Too many years ago, I remember slotting a 3.5-inch disk into my PC. With my allowance, Id bought $5 video game design software from a catalog. And as I looked at the terminal, lost without some familiar GUI . . . my coding efforts died.
Game design became an abstract concept even as I became a game journalista topic sketched in notebooks, theoretically discussed, critically observed. That was, until I loaded Moonlake AI. With $30 million in funding from investors including Nvidia, AIX, Googles Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, and YouTube founder Steve Chen, the 15-person startup founded by two Stanford PhD students dreams of building complete gamesfrom first person shooters to 2D puzzlesvia a single, one-shot prompt.
[Screenshot: Moonlake AI]
Yes, vibe-coding apps like Claude Code and Replit make it possible to build games, too, but Moonlake is purpose-built for the task. It will never ask you to copy a snippet of code, offers templates to start with if youd like, and has straightforward paths to bring in your own assets, too. It remembers your vision and constantly works to improve it alongside you.
For a $40/mo subscription (though you can technically try the platform for free), you type what you want to play, and presto, its coded, bug tested, and appears into existence.
Moonlake AI founders Sun Fan-Yun and Sharon Lee [Photo: Moonlake AI]
Launching to the public in beta today, the Moonlake AI team knows they arent a one-shot game generator yetwhile I was playtesting my first draft game in minutes, it took hours of going back and forth with the machine to polish it much further.
And in fact, the longer term goals for Moonlake AI stretch well beyond the lofty goal of vibe-coding video games. Their larger plan isn’t just to build Moonlake to be more capable, but to leverage the process of video game design itself to build a frontier AI model for the world.
Building my game in Moonlake AI
Am I the only one who, staring at the prompt, facing this machine that can do anything, suddenly cant think of doing anything?
It was this lack of creativity that sunk me the first time Id taken Moonlake for a test-drive. I couldn’t come up with anything unique, so I suggested a 3D dungeon crawler. Despite having no original ideas, I walked through my vision in a multi-paragraph, explicit prompt. It felt too taxing to the system, too grand in scope, and too out of touch with what I imagined. My prompt was realized as one big broken room filled with pill shaped characters and no simple way forward.
When I recount this story to Moonlake AI cofounder Sun Fun-Yun, he suggested starting smaller. Focusing on smaller interactions and building from there. (Even though he shared a few single-shot projects that hed made in one day, including this Centipede clone and postapocalyptic simulator).
So I did the human work, and racked my brain for days before landing on a new concept: A miniature chef runs back and forth with a giant ice cream cone, catching falling scoops of ice cream. They stack and get harder and harder to balance. From here, I could pursue all sorts of game loops, depending on what felt fun about it (maybe you got points for each scoop, maybe some flavor combinations introduced bonuses, maybe ice cream scoops you didn’t catch got in the way). But for now, I focused on this simple introduction.
[Screenshot: Moonlake AI]
I typed this request into the prompt on the left side of the interface. And much like ChatGPT, Moonlake got to work, praising me for my brilliant creative idea, and then breaking down the tasks that would need to be taken to bringing it to life.
Moonlake offered me an estimate of 1520 minutes to finish the job. Then it launched: Faster than I could possibly parse, the system created and worked through a checklist of to-dos. It needed to create graphic meshes, wobble mechanics, and sprites for my graphics. It researched topics it didnt readily understand. A mix of plain language explanations, and then hundreds of lines of code, populated into the chatbox, expanding and then consolidating away from my eyes.
[Video: courtesy of the author]
I was impressed by the decisions it made on its own, not just breaking down necessary tasks for a minimum viable product, but introducing a bouncy animation when the ice cream hit the cone (a detail I figured Id add in a polishing pass later). The system even said it was loading th game, and testing itspotting and squashing a few bugsbefore that magical button appeared in the big center box making up most of the UI: Play Game.
The moment reminded me of the first time I tried gen AI; this actually worked! Sort of!
[Video: courtesy of the author]
My first draft felt something out of the early PC gaming era. My chef was too big, cone was too small. And the ice creams wouldn’t stack.
But gosh, it got so much right about my simple pitch. The core vision was there. Ice cream fell at just the right pace from the sky. The scale of the entire scene felt right. The controls were all mapped without me needing to explain which key should do what. My chef . . . was something of a white blob stuck to a cone. He needed work. But Moonlake even did a decent job of creating a white tile kitchen background, with subtle sundaes printed upon it like murals.
[Video: courtesy of the author]
From there, I began lecturing the machine to fix the ice cream so it stacked. That created other issues. Ice cream started stacking, but would fall with any movement. Negotiating the feel led me to try all sorts of new prompts, and even as it failed and failed again, I started recognizing how the AI was translating ideas like stickiness into its own annotated code. Hours of casual updates in a tab in my browser followed.
Fixing the physics of the scoops was vexing. I ended up in a loop of not quite solved problems.
[Video: courtesy of the author]
But I also asked for a new chef, this one with a proper, giant hat, with little sweat marks poking out every time he changed directions. This entire idea, Moonlake nailed out of the gate. My exact preferred aesthetic? No. But it captured the vibe. I found myself pleased, but also realizing that polishing this experience into something that felt delightful would take a lot of work. Another day? A week? It was tough to tell.
The next morning, in a final ditch effort (I did have an article to file!), I decided to add a bunch of my lingering requests in one final push just to see what Moonlake could do. I wanted big multiplier scoring, a Kawaii graphic upgrade, and a few more fixes to my vexing scoop physics.
It was unfair to request all these updates at once, and almost sure to break something. Fifteen minutes of coding followed, while I grabbed a coffee. What I returned to? Largely my brief! A few new issues around ice cream slippage! A game over screen I didnt ask for! But, at last, a true gamebuilt for about 950 of my 1,500 monthly creditsand published for you to try with a button press.
(Moonlake is still determining pricing on extra credits.)
[Video: courtesy of the author]
Creating the frontier model
Like a lot of AI companies, Moonlake is only charging customers its cost of computingwhich is why the base subscription comes with a limited amount of credits to run the AI. Everyone believes that cost should go over time, which could either widen Moonlake’s margins on subscriptions, or simply be reinvested to make the platform more capable. But only when I ask how Moonlake trained its model do I really learn how it all works, and to some extent, why this video game generator even exists as a business.
Moonlake is an ever-growing AI model. However, its also really a video game building agent that takes your task and coordinates it with several specialized third party AI models that might handle anything from physics to asset generation. And its also growing into something even more ambitious as a result of sitting on top of so much existing AI power.
