Author: Editor

A few years back, when ChatGPT first became available, the hype got loud, and one of my freelance clients was shouting the loudest. He called me one afternoon and declared that paying writers was a thing of the past, as this new technology could do in five minutes what all his freelance writers could do in a month. Loading audio narration… “You should have picked a different profession,” he said. He fired me a few months later.I’ve been thinking about that interaction a lot lately, especially after seven months of unsuccessful job hunting. Countless hours of filling out applications have…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kristina Modares, 36, an Airbnb host. Modares is also the founder of Open House Education and a marketer at Joynt, a real estate platform designed to help people buy and own homes with family and friends. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Loading audio narration… In 2015, I was 25 and living in Austin, renting a home downtown with a friend and hoping to buy one of my own. I’d just gotten my real estate license and didn’t yet have the two years of income needed to qualify…

This essay is part of The New American Home, a series that examines multigenerational houses.After 13 years of marriage, I became a single mom of my two young kids. I knew my life was about to change after my divorce in 2024, but I didn’t fully grasp how quickly and dramatically it would shift.Our family home was in East Hampton, New York, but it wasn’t technically mine. I had been with my husband since I was 18, after moving from my childhood home in Connecticut to his residence. The author, Vanessa Gordon (middle), has three generations living under one roof,…

Roughly one in 10 workers in the US works in retail.Widen the view to people who have worked in that industry at some point in their careers, and the number rockets up to six in 10, according to a 2019 report by the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research organization.For many, retail is a first job; for others, it’s a lifelong career.Several top retail CEOs started out in hourly positions at the companies they now run.To get a sense of how much retail workers made in 2025, Business Insider used AlphaSense to search the latest proxy statements for median employee pay…

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is following through on one of his most divisive campaign promises: tax the rich. Loading audio narration… Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul introduced a new pied-à-terre tax proposal on Wednesday. The tax, which requires legislative approval, would affect residents who own a secondary property in New York City valued at over $5 million but live elsewhere. It’s the first of its kind for New York state.The proposal drew swift ire from some members of the upper echelon, including President Donald Trump. He, alongside other billionaires like Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, could be directly affected…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Karen Watts Nauman, 67, and Jeff Nauman, 69, a married couple who moved to Lake Chapala, Mexico, from the US a few years ago. They recently launched The AI Boomers, a platform for AI courses designed for older Americans. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Loading audio narration… KAREN: I grew up in Washington, DC, and then moved to Los Angeles, where I spent 35 years and worked in various advertising and sales roles. I had my own company that ran promotional marketing events, particularly in Latin America,…

When Samantha Ferguson applied to university in 2003, she turned to private student loans to finance her education. Loading audio narration… That’s because she wanted to study politics in Scotland and couldn’t get federal student loans to study abroad. So she borrowed just over $104,000 from Sallie Mae, a major private student-loan lender.Ferguson graduated in 2008. Now 40, she’s paid $200,000 toward her loan — and still has a $137,000 balance.”They’re so debilitating, so crippling,” Ferguson said of her loans. “I don’t mind that I borrowed money to go to university, but what I’ve looked at in turn is that…

It seems unlikely that Silicon Valley, a place where “cracked” engineers brag about how many AI tokens they’re burning and how little sleep they get, was heavily influenced by a public high school journalism teacher rather than, say, a computer science instructor who moonlights as a drill sergeant. Loading audio narration… That’s the message behind a new documentary, “The Godmother of Silicon Valley,” which celebrates the impact of Esther Wojcicki, 85, known affectionately as “Woj” by the Palo Alto High School students who struggled to pronounce her last name.The documentary premiered on Thursday at the Presidio Theatre in San Francisco.…

When Ryan Daniels began asking job candidates to come in on Sundays, he expected some eye rolls. Loading audio narration… Daniels is the founder of Crosby, a startup-law-firm-hybrid that provides basic legal services to other startups. Instead, he said, many candidates responded with relief. A Sunday interview meant they did not have to burn a vacation day on a hiring process that increasingly asks candidates to prove themselves on the job before they are hired.Employers are pushing deeper into “work trials,” asking candidates to complete projects or audition in the office, as artificial intelligence makes it easier to inflate a…

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s charm over President Donald Trump may be waning. Loading audio narration… Trump lashed out at Mamdani on Thursday over a proposed tax targeting New York City’s ultra-wealthy. Governor Kathy Hochul has also backed the tax.”Sadly, Mayor Mamdani is DESTROYING New York! It has no chance! The United States of America should not contribute to its failure,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “It will only get WORSE. The TAX, TAX, TAX Policies are SO WRONG. People are fleeing. They must change their ways, AND FAST. History has proven, THIS “STUFF” JUST DOESN’T WORK.”The proposed…