Charles Coristine used to revel in working at Morgan Stanley. He loved the pace, even waking up in the middle of the night to trade in the Tokyo and London stock markets.

In 2011, after nearly two decades on Wall Street, Coristine burned out. He tried multiple remedies: switching to a vegetarian diet, meditating, enrolling in an MBA program. None of them worked.

At a barbeque, Coristine met an owner of snack company LesserEvil, who talked about wanting to sell his “flatlining” business. Coristine had no food industry experience, but was intrigued by the idea of a fresh start — and he liked that the company’s name was “synchronistic” with a healthy, mindful lifestyle, he says.

In November 2011, Coristine bought LesserEvil for $250,000 from his savings, plus a future payment of $100,000, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. The risk was impulsive and ill-researched, he says: LesserEvil, which aimed to offer consumers healthier popcorn and snack alternatives, was losing money and bringing in less than $1 million in annual revenue at the time, the company estimates.

Yet the Danbury, Connecticut-based company has grown significantly under his watch. As CEO and president, Coristine grew its annual gross sales to $103.3 million in 2023 — including $82.9 million in net sales — and got its products into major retailers and corner stores across the U.S.

The business, which sells a variety of popcorns and air-popped Cheetos-like puffs and curls, has been profitable since 2021, according to company estimates. It made $14.4 million last year in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA.

“I didn’t know anyone in food … to ask whether I was crazy or not, but that’s probably good,” says Coristine, 52. “If I had done a lot of research and looked into it, I would have realized that the probability of success was pretty low.”

Here’s how Coristine is making LesserEvil into a household name.

When he bought LesserEvil, Coristine was working at TD Bank and pursuing an MBA at Cornell University Graduate School.

In 2012, he got his MBA degree and started his new full-time job as LesserEvil’s CEO. Among his first moves: hiring his graduate school friend Andrew Strife as COO and CFO, and his wakeboard instructor as head of marketing.

Along with the previous regime’s accountant, the small team worked from an office in Wilton, Connecticut, to update LesserEvil’s branding and create their own production line. The old-fashioned branding wasn’t attracting customers, and the company was paying about 20% of its revenue from each sale to co-packers who helped make and ship out the snacks, Coristine says.

Coristine’s savings had largely run out, so the team raised an undisclosed amount of money from their friends and family, and secured more financing through a connection Coristine had at a bank, says Strife. They moved into a 5,000-square-foot factory in Danbury in 2012, and filled it with used equipment purchased at auctions.

The team made “friends with welders down the street,” who could weld wheels and popcorn shoots onto the machinery, Strife says. They painted factory’s exterior black and plastering a yellow “LesserEvil” logo to the side of the building themselves. As Coristine recalls, drivers started pulling off the road, entering the factory and asking, “Is this a strip club?”

“Everything was scrappy and needed to be reinvented as we went along,” says Strife.

In 2014, when a neighboring carpet factory moved out, LesserEvil knocked down the wall and added 2,000 square feet and a production line to its operations.

That year, Coristine’s personal nutritionist offered a health-focused suggestion: Use coconut oil to pop the popcorn. Coristine was skeptical that coconut oil would stay fresh in a snack bag, so he literally shelf-tested it, he says: “We put it on the top of a fridge, which gets really hot [and left it for] for three months.”

The oil stayed fresh, and Coristine liked the surprisingly buttery taste, so LesserEvil launched the reformulated product with a new laughing Buddha logo in 2014 — calling it the Buddha Bowl. It brought in roughly $2 million that year, accounting for a third of LesserEvil’s annual revenue, the company says.

Kroger, the first major retailer to sell LesserEvil, started stocking its products in 2015. That partnership helped fund another move for LesserEvil in 2017 — this time, to a 20,000-square-foot factory, says Strife.

A year later, the company got its first outside funding — about $3 million, the company says — from sustainable food and agriculture investment firm InvestEco. Coristine and his team used the funds to add production lines to the new factory and update LesserEvil’s packaging again: Each product now features its own “guru,” from the ancient Greek poet Homer to Henry David Thoreau.

The rebrand, and added products, helped push the brand into profitability. Coristine started paying himself a salary from LesserEvil that year, the company says.

LesserEvil’s goal has always been to differentiate itself from competitors with non-standard ingredients like extra-virgin coconut oil and avocado oil, says Coristine.