Ours is an orchestrator that learns to fuse these modalities together, says Fan-Yun. And over time, our model can actually be more and more capable and incorporate other models’ capabilities into our own.
But thats only the start of the strategy. As you vibecode in Moonlake, you are creating your own video game. You are also training Moonlakes own frontier modelwhat falls into a very hyped segment of world models or what Moonlake qualifies as multimodal modelsthat dont just rearrange words and concepts LLMs, but have a deep understanding of what the world is, how it works, and how all of its surfaces and touchpoints respond to inputs across physical space.
That means when I correct Moonlake, saying an ice cream scoop should stack and stick atop another scoop of ice cream, it effectively learns that scoops of ice cream stick atop one another. Multiply that across millions of highly specific user requests, and as Moonlake AI cofounder Sharon Lee explains, game design could provide a perfect training loop to feed countless data points about how we expect the world to work into these world models.
No, many or even most games don’t operate on real world physics which would translate 1:1 in some simulation. But in some cases they do, and Moonlake could extract such real physics for their own simulations. Furthermore, the founders believe the aforementioned causal relationships it’s mapping will still add a clarity to world models that’s otherwise hard to pin down.
There’s a gap between large language models today and semantics they understand, versus actually building [a] world out, says Lee. And they believe that gap can be closed with more, intentional data.
Today, researchers are trying to get these world inputs by renting Airbnbs and scanning the rooms with lasers, but that is relatively static information that is hard to scale. AI can also analyze videos to draw conclusions, but those lack the sharpness of human contextualization. As for video games? If you train a model on just a lot of Fortnite data, you know that you’re not going to really generalize to real world data, says Lee. [Our] data will just scale exponentially compared to hand curated data or collected data.
Even Googles Genie AI can generate a slew of amazing 3D worlds with some interactivity, but the interactions they afford are superficial at best.
I think the difference is sort of observing the world as it is, versus observing and understanding the world with causality, says Fan-Yun. And so causality is what Moonlake is after.
Gaming is a task for V1 of Moonlakes model because the user feedback loop can teach it so much, but in the future, the team imagines applying a more mature version of this model to other fields. They see opportunities to train the next generation of robotics or improving driverless cars. Lee says theyve even fielded calls from manufacturing companies, that imagine understanding the human side of the equationcould help identify human factors issues in product design and assembly line production.
The challenge, of course, is building Moonlake well enough that it produces games up to the standards of gamers, and that it continues investing in the product, so that people can restyle the entire graphics package with a button press, or easily export these games to sell on PC, iOS, or any other platform they would like.
These ideas are all on the road map. But for now, Moonlake AI offers an accessible trip into the vibe-coding era, all through the lens of fun.
Gabriela Flax spent the first part of her career working in tech as a product manager. And while every day was different and varied, there were aspects of it that were causing her burnout.
“I’ve always really enjoyed the product marketing aspect of my work,” she says. “I really like talking to end-users about ‘Hey, this is how this thing helps you’ and how to articulate that.” However, she wasn’t able to work on it as much as she would have liked.
At the same time, Flax was in her 20s, living in London, and had stopped drinking alcohol. She began posting her journey in social media, talking about bars and places that were non-alcohol related.
Flax recalls, “The more and more I did that, I started having brands reaching out to me saying, Hey, we’d love to partner with you. We have this event coming upwould you come and speak about what it’s like living in London in your 20s and not drinking?”
By weekends and nights, Flax was organizing events and creating a lot of user-generated content for brands. She was able to exercise her creative muscle and passion for marketing, all while getting paid for it. Eventually, she left her tech job to pursue what is now commonly known as a portfolio career: where individuals make a living from multiple projects and streams of income. Today, she continues to do events and marketing for non-alcoholic beverage brands, alongside her career-coaching business, Pivot School.
Making money through multiple means is not a new thing. But in a landscape where side-hustles, gig work, and freelance contracts have become the norm and at times necessary, Flax’s career trajectory is becoming more and more common.
A solution to burnout
Flax pursued a portfolio career because she felt burned out in her full-time tech job. The same can be said for Anna MacKenzie, who had the same feeling about being a founder. After spending a career in beauty and tech, MacKenzie cofounded a successful, award-winning podcast and events business. But as a “multi-passionate generalist,” MacKenzie eventually felt burned out.
“When you’re a founder, you have to pour absolutely everything into a brand and business,” she says. “I really felt this desire to do multiple things. The reason that I pivoted into a portfolio career, which I didn’t have the language for at the time, was that I was looking for something that was halfway between being an employee and being a founder.”
A portfolio career, MacKenzie explains, allows her to maintain the freedom and flexibility and control of her earning potential. However, unlike being a founder, it didn’t require “the responsibility of building a brand, building a business, and having contractors or a team.”
Today, MacKenzie’s work setup spans advising early-stage beauty startups on how to get into major retailers like Sephora, mentoring, and selling digital products that guide people in building these types of careers. She also does fractional work for tech companies, which is when a high-level professional provides their expertise to a company and joins a team on a temporary, contract, or project basis. This is slightly different than a consultant, who typically plays more of an advisory role and isn’t often embedded in a team.
But as Fast Company covered in a previous story about this trend, pursuing it can have the trappings of hustle culture. Rice University management professor Scott Sonenshein said that self-employed portfolio careerists can have trouble setting boundaries when it comes to workload. He explained, “You might feel like you always need to be working because theres more incremental money to be earned for taking on additional gigs, as opposed to what you might be doing if you were working full-time for a traditional employer.”
Being able to maintain a sense of control
For Tracie Sponenberg, preventing burnout is about being intentional with her schedule and work environment.
The former HR executive coach, keynote speaker, and consultant is having what she calls “one of the busiest months of her life.” Yet she feels nowhere close to burning out. For a few days, she can take a trip to South Carolina and work while overlooking the ocean. Things like that, she explains, “really help.”
Like Flax, Sponenberg experienced burnout during her corporate career (in Sponenberg’s case, in the aftermath of the pandemic). But since she’s been on her own, she’s been able to stay away from it. The decision to do this work, she explains, “and whether I succeed or fail is on me.” That sense of control, Sponenberg says, is what makes that feel like “huge relief” rather than a heavy burden.
For Flax, that sense of control has been extremely crucial to sustaining a portfolio career. She is aware that what hers looks like right now can change and evolve in the future.
