If you have investments in the stock market, the past several weeks have probably felt a little worrisome. (And by a little worrisome I mean just barely keeping oneself from sobbing in the bathtub with a pint of Ben & Jerrys.)
U.S. and global markets have yo-yoed in reaction to the current administrations inexplicable tariff wars. And since this market volatility is a direct result of Americas foreign economic policy rather than normal economic fluctuation, its difficult to know what to expect.
Theres no promise of fiscal unicorns and rainbows when we get to the other end of this trade warbut before you cash out your 401(k) and bury the money in your backyard, keep these important facts in mind.
Yes, this does feel different
If it feels like this market turbulence is different from others in recent memory, thats because it is.
The current market instability stems from the presidents tariffs rather than a market crash (like the 2008 housing bubble collapse) or a disruptive global event (like the 2020 COVID-related market downturn).
Thats significant because economists and investors know what to expect from market crashes, which are relatively common and repeat on a somewhat predictable 7-to-10-year pattern, followed by an average recovery time of 1.4 years.
While the 2020 market shenanigans also felt unprecedented at the timesince none of us had ever lived through a global pandemic beforethe recovery within four months of the markets lowest point made it clear that everyone wanted to get back to business as soon as possible post-COVID. In both of those cases, it made sense to HANK TOUGH! and stay the course through the market downturns, since there was a long history of the market rebounding from similar situations.
But our current heartburn-inducing market ride stems from Americas global retaliatory trade war, and we cant necessarily count on the natural rebound that has occurred after every other destabilizing market event in recent memory. Any countries angry about U.S.-imposed tariffs could make long-term financial or policy changes that will continue to affect our domestic market for years. There is simply no way of knowing what long-term effects there will be on our investments.
But there is a precedent
Just because we have never lived through a tariff-triggered market downturn doesnt mean our current situation is unprecedented. Almost 100 years ago, isolationist tariffs introduced by Utah Senator Reed Smoot (yes, that was really his name) and Oregon Representative Willis Hawley exacerbated an existing financial crisis.
You may only remember the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930 as part of the mind-numbing lecture Ferris Bueller missed on his day off, but this act raised import duties in an attempt to protect American farmers and businesses. Unfortunately, the Smoot-Hawley tariffs prompted retaliatory tariffs, and the American economy suffered for nearly a decade.
Thankfully, we are in a much better situation than our ancestors were. The Great Depression started with the 1929 stock market crashbefore Smoot and Hawley teamed up, ammonia and bleach style, to impose tariffs. As of February 2025, the U.S. was enjoying a robust economy with a growing GDP, while the 1930 tariffs introduced by Smoot and Hawley kicked the wounded economy when it had already been sucker punched by the market crash.
The drop in your investment portfolio over the past couple of weeks was nausea-inducing in part because it was falling from a high point. But investors in the 1930s saw their money lose value in the crash and then lose more value from the tariff wars.
No one wants to hear a financial expert say, It could be worseand here are some examples of when it was! However, recognizing that the recent turbulence is rocking an economy that had otherwise been stable can help fend off the worst of the panic.
Planning for the unexpected
Any financial adviser worth their salt will tell you that past performance is no guarantee of future returns, but understanding how markets have reacted in the past can offer some perspective on how markets may react in the future.
Since we can look back to the 1930s and see how other countries reacted to Americas isolationist financial and foreign policyand how the market responded to tariffs being flung back and forth across borders like a game of hot potatowe can make plans and predictions based on the worst-case scenario.
We know from Smoot and Hawley that tariffs often lead to retaliatory tariffs, which can have a negative impact on the market. Even though there is no way of knowing what will happen, its probably a good idea for investors to buckle up for a bumpy ride. Heres how:
Remember that the market will eventually recover
For anyone who is 10 or more years out from retirement, you can feel confident that things will improve. Unless were in a dogs and cats living togethermass hysteria! type of extinction-level event, consider ignoring your 401(k) balance for a little while.
Your investments will do better if you slowly back away from your portfolio and let the market recover.
Forewarned is forearmed
Just because the market will return to some semblance of normalcy without any effort on your part doesnt mean you should do nothing.
