At 10:24 p.m., while brushing his teeth, my husbands phone pings.
Its not an emergency. No one is bleeding. No building is on fire. Its an email that begins with the words, Just circling back.
In France, this would be illegal. Or at least deeply frowned upon. Since 2017, French workers at companies with more than 50 employees have had a legally protected right to disconnect. That means, employers cant expect workers to answer emails or messages after hours. Similar policies exist across Europe, including Spain, Belgium, and Greece.
Meanwhile, in America, were circling back at bedtime.
{"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2015\/08\/erikaaslogo.png","headline":"Girl, Listen: A Guide to What Really Matters","description":"Ericka dives into the heat of modern motherhood, challenging the notion that personal identity must be sacrificed at the altar of parenting. ","substackDomain":"https:\/\/erickasouter.substack.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
The Country That Turned “Always On” Into a Personality Trait
In theory, Americans love freedom. In practice, we seem to love productivity even more.
Historically, we dont just work, we identify with our work. We humblebrag about being slammed. We apologize for vacations. We wear burnout like a well-earned Miss America crown. The unspoken rule is clear: If youre not reachable, youre not serious.
Ive interviewed hundreds of working parents over the years, and one thing comes up again and again: Its not just the workload that is crushing them, its the anticipation of it. The constant low-grade anxiety that an email could arrive at any moment. That their boss might just need one thing. Silence could be interpreted as laziness.
Work doesnt end anymore. Its like the constant background noise of our personal lives.
Americas Love Affair with Hustle Culture (and Why We Cant Quit It)
Heres the uncomfortable truth: We dont just tolerate hustle culture, we reward it.
We promote the people who respond fastest. We praise the ones who go above and beyond. We quietly penalize the ones who protect their time, especially women and parents. Especially mothers.
Disconnecting in America isnt seen as healthy; its seen as risky.
And thats the difference between us and Europe. In France, disconnecting is a labor right. In the U.S., its a personal boundary you have to negotiate politely without inconveniencing anyone important. Good luck with that.
The Myth That Availability Equals Value
One of the biggest lies of modern work is that responsiveness equals commitment.
But study after study shows the opposite. Constant availability leads to burnout, cognitive fatigue, poorer decision-making, and lower creativity. When your brain never powers down, it doesnt perform better; it performs worse.
And yet, here we are. Answering emails from the sidelines of the soccer field and Slack-ing during bedtime. Weve turned the ability to be interrupted into a marketable job skill.
So, Could a Right to Disconnect Ever Work Here?
Legally? Maybe. Culturally? Thats a higher hurdle. Because Americas resistance to disconnecting isnt just about logistics. Its about identity. Work isnt just what we do; its who we are. For many of us, especially in an economy as frighteningly precarious as ours, being reachable feels like job protection.
Until we change what we reward, no policy will fully save us.
A right to disconnect would only work in America if we stopped confusing exhaustion with ambition and availability with worth.
What Would Real Progress Actually Look Like?
Im not sure legislation is enough for a cultural shift. We will need leaders who model boundaries instead of martyrdom. With companies that measure output rather than online status. With workplaces that understand rest isnt the enemy of success; its the fuel.
And maybe, just maybe, it would start with all of us resisting the urge to circle back at 10:24 p.m.. The French have a phrase for this: la vie. Its the part of life that happens after work. In America, we call it being unreachable, and we are still not sure we are allowed to be.
{"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2015\/08\/erikaaslogo.png","headline":"Girl, Listen: A Guide to What Really Matters","description":"Ericka dives into the heat of modern motherhood, challenging the notion that personal identity must be sacrificed at the altar of parenting. ","substackDomain":"https:\/\/erickasouter.substack.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
Everybody loves the idea of feedback, defined broadly as information provided to someone about their performance, behavior, or actions.
This makes a great deal of sense.
Indeed, many studies have consistently shown that feedback from others plays an important role in helping us understand who we are, including how we differ from others. It is vital for improving managers and leaders performance and for helping people evolve and develop, both professionally and personally. Conversely, being feedback-deprived, or having a tendency to ignore it, increases the gap between how good you think you are, and how good you actually areat times, to painfully delusional levels.
{"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/tcp-photo-syndey-16X9.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/tcp-photo-syndey-1x1-2.jpg","eyebrow":"","headline":"Get more insights from Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic","dek":"Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is a professor of organizational psychology at UCL and Columbia University, and the co-founder of DeeperSignals. He has authored 15 books and over 250 scientific articles on the psychology of talent, leadership, AI, and entrepreneurship. ","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/drtomas.com\/intro\/","theme":{"bg":"#2b2d30","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#3b3f46","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91424798,"imageMobileId":91424800,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
And yet, people often fail to accept and internalize feedback. This is particularly true when the feedback is misaligned with how we view ourselves or at odds with what we think about the situation. Contributing to this failure is often the poor quality of the feedback, due to factors ranging from sender expertise and intention to the politics and bias of subjective character evaluations. Unsurprisingly, meta-analytic evidence suggests that 1/3 of feedback interventions are ineffective, and another 1/3 actually worsen recipients performance.
Feedback, in short, has a poor track record. And especially poor for more senior leaders.