“I think that’s the fun part,” she says. “If one piece works today, because you’re the one who is in charge of it, you also have the capacity to turn that part of the engine off.” If there are certain activities that no longer resonate, she explains, “I don’t have to ask permission for someone to stop doing that.”
Engineering a form of stability
Like any entrepreneurial venture, pursuing a this kind of employment does come with risks.
For MacKenzie, this was familiar territory as a founder. But when she decided to pivot into a portfolio career, she landed a lucrative contract, thanks to her extensive network that she’d built during her corporate career and previous business. Because of that, she was able to take her time to experiment and explore with what she wanted to do next. Having that kind of financial security without the stability of a full-time job is something that MacKenzie continues to prioritize.
“To this day, I’ve always had one reliable income stream. Whether that’s a client or a product, I know we’ll bring in enough revenue to cover my life,” she says.
Having this structure in place can also help prevent individuals from putting themselves in a position where they’re constantly selling, which can be a recipe for burnout. While Flax asserts that no contract roles are perfectly safe, being a freelancer where you’re having to pitch your services every single day is quite different from being a contractor with two fractional jobs who do a little bit of writing on the side.
What it takes to succeed
For some, this can also be a temporary arrangement. It can also be a way to build a career around a lifestyle change. MacKenzie believes that it’s a structure that new parents can benefit from, especially for those who are highly skilled.
“There’s an inherent flexibility in terms of how you design and structure your career,” she says. She also believes that it’s a strategic way for people to scale their careers outside of just client work.
But it’s not an arrangement that is suitable for everyone, at least for the long term. Flax says that she has seen many different archetypes try out portfolio careers. And in that time, she’s seen those with similar personality types and motivations both thrive and struggle.
The willingness to improve your risk tolerance
One of the key things that she believes will be crucial is one’s appetite for risk. You need to be someone who “finds the process of instability as something that they can gamify [and] conquer,” Flax explains. When people tell her that they want to pursue this path, she encourages them go ahead only if “not doing so will eat away at you.”
In many instances, this also requires you to put yourself out there, network, and build your personal brand. “If that’s not a line of activity that you’re willing to go down, it’s not impossible, but it’s going to make it harder,” she says.
If you don’t have a high tolerance for risk but still want to go down this path, Flax says, “you’ve got to want to strengthen that muscle.” And that can start when you’re still in your corporate job. Maybe you volunteer for a project that has the potential to fail big. Or perhaps you look for micro examples in your personal life where you can get more exposure to risks.
Alternatively, you can just take the jump and see how you react. Flax suggests, however, having a backup plan you can return to if you do decide that it isn’t for you.
Self-awareness and sustainability
Ultimately, maintaining a portfolio career for the long term requires a good sense of self-awareness.
Sponenberg, for example, knows what she’s good at (and what’s she’s not). When she started her business, she knew that cold calling and traditional business development wasn’t her forte. “What I do know how to do is help people and be really useful and offer advice,” she explains. And due to her multi-decade HR career in manufacturing and distribution, companies came to her for help. So she worked hard to be the go-to person for them anytime they had a people issue.
Flax also says that understanding your working style and tailoring your portfolio career around that is also important. This type of structure, she says is “great for people who are multi-hyphenates, who have so different interests and want to exercise those different parts. But be very conscious if context switching is going to cause you whiplash,” she says.
Flax recommends that at the start, you should be very conscious about how many components you introduce. This way, “you don’t feel overwhelmed by the ecosystem that you’ve built yourself,” she explains. “It can have two pieces to it that scratch very different parts of your brain,” she says. “It doesn’t need to look like a web.”
Accepting that it’s not for everyone
And if it turns out that it’s not something you’re able (or want) to sustain, Flax asserts that there’s no shame in going back to a nine-to-five.
“It is so okay to have a corporate job that pays your bills that you enjoy, ” she says. “I think there’s a bit of an anti-corporate or anti nine-to-five or anti-traditional work rhetoric that’s going on right now, largely driven by the freelance portfolio career self-employment world. It is not for everyone, and that is so okay.”
“It is one of the many ways to think about work. It is not the only way. My personal opinion is that yes, we are moving more towards a decentralized type of work. Having a portfolio career may, in the long term or the medium term, serve you well in that way. But I don’t think in our lifetime, there’s a reality in which no one has a corporate job anymore.”
If you stop by the as-is section at one of Ikeas U.S. stores, you might now find a vintage table from the 1980s.
The company recently started accepting older products in its Buy Back & Resell program, which gives customers store credit for bringing back used items, and then offers them for sale to other customers. Since launching as a pilot in the U.S. five years ago, the programstill the only one of its kind at a major furniture retailerhas steadily expanded, underscoring the demand for circular options.
The program is our opportunity to bring our products back into the store from our customers to keep them out of landfill, says Mardi Ditze, sustainability manager for Ikea U.S.
[Photo: Ikea]
U.S. stores recently started taking back 700 additional SKUs through the program, from vintage furniture to glassware. Last year, customers brought back 14,700 products, growing from 8,000 in 2023. Most resold within 48 to 72 hours.
The brands resale program is also growing globally. Ingka Group, the largest Ikea franchise that operates stores in 31 countries, sourced nearly 690,000 used Ikea products for resale last year. Part of the appeal, especially in the current economy, is the fact that the secondhand products have a built-in discount.
We’ve always had a focus on creating value for money for customers, and this strengthens our low-price offer, says Karen Pflug, chief sustainability officer for Ingka Group. Our research shows that even though we feel we’re affordable, it can still be a barrier for some people. So the secondhand offers a whole new level of affordability.
[Photo: Ikea]
Selling secondhand products doesnt cannibalize the companys sales of new products. Instead, its helping bring in some new customers who are looking for lower-priced options. Customers who bring in their own used products to resell typically spend more than the value of the voucher that they get for the return.
“Our experience has been that when a customer comes and successfully has a buyback resale transaction, has a store credit in their hand, they are likely thinking about what their next purchase is going to be,” says Ditze. “That transaction could happen as soon as that day, and that gift card gets applied to the purchase that they were thinking about doing.”
Ikea also offers a peer-to-peer resale option in a handful of countries, with plans to expand this year. Customers who want to resell something scan their product with Ikea’s app, and then automatically get price recommendations, measurements, descriptions, assembly instructions, and professional product photos for their listing, helping remove some of the friction of posting an ad yourself on another platform like eBay or Facebook Marketplace. Sellers also get either cash or a 15% digital refund card that they can use at Ikea.
