The AI companion space will soon see another new entrant. Elon Musk, the owner of xAI and social media platform X, announced recently, Were going to make Baby Grok @xAI, an app dedicated to kid-friendly content.
Were going to make Baby Grok @xAI, an app dedicated to kid-friendly content— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2025
The decision to enter the AI chatbot and companion market seems logical for X: Around three in every four U.S. teens have already used AI companions, and the platform will naturally want to build brand loyalty early.
However, experts in child protection and social media use are raising concerns. Musk, xAI, and child-focused apps may not be a good combination, they warn. The concern is that if X or xAI are going to try to get into the children products zone, clearly they just have a terrible track record with prioritizing child safety, says Haley McNamara, SVP of strategic initiatives and programs at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE). They’ve just proven themselves to not really care, so I think that they should stay away from kids.
McNamara is not alone in her concerns. The apprehension is shared internationally. Elon Musks plans to launch a child-focused version of Grok will cause alarm across civil society, with growing evidence about the risks posed by persuasive design choices in AI chatbots, a lack of effective safeguarding in most major industry models, and no clear strategy to prevent hallucinations, says Andy Burrows, CEO of the Molly Rose Foundation, an organization founded by the parents of U.K. teenager Molly Russell, a 14-year-old who died by suicide after being exposed to harmful content on social media.
Beyond the fact that Baby Grok would come from the same organization that developed Ani, a sexualized AI chatbot that users have quickly coerced into explicit conversations, and Bad Rudi, a red panda chatbot that defaults to insults, experts see broader dangers. Burrows is particularly worried about introducing AI chatbots to children since they may easily form emotional attachments to such technology.
Chatbots can simulate deep and emotional relationships with child users, and there are evident risks that children may use chatbots to seek mental health support or advice in ways that may ultimately prove harmful, Burrows says. Even adults have formed inappropriate emotional bonds with AI chatbots, struggling to differentiate between artificial and real relationships.
For more impressionable children, these connections could take hold more quickly, with potential long-term effects on their mental health. McNamara says companies have an obligation to consider how their platforms affect kids and to take steps to protect themsomething she believes a Grok-bot for children fails to do. (Neither xAI nor Musk responded to Fast Companys request for comment.)
NCOSE also raises concerns about whether Musks platforms can adequately protect young users. McNamara notes that after Musk acquired what was then Twitter, many child safety staff were let go.
X also allows pornography on its platform, which does not require any kind of stringent age or consent verification for those videos, she says, contending that such lax policies have led to a widespread presence of abusive material, and so far theres been little sign that the company is taking meaningful action to address these issues.
Burrows, for his part, points to the U.K.s new Online Safety Act as one layer of oversight that would apply to Baby Grok, though he notes that X has been slow to meet the requirements of the legislation. His larger concern is global. In many countries, he warns, the lack of regulation will mean the rollout of badly designed products will go effectively unchecked.
Musk may see a business opportunity. But for those responsible for protecting children online, the stakes are far higher.
Bright and early on a recent Saturday morning, a line snaked around the block in Boston’s trendy Seaport District. People were patiently waiting to get their hands on PopUp Bagelssoft, steaming hot bagels designed to be torn and dipped directly into tubs of cream cheese or butter.
PopUp Bagels wants to help Americans reimagine our relationship with this beloved breakfast food, and it’s well on its way to doing so. Today, it announces an ambitious expansion from its 13 stores on the East Coast to a fleet of 300 stores from coast to coast with a focus on hubs like Atlanta; Nashville; and Orlando, Florida. “We’re bringing our stores to places where people don’t necessarily think of themselves as ‘bagel people’,” says Adam Goldberg, PopUp Bagels’ founder. “We’re introducing bagels into their routines.”
[Photo: Courtesy of PopUp Bagels]
The company began as a pandemic hobby for Goldberg, a flood mitigation expert from Connecticut. In lockdown, Goldberg started baking. After trying his hand at sourdough bread, he moved on to bagels. With much tinkering, he developed a recipe for a bagel that had a softer, lighter texture than the dense bagels you find in New York. The bagels were so delicious friends and neighbors wanted to buy them by the dozen. Two years later, Goldberg began opening pop-up shops around New York City that attracted large crowds.
To many people, PopUp Bagels offers a fun new take on bagels. Most bagel shops bake their goods in the morning, then toast them for customers. But PopUp Bagels are meant to be served fresh from the oven. They’re satisfying to rip apart, with a crisp exterior that provides contrast with the soft interior. At the Seaport District, people were scattered at picnic tables and benches, dipping their bagels directly into different flavored schmears. They can also be eaten cold in a more traditional way, by slicing them and slathering them with cream cheese and lox.