High-quality feedback is thus particularly scarce where it is needed the mostfor those whose decisions and actions have the most far-reaching impact: in senior leadership. Why is this the case?
The reasons
First, when someone is powerful, others will go to great lengths to avoid upsetting or confronting that person, aware (consciously and not) that leaders have some power over their future, which explains why it is far more common for leaders to hear praise and compliments from subordinates than constructive criticism. A darkly comic illustration appears in Armando Ianuccis movie The Death of Stalin. When Stalin collapses, his inner circle hesitates, panics, and second-guesses itself, terrified of acting without explicit permission. No one dares to take responsibility, question assumptions, or deliver unwelcome truths. The satire works precisely because it exaggerates a real dynamic: when power is concentrated and fear is high, feedback disappears, initiative dies, and silence becomes the safest strategy.
Second, hierarchical cultures and traditional leadership archetypes conspire against leaders ability to create the necessary psychological safety for candor. Unless effort is put into creating these conditions, team members will perceive a negative cost-benefit analysis when it comes to voicing issuesespecially with their leaders decisions or behaviorsversus holding back and staying silent. While this may boost leaders egos, fostering self-enhancing and delusional estimates of their own talentsit will severely limit their ability to improve and get better. How can anyone, including a manager or leader, get better if they are unaware of a gap between their self-views and their actual performance? Why would anyone, including a manager or leader, seek to change and evolve if their perception is that everything is fine?
Third, when someone seems devoid of self-awareness, to the point of being not just immune to feedback, but almost un-coachable, people will see no point in providing them with feedback, as it would be wasted on them. Unfortunately, when others are of the opinion that leaders are incompetent, and that, on top of that, they are totally unaware of this fact, they lose respect for that leader and approach their interactions with them as they would with a delusional narcissist or mad person.
What to do
Fortunately, there is a booming industry (at times comprising science-based instruments like evidence-based 360-degree feedback surveys and personality assessments) to tell leaders what they need to hear, especially when thats not what they want to hear. Even in the absence of such instruments, here are five simple ways leaders can get better at receivingand ingestingconstructive feedback.
Ask for disconfirming data, not general impressionsInstead of Any feedback for me?, ask narrowly framed questions that invite contradiction, such as What is one decision I made recently that slowed the team down? or Where did my involvement add least value this quarter? Research on feedback seeking shows that specific, behavior-linked requests increase both the honesty and usefulness of responses, while vague requests elicit politeness and noise rather than signal.
Separate ingestion from reaction, deliberately and visiblyHigh-status leaders often kill feedback not by rejecting it, but by reacting too fast. A defensive facial expression, explanation, or contextual clarification is usually enough to shut people dow. Evidence from self-regulation and feedback intervention research shows that feedback is more likely to improve performance when recipients force themselves to pause evaluation and treat feedback as data, not judgment. One practical move is to explicitly say, Thank you. I wont respond now, so I can think about what youve said, and Ill come back to you, and then actually do so.
Triangulate patterns, ignore anecdotesSingle pieces of feedback are typically biased, idiosyncratic, or situational. Leaders should resist reacting to one voice and instead look for recurring themes across sources, time, and contexts. Meta-analytic work on 360-degree feedback consistently shows that behavior change is most likely when leaders focus on convergent signals rather than isolated comments. Treat feedback like data analysis, not testimony.
Outsource truth-telling when power gets in the wayAt senior levels, the social cost of honesty becomes prohibitive. This is precisely why structured mechanisms such as anonymous upward feedback, external coaching, or validated personality and derailment assessments outperform informal conversations. Research on power and voice shows that hierarchy systematically suppresses upward dissent unless safeguards are in place. Leaders who believe their open-door policies are adequate are usually the least informed.
Publicly act on one small piece of feedback, fastThe strongest signal that feedback is welcome is not just saying thank you, but visibly changing something. Even a modest adjustment, communicated explicitly (Based on your feedback, Ill stop doing X and start doing Y), recalibrates the perceived cost-benefit of speaking up. Evidence from psychological safety research shows that follow-through, not receptiveness rhetoric, predicts future voice behavior. Feedback cultures are built behavior by behavior, not intention by intention.
Taken together, these practices treat feedback less as a moral virtue and more as an imperfect but essential data stream. Leaders who learn to filter, metabolize, and act on that data gain something far rarer than praise: a realistic picture of their impact.
{"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/tcp-photo-syndey-16X9.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/tcp-photo-syndey-1x1-2.jpg","eyebrow":"","headline":"Get more insights from Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic","dek":"Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is a professor of organizational psychology at UCL and Columbia University, and the co-founder of DeeperSignals. He has authored 15 books and over 250 scientific articles on the psychology of talent, leadership, AI, and entrepreneurship. ","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/drtomas.com\/intro\/","theme":{"bg":"#2b2d30","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#3b3f46","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91424798,"imageMobileId":91424800,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
In November, Apple laid off dozens of sales employees in a rather unexpected move for the tech giant. Apple is the rare tech company that has steered clear of mass layoffs, particularly among its peers in the trillion-dollar club. The layoffs came as a surprise for those who lost their jobs, according to a Bloomberg reportand they impacted some employees who had been with the company for decades.