Left: a page from a 1979 Ikea catalog with the Billy bookcase. Right: a newer iteration of the Billy, ca. 2022. [Photos: Ikea]
The work is part of Ikea’s larger effort to become a circular company, meaning that it keeps products and materials in use as long as possible, shifts to recycled and renewable materials, and eliminates waste throughout the supply chain. Inter Ikea, the part of the brand that handles design, is also beginning to redesign products for longevity. The classic Billy bookcase, for example, now has more resilient materials and snap-in attachments instead of nails in the back, so it can be disassembled and reassembled more quicklyand more easily be resold and moved.
Ikea has also long offered free parts to repair products if a screw is lost, and sofa covers to help furniture stay in use longer if it gets a stain. Some stores in Europe have tested repair programs for resold items. Ikea is actively finding new recycling options for when products do wear out completelyor if they can’t easily be resold because of hygiene reasons. The company invested in a mattress recycling startup, for example, which can harvest parts from springs to foam for use in new mattresses. And by 2030, Ikea is aiming for a third of the wood in its products to be recycled.
“One part of it is creating a closed-loop circular stream for ourselves because of resource materials coming in,” says Pflug. “But the other is just doing the right thing from a circular economy point of view.”
[Photo: Ikea]
On the resale front, Ikea is tapping into momentum that alread existed. In Europe, Pflug says that Ikea products make up around 9% of the secondhand furniture market. But the company’s efforts could help nudge more people to take the time to give items a second life rather than throwing them out. Other brands could follow the same approach.
“Customers already see the value of our products but also the value of secondhand furniture in general, and are doing it themselves,” says Pflug. “So if you want to have a part of that conversation and a part of that market, you have to make sure you’re being accessible and affordable and removing the barriers and pain points for people to do it. I think that’s when you’ll then get the demand.”
On January 23rd, outside an elementary school in Santa Monica, California, a Waymo vehicle hit a child.
Thats what we know for sure.
It sounds shocking, horrifying even. And its already giving plenty of groups cover to demand that California revoke Waymos license to operate its cars.
But the details matter. And once you start digging a bit, the scary headline about a kid struck down by a heartless robot clearly isnt the whole story.
In fact, accidents like this provide a lens through which to improve both human and robot drivingand even save lives.
Braking Hard
The specifics of the incident in Santa Monica are still coming out. As it does with any potential safety incident involving a self-driving car, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration is actively investigating.
That investigationas well as a voluntary statement from Waymois already revealing quite a lot of nuance.
It appears that the incident happened during drop off time at the SoCal school. A Waymo vehicle appears to have been driving among vehicles operated by parents delivering their kids.
As often happens during stressful school dropoffs (I have three kids, so believe me, I know!), a large SUV had double-parked, blocking part of the roadway.
As the Waymo approached the double-parked SUV, a child ran out from behind the SUV and into the roadway, directly in front of the Waymo.
The next bit is crucial. Waymo says that its vehicle …braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact was made.
Waymo doesnt specify the exact distances involved. But dropping 11mph in a split second represents a slamming-on of the brakes, not a gentle slowdown. Its an aggressive move. And it may very well have saved a life.
Waymo says thatbecause its vehicle was traveling only 6mph when it made contact with the childthe pedestrian stood up immediately and walked to the sidewalk on their own.
Waymo called 911 and reported the incident to authorities. The company initially said that the child sustained minor injuries, but its not clear what injuries, if any, actually happened.
The Problem With People
To be clear, any time a child gets hit by a car, its a horrible incident. Its good that the NHTSA is investigating. As a parent, I feel for the parents involved hereseeing your kid hit by any vehicle must be terrifying.
But before drawing any broader conclusions about the safety of self-driving cars, its important to consider the question: Would a human driver have handled this situation any better?
SafeKids, an advocacy organization, reports that between 2013 and 2022 almost 200 school-aged kids were killed in school zone accidents.
And thats only kids. Just days before the Waymo incident, two parents were killed in a crosswalk after dropping their child off at a different California school.
Why do so many people die on the way to school? Speed and distraction are the two biggest factors.
SafeKids reports that as many as 10% of drivers are distracted while driving in school zonesmostly by phones and other devices.
3% of drivers observed by the group were even seen using two devices at the same timeperhaps fumbling with a Bluetooth headset while also trying to sign their kid into school on their cellphone.
And most school zones, the group reports, have speed limits that are way too highunder 20mph is ideal, but most are 25mph+
Not that drivers follow those, anywayother data shows that when drivers hit kids in school zones, theyre traveling an average of 27 miles per hour.
Human drivers, in other words, make tons of mistakes. Especially with the stress of traffic and the pressure to avoid the dreaded late pass, its all too easy for parents to speed and to take their eyes off the road during dropoff.
Sadly, when kids are involvedwith their propensity to dart into the road, as happened in Santa Monicathat combo of speed and distraction means that people die.
Worse With a Person?
Again, that begs the question, in the context of Waymos incident, of whether a person would have done better than an AI-powered robot.
Lets assume, for a moment, that a human was behind the wheel of the vehicle in Santa Monica. What might have gone down differently?
The average human reaction time while driving is about of a second. When the child darted into the road, that means their cargoing 17mphwould have traveled about 19 feet before the driver would even perceive the presence of a pedestrian.
Perhaps they would have immediately slammed on the brakes. But the NHTSA itself says that most people dont. Whether through surprise or simply a delay in processing, drivers consistently underbrake, even in potentially fatal accidents.
With a person behind the wheel, its thus likely that the child in Santa Monica would have been hit at a much higher speed.
Waymo says that its own independent models show a fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph.
And again, most drivers in school zones arent fully attentive. As SafeKids points out, theyre distracted, rushing, and speeding.
Waymos arent perfect by any means. But they consistently follow speed limitssometimes to a fault.
And because theyre constantly scanning the road, they react faster than peopleand hit the brakes hard when they see something even remotely concrning. They never check their phones or try to shave while ferrying passengers around.
When a 5,000 robot kits a kid, theres a natural human tendency to vilify the robot. But in this specific case, the question of whether a person could have done better is far from clear.
Optimize for Safety
That doesnt mean we should crucify autonomous vehiclesnor does it mean we should let them off the hook.
The NHTSAs investigation will probably come down to a question not of whether Waymo outperformed a human in this incident, but rather whether self-driving cars could do more to keep kids safe near schools.