Sometimes, using atypical ingredients can have consequences: A Consumer Reports investigation from June found “concerning amounts of lead” in two of LesserEvil’s Lil’ Puffs snacks for kids. The company issued an apology, and tells Make It that it’s relaunching the puffs — free of the cassava flour that previously contained lead — later this year.

The company still brought in $62 million in net sales during the first half of 2024. It used another round of funding — $19 million, in a round led by investment firm Aria Growth Partners, LesserEvil says — to buy out prior investors and open a new factory in New Milford, roughly 15 miles from its Danbury facility.

Today, the company has 280 employees. Coristine’s short-term goals: Keep growing and launching new products. Longer-term, he simply wants the company to “be a brand that could be around for along time,” he says.

LesserEvil has already succeeded in helping Coristine solve a more personal problem, he adds — he works less, from about 7:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and feels happier since leaving Wall Street.

“It feels joyous, so it doesn’t feel like work,” says Coristine.

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It happens all the time. As the Director of Nutritional, Lifestyle, and Metabolic Psychiatry at Harvard, I see patients reduce symptoms of mood disorders, lower their stress, boost their energy and alleviate cognitive impairments when they cut ultra-processed foods out of their diets and replace them with unprocessed, nutrient-dense alternatives.

Advanced technologies in food production allow our food supply to meet the demands of our growing population. But at what cost? 

Ultra-processed foods can be detrimental to our physical and mental health. Yet they now account for more than half of the calories in the standard American diet.

I try to avoid them as much as possible. And I stay away from sugary breakfast cereals in particular.  

Ultra-processed foods are industrially produced items derived from widely grown and genetically modified crops like corn, soy, and sugar. They tend to be cheap to produce, convenient to purchase and consume, and highly palatable. 

Unfortunately, the various production steps often strip these foods of their natural vitamins, minerals and fiber. 

They have a long shelf life, which is typically achieved through added preservatives, chemicals, artificial flavors, sweeteners, and coloring, and are often unnaturally high in omega-6 fatty acids and low in omega-3 fatty acids.

This combination of artificial ingredients, sugar, high omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, and low nutritional content makes ultra-processed foods inflammatory and detrimental to the microbiome. When you eat ultra-processed foods consistently over time, it can contribute to a host of physical and mental health complications, from diabetes and obesity to depression and anxiety.

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Some of the most popular and widely consumed ultra-processed foods are breakfast cereals; snacks like chips, cookies, and crackers; salad dressings; many condiments; sugar-sweetened beverages; and commercial frozen dinners. 

These have all become staples in the American diet over the past few decades. Worse, they’re often marketed as health foods, though their consumption continues to be linked to chronic inflammation and poor health outcomes.

Walk into most grocery stores in the U.S. and you’ll find an entire aisle of cereal with jolly mascots and clever slogans grabbing the attention of consumers, especially children.

But do you know what you’re really putting in your bowl every morning, and how it will — or won’t — set you up for the day? 

Breakfast cereals tend to be mostly simple carbohydrates with almost an entire day’s worth of added sugars. Consuming this as the first meal of the day can lead to blood sugar spikes that leave us hungry just a few hours later and more inclined to reach for a sugary snack between meals.

A carb-heavy breakfast can also lead to low energy, brain fog, and irritability later in the day.

An ideal breakfast is nutrient-dense and contains a balance of carbs, fats, and proteins.

Because this is hard to achieve via ultra-processed foods, I instead recommend pairing whole plant foods with your favorite clean protein and a healthy fat. A balanced breakfast with these components will power your body and mind through the morning and support healthy food choices later in the day. 

Some of my favorite brain-healthy breakfasts include: 

• Homemade chia seed pudding with a handful of blueberries and walnuts
• An egg scramble with a few veggies like spinach or tomatoes and avocado
• A green smoothie made with leafy greens, nut butter and a clean protein powder if you are having breakfast on the go!

Reducing your intake of ultra-processed foods and increasing the amount of whole foods in your diet can reverse chronic inflammation, decrease the risk of nutrient deficiencies and lead to a more balanced microbiome for improved gut health.

This last benefit is a key first step in improving mental fitness via the gut-brain connection, as well as in supporting the health of all other organ groups and overall metabolic health.

Since ultra-processed foods are everywhere in our environment, removing them entirely can seem daunting. 