The post-pandemic job market has come to be defined by layoffs, in tech and beyond: A Glassdoor analysis finds that there was a peak in 2023, but layoffs have since continued at a more frequent cadence relative to the years prior. A variety of sectors have been hit hardand prominent employers like Verizon, Starbucks, and UPS have gone through multiple rounds of cuts this year alone, slashing thousands of jobs.
But the tech industry has been uniquely reliant on layoffs as companies have gone through periods of overhiring and fluctuating priorities, with the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence now upending the sector.
Since 2022, tech employers have laid off upwards of 700,000 workers, according to the tracker Layoffs.fyi. With the exception of Apple, which has conducted a handful of more targeted cuts in recent years, the Big Tech companiesnamely Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsofthave laid off tens of thousands of employees over the last three years.
There are just so many new grads coming out, trying to enter the tech industry, and they feel like the promise of a high-paying job in tech is just not really being fulfilled, says Daniel Zhao, Glassdoors chief economist and director of economic research.
All this has led to a challenging environment for tech workers who are seeking new jobs and new graduates who are trying to find their footing. In the last two decades, Big Tech jobs held a certain cachet for millennial knowledge workers who were starting their careers. The sprawling campuses and free food were appealing, of course, but companies like Google also imbued their work with purpose and appeared to guarantee professional success.
But as layoffs have roiled the industry, it seems as though the tech jobs that were once hailed as stable and desirable may no longer be a sure bet for workers.
Unfortunately, layoffs aren’t really a last resort response anymore, says Brett Coakley, the principal executive coach at career consulting firm Close Cohen. Theyve become more of an annual planning tool. These workers that thought they were insulated are realizing that prestige doesn’t really provide the protection that they’re used to.
The dream job has changed
For years, these tech companies have promised both generous salaries and job security alongside lavish perks. Between recurring layoffs and strict return to office policies, however, something seems to have shiftedand its not just that the perks have dried up.
Many large tech employers hired aggressively during the pandemic, only to turn around and lay off workers not long after. Companies like Amazon forced employees to return to the office five days a weekin some cases requiring that they relocate.
The rise of generative AI is also radically reshaping tech companies, with many of them making multi-billion-dollar investments and courting top talent. Computer science graduates are finding it more difficult to land entry level jobsin part because those roles are steadily being automated. Some companies, like Salesforce, have already replaced certain workers with AI, while others have warned that job losses are on the way and that employees need to meet the moment and adopt AI technology. Mark Zuckerberg noted earlier this year that AI could supplant mid-level engineers at Meta, while Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has said employees who become conversant in AI will have high impact and help us reinvent the company.
(Whether AI will actually cull jobs at a rapid clip is almost beside the point, though it seems like companies are reticent to name the other issues driving their business woesamong them immigration policy and tariffs.)
The result is workers have become more hesitant to stake their careers on a Big Tech job, Coakley says.
We see that folks that are coming into their early career have that same symptom, he says. Why would I go into this thing that isn’t stable? I can do a gig role, or I can do something that’s a little more skills-based. Or: Why do I need to go to a four-year college to get this degree if I’m not going to get a job? We’re getting a lot of that sentiment. Some workers who are early in their careers are looking at smaller companies or trying to bolster their AI skills for when the pendulum inevitably swings back and Big Tech starts hiring again, according to Coakley.
Zhao argues that the high-paying job in tech still has its allure, though it feels increasingly out of reach for some new entrants to the industry. The number of workers who have been unemployed for over six months has ticked up as hiring has slowedand college-educated workers now comprise a greater share of them.
These Big Tech companies are still very attractive jobs, Zhao says. If you ask any new grad, Do you want to go work at Google? I think most of them would still say yes. It’s just a question of how you actually get your foot in the door.
What this means for tech workers old and new
Its not just people early in their career who are reevaluating where they want to work. The current climate has revealed that tenure and seniority wont necessarily preserve your job, particularly when companies are chasing AI talent. For older employees who built their careers at Big Tech companies, the unease permeating the tech sector has sparked questions about how long they can expect to remain in their jobs.
We had a lot of folks atthe beginning of the year coming to us after a layoff, Coakley says. So they didn’t see it coming, or they weren’t expecting it. [Now] I’ve started to see a lot of that other end of the spectrum, where people are being proactive and saying, I don’t know if this is going to be here for me in six months.
Experts often say layoffs have a clear effect on company culture, and Glassdoors analysis supports this idea: The volume of Glassdoor reviews surge by over 40% in the week following a layoff, and they continue to be referenced in reviews months later. Zhao points out that some companies seek to avoid the negative attention and press coverage that accompanies a mass layoff by making smaller, more frequent cuts.
But tech workers can still see whats happening, and Coakley says some of them are taking preemptive steps to carve out a new path.
The mid- to senior-level [employee] has really sort of built their identities inside of one corporation, he says. They’ve lived inside that bubble of Big Tech, but now that the bubble is sort of thinning, they’re asking themselves: Who am I outside this company? Coakley has found that some senior employees are now interested in fractional roles, or startups that offer more work-life balance.
People are realizing that they’ve been relying on corporations for stability, he says, and that’s no longer viable.
Amid a tough hiring market, even workers who have soured on their Big Tech jobs may be scared to make any drastic moves. But that could change when the market eventually turns aroundto the detriment of these employers.