Now is the time to shore up your finances by paying off high-interest debt, setting aside money in an emergency fund, finding ways to lower your expenses, and starting some secondary income streams in case of job loss or involuntary retirement.
All of these actions will help your finances whether were in for a long stretch of market nastiness or things are about to come up roses.
Invest conservatively as you get closer to retirement
Your asset allocation is supposed to get less risky as you approach retirement, since that will protect your principal in case of a market downturn at the wrong time. If youre planning to retire in the next few years, you can make sure any new contributions you make to your retirement accounts are invested in low-risk-lower-return assets, like bonds, treasury funds, CDs, or other cash equivalents.
While hese investments arent going to grow like the market normally would, the market also may not grow like it normally would. Stashing your contributions into these kinds of investments will offer you more peace of mind that the money will be waiting for your retirement.
You still have time for market recovery
Once youre no longer in the flush of youth, you may assume you dont have the luxury of investing for the long term. Its not like a 60-year-old can afford to wait out the market like a 30-year-old can. But you can invest like you have decades ahead of you. Because you do!
As you approach retirement and even during your retirement, you will keep a portion of your portfolio invested for the long haul. When you retire, you dont need all of your money right away. Youll keep a significant chunk invested for a longer time horizon, which helps ensure that your money will last your entire life.
How to respond if youre already retired
By far, retirees are the most vulnerable to a protracted market plunge. Going back to work and/or waiting out the market weirdness is generally off the table for retirees, so it can feel like there are no good choices.
But that doesnt mean retirees are helpless in the face of larger economic forces. As with current workers and near-retirees, retirees can make plans now for the worst-case scenario. This might include:
Reducing expenses: This is easier said than done, considering the price of eggs and everything else, but start thinking about ways to downsize your costs.
Selling items: If you have a lifetimes worth of home goods, collectibles, or Precious Moments figurines sitting around, you may want to start selling some off. This could be a good way to increase your retirement income without having to take money from your investments.
Considering a reverse mortgage: Since your home is likely your most valuable asset, a reverse mortgage could be a decent way to access cash from something other than your investments.
Dont panicplan
Panic is the leading cause of selling at the markets low point. Instead of selling off your investments to staunch the flow of tariff-induced anxiety, make a plan instead.
If you assume the market may be bumpy for the foreseeable future, how will that change your financial decisions?
Making investment choices based on that assumption will serve you well no matter what happens. In the best-case scenario, things will recover sooner than expected and this will be a footnote in your investing career. But even in the worst-case scenario, planning for volatility will help you make more rational decisionsand protect you from making your paper losses real by getting out of the market.
It may be a bit of a grim sounding win-win, but its a heck of a lot better than crying into a pint of Chunky Monkey in the bathtub.
In 2017, Nathan Cozzolino started Rose, a farm to edibles brand based in Los Angeles. Cozzolino and his team cultivated organic hemp and marijuana, produced its own low-dose gummies with natural organic ingredients, and sold the product to licensed dispensaries. This structure required overhead that cost upwards of $80,000 a month. Six years in, the brand wasnt able to sell enough products to cover its expenses despite being sold in more than 100 retailers.
That changed in July of 2023 when Rose switched the entirety of its production to hemp. We did it because it was that or go out of business, Cozzolino says. He let go of his cannabis licenses, downsized his facilities, and within 60 days built a website where he could sell directly to customers. Within the first month of online sales, Rose was able to break even. Now, the company is selling more products than its able to make, and Cozzolino and his team can focus on the part of the business they love most: the agricultural and culinary work, and sharing the therapeutic benefits of cannabis.
Being able to sell online directly to our customer in a responsible way has been what Rose has needed to fully realize our potential as a company and to be able to pursue everything that we dreamed of doing, Cozzolino says. And that always brings us back to the farm, investing in the land, and seeing how we can make our product more interesting, starting with the agricultural component of it.
Rose is part of a bigger shift in the cannabis industry toward hemp-derived edibles, which can give users much of the same effects as cannabis-derived THC at lower dosages. As customers increasingly search out low-dose options, theyre finding that these products, from gummies to chocolate to mints and beverages, can be legally shipped right to their door with a few clicks online, circumventing the need to visit a licensed dispensary.