Indeed, NHTSA says its specifically investigating whether the Waymo AV exercised appropriate caution given, among other things, its proximity to the elementary school during drop off hours, and the presence of young pedestrians and other potential vulnerable road users.
Given that Waymos can be programmed to behave a certain way in specific circumstanceand will do so consistently once the parameters are setthey provide a unique opportunity to set even higher safety standards than we apply to humans.
Again, SafeKids says that most school zones have speed limits above the 20mph ideal. Theres no reason, though, that Waymo couldnt program their cars to consistently travel at a slower speed when in a school zone at pickup or dropoff times.
Perhaps Waymos could always travel 15mph when traversing an active school zone.
That might bug the hell out of parents navigating the pickup line, but it would keep kids safer in the event of an accident. Waymos near schools could even serve as moving traffic calming devices, forcing distracted, impatient human drivers behind them to slow down, too!
Likewise, Waymo could set parameters that instruct their vehicles to slow to a crawl when approaching a double parked car near a school. SafeKids specifically calls out double parking as a big risk factor for accidents near schools.
Thankfullywhether through Waymos ingenious driving (in the companys telling) or dumb luckthis incident ended with a kid walking away alive. But thats not a reason to dismiss what happened.
Rather, incidents like this provide a unique opportunity to define societys rules for challenging circumstances like driving near kidsand then program them into a machine that (unlike people) will actually follow them.
Asking the tough questions required to set those guidelinesand holding the reality that scary incidents are also learning experiencesis a lot harder than simply blaming the robots and reverting to the human-powered status quo.
But with kids dying in school zones every year, learning the right lessons from accidents like this is absolutely crucialeven life-saving.
Most of us assume bullying is something we age out of by middle school, high school at the latest. By the time youre a professionalespecially one with credentials, experience, and a résumé you worked hard foryou expect a baseline of mutual respect.
And yet.
If youve spent enough time in workplaces, on boards, or in other community organizations, youve probably had that moment where your stomach tightens in a meeting and youre not entirely sure why. A comment lands sideways. A tone shifts. Someone interrupts you for the third time. You walk away replaying the exchange, wondering whether you imagined it or whether something subtle but unmistakable just happened.
That confusion is often the first sign youre dealing with a workplace bully.
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Wait, whats going on?
Explosive behavior at work is disorienting precisely because it violates the story were told about professionalism. Were taught that adult leadership comes with emotional control. So when someone yells, slams a table, or lashes out publicly, people scramble to explain it away. It gets framed as stress. Passion. A bad day. A one-off.
Individually, each outburst can be rationalized. Collectively, they form a pattern.
These incidents tend to look like sudden escalations in meetings, disproportionate reactions to small problems, or public reprimands that feel designed to humiliate rather than correct. The volume may drop later, but the message sticks: this person can explode, and you dont want to be the target.
Over time, the workplace begins to organize itself around that volatility: People self-censor, meetings narrow, feedback travels sideways instead of up, and decisions get made to avoid triggering another episode rather than to serve the work itself.
At that point, the outbursts are no longer just moments of poor regulation. Theyve become a mechanism of control.
This isnt about communication style or personality. Its about power and the use of fear and unpredictability to enforce it.
Power is the throughline
Bullies rely on ambiguity and asymmetry. They say just enough to destabilize you, but not enough to get themselves in trouble. They benefit from your hesitationyour desire to be reasonable, professional, and not make a thing out of nothing. And often, theyre counting on the fact that you have more to lose than they do.
This is where so much well-meaning advice falls flat. Telling someone to just address it directly ignores the very real calculations people are making about hierarchy, reputation, and risk.
Before we talk about what to do, its worth naming how context shapes the experience.
What helps in the moment
When something inappropriate happens in real time, your nervous system often takes over before your language does. Thats normal. The goal isnt to deliver a perfect response, but rather have a few low-drama phrases available that interrupt the behavior without escalating it.
A few examples:
Can you clarify what you mean by that?
I want to pause for a secondI wasnt finished.
Im open to feedback, just not in this format.
Lets keep this focused on the work.
Id rather discuss that privately.
These responses work not because theyre confrontational, but because theyre steady. They shift the interaction back to neutral ground and signal that youre paying attention.
If you dont say anything in the moment, that doesnt mean you missed your chance.
The quieter work that matters more
What happens after the interaction often matters more than what happens during it.
Start by documenting patterns, not impressions. Include dates, contexts, exact language, who was present, and what the impact was. This isnt about building a case right away; its about anchoring yourself in facts when self-doubt starts creeping in.
Then, reality-test with care. Choose people who are perceptive and discreetnot those who default to minimizing or catastrophizing. Ask specific questions. Did you notice X? tends to be more useful than Am I crazy?
When the bully is your boss
This is where advice needs to be especially honest.
When the person mistreating you controls your evaluations, assignments, or future opportunities, the calculus shifts. Speaking up isnt just about courage; its about strategy. HR may feel unsafe. Direct confrontation may backfire. Silence may feel like the only viable optionfor now.
If youre in this position and wondering why it feels so hard to just say something, thats not weakness, its being realistic.
If your manager is the problem, direct confrontation may not be the safest or most effective option. In these cases, the most important question isnt how to change them, its how to protect yourself.
That might mean keeping communication in writing. Looping others into key conversations. Reducing exposure where possible. Building alliances quietly. Exploring internal transfers. Updating your résumé before you think you need to.
Leaving is not a failure. Staying and absorbing chronic disrespect is not resilience. Over time, it erodes your confidence in ways that can be surprisingly hard to undo.
The myth of just be more professional
People dealing with workplace bullying are often toldexplicitly or implicitlyto be more professional. What this usually translates to is being quieter, more accommodating, and less visibly affected.
Professionalism does not require self-erasure.
It requires judgment. It requires discernment. And sometimes, it requires deciding that an environment is incompatible with your values or your well-beingeven if you could technically survive it.
What bullying really costs
One of the most under-discussed aspects of workplace bullying is how much energy it consumes. The mental replaying. The strategizing. The vigilance. All of that cognitive load gets diverted away from creativity, leadership, and actual satisfaction in your work.
Over time, people dont just lose confidence; they lose range, they speak less, take fewer risks and shrink their presence in rooms where they once belonged comfortably.
Addressing bullying isnt about winning or proving toughness. Its about reclaiming agency.
Sometimes that looks like speaking up. Sometimes it looks like documenting and planning. Sometimes it looks like choosing a different room altogether.