If we see the balance of power shift back towards employees and away from employers, then a lot of this can change, Zhao says. And to some extent that’s a risk that employers should be paying attention to as well.
The culture of Big Tech may have changed, but workers have also changed accordingly, growing more emboldened by the upheaval of the last five yearsand the realization that their employers are no different than their peers across corporate America.
I think the fact that workers feel so stuck right now, Zhao says, means that once the job market opens up again, all of those workers are going to hit the door.
Youve landed. You leave the chaos of the airport behind and drop into the chaos of a new city.
Its big, loud, and full of opportunities . . . and tourists.
If you want to experience this new city like someone who actually lives there, you need tools that help you skip the lines, ditch the tourist traps, and navigate the local landscape with insider confidence.
Forget the default maps and review sites everyone uses. Here are three genuinely free, under-the-radar apps that will transform you from a wide-eyed visitor into a savvy urban explorer.
Atlas Obscura
The biggest mistake a traveler makes is sticking to the big red arrow on the generic tourist map. If you want to find a citys overlooked history, oddball museums, and secret public gardens, you need a guide for the curious.
Atlas Obscura is exactly that guide. The free app is a comprehensive, community-generated catalog of the world’s most wondrous and peculiar places.
The crucial feature is the map view, which instantly pulls up hundreds of fascinating and unique points of interest near your current location, turning a simple walk into a genuine treasure hunt.
Citymapper
Once youre in a dense city, a car is often a liability. And while public transportation is an obvious strategy, navigating a new subway, bus, or ferry network can feel like trying to decipher ancient hieroglyphics.
Citymapper is a public transit solution built by people who actually ride the subway. If youre visiting New York, London, Chicago, or any of the supported major cities, this app will not only calculate the fastest route, but it will tell you hyper-specific details that Google Maps often misses.
The standout feature is its granularity: It gives you the best subway car to board so you exit closest to your destination, provides real-time train and bus arrival times, and blends every mode of transportfrom shared bikes to ferriesinto one comprehensive itinerary.
Roasters
If youre a serious coffee drinker, you know the despair of being stuck in a new city with only generic chain coffee shops. Finding a true, quality local experience often requires hours of tedious searching and review-sifting.
Roasters is a free app built by coffee enthusiasts for coffee enthusiasts, specifically curating over 21,000 specialty coffee shops worldwide and cutting out the chains to focus only on independent businesses known for quality beans and preparation.
The community-driven discovery map highlights shops that are often off the beaten path and lets you check reviews from fellow coffee lovers who share your high standards.
This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.
Short on time? Read this 30-second summary of todays post.
Download a free, private AI program to run on your computer. Use it offline without any subscription cost and avoid the risk of having sensitive info ingested into a large language model like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. The newest versions of private AI tools like Jan run easily on my 2021 Mac laptop, cost nothing, and are easy to use. Theyre a good alternative to costlier AI platforms.
Quick start guide
Download and install Jan for free. Other good free alternatives to consider include Msty, AnythingLLM, or LM Studio.
Open Jan and pick an open-source large language model. The model you use impacts the AIs response style. You can switch anytime. I use the v1 model.
Try your first query. Here are a few quick mini prompts to start with:Summarize the pros and cons of using AI for [specific task].Turn my rough notes below into a short summary and bullet points.”“Turn this angry email draft to my service provider into a constructive message more likely to generate a helpful response.
Adjust the apps appearance settings, including font size and shortcuts.
Close other processor-intensive apps on your computer, like video editing tools, to reduce the likelihood of your computer slowing down.
5 reasons to use private AI
Save money: Avoid subscription fees by running AI models on your own computer. Generate unlimited responses without monthly charges.
Keep your data private: Using private AI on your computer ensures no data is sent to or stored on big tech firms servers. No conversations leave your device. You can even run these tools offline.
For sensitive legal, medical, financial or personal issues, ask questions without worrying about your data ending up in a large language models training data.
Work offline: Having full offline access is handy whether youre traveling without Wi-Fi, working in a remote area, or hesitant to trust a random public network.
Experiment with hundreds of open-source models: Choose an open-source large language model that suits you. Each is trained differently. Some are stronger at certain languages, others specialize in coding. New ones emerge regularly. Switch as often as youd like. By contrast, ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and Gemini limit you to the platforms own models.
Tip: Use LM Arena to compare two models responses side by side.
Reduce your environmental impact: If you run hundreds of daily prompts, a local AI app may mean less use of internet infrastructure and remote data servers.
Private AI tools allow you to keep your data on your laptop, though they may not be as powerful as top AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. [Image: generated with ChatGPT]
Jan is an excellent, free, private AI tool
Platforms: Mac, PC, Linux
What I like about it
Fast and easy to set up and use: Jan takes a minute to download and install. Using Jan is as easy as using ChatGPT, Claude, or any other chatbot, though you do have to make an initial decision about which model to use.
Assistants: Create customized AI helpers for various purposes. One for translating Chinese, another for coding. Task it to Act as a software engineering mentor focused on Python and JavaScript. Provide detailed explanations with code examples. Use markdown formatting for code blocks.
Projects: Organize queries into distinct folders for easy access to subjects of interest without searching through hundreds of threads.