[Photo: Rose]
The recreational cannabis landscape has been rapidly changing in recent years. While flower and vapes still account for the majority of the market, edibles are becoming a fast-growing category, especially in the United States. The market generated $10.6 billion in 2024a figure thats expected to reach $47.1 billion in 2043, according to a recent report from Research and Markets. And within the edibles market, a growing number of brands are using hemp-derived THC, which is biochemically the same as cannabis-derived THC, in their products.
The explosion of hemp-derived cannabis products has helped quicken the normalization of cannabis, says John Kagia, the director of cannabis policy in New York and an industry analyst.
There are a few reasons for this: Cannabis companies have found that low-dose edibles are extremely popular with their customers. Meanwhile, the 2018 Farm Bill that removed hemp containing up to 0.3% THC from the federal list of controlled substances has made it easier for cannabis companies to meet the demand. Brands are betting that curious cannabis users will be intrigued enough by gummies and seltzers to eventually become loyal shoppers and daily cannabis users.
[Photo: Gossamer]
The Edible Future of Cannabis
To people in the cannabis space, the mainstreaming of edibles is a natural next step for recreational and medicinal weed. Theyre very universal, says Verena von Pfetten, a cofounder, with David Weiner, of Gossamer, a cannabis media platform. You don’t have to learn how to roll a joint, you don’t need to buy a piece. Plus, clearly labeled doses make it easy to measure just how much THC youre ingesting. These arent the mystery brownies that might knock you out for an entire afternoon. Gummies account for 72% of the edibles market, and a gummy vitamin is something people are comfortable with, von Pfetten adds.
When Weiner and von Pfetten, who have media backgrounds, launched Gossamer in 2017, they saw an opportunity to make cannabis more accessible to people who were interested in the effects of THC but were alienated by the stereotypical stoner branding or expert-level discussions about strains. Everything was verity or green or canna something, Weiner says. It was just kind of like, surely there’s a more sophisticated way of tapping into this.
[Photo: Gossamer]
The marketing around edibles tends to be approachable, with brands playing into the deired effect that someone might want to achieve, like better sleep, more energy, or relaxation. The customer we want to reach, and that we believe is actually the largest customer base across the board, doesnt make their lives revolve around cannabis; they incorporate cannabis into their lives, von Pfetten says. And so how can we help them do that?
Gossamers online store, which began offering hemp-derived edibles in 2024, sells everything from THC tinctures to gummies to pre-rolls. The bestsellers are, by far, one- and two-milligram products.
[Photo: Rose]
The Business of Edibles
Edibles also make business sense for cannabis producers. The THC in these products can be derived from hemp, a variety of the same plant species as marijuana that contains a lower concentration of THC.
The 2018 Farm Bill legalized the industrial production of hemp containing up to 0.3% THC. It also declassified the plant and cannabinoids derived from it, as a controlled substance. This means that products made with hemp can cross state lines and dont need to be sold in regulated dispensaries, opening the market to states where recreational marijuana use is prohibited so long as they dont have regulations against hemp.
Despite more states legalizing recreational cannabis, companies in this space havent been growing as quickly or as easily as they anticipated. Just 27% of cannabis businesses are profitable. The regulated adult-use market across the country is fragmented, with each state having slightly different rules about retail. Since hemp- and marijuana-derived THC are biochemically the same, edibles brands have been switching to hemp-derived THC in their products, which has helped their businesses remain viable.
A significant advantage that the hemp-derived ecosystem has is centralized production, Kagia says. It’s much cheaper for these brands to build in one place and ship nationally than to build in every individual market like they would have to do in the adult-use space. Additionally, Kagia is seeing the strongest growth in demand for hemp-derived edibles in states that have not legalized medical or recreational marijuana.
What the industry needed was to be able to have a small operation, with little overhead, still working in a regulated way using third party labs for testing, Cozzolino of Rose says. But they needed to be able to sell directly to their customers without a storefront and with an online business the way the rest of the world works.
The most popular edibles brands have also quietly shifted to hemp-derived THC for their low-dose edibles, including Wyld (the best seller in most states); Kiva, a portfolio of brands that makes chocolates, gummies, and mints; the chewables brand Sundae School; and Cann, the beverage company.