What matters most is making those choices consciously, without self-blame, and with a clear-eyed understanding of what you deserve at work.
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After 50, too many women reduce their working hours, become trapped in lower-quality jobs, or exit the labor market altogether. Part-time employment becomes more prevalent as women age. The gender gap widens. For women, this means lower lifetime earnings and significantly smaller pensions. Many are calling this phenomenon the menopause penaltya midlife equivalent of the motherhood penalty. And indeed, research suggests that womens earnings drop in the years following a menopause diagnosis.
But while menopause clearly plays a role, there is a risk in attributing these economic setbacks too narrowly to biology. Doing so not only oversimplifies womens lived realitiesit also medicalizes what are fundamentally social and organizational problems. Menopause matters. But it rarely acts alone.
A convergence of pressures and setbacks
Midlife is often the most demanding phase of womens lives. Menopause tends to coincide with a series of other life shocks that disproportionately affect women. Caregiving responsibilities intensify: aging parents begin to need support, while many women are still helping children or even grandchildren. The sandwich generation is squeezed between upward and downward care.
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Meanwhile, serious health risks increaseincluding breast cancer and chronic illness. Divorce is also common in midlife and comes with major financial and emotional consequences. The death of a parent is another major shock that frequently occurs in midlife and is largely invisible in workplace thinkinggrief doesnt fit into a few days of leave but often brings lasting exhaustion and difficulty concentrating.
Overlay all of this with growing exposure to ageism in the workplace and it becomes clear that menopause is rarely the only culprit. Yes, symptoms such as fatigue, hot flashes, or brain fog can make work harder to sustain. But menopause comes at a moment of cumulative strain. It does not create the inequalities. It amplifies those that already exist.
When work refuses to adapt
Many jobs are still designed for a worker who is endlessly available, physically resilient, emotionally stable, and largely free from caregiving responsibilities. Menopause symptoms collide with these unrealistic expectations.
Instead of redesigning workadjusting schedules, reducing unnecessary presenteeism, offering autonomy, improving ergonomic conditions and workplaces, or recognizing fluctuating capacityorganizations implicitly ask women to adapt their bodies. And when they cannot, the choices available are reducing hours, stepping back from responsibility, refusing promotions, accepting less visible roles, or leaving work altogether.
From the outside, this looks like individual preference. Thats why the menopause penalty looks exactly like the motherhood penalty. Neither is caused simply by biology. Both result from the collision between life stages and rigid work systems built around male, uninterrupted career norms.
The penalty is also reinforced by stereotypes. Menopause is still associated with emotional volatility, decline, and loss of competence. Many women fear being perceived as less reliable or less ambitious. Some avoid high-visibility projects. Others turn down leadership roles or client-facing positions simply because they fear exposure. Menopause stereotypes are like sexism on steroids.
Economically, the menopause penalty represents a massive loss of human capital. Women in their late 40s, 50s, and early 60s often hold their highest levels of skill, institutional knowledge, and professional experience. When they reduce hours or leave work prematurely, organizations lose leadership potential, mentoring capacity, and expertise.
The danger of medicalizing inequality
There is an increasing push to frame menopause primarily as a health issue requiring medical solutionsmore awareness campaigns, more diagnoses, more treatments.
Dont get me wrong: better healthcare really does matter. Too many women suffer unnecessarily because of lack of information, poor medical support, or lingering fears around hormone therapies. For those with severe symptoms, treatment can be life-changing.
But there is a real risk in making menopause the central explanation for midlife economic inequality. When reduced earnings or stalled careers are blamed mainly on hormonal changes, it obscures the role of workplaces, the gendered division of unpaid work, insufficient care infrastructure, ageism, and broader social, political, and corporate issues.
It suggests that if women simply managed their symptoms better, the problem would disappear. We often medicalize social problems. For example, we prescribe antidepressants without addressing poverty, violence, overwork, or isolation.
Hormone therapy may ease hot flashes and prevent osteoporosis (and thats a lot). But it wont pay the rent, restart a stalled career, restore lost pension rights, or compensate for years of unpaid care work. Pills dont fix ageism. They dont erase structural inequality.
Lets redesign work for long lives
1. Design work for sustainability. Most jobs are still built around an ideal worker who is always available, endlessly energetic, and free from responsibilities outside work. This model breaks down over long working lives. Companies should rethink workloads, hours, and performance expectations to allow for fluctuating capacity over time. Focusing on outputs rather than presence, reducing unnecessary urgency, and normalizing lower-intensity periods would make careers more sustainable.
2. Make flexibility the norm. When flexible working is treated as an exception, it carries invisible penalties (slower progression, reduced visibility). To avoid turning flexibility into a career trap, companies should offer autonomy over hours and location by default and ensure flexible workers are not sidelined.
3. Confront ageism head-on. Many midlife career setbacks for women are inseparable from age discrimination. Employers should track pay, promotions, and evaluations by age and gender, challenge stereotypes in leadership cultures, and ensure development opportunities exist throughout careers.
4. Recognize caregiving as a normal life-stage reality. Midlife is often when care responsibilities peakfor aging parents, ill relatives, or extended familyyet workplace policies remain focused on early parenthood. Companies should expand support to include eldercare flexibility. When caregiving is ignored or treated as a personal inconvenience, many women quietly reduce hours or exit.
5. Address menopause openly. Raising awareness and training managers can reduce stigma and improve support. But if rigid schedules, long hours, and unforgiving performance models remain, women are left to manage symptoms within broken systems. Menopause initiatives must go hand in hand with reforms in job design, flexibility, and inclusionor risk becoming symbolic rather than effective.
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Housing affordability is a top concern for many Americans, and both chambers of Congress have been advancing legislation to help prospective homeownersthough it may take years for those benefits to actually materialize.
This past week, the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill called the Housing for the 21st Century Act, which aims to increase the supply of affordable housing. That sets the stage for some political wrangling ahead. The Senate previously passed its own bipartisan legislation in October as part of a broader package, before it was stripped from the final bill, and it is now considering the stand-alone bill, the ROAD to Housing Act. Ultimately, the two chambers must agree on a final version of a housing bill that will also get support from President Donald Trump.
The legislation targets a top concern for Americans. More than 6 in 10 adults (62%) say they are very concerned about the cost of housingtrailing only behind the cost of healthcare (71%) and the price of food and consumer goods (66%), according to the results of a survey of more than 8,500 people conducted by the Pew Research Center in late January.