Integrations: Link Jan to Canva, Todoist, Linear, or other tools using MCP (model context protocol) connections.
Documentation and resources: Lots of useful documentation, including a handbook and blog.
Whats Next: Jan AI is developing mobile versions for iOS and Android and adding integrations to link Jan to other services.
A Jan case study
Becki Lee, a senior technical writer, uses Jan to explore health questions she wants to keep private.
I have a chronic illness Im struggling to get diagnosed, she emailed me. So I created an assistant to help interpret test results and brainstorm possible explanations for my symptoms. Obviously, its super important to take this with a grain of salt (a chatbot is absolutely no substitute for a doctor). However, this helps bubble up conditions I can research further on my own, and it also generates questions I can ask my actual doctor.
More free AI optios for Mac, PC, or Linux
Msty
The free version of this well-designed app has multiple unique features. Unlike Jan, which is completely free, Msty also has paid advanced features.
Its best free features include:
A built-in prompt library with hundreds of options.
Special focus and zen modes that strip away side menus.
Create multiple personas, which are assistants with distinct personalities. Each can adopt a different style or approach in answering your queries.
Knowledge Stacks let you import document collections for analysis. These can include PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoints, spreadsheets, lists of YouTube links, or even an Obsidian vault.
Advanced features, like multistep automations, require a paid subscription. Ive only used the free version. Its easy to use, powerful, and well designed. I chose the Gemma 3.
AnythingLLM
Like Jan, this is a straightforward open-source AI app thats a good option for novice AI users.
How its different from Jan
You can upload files for AnythingLLM to summarize.
Enable it to make simple charts.
Turn on Web search, which requires a free API key from Google or Serpa.
Theres also a new beta Android version.
Caveat: Its not quite as nicely designed as Jan, and isnt updated as often.
LM Studio
This more developer-friendly option is less simple for beginners.
Whats notable: Florent Daudens, an AI expert and educator who used to oversee daily editorial coverage at CBC/Radio-Canada, relies on LM Studio for private AI use.
I asked him why and he said, Its practical, with a user/developer-friendly interface, quick updates when new models drop, a server option, and helpful model compatibility info.
In a LinkedIn post, Florent shared an example of using LM Studio on his laptop. He used Googles Gemma 3 model to analyze plane photos for extracting registration numbers as an investigative journalist might, without sending data to external servers.
Limitations of private AI tools
Feature limits: Many special features on other AI platforms wont work on these private AI platforms. ChatGPTs new plug-ins for Canva or Figma, for instance, wont work with private AI. You may not be able to export results directly to Google Sheets or Slack, as you can with other AI tools.
No interactives or advanced visuals: You cant create infographics and visual illustrations like ChatGPTs. No coding and hosting interactive applications, as you can with Claude or Gemini. No advanced searches with detailed citations like those from Perplexity.
Quality variation: Some open-source models have limited or older training data, so results for certain queries may be worse. For ordinary queries and text summarization, this quality difference may not be noticeable.
Slower speed: Depending on your query, you might wait longer with some open-source models than with ChatGPT, Copilot, or other private AI platforms. Speed hasnt been a big concern for me so far.
Cant handle as much text at once: A smaller context window means that private AI tools may not be able to analyze text blocks as large as those ChatGPT or Claude can handle. Some small language models may resort to skimming longer text. They may also be more likely to hallucinate details if asked for summaries of long, complex documents.
Additional resources
Free, open-source AI tools for journalists curated on Hugging Face by Florent Daudens. Read more about why I like Hugging Face as an open-source AI hub.
Local LLM Group on Reddit, with 546,000 members. Keep up on notable research on AI and private AI tool development.
Helpful write-up about local large language models by Stephen Turner.
LinkedIn Learning Course on private large language models and Jan AI.
This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.
I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again: Our built environment contributes to a mental health crisis.
The built environment as we know itbuildings and the spaces betweendoes direct damage to our minds. Communities developed slowly for thousands of years, but in 20th century America, the end of World War II introduced a massive population and construction boom.
Land use planning has had devastating impacts on Americanseconomically, socially, and culturally. But Im not a doomer and I know these things are fixable. Not overnight reversible, but certainly fixable.
Spreading us out
Typical land use rules are written, updated, and enforced at the local government level. Agencies copied each other over the yearsbecause why wouldnt they? Much of what Ive learned as an adult (podcasting, publishing, propaganda making, etc.) has been taught by generous people who themselves had learned tips and tricks. So, of course, public agencies copied each other. Hey, that worked for a similar river city. Lets try it here.
{"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-desktop.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-mobile.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Urbanism Speakeasy\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/\u0022\u003Eurbanismspeakeasy.com.\u003C\/a\u003E","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91453933,"imageMobileId":91453932,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
Planning departments at city and county levels werent setting out to guide development in a way that would purposefully harm us. Quite the opposite. If a new Sears distribution center was coming to town, theyd want to map out a plan to accommodate all the new employees and subsequent traffic. In the middle of the 20th century, planners were still very much concerned about separating dirty and/or dangerous land uses from residential areas.
