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Small kitchens can easily get cluttered, as there isn’t enough counter space or cabinet room to properly organize your appliances, pantry staples, or cookware. If your kitchen’s floor plan has any free space, a baker’s rack is an efficient and cost-effective storage solution. It will provide additional shelving to organize your coffee mugs or microwave, while tidying up your countertops and improving the functionality and flow of your space. You can find many variations on this classic design, but there’s one feature that maximizes its convenience even further, and that’s a built-in power strip, giving you a handy spot to plug in the espresso machine or blender.

Compared to kitchen pantries or storage cabinets, baker’s racks are almost always more affordable. That’s especially true with the highly rated Biemlerfn 39-Inch Large Baker’s Rack, which is on clearance for $78, saving shoppers nearly $100 with over half off. 

Biemlerfn 39-Inch Large Baker’s Rack, $78 (was $175) at Walmart

Courtesy of Walmart

Shop at Walmart

Why do shoppers love it?

Measuring 38.8 inches long, 15.2 inches deep, and 62.6 inches tall, this baker’s rack is spacious without taking up a huge footprint. It has five tiers of shelving, three slide-out wire baskets, and five fixed hanging hooks. If you want to display your decorative teacups or create a meal prep workspace, there are also 10 removable S-hooks you can utilize to hang mugs or cooking utensils. You can feel confident about stacking on the heavy microwave or slow cooker, because the sturdy metal frame is strong enough to hold up to 120 pounds. 

“Everything has a home now, and the kitchen looks so much cleaner,” wrote one shopper. They highlighted: “The built-in power outlets are a game changer.”

Related: Amazon is selling a 2-drawer farmhouse storage cabinet for just $61

A standout feature of a baker’s rack is its versatility. With Thanksgiving soon arriving, you can use it the traditional way, using the additional counter surface to roll out pie crusts or assemble your sweet potato casserole. You can also use this storage rack to create a coffee bar with your coffee pot, espresso maker, and flavored syrups all in one place. You also don’t have to search for outlet space to plug in these appliances, thanks to the built-in power strip with three outlets. If you plan to throw winter parties or holiday dinners, you can also use the baker’s rack to create a festive hot cocoa bar with marshmallows and candy canes. 

Details to know 

Dimensions: 38.8 inches long, 15.2 inches deep, and 62.6 inches tall.

Materials: Engineered wood and a metal frame.

Colors: The baker’s rack comes in three colors, all of which are on sale for $86 or less.

Is assembly required?: Yes.

With over 800 perfect five-star ratings, this baker’s rack is shopper-approved. “This is well made and easy to assemble,” said one reviewer. “It is well organized with plenty of storage space. I am using it as a kitchenette, and it works perfectly.”

Shop more deals

Ironck Wide Bakers Rack, $110 (was $220) at Walmart

Amadwell Large Bakers Rack, $80 (was $110) at Walmart

Otmcoouch Bakers Rack, $87 (was $99) at Walmart

The Biemlerfn 39-Inch Large Baker’s Rack is a budget-friendly way to organize a cluttered kitchen, and if you act now, you can add it to your cart for as low as $78 on clearance.

Shaquille O’Neal has made millions on basketball, restaurants and early investments in technology companies. But one of his biggest business regrets involves a company he could have partnered with decades ago — Starbucks.

Before Magic Johnson turned Starbucks locations in underserved communities into a major business venture, O’Neal had an opportunity to work with the coffee giant’s former CEO, Howard Schultz.

He passed, convinced the idea wouldn’t work for a reason that had everything to do with what he grew up seeing at home.

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The NBA legend wasn’t sold on coffee

O’Neal recalled Schultz approaching him about opening Starbucks franchises in African-American communities, he said on “In Depth with Graham Bensinger” in 2015.

“So Howard comes and says, ‘Shaq, I wanna give you the opportunity to go in with me and open up these Starbucks franchises in African American communities,’” O’Neal said during the interview.

He explained that he wouldn’t endorse a product unless he believed in it. Then came the response that would follow him for years.

“So I looked in the great Howard Schultz’s face and said, ‘Black people don’t drink coffee, sir. I don’t think it’s gonna work,’” O’Neal recalled.

Schultz was taken aback, but the two remained friends. O’Neal later acknowledged the decision was one of his worst business mistakes.

The story wasn’t new. In his 2011 autobiography, “Shaq Uncut,” O’Neal also described the meeting and explained why he dismissed the opportunity.

“The truth was,” he wrote, “I’d never seen black people drink coffee. I thought it was a white person’s drink.

Years later, O’Neal was even more direct about what the missed opportunity meant financially.