Goldberg points out that the New York bagel has evolved over the years to become what it is. His bagels are actually reminiscent of those in New York shops from decades ago. “I’ve had so many New Yorkers tell me these bagels remind them of their childhood,” he says. “Back then, people lined up for hot bagels straight out of the oven, when they were at their peak performance.”
Part of the reason bagels stopped being served this way is that it is logistically challenging to serve them hot at scale. Each store needs to predict demand, then bake them at steady rate that keeps pace with the line. PopUp has turned this process into an art with the help of Tory Bartlett, whom Goldberg appointed as CEO last November. Bartlett, who previously saw the expansion of Moe’s Southwest Grill to 600 locations, is familiar with scaling food businesses.
[Photo: Courtesy of PopUp Bagels]
Bartlett says that PopUp Bagels has streamlined its operations by exclusively selling bagels and coffee; it doesn’t make sandwiches. It also sells bagels in bundles of three, six, or a dozen, rather than one at a time. (Prices vary from $13 to $15 for a three pack and a schmear, depending on the market.) This allows them to better predict demand and generate revenue. “The unit economics of a business needs to be competitive as you scale,” says Bartlett. “It’s hard to make money by selling one or two bagels at $3 a pop. But selling a three pack protects the transaction.”
Another reason the shops are profitable is that they don’t require a very large footprint. They just need a couple of ovens and a counter. Employees focus on quickly packing bags of bagels and schmears for customers. “We don’t need a lot of workers,” Bartlett says. “It’s a very streamlined operation.”
[Photo: Courtesy of PopUp Bagels]
The efficiency of the business convinced Bartlett that it was possible to quickly scale PopUp. In 2023, the company received an infusion of $8 million Series A funding, and last year, it took a Series B round, both of which were led by Stripes, a growth equity firm. They then began the process of franchising PopUp.
Bartlett says they were extremely judicious about their partners. They’re only working with 15 franchisees, who will each run dozens of shops. “Thousands of people reached out to work with us, but we were extremely selective about whom we partnered with,” says Bartlett. “We picked people who are very passionate about this business.”
To keep the taste of the bagels consistent, PopUp will make the dough and disseminate regionally. This will allow the franchisees to focus on the operations of delivering hot bagels quickly.
If the other locations are any guide, there are likely to be long lines at all of these new stores, as people experience the novelty of the PopUp experience. But can the company keep up this level of inteest? Goldberg has high hopes. “Conveniently, we’ve landed on a product that has been a staple for many people throughout their entire lives,” he says. “The fact that we’re making something that people love anyway gives us a head start.
Being an effective leader requires a matrix of skills and abilities working in tandem. The ability to foster hope, cultivate trust, and motivate people to action can make a difference in your company’s ability function effectively and retain employees80% of employees responded that theyd stay in a job because they have a manager they trust.
And no small part of the ability to lead is executive or leadership presence. A well-publicized study by Coqual (formerly the Center for Talent Innovation) found executive presencelooking and acting the part of a leadermakes up 26% of what it takes to ascend to top jobs.
If I were to boil everything down, the two fundamental core principles of good, successful, solid leadership is strong and unquestionable authenticity and trust, says executive and leadership development coach Serena Palmer. However, there are some common behaviors and habits that undermine those leadership essentials. Palmer and other experts say being aware of them is the first step to correcting them.
Shifting from ‘me’ to ‘we’
Some leadersespecially those who are new to their roles and may be feeling insecurehave trouble shifting from being individual contributors who need to toot their own horns to get ahead to being a leader and responsible for a teams performance, says leadership expert and coach Emily Walton. This can take a few forms, she says, including emphasizing your own importance in a situation, micromanaging, and failing to give credit to others for the teams success.
Sometimes, people will take these actions because they might be feeling insecure about themselves in their role or [about] their contributions, Walton says. When you shift into leadership, it’s a we thing, and you want to do that because it strengthens your network, and it also strengthens the trust that people have in you: that you’re going to speak up for them, whether they’re in the room or not, and that you’re honest and authentic.
Avoiding the tough parts
The Coqual survey found that gravitas was the No. 1 factor in leadership presence, according to 67% of respondents. Key components of gravitas include exuding confidence, showing grace under pressure, and speaking the truth, even when its difficult.
One of the quickest ways to erode the trust of your team, Watson says, is people-pleasing, especially when it comes to making tough decisions and standing up for your team. If you’re constantly trying to please everyone else, it’s going to frustrate your team, and it’s also going to frustrate your colleagues, because they’re not going to know where you stand, and you’re no longer dependable, Walton says.
Another version of this behavior Palmer calls, dont shoot the messenger. In other words, when difficult decisions are made or bad news surfaces, the leader abdicates responsibility for the decision or news, saying it was someone elses to make, she says. In other cases, the leader just avoids making a decision, such as allowing bad behavior on a team to continue rather than addressing it head-on. Both undermine authenticity of the leader, and again, you will lose people that way, she says.