If these foods are currently a key component of your diet, I recommend starting with a few swaps each day and taking it slowly. Trading your morning breakfast cereal for a healthier option is a great place to start. 

Remember, it is all about balance! Try consuming these foods as part of an 80/20 lifestyle, where 80% of your diet consists of whole, nutrient-dense foods. The remaining 20% leaves you room to enjoy life as it comes. 

Dr. Uma Naidoo is the MoodFoodMD, a Harvard-trained nutritional psychiatrist, professional chef, and nutritional biologist. She’s an instructor at MasterClass and the author of “Calm your Mind with Food” and the national and international bestseller “This is Your Brain on Food.”

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For Bill Gates, the thought of working less than full-time “sounds awful.”

Gates, 68, says he hopes to follow in the footsteps of longtime friend Warren Buffett, who serves as chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at age 94 and has no imminent plans to retire. “My friend Warren Buffett still comes into the office six days a week,” Gates tells CNBC Make It. “So, I hope my health allows me to be like Warren.”

The Microsoft co-founder still has so much he wants to do, he says. He remains a “technology advisor” for Microsoft, and spends much of his time using his net worth — currently $128 billion, Forbes estimates — to fund potential solutions for the global issues he sees as most pressing, particularly disease, poverty, climate change and access to healthcare and education.

Those issues are the focus of Gates’ latest project: an upcoming five-part Netflix docuseries called “What’s Next? The Future With Bill Gates,” set to premiere on September 18.

“The [Bill & Melinda Gates] Foundation will celebrate its 25th anniversary next year. We haven’t gotten rid of polio, we haven’t got rid of malaria. I’m very, very committed to those things,” says Gates. “We want to cut childhood deaths in half again, from 5 million to 2.5 million.”

That’s a big reason why Gates wants to wait as long as possible significantly lightening his workload, he says.

In his mind, that means “at least 10 years, if my health allows, working at this level,” he says, adding: “Hopefully it’ll be more like 20 or 30.”

Gates’ current level of work is a far cry from the intensity of his early career, when he was singularly focused on getting Microsoft off the ground and then building it into a tech giant.

“I don’t work as hard [now],” says Gates. “In my 20s, I didn’t believe in weekends and vacations. So, that was kind of out of control, how I pushed myself.” He expected his employees to display a similar attitude, even memorizing workers’ license plate numbers so he could “see when did people come in [and] when were they leaving,” he told BBC in 2016.

It was Buffett who convinced Gates he should go easier on his employees and himself. The billionaire investor assured Gates he didn’t have to “fill every minute in your schedule” to be a serious businessperson, and that it’s more important to control your own time, Gates told journalist Charlie Rose in a joint interview with Buffett in 2017.

“I can buy anything I want, basically, but I can’t buy time,” Buffett added during the same interview.

Gates says he’s changed his ways, telling students at Northern Arizona University’s commencement ceremony last year that he wished someone had told him sooner to “take a break when you need to.” Today, he actually enjoys his free time, he now adds: He plays tennis for fun and takes real vacations, reading up to three hours per day during his time off.

And there’s no shortage of interesting topics Gates wants to learn more about.

“I spent yesterday on Alzheimer’s disease,” he says, adding: “Intellectually, in terms of staying up to date — even just on [artificial intelligence] alone — takes a lot of time. But it’s still incredibly fulfilling.”

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If your dream retirement destination includes easy access to iconic amusement parks such as Walt Disney World and Universal Studios, you’re in luck. Orlando, Florida, has been named the best city to retire, per WalletHub’s list of the best and worst places to retire in 2024.

But Orlando has far more to offer retirees than mouse ears and wizard robes, according to WalletHub.

To compile its rankings, the personal finance company evaluated the retirement friendliness of 182 highly populated U.S. cities using data from numerous sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau, the Council for Community and Economic Research, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Tax Foundation.

WalletHub’s analysis also assumes a retiree will be living on a fixed income. All of the cities were ranked according to how many points they scored out of 100 across four categories:

• Affordability (25 points): Analyzes factors such as taxpayer friendliness and cost of living
• Activities (25 points): Evaluates factors such as the availability of music venues, bingo halls, museums and adult volunteer activities
• Quality of life (25 points): Assesses factors such as the share of the population over the age of 65, a city’s walkability and weather
• Health care (25 points): Considers factors such as the number of health-care facilities, quality of public health systems and life expectancy

Here are the top 10 U.S. cities to retire, according to WalletHub.