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“My biggest mistake was not investing in Starbucks,” O’Neal told CNBC Make It in 2019.

He explained that the opportunity came before Magic Johnson’s partnership with Schultz. O’Neal said his thinking was based on his own household, where coffee wasn’t a regular drink. Sweet tea and hot chocolate were more familiar.

Shaq wasn’t passionate about Starbucks, but he owned many franchises, including Auntie Anne’s, Papa John’s, Five Guys, and more.Paras Griffin / Getty Images

Magic Johnson saw the opportunity Shaq missed

Johnson moved forward with Starbucks in 1998, forming a partnership with Schultz to develop more than 100 locations in underserved communities across the U.S, CNBC Make It reported in 2018.

The venture, called Urban Coffee Opportunities, helped expand Starbucks into neighborhoods that had been overlooked by traditional retail development.

Starbucks eventually bought out Johnson’s interest in 2010. Reports put the value of the transaction at approximately $75 million, although the exact financial terms weren’t publicly disclosed.

Johnson later described the partnership as a turning point in his business career. During an episode of the series Kneading Dough, he said the deal helped establish him as a serious businessman.

For O’Neal, the comparison was difficult to ignore. He had the opportunity before Johnson but walked away because he couldn’t picture the product succeeding among customers whose habits he hadn’t fully understood.

Shaq found plenty of other investments

Passing on Starbucks didn’t keep O’Neal from building a substantial business portfolio.

He invested in Google during its early days and later described wishing he had invested more. He also became an investor in Ring after trying its home security cameras himself. Amazon acquired Ring in 2018 for more than $1 billion.

O’Neal has also built a sizable presence in franchising. His past business interests have included Five Guys, Auntie Anne’s, Krispy Kreme and 24 Hour Fitness.

In 2018, he co-founded Big Chicken, a fast-casual restaurant brand inspired by his mother’s cooking. He also operates nine Papa John’s locations in the Atlanta area through a joint venture.

His business interests extend into licensing and brand partnerships as well. O’Neal has held equity in Authentic Brands Group, which manages his name and likeness, and has taken on a leadership role with Reebok Basketball.

The $500 million fortune and one costly assumption

O’Neal’s estimated net worth is approximately $500 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. His fortune reflects more than his NBA earnings, which totaled roughly $292 million in playing salaries. Endorsements, licensing, real estate and business investments have also contributed.

The Starbucks story offers a different kind of investing lesson than his successful bets on Google and Ring.

O’Neal has often relied on personal experience when evaluating businesses. That approach helped him recognize products he liked and understood, but it also led him to dismiss an opportunity because his own household didn’t drink coffee.

Johnson’s success showed what could happen when the idea was tested against a broader customer base.

For someone who built a fortune by recognizing opportunities outside basketball, Starbucks remains a reminder that sometimes the biggest mistake isn’t making a bad investment. It’s passing on one before giving the idea a chance.

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Credit card debt can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to control your future. In this episode, Michael McAuliffe, President of Family Credit Management, shares practical strategies to lower your interest rates, reduce monthly payments, and build a realistic path to becoming debt-free.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Michael, it’s so great to see you. Thanks for joining us on the program this morning.

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

Oh, thanks for having me.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Well, we certainly appreciate you coming on and sharing a little bit of insight. I know this is a topic that you’re quite passionate about. Let me start off with what I think is a baseline question just to kind of establish for the audience the who, how, and why.

Affordability remains a big challenge for many of us, all of us watching today. And more and more Americans are charging on their credit cards, what they’re buying. So I guess my first question is, how big is this debt issue for many Americans?

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

Well, it’s actually big. It’s actually at a record now. And I think the biggest problem is most of us don’t track how much we owe on our credit cards.

And inflation has hit hard. And when you’ve got just $300, $400 a month, you’re putting on credit cards. After 10 months, now you got $4,000.

And you didn’t realize how fast it happened.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, that’s, I mean, it’s a large amount of money. So does this larger amount of debt fall mostly on the credit card user, the customer, the consumer? Or is it really just part that and part, everything’s gone up, groceries, gas, you name it.

It’s energy, it’s gone up.

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

Yeah, yeah. No, and I think that’s what’s causing people to not realize that their credit card balances are getting higher and higher. Even worse now, people are starting to use the buy now, pay laters.

And it seems like not a big deal. Sure, I can afford $30 a month, but then you have three of them. Now it’s $100 a month.

And you can’t afford that and it just kind of snowballs.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

So a lot of people who are watching this may have grown their debt for obvious reasons. We were just talking about that. How difficult is it to manage to pay off that debt?

I would imagine you can’t make the minimum payments because the double digit credit card interest rates will just continue to grow and grow and grow.