The result was that all across the country, local development rules required or incentivized development patterns that spread everyone and everything across the landscape: work zone, school zone, shopping zone, entertainment zone, and sleep zone. And then each major category started getting more prescriptive subcategories. Residential morphed into single-family, multifamily (apartments), and condos. But wait, theres more!
Residential land uses started to be regulated by local governments according to lot size: garden apartments, planned unit developments, and subdivisions were each given rules. Residential use was also regulated by the type of people living in a place: public housing, group dwellings, age-restricted dwellings, renters, and owners.
Promoting sprawl
Local regulations created (and continue to create) sprawl in cities and the suburbs. Land use planning requires traffic engineering analysis, a process prioritizing car movement above all else. Wider roads and intersections are not just suggested but required, with the express goal to move car traffic from zone to zone as quickly as possible. When in doubt, they add more car lanes. This has been going on for nearly 100 yearswithout taking a foot off the brake.
Cars and loneliness
The obvious outcome of modern land use planning is that Americans drive everywhere all the time. Not just work commutes, but all the errands before, during, and after work. Half of our car trips are less than a few miles long. A quarter are less than a mile. Less than a mile in a car by ourselves.
Driving is forced on Americans as the only reasonable way to get around. For most, it’s terrifying or deadly to walk or ride a bicycle, even for those errands that are less than a mile away. We’re in a car-first environment because of the organized zones developed by planners and approved by local leaders. Life in a single-occupant vehicle has its perks, like singing along to music or listening to podcasts uninterrupted. It also has its pains, like separation from other humans and mental deterioration.
Loneliness is a significant variable affecting depression. Its a predisposing factor. Cigna conducted a study of 20,000 Americans and reported a jaw-dropping finding: Nearly half of adults sometimes or always feel alone. More than 40% said their relationships arent meaningful and they feel isolated. Actual and perceived social isolation are associated with early death. Your mind tells your body that its just not worth living.
Julianne Holt-Lunstad is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University. She says the health risks of missing out on social connection are like smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Worse yet, theres a causal relationship between social isolation and suicide. Conversely, having a crew (social support in doctor jargon) has a protective effect against suicide. For every suicidal death, another 20 people attempted suicide.
What to do
So what do youdo with all this heavy information?
First, remember that the built environment is deliberately planned for us to drive in cars from zone to zone. Planners arent trying to destroy our minds, but the built environment increases anxiety, depression, isolation, loneliness, and suicide. Humans are not meant to be alone all the time. Even when youre hauling kids from school to soccer to the tutor to dinner to whatever else, youre isolated from social interactions. The kids are watching videos or scrolling through their phones.
Second, understand the land use catastrophes are reversible. Compact development won’t be legalized overnight, but reform can come as quickly as local leaders are willing. Theres no need to wait on a national referendum or the president representing your favorite team. Walk-friendly, bike-friendly, and transit-friendly places are good medicine, and theyre made possible at the local level.
Third, share your car-life stories with me. I’m producing a documentary about unhealthy infrastructure. Specifically, Im focused on ways our minds and bodies are crumbling because of how places and spaces are planned and built. If youre interested in sharing what its like to be dependent on a car, or what its like having to wait 45 minutes for a bus, Im all ears.
Finally, know that things get better in the end. The mental health crisis is tragic, but we can turn this around with something as boring as reforming land use planning.
{"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-desktop.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-mobile.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Urbanism Speakeasy\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/\u0022\u003Eurbanismspeakeasy.com.\u003C\/a\u003E","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91453933,"imageMobileId":91453932,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
When Santa Claus is done delivering presents on Christmas Eve, he must get back home to the North Pole, even if its snowing so hard that the reindeer cant see the way.
He could use a compass, but then he has a challenge: He has to be able to find the right North Pole.
There are actually two North Polesthe geographic North Pole you see on maps and the magnetic North Pole that the compass relies on. They arent the same.
The two North Poles
The geographic North Pole, also called true north, is the point at one end of the Earths axis of rotation.
Try taking a tennis ball in your right hand, putting your thumb on the bottom and your middle finger on the top, and rotating the ball with the fingers of your left hand. The place where the thumb and middle finger of your right hand contact the tennis ball as it spins define the axis of rotation. The axis extends from the south pole to the north pole as it passes through the center of the ball.
Earths magnetic North Pole is different.
More than a thousand years ago, explorers began using compasses, typically made with a floating cork or piece of wood with a magnetized needle in it, to find their way. The Earth has a magnetic field that acts like a giant magnet, and the compass needle aligns with it.
The magnetic North Pole is used by devices such as smartphones for navigationand that pole moves around over time.
Why the magnetic north pole moves around
The movement of the magnetic North Pole is the result of the Earth having an active core. The inner core, starting about 3,200 miles below your feet, is solid and under such immense pressure that it cannot melt. But the outer core is molten, consisting of melted iron and nickel.
Heat from the inner core makes the molten iron and nickel in the outer core move around, much like soup in a pot on a hot stove. The movement of the iron-rich liquid induces a magnetic field that covers the entire Earth.
As the molten iron in the outer core moves around, the magnetic North Pole wanders.
For most of the past 600 years, the pole has been wandering around over northern Canada. It was moving relatively slowly, around 6 to 9 miles per year, until around 1990, when its speed increased dramatically, up to 34 miles per year.