1. Orlando, Florida
2. Miami
3. Minneapolis
4. Tampa, Florida
5. Fort Lauderdale, Florida
6. Scottsdale, Arizona
7. Cincinnati
8. St. Petersburg, Florida
9. Casper, Wyoming
10. Atlanta

It’s not too surprising that so many Florida cities ranked highly on WalletHub’s list. The Sunshine State doesn’t levy state income tax, which means retirement income from a 401(k) or individual retirement account, as well as Social Security retirement benefits, aren’t taxed at the state level.

However, Orlando rose to the top of the list due to the wide array of activities available for retirees, per the report. These include numerous art galleries, fishing facilities and music venues. The city also publicizes programs for residents age 55 and up on the “Senior Connections” section of its website, including game nights, trips and dance classes.

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When it comes to affordability, Orlando ranked 9th on WalletHub’s list. The cost of living in the city is only about 1% higher than the state average and on par with the national average, according to RentCafe.

Miami, another Florida city, ranked as the second-best place to retire, but scored much lower for affordability. The cost of living there is nearly 20% higher than the national average, per RentCafe.

Remember, one person’s dream retirement destination may be another’s nightmare location.

Factors such as affordability are important, but consider what else you’ll want to prioritize during your post-work years, such as proximity to your family and activities you enjoy.

″[Retirees] should consider, in detail, how they want to spend time in retirement,” Jonathon Ferguson, a financial capability specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says in WalletHub’s report.

“For example, who will they spend time with? What activities will they participate in? Where will they spend time in retirement (specific locations)? What positive components of their career/job experience will they miss and how can they build these into their retirement experience?” he says.

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While your work ethic and study habits may determine how well you do in college as far as grades, plenty of other factors play a role in whether you succeed at a certain school.

Your satisfaction with the college you choose may play a significant role in determining whether you finish your degree at all. Emotional stress is the No. 1 reason college students have considered discontinuing their studies, according to a recent Gallup poll. 

Of course, there are plenty of reasons students may be unhappy in college that are unrelated to their campus of choice. But a school where students report high levels of satisfaction may be a good sign for prospective applicants. 

Auburn University in Alabama earns that reputation. It’s the U.S. college with the happiest students for 2025, according to The Princeton Review. The publication ranked colleges based on how strongly students agreed with the statement “I am happy at my school” in nationwide surveys. 

Here are the 10 colleges with the happiest students:

1. Auburn University — Auburn, Alabama
2. Kansas State University — Manhattan, Kansas
3. Taylor University — Upland, Indiana
4. University of Dallas — Irving, Texas
5. Thomas Aquinas College — Santa Paula, California 
6. Texas Christian University — Fort Worth, Texas
7. Washington State University — Pullman, Washington
8. Marist College — Poughkeepsie, New York
9. Emory University — Atlanta, Georgia 
10. Angelo State University — San Angelo, Texas

“I loved my experience at Auburn,” said Carolina Williams, a 25-year-old who chose Auburn over Yale University in 2017. “I made amazing friends there. I got involved in great organizations that just provided amazing experiences for me,” she told CNBC Make It earlier this year.

One of the largest universities in the South with over 26,000 undergraduates, Auburn boasts a wide variety of majors and activities. Students there can get involved with world-class research or check out some of the country’s premier college sports competitions. 

“You literally can just go ask [professors], ‘What are you researching? Can I help you?’ And the answer is yes,” Williams said.

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Many Auburn students — including Apple CEO Tim Cook, who graduated in 1982 — go on to find success after college. Alumni in the first five years of their career earn a median of $69,700 a year, and those with 10 years of work experience earn a median of $126,100, according to Payscale.

Plus, more than half of Auburn alumni say their work makes the world a better place, Payscale found.

Three other public universities — Kansas State, Washington State and Angelo State — join Auburn in the top 10 schools with the happiest students. Many students prefer the often larger student bodies, more expansive fields of study and affordability that public colleges typically offer, compared with private schools.

On the other hand, plenty of students are happy at private colleges that might offer a more personalized or specialized experience. Universities such as Taylor and Texas Christian have religious ties that may be important to students’ well-being, for example. 

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