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

Yeah, and that’s where I say, you know, you just have to start. And one of the hardest things is if you’re using those cards, you’re not tracking the balances. You don’t realize that your debt’s going up.

You’re making payments every month, but you’re adding more on than you’re paying. The interest is compounded and making it worse.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

So let’s talk about how we get out of debt. Obviously you have to have, well, let me ask you, should you just turn off the credit card? Don’t use it?

What if you need it? I mean, how do you begin to kind of curtail that? We’re going into the holiday season.

We just did a show recently on quick candy, swipe fees and candy. We’ve got, you know, the Christmas and Hanukkah and all the other aforementioned holidays. How do you begin to curtail that behavior so that you can begin to pay that off?

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

Well, we don’t recommend closing the cards for a couple of different reasons, but what we do recommend is just not using them. If you’re not able to pay that card off every month, do everything you can to not use any of those cards. Take everything extra you can possibly come up with and put it towards the highest interest card and just start slowly chiseling away at that debt.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

And, you know, that seems like, I mean, that is the right decision, right? I mean, that’s, I think a lot of it, no offense, it’s common sense, but I would think that people are pretty reflexive, right? I mean, they reach into their pocket or they want to tap, right?

I mean, how do you curtail that human behavior? Can you?

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

Yeah, you know, what we do is a nonprofit debt management program. And one of the great things about it is, it’s, we call it behavior modification. And we try to teach people how to live without credit cards.

And it is habitual and it is convenient. So we also encourage people, you know, get one small credit card and pay it off every month so you can use it for gasoline and groceries and convenience items.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

So let me ask you, I know that you help clients, or I believe you help clients kind of negotiate and lower the fees. I see a lot of commercials on TV, not that I watch TV all day long, I don’t want to give that impression, but I see a lot of commercials about debt management. Is there a difference between the for-profit debt management company that will help you and an organization like yours, which is a not-for-profit?

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

Yeah, and now a lot of these firms are getting, you know, interchanged with each other. And, you know, a debt settlement is something that is relatively new. It’s appropriate for a small percentage of people.

Some people it’s absolutely appropriate for. Some people we assist with that, but there’s also giant risks. If you don’t pay your creditors, they do want to get repaid.

We’re seeing litigation is increasing. We’re seeing creditors become more aggressive legally than they were in previous years. So it’s something that certainly a consumer can do, but they need to be really careful about it.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

So what are some of the ramifications if I don’t pay off the credit card debt and I let it, well, one, we know that if we just make the minimums, it’s going to grow in perpetuity based on the double-digit interest rate, usually in the 20s. But what are some of the other ramifications? Do I take hits in other parts of my financial portfolio?

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

Yeah, you know, if you’re not, if you’re not able to make your payments on your credit cards, you know, our credit score is important for so many more things other than just getting loans. Employers still use them. Utility companies use them.

Rental housing uses them. So your score means a lot. It can go down very fast, and fortunately it rises very slowly.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

So in terms of rehabilitating your credit, I guess the first thing is you start to make larger payments or negotiate, I guess, consolidate your credit cards, right? I mean, wouldn’t that help you? That’s, I think, one of the areas that you focus on is kind of bringing it all together and negotiating a lower rate on behalf of the customer.

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

Yeah, with nonprofit debt management, credit counseling, what we do is we go to the credit card companies and we say, you want to get out of debt. You don’t want to default, or, you know, you want to get in broad current. You don’t want to file bankruptcy.

We ask them to help. Most of the major creditors are great. We get the average interest rates down to single digits.

Most of our clients are out of debt in five years or less. Often the accounts will be brought current, fees will stop. It’s a real good alternative for a lot of people, and they also learn to live without those credit cards.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

And are you seeing the insurance companies? I would think that it’s unsecured debt, meaning there’s no collateral, right, against the credit card, and so anybody can take it. If you don’t pay it off, I guess you’re less likely.

You could see your credit score go down. You could see your credit limit go down. And could they take a credit card away from you if you don’t?

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

Sure. You know, I was a collector, you know, my previous life, and, you know, it’s one of the levers that a collector has. They’re going to tell you, hey, if you don’t get this broad current, I’m going to close your credit card.

I’m going to lower your credit limit. And then the last lever is, you know, we’re going to sue you. And that does happen.

Like I said, we are seeing litigation on unsecured debt increasing.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

So let’s talk a little bit more about that because you are seeing more of that. So if someone gets sued by their credit card company because they haven’t made enough payments or whatever the case, maybe they have too much debt, can they garnish and you lose? Because presumably, you’re not going to, if you have the debt and you haven’t made payments, I mean, the chances are you’re going to lose the case, I would imagine.