It started moving in the general direction of the geographic North Pole about a century ago. Earth scientists cannot say exactly why other than that it reflects a change in flow within the outer core.
Getting Santa home
So, if Santas home is the geographic North Pole (which, incidentally, is in the ice-covered middle of the Arctic Ocean) how does he correct his compass bearing if the two North Poles are in different locations?
No matter what device he might be usingcompass or smartphoneboth rely on magnetic north as a reference to determine the direction he needs to move.
While modern GPS systems can tell you precisely where you are as you make your way to grandmas house, they cannot accurately tell which direction to go without your device knowing the direction of magnetic north.
If Santa is using an old-fashioned compass, hell need to adjust it for the difference between true north and magnetic north. To do that, he needs to know the declination at his location (the angle between true north and magnetic north) and make the correction to his compass. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has an online calculator that can help.
If you are using a smartphone, your phone has a built-in magnetometer that does the work for you. It measures the Earths magnetic field at your location and then uses the World Magnetic Model to correct for precise navigation.
Whatever method Santa uses, he may be relying on magnetic north to find his way to your house and back home again. Or maybe the reindeer just know the way.
Scott Brame is a research assistant professor of earth science at Clemson University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Costcos latest promotional offering just dropped, but members arent rushing to claim it. At select warehouse club locations, members can now take home complimentary 3-pound bags of Gala apples.
The shopping warehouses unique business model, wherein membership fees contribute largely to its revenue, means that it focuses on plugging its membership more than advertising specific products. Costco puts significant effort into encouraging people to join, or upgrade and renew, existing memberships.
In the past, Costco has offered enticing items like tote bags to coax customers into automatic membership renewals, but the promotional bag of apples is not as appealing, according to one Costco member.
Giving away apples is like giving away white bread, they told TheStreet. Its fine, I guess, but not very interesting. Its certainly not going to get me to do anything different.
Costco has previously been successful in pushing customers to upgrade to the Executive tier, which is $130 annually, with customers earning 2% cash back on most purchases, compared with $65 for the basic level. In June, for example, Costco started unveiling a new membership feature that allowed Executive members to shop one hour earlier than regular members during weekdays and Sundays, and half an hour earlier on Saturdays.
The perk was generally well received. The company reported a 1% boost in sales at the end of September, and Executive memberships increased by 9%, according to CFO Gary Millerchip.
Which might explain why the apples that followed seemed to fall a bit flat.
Whats more, Costco shoppers have complained about employees tirelessly approaching them about memberships. Another customer told TheStreet that his membership makes sense for the amount that he shops, but he continues to face pressure.
The last few times Ive gone to check out, Ive gotten the third degree about my membership, he says. Its getting really old.
For years, Costcos membership system has served the brand well. But its apparent that taking a few steps in the wrong direction could turn people away.
Ava Levinson
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister publication, Inc.
Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
As the year winds down, many leaders find themselves in a familiar ritual: closing the books, reviewing revenue targets, and drafting ambitious financial goals for the year ahead. These practices are important. But after years of designing teams and advising organizations at different stages of growth, Ive come to believe that the most valuable year-end ritual has little to do with money alone.
Instead, its about setting nonfinancial metrics alongside your financial ones.
Revenue tells you where your business landed. Nonfinancial metrics tell you why and whether the success youre chasing is sustainable. They reveal the health of your organization from the inside out, often long before that health shows up on a balance sheet.
The quiet stretch between Christmas and New Years is an ideal time to step back and ask a different set of questions. Not just Did we hit our numbers? but What did it cost us to get there? And What kind of organization are we becoming in the process?
Why Financial Metrics Alone Arent Enough
Financial metrics are essential, but they are lagging indicators. By the time revenue dips or margins tighten, the underlying issues such as burnout, disengagement, inefficient processes, or stalled innovation have often been present for months or even years.
Nonfinancial metrics, on the other hand, act as early signals. They help leaders understand whether the systems, culture, and behaviors inside the organization are aligned with long-term success.
Consider employee engagement. Teams that feel trusted, challenged, and supported tend to deliver better work, collaborate more effectively, and stay longer. Gallup research shows that highly engaged teams deliver significantly better business outcomesincluding up to 23% higher profitability and 41% lower absenteeismindicating that engagement metrics act as early predictors of future performance rather than just retrospective measures.
Or look at client satisfaction. Loyal clients dont just renew contracts; they deepen their engagement and/or refer others and become partners in growth. Operational efficiency, learning velocity, and innovation milestones similarly tell a story about whether an organization is built to adapt.
When these indicators are strong, financial results often follow. When theyre ignored, revenue gains can be fragile or short-lived.
Making the Intangible Measurable
One reason leaders shy away from nonfinancial metrics is the belief that theyre too soft to track. But meaningful doesnt have to mean vague.
The key is choosing a small number of metrics that reflect what actually matters in your context. A startup might track time to decision or experiment-to-launch cycles. A growing team might focus on employee engagement scores, internal mobility, or manager effectiveness. A client-facing organization might prioritize retention, net promoter score, or qualitative feedback trends.
These metrics dont need to be perfect or overly complex. What matters is consistency and intent. Even a quarterly pulse survey or a structured retrospective can surface patterns that financial numbers alone wont reveal.