The Houses legislation marks an important step forward, even if it wont magically fix a crisis that has developed over time and will be similarly resolved in time, according to David M. Dworkin, president and CEO of the National Housing Conference, a nonprofit thats focused on affordable housing.
We got into this crisis one unit at a time, and we will get out of it the same wayone unit at a timethrough a range of coordinated strategies that expand supply, reduce costs, and improve access to affordable homes, Dworkin said in a statement celebrating the passage of the legislation.
Even though it could take time to benefit prospective homeowners, here is how the House bill addresses housing affordability.
MODERNIZES FEDERAL HOUSING AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
One of the primary goals of the Houses legislation is to streamline the federal and local housing process so that more housing can be built more quickly. And among the densest sections of the 202-page legislation is the section focused on modernizing local development and rural housing programs.
The legislation takes aim at revising federal housing programs to eliminate regulatory bottlenecks and expand financing for affordable housing. The legislation also expands how funds can be used to include paying for new construction.
INCREASES ELIGIBILITY FOR GRANT PROGRAMS
Another major goal of the House legislation is to ensure that federal grant programs reach a broader segment of the population. The legislation significantly expands the criteria to qualify for existing housing grants. One such example is adjusting the HOME Investment Partnerships Program so that income eligibility caps are raised to 100% of the median-family income of the area, and so the program can support more middle-income families.
The bill also introduces new grants that are designed to incentivize local entities to reform their land-use policies and update zoning codes. These grants again target potential local regulatory hurdles that have deterred investment in affordable housing.
FAST-TRACKS ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW PROCESS
Again targeting potential barriers to construction activities, the legislation streamlines the review process required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by exempting certain housing-related activities. Specifically, the bill creates categorical exclusions for certain smaller-scale projects.
The legislation also eliminates duplicative environmental reviews so that housing thats received approval for one federal assistance program doesnt have to undergo another review if the scope, scale, and location of the project remain substantially unchanged.
MODERNIZES MANUFACTURED HOUSING STANDARDS
Finally, the bill envisions a future of more manufactured housing by again changing some of the requirements related to this type of construction that might address the availability of affordable housing.
One of the biggest changes this legislation makes is that it strikes just four words from legislation thats been on the books for more than 50 years: It eliminates the requirement that manufactured homes must be constructed with a permanent chassis. It also updates the construction and safety standards for manufactured homes.
IMPACT ON HOMEBUYERS
Even though it will take time for these changes to roll through the system and benefit prospective homebuyers, trade groups across the various facets of the housing industry celebrated the passage of the House bill.
That said, there could be some hurdles to getting a final piece of legislation across the linepartly because President Trump is pressing Republicans to include a measure that will curb large investors purchases of single-family homes.
Even so, advocates are optimistic that bipartisan support of housing affordability legislation will continue.
Bold action to expand supply and remove barriers to homeownership has never been more urgent, Shannon McGahn, executive vice president and chief advocacy officer for the National Association of Realtors, said in a statement. This legislation takes a comprehensive approach to increasing housing production, modernizing critical federal programs, and strengthening pathways to credit and homeownership.
Tax filing season is in full swing, and while preparing your taxes can often be filled with stress, misplaced documents, and worries about proper filing, this year, there may be a silver lining. According to analysts, many Americans may get larger refunds in 2026 due to Trump’s 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill legislation.
Last year, the average refund was $3,167, but, given there are a number of new changes and deductions, experts say many Americans are looking to get back an additional $1,000 or more. Overall, that could come out to around $90 billion more dollars in tax returns.Here are the biggest changes that could boost your tax refund this year:
No tax on overtime
One of the biggest changes hitting tax filers this year is that overtime hours won’t be taxed. Under the newly signed legislation, there is now a deduction for up to $12,500 of qualifying overtime wages. According to the Tax Policy Center, the law will make for an average tax cut of $1,400. The change applies from this year through 2028.
Larger child tax credit
One change many Americans will see on their tax returns this year is an increase to the Child Tax Credit (CTC). The credit will go from $2,000 per child (under 17 at the end of last year) to $2,200 per child (up from $2,000). The credit begins to phase out for married couples filing jointly with an Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) over $400,000 and $200,000 for single filers.
A new senior deduction
This year, those over 65 are set to receive a new $6,000 Senior Deduction ($12,000 for married couples filing jointly). The temporary deduction is available for 20252028, but there are income limits. The deduction is only for those earning under $75,000 ($150,000 for married couples).
No tax on tips
Tips also won’t be taxed this year, although there are limitations based on the taxpayers income, occupation, and type of work. Still, those that rely on tips, such as servers, drivers, and more, can deduct up to $25,000 from their taxable income. The benefit won’t apply for anyone with a modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) above $150,000 (or $300,000 for couples). The deduction is scheduled to expire after 2028/
Change to standard deduction
There’s also a change in the standard deduction this year. For single taxpayers the dedication is $15,750 and $31,500 for joint filers. For heads of households, the standard deduction is $23,625. Overall, the new deductions make for an increase of 7.9% since last year.
Change to state and local (SALT) deduction
The SALT deduction, which allows taxpayers who itemize to deduct up to a certain limit of state and local income/sales and property taxes from their federal taxable, will see a temporary increase in the cap. For the 2025 tax year the deduction will increase from $10,000 to $40,000. For high tax states, that could make a huge dent in overall deductions. Still, when it comes to this particular dedication, most people won’t see the benefit at all. That’s because most people don’t earn enough to itemize deductions and are better off taking the standard deduction. Those in the 1% to 5% income bracket are set to receive the largest benefit of the change.
In the United States, its one of our annual holidays today, Presidents Day, which celebrates the dozens of American presidents weve had over the centuries. But on the other side of the world, an even larger holiday is kicking off: Chinese New Year. Heres what you need to know about the festival and its importance to the millions of Chinese Americans in the United States.
What is Chinese New Year?
Chinese New Year, also known as the Lunar New Year or, in China, the Spring Festival, is an annual holiday that marks the beginning of the new lunar year. Unlike many Western holidays, the lunar new year does not have a fixed date. Instead, it typically falls on the full moon closest to Spring.
But the Lunar New Year is just the beginning of the festivities in China. It kicks off the beginning of the Spring Festival, which continues for the first week of the new year. Given the cultural importance of the holiday period, hundreds of millions of Chinese travel each year to be with their families and loved ones, making it the worlds largest annual migration event.