Maybe I’m wrong, I’m not an attorney, but could they garnish your wages or take from your social security or other retirement accounts if you don’t make those payments?

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

Yeah, one of the things we’ve tried to do over the 30 years I’ve been doing this is figure out a rhyme or reason for when creditors sue and when they don’t. And the only thing I can tell you is, is that they only sue if they think they’re going to be able to collect because they’re not going to spend money on attorneys if they don’t think they’re going to collect. So if you’re working and they look at your credit and they think they’re going to collect, they’re going to file a suit, they’re going to get a judgment, the next step is garnishments.

And once they get a garnishment, the only way I know of stopping that is bankruptcy.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Okay, so then you’d have to go to bankruptcy, but there are implications or ramifications if you declare bankruptcy. I mean, that is not a panacea. A lot of people talk about, you know, chapter, what is it, chapter seven and chapter 11, bankruptcy, there’s a 13 as well.

So, but there were ramifications. If you declare bankruptcy, personal bankruptcy, doesn’t that impact your ability to get credit or a loan or anything else? Yeah, absolutely it does.

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

And, you know, they did refine the bankruptcy laws about 20 years ago, and it’s a lot harder to file now. You know, so a lot of clients that we talk to, they say, well, I’m just going to go bankrupt. They meet with an attorney, they do the means test, and they realize that it’s not a good option for them.

They’re going to be put in the chapter 13. They’re going to have to make repayments. And they’re like, well, I don’t want to repay it and file bankruptcy.

So then they’re back to trying to work something out.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Do you recommend, you know, obviously you help your customers, people can reach out to you and other organizations like you, but if you can’t make a payment, do you recommend calling up the credit card company and trying to negotiate on your own behalf? Obviously you’re not going to have as much clout as someone like yourself who has multiple customers, you’re a not-for-profit, but can you broach that conversation with, and will the credit card company be receptive? Because as you said, ultimately they want to get paid back.

I mean, they don’t want the debt to just go, you know, be wiped off the book.

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

Yeah, no, absolutely. Most of the credit card companies will work things out with clients on a one-on-one basis. One of the problems that we see is sometimes clients do that, and then once they get locked in, there’s no changing it, and we could have gotten a better deal for them.

Sometimes they can get the same exact deal on their own that we get. Sometimes they can’t. But, you know, talk to someone like this.

You know, I like to say that whenever you have trouble, medical, legal, financial, you find an expert, and it doesn’t cost anything to call and talk to somebody.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, a really good point. Let me ask you, I don’t want to sound morose here, but what happens if you have a large amount of credit card debt and you pass on? Does it, does it, you know, I just want to make sure the audience knows, like if you pass away, does that credit card get absolved and it’s uncollectible, or does it kind of pass on to the estate and the estate, the people who inherit the money?

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

Yeah, well, the one thing, unless you’re in a community property state like Wisconsin or California, if your spouse didn’t sign for the debt with you, they’re not responsible for it.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Okay.

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

Now, however, if there is probate and there’s an estate, then the estate is usually responsible for repayment on that debt. But it’s not your kid’s responsibility. They don’t have to repay it with their own money or anything like that, which a lot of people do think they do.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

So, and I’m not trying to go against your interests, but, you know, helping people, do you think there’s ever a point where we eat into, collectively eat into this credit card debt, communal credit card debt, and people get ahead, or are we going to continue to see people, it’s just going to be different people. It’s going to be 1.6 or 1.7 trillion dollars. We’ll continue to grow, I guess, is my question.

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

I’m not seeing any signs that it’s not going to continue to grow. You know, right now we’ve got the holidays coming up and I can’t tell you how many people are telling us, yeah, I want to start your program, but I don’t want to close my cards until after the holidays. And we’re like, the problem is just going to get worse.

Yeah. Let’s do it now. And they, it’s hard.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

It’s kind of like going on a diet, right? Let’s just wait till after, that’s why January 1st is really big for gym memberships, because everyone wants to wait till after the holidays in order to start trimming the fat, so to speak. Michael, we’re going to have to leave it there.

Great conversation. Keep up the good work. And look, we look forward to having you back on the program again very soon.

Michael McCauliffe, President, Family Credit Management

I love talking about it, Jeff. Thank you.  

Three years ago, Microsoft (MSFT) was already a Wall Street behemoth. 

However, the steep rise of ChatGPT offered its investors a fresh reason to own its shares, offering a front-row seat to the artificial intelligence boom without betting on a startup.

The wager paid off. A $10,000 investment in Microsoft three years ago would have grown to roughly $16,480 by October 28, 2026, with dividends reinvested.

