Author: Editor

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Damien Monel, a 28-year-old recruiter based in Madrid. It’s been edited for length and clarity.I moved from my home country, France, to Ireland at 19 for a technical support role at Apple, only to burn out in my second year. I was staying at home in bed in the dark, not seeing friends, and I thought, I’m too young to feel this depressed.I knew I wanted to get into recruiting, so I applied for job after job until I landed a multi-month contract role at Amazon, also in Ireland. It was…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Johanna Dickson, a 42-year-old who moved back to her parents’ house in New Jersey to help her pay off years of debt. The following has been edited for length and clarity.Living in New York City was always a dream of mine. I grew up 90 minutes away in New Jersey, but after graduating from college in 2006, I landed a job in marketing that paid enough to afford my first Manhattan apartment with roommates. I finally felt like I made it when I moved into my own studio apartment in Harlem…

What does it feel like when an AI version of you takes your job?That was the strange reality facing actor Ashley BeLoat when she came across an AI-generated remake of a series she had starred in.Last year, BeLoat played the lead in “Hate the Way I Love You,” a “micro drama” released by the app MoboReels, about a young couple whose future is shattered by a cancer diagnosis. She was shocked to discover, a few months later, that a series with the same plot appeared on the same app. The AI-generated actor in her role appeared younger and glammed up…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tanvi Pisal, a 29-year-old UX designer from India. She went through two layoffs within a year while working in the US. It has been edited for length and clarity.I’ve always seen the US as the land of opportunity.I grew up in Pune, a city in western India, where I earned my bachelor’s degree in software engineering. After graduating, I worked in software, user experience, and interface design.Back in 2019, design was still a relatively new field in India. I saw much bigger opportunities in the US, especially in Silicon Valley, where…

Jeff Layfield spent years imagining where in the US he and his wife would retire after leaving Hawaii. Instead, they now live in a traditional home overlooking the sea in Japan.Before retiring, the couple lived in an upstairs apartment at his parents’ home on Oahu. Layfield worked in data management for the Marine Corps, while his wife, Mamiko, worked in retail.Every time they traveled to Mamiko’s hometown of Nara to visit her mother, the couple carved out time to explore other parts of the country.In 2018, they visited Asuka, a rural town that was once the ancient capital of Japan.…

Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in plastic chairs, hundreds of defiant San Francisco residents, a noticeable number of them gray-haired, packed themselves into a gallery at the Fort Mason Center last Thursday.The reason? To protect their famously quaint waterfront neighborhood from the development of a large new residential tower.San Francisco Chronicle reporter Laura Waxmann captured last week’s scene in a photo she shared on X, which has since sparked pushback from social media users frustrated by the city’s housing market.Many of the responses came from the tech industry, which, some might argue, has played a role in San Francisco’s housing crisis. They zeroed…

Move aside, Wall Street: Miami is vying to be the new epicenter of US business, tech, and wealth.And it’s getting there. A recent Bloomberg report found that the cost of living in the Miami metropolitan area has surpassed that of New York City, making it the country’s second-most expensive major metro area, behind the San Francisco Bay Area.The Miami metro area, which had long offered a tropical lifestyle with cheaper costs of living than the Big Apple, has seen a sharp rise in its consumer prices since 2019, while homeownership and other costs have helped push up its cost of…

For a while, it felt like everyone was moving South.The trend took off during the pandemic, when remote work gave more Americans the flexibility to live wherever they wanted. Many headed to states where homes were more affordable and jobs were easier to find.Southern states such as Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina became darlings of the housing market, attracting waves of newcomers. But in the years since, some transplants have realized the grass wasn’t greener after all.In July, I wrote about Sandra Bonola, a native New Englander who was drawn south by news stories and social media…

Now that they are older, the Cataks spend part of the year in Bosnia; Jasmin Catak is there for about five months annually, while Azra Catak is there for three months. When they’re in the US, though, Brown wanted her parents to live as close to her as possible.Brown said her husband quickly understood her parents were a big part of her life, and he wanted them to be a big part of his, too.”He has lost his mom and dad both, but he calls my parents mom and dad,” she said. “When I told James that I’ve always wanted…

When Hamza Mostafa started studying computer science at university, he pictured going into traditional software engineering at a Big Tech company after he graduated.As time went on, though, he decided to specialize in AI. In 2024, he landed a three-month internship at OpenAI for the following year.In an interview with Business Insider, Mostafa, 21, who is based in San Francisco and works on his own AI projects, shared his tips for people who want to take advantage of the AI boom and specialize in the field.3 steps for breaking into AI: Go broad, specialize, and buildAs AI and machine learning…