Being busy without impact
Wearing busyness as a badge of honor without making a significant impact is another action that will erode the trust and confidence of teams in their leaders, says personal branding expert Nicole Hart. When someone is proclaiming how busy they are and the results of that work arent evident, the people around you or your superiors are going to be like, Oh, I don’t have the faith that I can put more on their plate’, she says. And so, it kind of decreases faith for leaders when I think people are actually trying to do the opposite.
Hart adds that insecure leaders may do this to this to try to solidify their place as necessary to a company or organization. However, effective leaders know how to prioritize where their efforts are best devoted.
Spewing negativity
Chronic negativity can also wear on a leaders presence, Hart says. Bringing up negative personal issues when theyre not relevant, being cruel or overly negative when giving feedback, and even being negative about your own ideas as you pitch them, all damage credibility and relationships with the team. Leadership requires vision. Vision requires the ability to see untapped, positive opportunity. Negative leaders cant inspire innovation or loyalty, Hart says.
Avoiding vulnerability
Walton says that communication issues like being a know-it-all and having an inability to apologize can also undermine leadership presence. Similarly, an inability to show vulnerability can do the same, says Palmer. By not doing that, you don’t give permission for people in your team to be able to have a safe space to share whatever it is that they’re having difficulties with, she says.
Leaders who feel like they may be undermining their own leadership presence should try to get to the root of why trust is being lost, Walton says. Own up to it and then, outline what you’re going to do differently and then actually do it, she says. Otherwise, it’s just lip service, and that’s not going to change how people feel.
An intense dream can leave you in sweats and existential wonder. But just moments later, it evaporates from your mind to never be experienced again.The fleeting nature of dreams is why many keep a dream journal by their bedside to jot down the story before it disappears. The design studio Modem imagined another, more modern recording device. Called the Dream Recorder, its something like a bedside clock radio that uses AI to log your dreams and play them back to you.[Photo: Courtesy of Dream Recorder]When you wake up in the morning, you pick up the recorder and dictate what you remember of your dream. That ensuing transcript is sent to an AI video generator in the cloud, which creates a short video of it. Whats important to Modem is the ritual, done without an app or phone, is performed with an object dedicated to youa sort of generated visual diary of dreams.The thing that happens in your head isn’t going to be magically recreated by this video generator, says project contributor Mark Hinch. But it will hopefully capture the essence of the perhaps bizarre, weird, fragmented ideas of what happened in your head in the story.The dreams themselves are rendered through an intentionally ethereal aesthetic, at a low fi 240-by-240-pixel resolution thats meant to mirror the way we remember a dream, but also sidestep too much literality when things naturally dont match up. For instance, it blurs faces so that you never see someone who doesnt match up with what you remember. And rather than saving every dream you ever have forever, the Dream Recorder has been designed to flush its memory much like you doholding onto dreams for a week at most before overwriting them with whatever you dream up next.[Photo: Courtesy of Dream Recorder]Instead of selling the device, Modem shares the code on Github, along with all the items you need to buy to build it, ranging from a Raspberry Pi processor to USB microphones and capacitive touch sensors, via Amazon links. The body can be printed via an online service like Shapeways, and it all connects together without soldering. (Dreams cost between about a penny and 14 cents apiece, depending on the AI service you connect to render them.)But the Dream Recorder is admittedly less interesting as another product with features to be scrutinized than it is as a greater idea, and model of experimentation thats been lacking in the race toward AGI or building the next unicorn. With so much of the AI conversation focused on companions, productivity tools, or generative whatever, its easy to block out the more transcendental possibilities like being able to literally speak to whales. Modem cut through the productization of AI with a new dose of wonder. The Dream Recorder is fascinating not just for what it literally does, but as a rare, tangible beacon for a future that feels just within our grasp. (Dream recording inherently seems feasible within our electrical brain patterns and new AI capabilitiesso much so that Samsung filed a patent around a UI to control your dreams.) And much like a good sci-fi novel, it offers us an anchor to discuss and debate what it all means until a world of inventors actually leads us there.We hope to inspire the new generation coming of age in the age of intelligence . . . showing them that there’s a more mindful alternative to the very distracted world, says Bas van de Poel, cofounder of Modem. Perhaps using the engines of wisdom and mindfulness, and combining them with the logic of computer science, will be sort of like the ultimate dream, he says.
There have been five 1 in 1,000-year floods” this summer alone in the continental U.S.
Heavy rains have poured over Texas, North Carolina, New Mexico, Illinois, and Florida over the past months causing streets to flood, homes to suffer irreparable damage, and people to lose their lives, loved ones, and pets.
The death toll alone in Texas is at 135 as of July 25, as search efforts begin to end with only three more persons still missingthe result of over three weeks of searching.