As Reuters notes, the Lunar New Year travel period officially began on February 2 and will run for 40 days. During this time, Chinese officials estimate that 9.5 billion domestic trips will be made related to the holiday period. Thats nearly half a billion more trips than last year.
When is Chinese New Year?
This year, the Lunar New Year falls on Tuesday, February 17 in China. But, as with the Gregorian New Year on January 1, celebrants hold festivities the night before, leading up to midnight.
In this way, Lunar New Years Eve falls on Monday, February 16 in China, just as New Years Eve is celebrated on December 31 in the West.
However, because China is 13 to 18 hours ahead of America, both Lunar New Years Eve and Lunar New Years Day in China fall on Monday, February 16, in the United States. However, many who celebrate the festivities in America often stick with the local time zone midnight divide.
Whats the significance of the horse?
Each new Lunar New Year is represented by one of 12 animals. The animals correspond to the Chinese Zodiac.
This year, for the Lunar New Year that commenses on February 17, is the Year of the Horse. The horse represents hard work, bravery, and resilience, according to the Smithsonian.
Are businesses closed on Chinese New Year or Chinese New Years Eve in America?
In most years, usually not. While millions of Americans celebrate the Chinese New Year, its not an official federal or state holiday. However, as Lunar New Years Eve 2026 falls on today, the same day as Presidents Day 2026 in America, the same businesses and institutions that are closed for Presidents Day will also be closed on Chinese New Years Eve.
Fast Company has a rundown of the businesses and government offices that are closed on Presidents Day.
Where can I celebrate Chinese New Year?
Millions of Americans celebrate the Chinese New Year every year. As with the Gregorian New Year, many choose to celebrate it in their homes with their families.
However, public Chinese New Year celebration events are held all over America as well. If youve got a Chinatown in your area, its worth popping by to see what festivities are being held.
After more than a decade of planning, an overlooked side of the ski haven of Aspen, Colorado, will soon be revamped into a new base village.
Named Chalet Alpina and covering two-and-a-half city blocks, the development will build a new modern ski lift that is closer to the city’s downtown and flank it with a luxury hotel and residences, a restaurant and ski museum inside relocated historic chalet buildings, and a broad new public plaza.
The project, which broke ground last fall, is situated at the loading point of the 1937 tow line that was the city’s first mechanized route up the mountain. Remnants of the steel lift that replaced it a decade later will be preserved as part of the project. With cost estimates totaling nearly $350 million and an expected completion in 2029, the 200,000-square-foot project will “fundamentally change” Aspen Mountain, according to a local official.
[Image: courtesy of Chalet Alpina]
Jason Grosfeld, CEO of Irongate Group, the project’s lead developer, says the change is much needed and will provide skiers a more accessible alternative to Aspen’s existing ski base village, known as the Little Nell site. “That’s been built out for years. It’s wonderful, it’s great. People love it,” he says. The side of the mountain where he’s developing Chalet Alpina, however, “has been a little bit forgotten,” he notes.
The Lift One site in the 1960s. [Photo: Aspen Historical Society]
As the site of the city’s first ski lift, this area certainly had a heyday, but Grosfeld says a decision in the 1970s to build a replacement lift that required skiers to walk a bit higher up the mountain to get on board pushed more activity to the Little Nell side. “That was sort of the beginning of the end of this area. In fact, in the ’50s and ’60s and even a little later than that, this area was actually pretty vibrant,” Grosfeld says.
He sees the Chalet Alpina project as a chance to breathe life into this side of the mountain. “I’ve been skiing in in Aspen since I was about seven or eight years old,” he says. “I am incredibly nostalgic about what skiing did for my childhood and my kids’ childhood, and what it still does for me. And so I really did want to bring that back.”
[Image: courtesy of Chalet Alpina]
A close vote and a decade of development
Set in one of the most prestigious and expensive ski resort towns in the U.S., the project has endured a lengthy approval process and no shortage of opposition from developer-weary locals. Plans first started taking shape in the early 2010s, and Grosfeld says the project was shaped by extensive community outreach. A 2019 public vote on the project passed by 0.8%, a margin of just 26 votes.
The slow motion is partly due to the project’s unique makeup. It’s technically a complex combination of land parcels owned by Irongate Group and local developer HayMax Capital, the Aspen Skiing Company, the City of Aspen, and the luxury hotel company Aman Group, all of which had to collaborate to lay out a plan for the project, while also appeasing locals. Permits for the project began to solidify in 2023 and the project was cleared for construction in 2025.
“It’s been over a decade since we started this and it’s been really, really time consuming, and really difficult, but also really, really meaningful,” Grosfeld says. “Many developers don’t get that opportunity in a lifetime. So we’re super lucky and we’re treating the opportunity with the care and attention that it deserves.”
[Image: courtesy of Chalet Alpina]
Callbacks to the past, designed for the present
Working from the beginning of the project with New York-based Guerin Glass Architects, Grosfeld says the project was deeply shaped by the historic nature of the site, including the 1940s-era steel chair lift structure that will be preserved, as well as the two mid-century chalet buildings that are being relocated and retrofitted. (One will be turned into a restaurant; the other into a ski museum, in partnership with the Aspen Historical Society.)
[Image: courtesy of Chalet Alpina]
Scott Glass, cofounder of Guerin Glass Architects, says elements of these historic structures helped shape the new project, both in the forms of the buildings and in their details. “First and foremost, we wanted to be really intentional about the way the building sits on the site and how it cascades down the hill,” he says. “It doesn’t get too big in any single place, and it really feels like it’s part of the slope.”
[Image: courtesy of Chalet Alpina]
The design team pulled on other elements of the surroundings, right down to some board formed retaining walls put in place back in the 1940s, which they then used to inform the look of various walls, planters, and even the ski hut at the base of the extended ski lift.
It’s all in service of blending the project into the city and the mountain. After all, a ski run splices right through the project’s site, making it a gateway to a new Aspen base village. “For us, one of the real treats and important elements of the project is the public nature of everything,” Glass says. “It’s a resort hospitality project, but it’s also a ski museum and a portal to one of the more important elements of the town.”
[Image: courtesy of Chalet Alpina]
Some of these details have had more than a decade to coalesce. Grosfeld says that drawn out timeline, grueling as it may have felt at times, ultimately made the entire project better. “The nice thing about a long process is we get to stare at this thing for like 10 years before we’ve even built it,” he says. “We’ve been staring at these renderings for a long, long time and nobody’s sick of them yet. I can’t say that for every rendering that I’ve stared at for a long time.”