The move is paying off. Aaron Nosbisch, the founder of Brez, a maker of beverages infused with hemp-derived cannabis and mushrooms, posted on LinkedIn that 83% of its sales were DTC and that the brand is pacing to make over $50 million in revenue this year.
[Screenshot: Edibles.com]
Selling Edibles, Without the Dispensary
With more edibles on the market, the retail landscape is changing, too. Before, these brands were at the mercy of dispensaries, which often paid wholesale prices based on the amount of THC in a product and not the overall quality of experience. (For example, a package of 20 microdose gummies from Rose retails for $40 and has 20 mg of THC total while a tin of pre-rolls with 1,635 mg THC total sells for $45 at MedMen.) Additionally, the brand communication could be uneven depending on how familiar dispensary staff was with a product. It wasnt the best environment for low-dose options.
Most brands from the get-go have said, we think people want a lower dose edible, von Pfetten says. And then the struggle has been getting dispensaries and the general industry on board with selling them at that price point. The hemp-derived market allowed brands to sell the products that they always wanted to make direct-to-consumer.
And despite big investments in retail design, dispensaries remain alienating for some shoppersor just inconvenient. The experience that retailers are providing is not speaking to individuals, Cozzolino says. Meanwhile, gas stations and corner stores have also begun to sell these products, leading to confusion about what is actually being sold and how safe it is.
This is still such a young market that we don’t yet have a good sense ofhow consumers are processing the difference between these two products, Kagia says, referring to hemp-derived THC and marijuana-derived THC.
Von Pfetten compares the public level of knowledge about the cannabis industry and all the products available to skincare in the 1960s. If you talked to women about AHAs, retinol, salicylic acid, and hyaluronic acid, I think most women would be like, What the fuck are you talking about? I use cold cream, she explains. We are just barely getting to that point in cannabis. People are like, oh, weed gets you high, but then you start talking about CBD, CBG, and terpenes and PHC. So there’s all this education that needs to happen in order for customers to really understand the benefits of the products, and a lot of that education is happening online.
[Screenshot: Edibles.com]
In addition to direct-to-consumer sales, online shops specializing in edibles, like Gossamer, are now entering the marketplace to balance a trustworthy, reliable retail experience with convenience. You still need some guardrails, von Pfetten says, noting that a fully DTC market isnt sustainable since brands need multiple points of discovery. How do I know that this is vetted and curated?
Edible Arrangements, the fruit basket company, launched Edibles.com, a marketplace for hemp-based THC products in March. It now sells to customers in Texas, which has not legalized recreational cannabis, and is using its existing franchise locations as delivery hubs. It essentially layered another product onto its logistics infrastructure. It plans to expand to Florida, the Carolinas, and Georgia next. Soon, Edibles.com will also build a physical retail location in Atlanta.
An interesting strategic thing for us to solve is how do we alleviate some of the barriers to entry and how do we give trust and education to our consumers that will then translate into permission to say, You know what, maybe I will try these products, says Thomas Winstanley, the chief marketing officer for Edibles.com. Because if it’s coming from Edible Brands, then maybe I can take it a little bit more seriously than what I see at a gas station.
[Photo: Rose]
The Complicated Future of Hemp-Derived Edibles
While hemp-based edibles continue to gain popularity, some states are beginning to regulate the product, citing public health concerns. Meanwhile, cannabis interest groups are lobbying the government to regulate hemp-based products and close the loophole in the Farm Bill, as U.S. Cannabis Council (USCC) Executive Director Edward Conklin wrote in a letter to Congress last year. The alcohol industry is also lobbying for more restrictions on hemp-based edibles.
As states roll out more regulations around hemp-derived THC, the online shops and brands have stopped shipping to them. In 2023, Washington State created a new law that said any product containing THC is considered cannabis and must be sold in licensed dispensaries. In September of 2024, California enacted temporary emergency regulations to ban hemp products with detectable levels of THC and recently extended the policy to June 2025. In New York, where edibles constitute 15% of licensed cannabis sales, there are now potency limits on the sale of hemp-derived edibles. Anything over one milligram per dose, or 10 milligrams per package, must be sold in a dispensary. According to Kagia, New York set the limits based on potential intoxication risk.