The 0.1% chance of these floods occurring makes their recent frequency alarming. This, coupled with other recent flash floods across major East Coast states like New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey and projected flash floods in central and southwestern U.S., makes for increasingly unsettling future forecasts.
But are these weather patterns actually out of the normor are these floods becoming more common?
How rare are 1,000-year floods?
The phrase “1 in 1,000-year floods” comes from the fact that statistically, floods of that intensity and destruction are likely to happen once every 1,000 years (or a 0.1% likelihood). In 2024, there were 35 1,000-year floods across the U.S. and more than triple that number of 100-year floods, which have a statistical probability of happening 1% of the time.
As far as I’m aware, if we tracked 1 in 1,000-year flood events over time, you wouldnt necessarily see a discernible increase in the number of events per year, says Allie Mazurek, a climatologist at the Colorado Climate Center. However, on a more general scale, we are expecting to see more extreme precipitation events in a warmer climate.
An interactive map from the Colorado Climate Centerwhich is updated in near real-timetracks high precipitation events across the country. It combines past research and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Atlas 14, a precipitation frequency data interface, to track high-precipitation events from 2002 to today in every state but Washington and Oregon (their data has yet to be updated on NOAA’s precipitation server).
The data sets visually depict the number of 1,000-year heavy precipitation rates from 2002 to 2024. Each year follows similar patterns and frequency. But that doesnt mean rainfall and subsequent flooding isnt intensifying. Mazurek says there are two factors at play for these natural disasters: the frequency in which rain falls, and the intensityhow much it rains in a short amount of time.
According to independent climate research group Climate Central, 88% of 144 locations across all nine climate regions in the U.S. have experienced a 15% increase in hourly rainfall intensity since 1970. Nearly two-thirds of those locations experienced at least a 10% increase in the same period.
Mazurek says these trends come down to one primary effect of climate changehumidity.
Rising temperatures create wet air
Essentially, when you have warmer temperatures, that allows more water to exist in the vapor phase, and therefore, you get more water up in the atmosphere, Mazurek said. Then when you get a thunderstorm, there is more water available to it when it starts to precipitate and make rainfall. If youre adding more water to the atmosphere, you’ll get more rainfall as a result.
Climate Central says that for every single Fahrenheit degree of Earth warming, the air holds 4% more moisture. Give that the Earths temperature has risen by roughly 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the preindustrial era, there’s simply often more water available to create intense rainfall.
So while the statistical probability of these floods occurring won’t change, their severity could get worse
Mitigation and adaptation
Flash floods arent expected to subside anytime soon this summer, with Accuweather meteorologists warning that additional flooding events can be expected due to this summers continued trend of high precipitation predictions.
I think there’s definitely more work that all of us together could work on for extreme rainfall and flood events from meteorologists to emergency managers, Mazurek said. We all obviously have more work to do communicating those kinds of events and keeping people safe. I think that is still a very active area of research.
However, with recent Trump administration changes to climate policy, emergency weather cuts at NOAA, and the dismantling of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), these efforts may become more and more difficult, even as climate-driven natural disasters increase.
“We expect kind of both sides of the extremes to get more extreme, Mazurek said. Heavy precipitation, extreme rains, flooding events, as well as drought. They each work off their own feedback.”
Back in 2015, Microsoft claimed our attention spans had dropped to eight secondsshorter than that of a goldfish. No ones definitively proven it, but it feels about right in the age of TikTok. Ten years later, goodness knows how long were able to hold it.
Its one of the major social shifts of our lifetimes, and its one that a new generation of start-up brandsand their investorshave jumped on. These “dopamine” brands, such as Starface, Graza, and Poppi, provide younger generations with striking visual hits to draw them in with an instant high. Their packages, messages, and social content all pop, their drops sell out in minutes, and their fans queue virtually just to get their hands on them. Those limited drops, seasonal flavors, and unexpected collabs fuel hype and scarcity. These arent just products; theyre events.
But with every dopamine hit comes a comedown, and many challenger brands are now struggling with staying power. Meanwhile the legacy brands languish on the sidelines, wondering what to make of it all as a chunk of their audience is tempted away. Theres a lot to learn in creating fresh news for these classic heroes, but they shouldnt feel threatened by the dopamine gang; rather, they should see an opportunity in it. If youve got iconic assets and built emotional trust over decades, youre more than halfway there. The nudge is to deliberately disrupt yourself by bringing ideas in from the outside, while finding ways to retain what it is people love about you at the core.
Packaging is a powerful touchpoint to do it. Its your shop window, your sensorial hook, your cultural signal. When you get it right, it should create not just fleeting excitement, but a deep connection that creates a lasting memory. Here’s how to do dopamine design, without right.