For individuals, the same principle applies. Instead of setting only income or productivity goals, you might track energy levels, learning hours, or the quality of your working relationships. These nonfinancial indicators often predict performance more accurately than output alone.
Turning Reflection Into Ritual
The end of the year offers a rare pause: a liminal space where urgency softens and perspective sharpens. Rather than rushing straight into next years goals, consider making reflection a deliberate leadership ritual.
Start by reviewing the nonfinancial signals from the past year. Where did momentum build naturally? Where did friction show up repeatedly? Which systems supported your work, and which quietly drained it?
Then, as you look ahead, set intentional nonfinancial metrics alongside your revenue targets. Ask yourself: If we succeed financially next year, what must also be true about our people, processes, and culture?
Write those answers down. Revisit them quarterly. Talk about them as openly as you discuss financial performance.
A Different Kind of New Years Resolution
New Years resolutions often fail because they focus on outcomes without addressing the conditions required to sustain them. Nonfinancial metrics flip that script, shifting attention from sheer output to the inputs that make great work possible.
In doing so, they offer a more humane, and ultimately more effective, approach to leadership and work. They remind us that organizations arent machines that run on numbers alone. Theyre living systems shaped by trust, clarity, learning, and adjustment.
As the year draws to a close, you can still set ambitious financial goals. Just dont stop there. Pair them with measures that reflect the kind of organizationand leaderyou want to be.
Because when you measure what truly matters, the numbers tend to take care of themselves.
For 10 years, I obsessed over finding a 70s-era corduroy car coat like the one Wynona Ryder wears in the first season of Stranger Things. Not a vintage inspired fashion version, but an American classic turned velvety with wear. That meant thrifting at resale shops.
Always on the lookout, I never scored because the outerwear selection in my size (large) was bleak. But today I am thrifting in the age of Ozempic, when women jettison entire wardrobes as an act of reinvention after dramatic weight loss, often monetizing through consignment and resale. As a result of all the larger sizes flowing into stores, I finally possess my unicorn: a heritage LL Bean corduroy coat as soft as cashmere in the groovy retro color of faded citron, all for the price of a burger at my neighborhood pub.
Where once I had trouble finding my size, the popularity of GLP-1 drugs produces almost too many possibilities. Winter has always been my wardrobe low point: black, black, and, for a little fun, maybe some charcoal gray. But now my closet looks like I am in the wrong house. Color! Texture! Print! Thanks to Ozempic, selections are vast and wildly diverse, and prices are low.
A thrifting bonanza
I am not on the consignment hunt for couture; I am shopping for solid regular women brands that are still in good shape even as resale items because they arent fast fashion. Although Ive never been a blazer wearer, I now have two: bouclé wool in deep sienna and a tuxedo-style smoking jacket with green velvet lapels and buttons. Each great closet addition cost me less than two bowls of pho.
Women arent selling off wardrobes because their clothing is out of style. The use of GLP-1 drugs can radically shift sizing so that even beloved items have to go, and Im far from the only one taking advantage of this quality thrifting bonanza.
According to data from online resale marketplace ThredUp, the annual Capital One Shopping report, and spending behavior analysts Consumer Edge, the 2025 U.S. secondhand market is worth an estimated $56 billion (up 14.3% from 2024) and visits to resale stores were up 39.5% in 2025 (compared to Q2 2019), with an 80% rise in thrift and consignment spending among GLP-1 users.
There are many reasons people frequent resale shops, from the economical to the environmental. Approximately one-third of clothing and apparel items purchased in the U.S. over the past year were secondhand, saving manufacturing resources and carbon emissions.
A renewed sense of discovery
But to me the best part of thrift shopping is cultural. Frequenting resale shops can provide that lovely convivial experience we once had when our shopping companions were friends, not phones. Im often surrounded by other shoppers inspired and excited by the prospect of what we might find and open to the unexpected. Because the nature of resale makes the clothing one-of-a-kind, theres a sense of discovery and camaraderie with shared conversations about a garments value and discussions about fit even among strangers.
With expanded size range and diversity of brands, todays resale stores are more like independent boutiques, which are harder and harder to find due to the financial hardships based in fluctuating consumer habits. These old-school stores were vision-led, with gut-sense merchants assembling intentional collections from many different brands, often with an artisanal vibe. Their small inventories were always percolating, bubbling up something new, in contrast to brand-led stores offering mass-produced clothing under the same label: racks of algorithmic-driven styles that may work conceptually in the boardroom, but not so much in the dressing room.
How to pick your spot
Because people tend to sell quantities of clothing close to home, the best way to thrift in the age of Ozempic is to pick a shop in an area where women are likely to wear the brands you want to find and go there regularly.
My usual spot is on a cobblestone-lined street in a village-like neighborhood a short train ride away from the center of the city where I liveonce called a railroad suburb. Look for a well-lit, well-organized store where the clothing is neatly hanging on uniform hangers.
If you do become a regular and see the same garments week after week, move onthat store isnt getting enough traffic to keep things interesting. Because you dont have to settle. Closet upheavals due to GLP-1 drugs are plentiful, giving us lots of options. So, experiment until you find your own resale sweet spot, then start building the wardrobe youve always wanted: Their loss is your gain.