There’s plenty to like about its business, too, as it reported another robust quarterly showing,  having blown past estimates across both lines over the past year. 

Yet CEO Satya Nadella’s remarks during the company’s October 28 earnings call exposed a problem investors may be overlooking. A handful of customers spending billions on AI can’t make a business sustainable.

And Microsoft’s own financial filings suggest the stakes are much bigger than one company.

Microsoft CEO questions what makes AI growth sustainable

Microsoft’s Azure revenue surged 48% last quarter, yet demand still exceeds its computing capacity.

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When Bernstein analyst Mark Moerdler quizzed Nadella about whether AI growth came from established enterprises or AI-native companies, he drew a distinction.

“But like everything else, the enterprise stuff is not like a quarter-over-quarter. It is a decade-long thing, and that is what I have been waiting for, as opposed to four customers who buy a lot of capacity from you, and you can show a few quarters of growth, and that is not a business as far as I am concerned.”

A few huge customers can deliver impressive quarterly sales. A lasting business requires broader adoption.

Nadella highlighted Unilever’s automated order-taking, Rolls-Royce’s AI-assisted jet-engine supply chain management, and Austrian bank RBI’s use of AI across more than 20 processes, underscoring how AI technology saves time and money.

“In fact, if anything, some of the shiny object stuff is waning, which is it is not about the next big thing. They are really more about, wow, can I build a system? Can I own the weights? Can I manage my costs? Can I have reliability? What about security?”

For investors, that’s important because new models generate headlines, but AI spending becomes more dependable when businesses trust the systems enough to use them repeatedly.

Microsoft believes that transition is underway. Yet its own filings show why customer concentration remains a major risk worth assessing.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says lasting AI growth requires broader enterprise adoption.DIMITAR DILKOFF / Getty Images

AI’s biggest customers reveal a growing concentration problem

Case in point is that Microsoft’s latest quarterly filing revealed $10 billion in sales from commercial arrangements with OpenAI, including revenue-sharing payments.

That’s around 11% of Microsoft’s $92.3 billion in quarterly revenue. OpenAI also owed Microsoft $7.2 billion at the end of September, up from $6 billion in June. Those receivables aren’t necessarily overdue, but they underscore the scale of the relationship.

The dependence is growing. Microsoft recorded $24.1 billion in OpenAI-related revenue for the entire fiscal year ended in June. It has already recognized more than 40% of that amount in the first quarter of its new fiscal year.

Microsoft isn’t alone.

Nvidia’s (NVDA) regulatory filing shows three direct customers accounted for 16%, 15%, and 13% of sales during the first half of fiscal 2027, a combined 44% as covered by Biggo. Those buyers aren’t necessarily the companies ultimately using Nvidia’s chips, but the concentration creates exposure if major customers pull back.

The connections extend further with Reuters reporting that Anthropic routed 47% of its 2025 sales through Amazon and Google’s cloud marketplaces. Both companies also invest in Anthropic and supply its computing power.

Marketplace sales aren’t the same as customer concentration, but they reveal how closely AI’s biggest players are intertwined.

Also, The International Monetary Fund examined 14 interconnected AI transactions involving roughly $300 billion in equity investments, $650 billion in debt, and $1.4 trillion in future revenue commitments.

In such arrangements, an investor may fund an AI developer that subsequently purchases computing services within the same ecosystem. These transactions can be legitimate, and the revenue real, but future commitments aren’t guaranteed sales.

If customers ultimately spend less than expected, the consequences could extend beyond individual companies, threatening investment valuations, anticipated sales, and the financing that supports further AI expansion.

What AI stock investors should watch as spending climbs

Market skeptics like Michael Burry see major risks in AI’s spending boom. 

The ‘Big Short’ investor who anticipated the housing crash warns that debt and circular financing might leave the boom a lot more vulnerable. If a major developer cuts spending, the fallout could spread from data centers to chipmakers and their shareholders.

That said, Microsoft’s spending shows what’s at stake. It reported $45.2 billion in quarterly capital expenditures, roughly three-quarters on shorter-lived assets, mainly computing hardware. Management expects more than $50 billion next quarter and about $170 billion for calendar 2026. Yet Microsoft also generated $18.6 billion in free cash flow.

Nadella remains optimistic.

“Your core question of where is the margin going to come from, where the leverage is going to come from, it’s going to come from every one of them, and it compounds when we work them across.”

With more than 120,000 Foundry customers and Azure growth projected at 49%-50% next quarter, Microsoft has evidence of expanding demand. For investors, the question is whether that demand will become broad and profitable enough to justify AI’s enormous bills.

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