Inject hype at the edges, dont break the system
Limited editions are an obvious, and often fruitful, place to start, but legacy brands can sometimes get overexcited here. Often there is a temptation to create disruption by sidelining the rule book and going crazy with the new news. When limited editions arent rooted in what people already love about the brand, they land as lazy, insincere. They often fall flat with consumers, who see straight through it. Smart design evolves from whats already there; celebrate the core brand essence by coming from a place of authenticity, then create the disruptive newness.
So, when Jaffa Cakes was developing a limited-edition flavor, they began by acknowledging the product truth: the joy is in the jammy center. To make it feel more special than the established orange, an unexpected idea came about in cola-bottle flavor. This delivered an exciting dose of “Im not sure thatll work” intrigue mixed with reassuring nostalgia for the consumer.
Crucially, we restrained ourselves with the packaging design in responding to this. We retained the existing layout and the brand’s visual consistency, while dramatizing the new story within it to create something new. Its a simple but effective technique, all too often brushed aside in favour of total “pack takeover” disruption.
Short-term impact, long-term value
Limited editions from brands work best when they riff on the thing people already love about them, whether it be format, flavor, origin story, or something else.
These kinds of designs dont just deliver a momentary dopamine hit. When a drop gets it right, it builds trust and respect with consumers. Moreover it builds a momentum that has a positive halo effect back into the main brand.
Look at Johnnie Walkers Squid Game Limited Editionanother entry from a brand that continues to cross-pollinate categories to deliver the unexpected. Here its bringing popular culture in to give its audience exactly what they never knew they needed. While the launch design felt dopamine, the core pack design confidently fused both brands’ assets together with mutual respect and consideration. It was a wisely thought through approach and showed us that the brand can deliver both quality whisky and moments of playful humor simultaneously. The total effect of such one-offs is that the entire brand benefits from them.
Collaboration should amplify, not dilute
The Heinz x Absolut collaboration was a good example of how good design can multiply brand value. Its success lay in both brands celebrating their distinctive assets in tandem in the launch collateral (Heinzs silhouette and red tones, Absoluts bottle shape and stripped-back typography).
[Photo: Absolut Vodka/Heinz]
The creative ideavodka pasta saucewas playful, but it was the campaign work and the packaging that sold the credibility, where the two brands came together in a way that felt creative and made sense for each partner. The most effective collaborations arent necessarily about giving each brand equal space, or one giving way for the other. Its putting egos aside to create something entirely new together, the genius child of both.
Legacy brands at the center of culture
Legacy brands dont need to reinvent themselves to stay relevant, but they do need to stay alert to whats happening around them. Packaging is a hugely impactful area to showcase this. It is the most visceral, sensorial, and tangible touchpoint a brand can have. A good idea at the heart can be taken to the next level when form, finish, and feel are also taken into account.Legacy brands should be more confident in the strength of their assets. Changing them creatively just a little can a have a powerful outcome. Building both brands assets through co-respect can help place a brand in the center of culture effectively enough for the audience to reappraise it on a deeper, more lasting level. It can reenergize products and brands, putting them in front of new audiences who will become the next generation of loyalists. A design that is oversaturated in dopamine can have the opposite effect, creating confusion around your brand’s identity, leaving your crowd alienated and cynical.
The key is to build from what people already know and love. Thats what gives brands the permission to try something new on their packaging, and the credibility to be taken seriously when they do. Once youve cracked the code in an authentic way and succeeded at it, the stage is set for a future of endless creativity that people will come back for time and again.
Its been more than six months since record-breaking wildfires destroyed thousands of homes in the Los Angeles area. So far, few homes have been rebuilt. On one barren block in Altadena filled with vacant lots, no new homes have started construction yet. But one of the first homes that will break ground on the street is using technology to help the rebuilding process move faster.
Later this summer, a mobile micro factory will roll up to the lot and begin using robots to build walls, roofs, and flooring panels while a construction crew lays the foundation. Other components, like bathroom pods with all of the fixtures preinstalled, will be built off-site and delivered for assembly.
Cosmic, the startup building the house, first launched building sustainable accessory dwelling units (ADUs) with a streamlined process designed to cut time and cost. Last year, the team started designing a larger, fire-resistant single-family home in Northern California. When the disaster hit L.A. in January, the company sped up its work to develop mini factories for the fire zone.
[Photo: Cosmic Buildings]
Modular construction isnt new. But Cosmics approach, with compact manufacturing units that travel to the building site, avoids the expense of developing larger factories. (Katerra, one high-profile startup, reportedly spent $150 million on its factory before going out of business.)
My core belief is that conventional prefab doesnt work, says Sasha Jokic, Cosmic’s founder. We saw the billions of dollars invested in the prefab industry . . . you need to keep the lights on, and its super hard to do it, given the costs of operating the factory. A typical factory is also constrained to a specific geography, since it isnt economical to deliver more than around 300 miles away.
