've listened to comic books and TV, shows and movies. So we had a pretty good sense of what we wanted. Superhuman strength, the ability to see through walls, supersonic hearing. But what if we lived in a world where this wasn't just an exercise of the imagination? What if we lived in a world where this was actually a reality where you could move objects with your mind, you could sense touch through an external object, even type up to 90 characters per minute with 94% accuracy. All with just your thoughts. Now, what most people don't realize is these kinds of superhuman abilities are no longer the stuff of sci fi films but rather a full reality. So for the past two decades in labs across the country, dozens of research participants have made headlines like the ones you see here for defying human limitation, restoring function, even gaining new senses. Now, these individuals don't have capes and they certainly don't star in Blockbuster movies, but they are charting new frontiers for science and they are helping us redefine what it means to be human. These are some of the world's first superhumans and what is powering their abilities is the incredible advancements in the world of brain computer interfaces. So what does a brain computer interface. It's essentially a technology that allows a brain to connect directly to a computer or as Arthur C Clark would say magic. Now, for the past seven or so years, I have been very fortunate to have a front row seat in actually getting to see this magic play out. So this is me back in I think 2017. So from 2016 to 2019, I co directed and produced a film that followed three patients, a woman with Parkinson's a blind man and a man with paralysis as they underwent invasive brain surgery in hopes that they could restore function that they thought would be forever lost. The film premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2019 and really kicked off my passion for this incredible field. Now, while I was making this movie, one company's name kept coming up again and again and again, Black Rock Neuro Tech, not to be confused with the private asset management firm named after Black Rock Utah. This company based just 30 miles from here in Salt Lake City was responsible for the development and deployment of one very key technology this the Utah array. Now, while I realize it looks a little bit like a medieval hairbrush, this tiny brain implant is responsible for thousands of brain computer interface studies around the world and can accomplish some pretty amazing things. So this is what a BCI rendering looks like. And if you look at the top circle, you'll see, you'll barely see that there are several tiny micro electrode Utah arrays implanted in the cortex. Each of these arrays has 100 silicone micro electrodes and each of those electrodes connect to a single neuron in the brain. So what happens is these electrodes take the signals from the neurons, send them to a decoder where they are translated into a kind of digital code. And that digital code is sent to digital devices like wheelchairs, computers and robotic arms. Since 2004, we've had dozens of people implanted with this array and used as part of a BCI in order to move, feel and communicate again. These individuals typically have paralysis or other neurodegenerative disorders such as ALS. So I'd love for you to meet one of these humans, Nathan Copeland and Nathan is a wonderful person. And in 2004, he was unfortunate to be involved in a terrible auto accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down. He fell into a deep dark depression and felt like he was going to be a burden for the rest of his life on his family and friends. Then years later, he was invited to sign up for an experimental research study out at University of Pittsburgh where he would have four micro electrode arrays implanted in his brain. Now, Nathan is a self professed Cyborg. And for the last seven years, he has pioneered a number of firsts in the field. One of those is that he is the first human to have a rays implanted in his sensory cortex, which means he can actually feel a robotic arm when it is touched. Essentially the sensations feel like they are coming from his own arm. And so this is actually a video from his youtube channel BC. Can do better. Please subscribe to him on youtube. This is him operating the robotic arm to make cocktails. This is him operating the robotic arm to feed himself his favorite Taco Bell meal here he is playing his favorite video game. And in the last piece, you can see him creating digital art and he is doing all of this with incredible precision with just his thoughts. So these are a few of Nathan's BCI powered art pieces. His very first piece is the one on the lower right? It's a bunch of scribbles on a white canvas and he made that in 2017 with Microsoft paint and that was sold for $120,000 last year at a charity auction. Nathan is also the first pioneer to sell one of his VC I powered artworks as an NFT which he did in 2020 for 2.5. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, he is the first pioneer to fist bump, a standing us president with a BCI controlled robotic arm. Nathan is moving his hand with his brain. And so when he was giving me a fist bump for shaking my hand. These are his own uh signals that he's sending out that are manipulating, which, you know, pretty amazing precision. Even Obama said at the end of this meeting to everyone in the audience, I'm not really sure if you can all quite grasp what's going on here. But Nathan is not the only superhuman in his ranks. This is James Johnson. James was an artist, a respiratory nurse and a therapist who volunteered in hospitals across the country. Until in 2017, he was in a terrible para motor accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. And he was in a medically induced coma for three months. Following his rehabilitation from that coma, he was invited to participate in an experimental research study with Caltech where he has since done a number of incredible things with his BCI. This video here is a short clip of him doing his absolute favorite activity with his BC. And it will also give you a little sense of how this all works. All right. So what we have here is our view into James's brain. Each one of those neurons is telling us something about what James wants or experiences in the world. And we can use that to train statistical models and allow his brain activity to drive motion of the cursor. I'm imagining following that cursor kind of like a playstation controller. I think that I can control the computer, the cursor just by thinking about it is mind blowing. But now I'm gonna apply it to what I have to do the most Photoshop. So right now I'm just going to do a simple blend of three different photos and we're going to put her face in the background. Get like a soft brush that allows me to fade and make my brush a little bigger. I'm just gonna update, we can create a new Bob Ross series with you in Photoshop. So as you can see, um James is incredible. I mean, his Photoshop skills are better than mine here is actually some of his most recent work that he's done and it's currently on display at the world's first BCI exhibit in Washington DC. But that's not all James had one more audacious mission that he wanted to accomplish this past year to set out to drive a real world vehicle with just his thoughts. Take a look. Yeah, like why do that? Are you trying to stay in the lane or? Yeah, I'm trying to stabilize it. We're doing pretty, pretty good. Uh This is the first time we've applied what we're doing to a real world event. Me being able to drive from my mind um is pretty impressive and no one else is doing that. So um really happy to be a part of this project getting behind the wheel again, actually sitting in the front seat in the driver's seat. That's gonna be pretty awesome because um it's been almost five years now and five years of sitting in the back seat uh being at the mercy of my teenage son driving, uh it'd be great to finally have some control for myself. So that was James training on a proxy. Did he actually control a real world vehicle with his mind? You will have to follow Black Rock Neuro to find out. So, as you can see from both James and Nathan's stories, you know, both of them have discovered quite practically the implications and possibilities and limitations of this incredible technology. It's inspired new forms of creativity and embodiment for them. It's also given them hope for a future of greater independence. So what's next for the broader world of BCI? Well, at Black Rock, we have an FDA breakthrough designation which means we're working very hard to commercialize our device for people with paralysis. We are also actively testing an auditory nerve implant to improve hearing in people who are deaf who are not eligible for a cochlear implant. And finally, we've been working on a next generation device that is much smaller, much thinner wireless and has up to 10,000 electrodes so it can reach 10,000 neurons. But as we look to the further future, we have to ask ourselves as a society, the question will BCIS one day give us all superpowers. And I've spoken to a number of neurosurgeons who predict that the next 15 to 20 years we will see an increase in brain implants largely due to an aging population. You know, on the one hand, we've got BCIS, which offer incredible promise for things like movement, sensory restoration. We also have other technologies like deep brain stimulation that offer solutions for people with Parkinson's and depression and anxiety. And of course, the breakthroughs will just continue. Ultimately, though I think the best people to ask about the future trajectory of these devices are the superhumans today. The James and Nathans of the world, they say that they just want this technology available to anyone who needs it to restore function, to restore independence, to restore a sense of what it means to be human. And if they end up with a few additional superhuman abilities, they're fine with that too. Thank you so much, Karen. Thank you so much. This is just fascinating and very cool that Black Rock Neuro Tech is just down the street here in Utah. I want to ask you very, very briefly. Um There seems to be this surge in interest and investment in the space. How is that changing things for you and for the company? Yeah, assuming it's good, but it's mostly very good. I mean, there's a huge growing awareness of what's happening in neurotechnology largely because of a few entrepreneurs with big megaphones. Um That being said, it's also created a lot of Elon Musk. It's also created some misconceptions, right? Like the idea of downloading our consciousness to a cloud or competing with AI by becoming ai, I mean, these things are provocative but not exactly plausible. And so I think it's important that we have to level set, not just with society so that we're able to see what's actually happening with these devices. But more so for the patients that really need these uh these products and we want to make sure that we're giving them accurate timelines and that they are really given an opportunity to think deeply about what the opportunities are for them. But all in all, it's been a very exciting time. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for coming and sharing. This is just hugely impactful work. So I appreciate you being with us. Thank you so much. Thank you.

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