Instead, Cosmic wants to bring modern manufacturing directly to each site. Its first micro-factory is now sitting on a lot in Pacific Palisades, where the company is working on permits for another house in that fire zone. The factory will travel back and forth between the Palisades and Altadena.
The construction system is around 10 times faster than traditional construction, Jokic says. It also uses around 60% less labor, which may help it avoid disruptions. The construction industry in Southern California already had a labor shortage; the current threat of immigration raids also means that some people now feel afraid to come to work.
[Photo: Cosmic Buildings]
The company also uses technology for the design process. For the house in Altadena, for example, it used software to design a house to the clients specifications in seven days. Really, the breakthrough technology is that its AI-driven, Jokic says.
The company, he says, can instantaneously create a code-compliant plan designed specifically for the site and the client’s needs. And because the software will only output designs that the company knows it can build, it’s easy to provide accurate timelines and pricing information.
For families affected by the fires, the company is offering design services for free. The cost of homes is roughly 30% less than traditional construction, Jokic says.
The clarity of the process helped convince the Altadena homeowners to move forward. The family, a couple with a young child, had lived in their previous housea 1923 craftsmanfor a decade. The old house needed repairs, the family had nearly completed a renovation when the fire happened.
After the fire, they wanted to rebuild differently. We talked to five other architects, and I just felt so overwhelmed by the idea of starting from scratch and going through the rebuilding process again, says homeowner Justin Lieb. The renovation was so overwhelming and exhausting.
They also liked the homes features, which go beyond the fire safety requirements in the building code, from fire-resistant walls and roofs to sprinklers. The all-electric house is also as energy efficient as possible, so it can make the most of the solar panels on the roof. Being as self-sufficient and ecologically conscious as possible was a big appeal to us, Lieb says. A gray water system helps recycle water. They also chose to install an EV charger, though they havent yet purchased an electric car.
[Photo: Cosmic Buildings]
Software also helped the permit application process go quickly, and the team had filed everything to the city within around 20 days. As we continue improving the system, really the plan is that this is going to be instantaneousbasically 24 hours turnaround for the concept design, and two days for the permitting, Jokic says.
The company handles the permitting process. For the Altadena house, it just got approval from the local planning department. Now, it needs approval from the citys building and safety division, which has committed to a 30-day review timeline. Then construction can begin.
The company is now working through the permitting process for four families in the fire zone. Ultimately, they have the capacity to build as many as 150 to 180 homes over the next 12 months, says Jokic. For every 10 homes they build, they have committed to build another for free for an underinsured family in the fire zone, in a project they call the 1:10 Initiative.
“Given that we can build much faster and lower cost and anyone else on the market, we definitely saw an opportunity for us to donate a portion of our revenue to build for people who [can’t afford it],” Jokic says.
Jokic, who grew up in war-torn Yugoslavia, says that the idea of providing affordable, quality housing has motivated his life’s work. “This is really a deeply personal experience,” he says. “And just being able to help people who are struggling to get their homes back, that’s what really matters at this point.”
Costco is well-known for its no-questions-asked return policy. Now some shoppers are taking it upon themselves to test the limits of that policy.
Returning my slime stained carpet to Costco, one TikTok user posted earlier this month.
Costco offers customers an unlimited grace period to return most purchases for a full refund, earning the wholesaler a top-six spot among stores with exceptional return policies, according to a 2023 ranking by U.S. News and World Report.
While the customer received a full refund for the ruined rug, the comments section on the TikTok video was divided. That’s embarrassing for you, one person wrote. This just seems wrong, another added.
For others, its simply about getting their moneys worth. I could be mad but in this economy . . . hell yeah, one comment read. Even Costco employees chimed in. Our upper management has said Costco makes way too much money. [T]hey would rather take the hit than lose a member, one wrote. Customer satisfaction at the end of the day.
What if the rug is in perfect condition but you just dont like it anymore? No problem. Another TikTok user returned a rug bought over a year ago because it no longer matched their aestheticand received a full refund.
@brooke_mydlo Ive always wondered how good costcos return policy is. Today I found out. #costco #momlife #costcofinds #costcoreturn original sound – brooke_mydlo
Costcos return policy is not only open-ended in terms of time frame, but it also doesnt clearly define the condition items must be in upon their return to the store. One person returned a broken couch four years after buying it. Another brought back a half-eaten chicken bake. Both were refunded in full. This is why we cant have nice things, one person commented.
This isnt the first time customers have pushed the policys boundaries. One notable return made headlines in 2018 when a woman brought back her dried-up Christmas tree in January.
Extreme as it may seem, the policy supports Costcos membership model. Kudos for Costco, the couch-returner said at the end of his video. Youve got me as a client for life now. Research shows that restrictive return policies can cost retailers business, whereas positive return experiences often lead to more purchases.
Still, that doesnt mean the customer is always right. Of the $685 billion in U.S. retail merchandise returned in 2024, $103 billion was attributed to return/claims fraud or abuse, according to a 2024 report from Appriss Retail and Deloitte.
Just because you can, doesnt always mean you should.
There’s an air of panic in the media world. The specter of AI has been looming large for a couple of years now, but the threat now appears to be solidifying. Publishers are reporting that search traffic is in free fall, and there’s overwhelming evidence that AI chatbots give very little in terms of referrals. What to do about “Google Zero” has gone from a theoretical destination to a reality that the media world must contend with.
Of course, panicking is never a good strategy. But pivoting can be, and there’s been no shortage of that lately. Both Wired and The Verge announced this week a stronger push into newsletters, one of the more reliable ways to connect directly with readers. When Business Insider recently announced layoffs, it also said it would invest in live events. And even publishers that already charge for subscriptions are doubling down on them: Newsweek will launch new types for both consumers and businesses, and The Guardian now has a new, cheaper tier for readers who want to opt out of personalized ads.
While AI may be the impetus behind a lot of these changes, they’re all directionally pushing toward building direct relationships with audience members. That is smart, but at a more basic level, they’re appealing to human desires that go beyond just getting informationa task AI fulfills very effectively. Offerings like newsletters, memberships, and events give a sense of belonging, encourage reading habits through consistency, and emphasize voiceeither that of the brand or the individual writer.
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Within all this is the beginnings of a post-Google content strategy for media. But really, it’s only half a strategy because it only accounts for humans. Much of internet activity in the future will be the result of bots, whether they’re hoovering up data to inform AI models or acting as agents on behalf of individual users. Data from TollBit indicates bot crawling is already comparable to what the big (non-AI) search engines dowhen everyone has their own AI agent, I would wager it will be the majority. Any forward-looking content strategy needs to take into account both humans and machines.
The new organic audience
Let’s start with the people. A few months ago, I hosted a webinar on the types of content that are most resilient to AI summarization. AI does a great job of summarizing news, but it struggles with voice and unique perspectives. The consequence: If you want good opinion and analysis, you’ll need to click through. Visual and interactive content is poorly conveyed by AI. And because AI is well known to hallucinate sometimes, anything that might inform a crucial decision for a readerlike context for health, legal, or financial decisionswill likely motivate readers to check the original source.
Certainly, memberships and subscriptions are important mechanisms to build a loyal audience, but they also need to be centered around something readers can’t get anywhere else. That usually means narrowing the lens of focus rather than widening it. Niche subjectseven within a more general brandwill typically see higher engagement and more loyalty than general ones.
Then there’s the stickiness of interactivity. One thing that emerging media platforms like Substack and TikTok do well is encouraging direct conversation between content creators and audience members. But being interactive doesn’t always have to be so hands-on: Semi-automated features like polls, quizzes, and games are all effective habit-buildersand cannot be substituted by AI.
Rise of the machines
If you think about it, there’s a kind of a “well, duh” quality to all the reports that confirm people don’t click through to sources when they use AI. (Pew Research just put out another, by the way.) That’s because removing the need to click is largely the point. Why go and read a whole bunch of articles when bots can do it for you?
But that reveals the other side of the coin: Bots are now doing the searching and the clicking, and that activity is traceable, measurable, and potentially monetizable. In other words, the inevitable rise in bot traffic represents both an unprecedented threat and a massive opportunity.
First, there’s the obvious idea of charging bots to scrape your site. Putting in paywalled endpointswhere AI bot operators pay a small fee to access contentmay work, especially now that Cloudflare is leading the charge in empowering website owners to block bots. However, it greatly depends on the scrapers acting in good faithand even if they do, it’s doubtful if the fee per scrape that publishers charge would ever be enough to build a sustainable business.
What could help is winning the next SEO war: AIEO, or artificial intelligence engine optimization. Being one of the primary sources in an AI Overview or a ChatGPT answer might not seem like much of a prize, given the low click-through rates. But if you pair it with both a pay-per-crawl mechanism and a content strategy that focuses on the AI-resilient content types discussed earlierthe ones that have a higher chance of audiences seeking them outthe benefits could end up being more than mere bragging rights.
This kind of AI-first content strategy does require a more sophisticated approach. You’d have to make use of the full search and AI toolbox, including things like Google snippets to ensure AI crawlers highlight the most enticing parts of your content without giving the store away, and MCP servers that can ensure bots have diect access to the content you green-light for them. While that can be technically cumbersome, the market is already adapting, with AIEO specialists like Scrunch AI offering one-stop-shop packages that essentially make a bot-friendly copy of your website so that crawlers can feast while humans enjoy your regular site.
Smaller, better . . . robot-ier?
The truth about the future of media is that the audience, the human audience, will be smaller for pretty much everyone. As more people get their information from AI portals, publishers will need to make the most of the few people who come directly to them. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Going small can ultimately be part of a healthier brand of journalism, as I argued in my very first column.
But the parallel trend is that the bot audience is rising fast, and it undoubtedly will be a dominant force in the way information is distributed. Harnessing that force will be essential for the media. And though there are still a lot of unknownsthe best practices, the legal framework, even the potential rewardsat least it’s easy to see what not to do: wait.
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Its true that personal ambition fuels success. But we can reach a dangerous tipping point when healthy drive becomes hyper-ambitiona compulsive cycle of excessive striving that becomes self-defeating.
Unlike healthy ambition that energizes you, hyper-ambition can leave you perpetually unsatisfied, overextended, and grinding to exhaustion. The cost isnt just personalhyper-ambition eventually undermines the very professional success it promises.
Heres how to recognize if youve crossed into the danger zoneand take practical steps to realign toward healthy ambition.
1. You Feel Like Youve Never Achieved Enough and Are Never Satisfied
Are you on a professional achievement treadmill, immediately shifting focus to your next goal after hitting a milestone?
While accomplishments and rewards can provide short-term satisfaction, the challenge to getting into such a rhythm is that you may pursue goals without considering what you truly want. This can catch up to you when you realize youve met external expectations but never connected to your internal motivation, leaving you dissatisfied.
Putting all your attention against the pursuit of professional validation can also lead to ignoring key areas of ones life that affect long-term happiness and well-being, such as your personal relationships, your health, and activities that fulfill and restore you.
To realign to healthy ambition, orient your goals toward internal motivation firstits a better predictor of engagement and success. Research has shown that putting attention and focus on personal success linked to fulfillment, satisfaction, and happiness begets external success, while the opposite focus doesnt hold true.
Start with your values: test if a goal is aligned with what is important and matters to you, rather than solely meeting external expectations. Academic studies have shown that aligning our goals with our values leads to more satisfaction, higher persistence, and more goal attainment.
Expand your ambition to include meaningful life goals and challenge what success truly means in your life. Studies confirm that once our basic needs are met, more income, wealth, or possessions dont correlate with lifelong happiness. Plus, Gallup research finds that well-being isnt tied just to career or finances, but also encompasses physical, social, and community well-being.
2. You Feel Constantly Over-Extended and Frustrated You Cant ‘Do It All’
Do you say yes to every opportunity without strategic prioritization, then feel stretched thin and frustrated by your inability to pursue them all effectively?
This suggests you either think more is always better, leading to overload and overwhelm, or you may not have an approach to help you choose where to put your time and attention when faced with seemingly equally valid goals.
To shift toward focusing on what matters, use strategic methods to make conscious choices. Create and visualize a goal system by identifying your core priorities and mapping how other goals connect. This can reveal if youre pursuing too much, show how aligned actions serve multiple goals, and reduce perceived friction between supposedly competing goals. You can maximize goal attainment by creating these positive connections, minimizing conflicts, and better understanding trade-offs you may make.
When faced with choices, apply the urgencyenergy filter. Ask, What has urgency, and do I have energy for it? This reveals several strategies:
Prioritize: Commit to high-urgency, high-energy ambitions
Reinterpret: For high-urgency, low-energy goals, find ways to achieve the same outcome with less time and effort
Postpone: Back-burner lower-priority ambitions
Let go: With self-compassion, release goals that no longer serve you
Learn to compromise wisely by focusing on what matters at this time rather than trying to do everything.
3. Youre Grinding Hard All the Time Without Recovery
How often do you find yourself compulsively working, putting in excessive hours without recovery time, leaving you exhausted?
Operating in a persistent high-performance mode leads to unproductive stress, causing your physical and mental health to suffer. Ironically, your productivity declines and your work suffers, too.
To break this pattern, be strategic about managing your effort and prioritizing recovery.
Our ambitions arent created equal. Be discerning about the effort put against your goals by asking three key questions:
Aspiration: How good do I want to be at this?
Determination: What is worth the hard work?
Motivation: How much effort do I want to put in and whats required?
Additionally, manage perfectionism. Be conscious about where you apply excellence and give yourself permission to say this is good enough for lower-stakes areas.
Finally, make recovery a leadership imperative. Doris Kearns Goodwin, the celebrated presidential biographer, has said: The most underappreciated leadership strength is the ability to relax and replenish energy. Research shows we paradoxically neglect recovery practices when we need them most. We need a deliberate plan to sustain ourselves for the work that matters and to prioritize time to psychologically disconnect from work.
Sustainable success comes from strategic ambition, not hyper-ambition. The idea that you have to choose between being ambitious and being well is a false choice. The goal shouldnt be to eliminate ambition, but to keep it in a healthy zone where it energizes rather than depletes youallowing you to achieve what you really want both professionally and personally.