Kagia hopes that there is more clarity on the federal level about the production and distribution of hemp-derived THC products as a matter of public health and safety and for business efficiency reasons, too.
It would be unfortunate if we ended up with another patchwork national model for hemp-derived products just as we have for the adult use ecosystem, he says. I don’t think it serves the cannabis economy writ large to have these bifurcated models where functionally the same products can be sold in one context but not in another. And so we are looking forward to robust discussion with our national lawmakers on the governance of hemp-derived cannabinoids moving forward.
Cannabis companies are cautiously watching the space. Von Pfetten believes that dispensary customers will and should continue to shop in licensed facilities for high-dose edibles but as long as the right guardrails in place are in place in terms of shipping, age gating, and vetting, someone should be able to buy a one-milligram or a two-milligram edible online or receive it direct in a store.
To Cozzolino, the regulatory discussion about low-dose edibles is missing the fact that these products are about a culture of cannabis, not intoxication. If the people regulating [cannabis] try to force us back into a three-tiered system, then they’re inhibiting that and ultimately they are decreasing the value of what people in the world can experience with cannabis, he says.
So while low-dose edibles might be the future of cannabis, anxiety about the category looms. Luckily, theres a gummy for that.
With music streaming, users have gotten used to being at the mercy of algorithms. But French music streamer Deezer is making it easier for its subscribers to make the algorithm work for them.
The company unveiled an update to its mobile experience that doubles down on its emphasis on personalization and sharing to set it apart from larger competitors like Spotify and Apple Music.
The new features were introducing today give users more control over their algorithm, greater flexibility to personalize their experience, and easy ways to share content with their friends, even beyond Deezer, CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a press release.
Rolling out over the next two months, the update includes enhancements to Deezers Flow feature, more options for interface personalization, a monthly Spotify Wrapped-style listening roundup called My Deezer Month, and a universal sharing function to share songs with users on other music platforms.
With Flow, listeners can set certain songs as favorites and ban others, effectively steering the algorithm in the direction they choose. From there, they can even tune in to specific moods, like chill, sad, or party.
The apps interface can be personalized as well. Deezer had previously rolled out a personalized homepage to a subset of users, but now all subscribers will have the ability to decide what they see featured on their Favorites page, making it easier to navigate to their preferred tracks, playlists, and albums. Users can further customize the way the app looks with photos and stickers for their playlist covers.
For fans of Spotifys annual Wrapped feature, My Deezer Month ups the ante with more frequency, providing a monthly breakdown of users listening habits delivered in highly shareable form. This feature builds on the strong engagement growth the platform said it saw in 2024 for its annual wrap-up, My Deezer Year. Alongside its full-year earnings in March, Deezer said engagement and social media shares of the feature were up 27% and 75% year over year, respectively, in 2024.
But what fun would these features be if you couldnt share them? The apps Shaker feature has long allowed users to make playlists with users across platforms; now they can also share tracks with users on different platforms thanks to Deezers unique universal sharing link.
The company has stepped up efforts to stand out in a competitive streaming landscape with both users and artists. In 2023, Deezer was one of the first platforms to adopt what it calls an artist-centric payment model that set a minimum number of monthly streams a song needs before it can start earning royalties (Spotify followed suit with a similar policy later that year).
It has also invested in AI tools, including AI-powered playlists and a tool for identifying AI-generated songs, which Deezer says make up roughly 18% of all songs submitted to streaming platforms. So far Deezer is also the only music streaming service to sign the Statement on AI Training that promises not to allow its music data to train AI models.
Generative AI has the potential to positively impact music creation and consumption, Aurélien Hérault, Deezers chief innovation officer, said in a press release. But we need to approach the development with responsibility and care in order to safeguard the rights and revenues of artists and songwriters while maintaining transparency for the fans.
If real Easter eggs arent your thing this weekend, you may find hunting for digital ones more enjoyable. And there are some cool ones to find at your fingertips, provided you have an iPhone or Mac. Apple has packed the iOS and macOS operating systems with several fun little references, many harking back to the legacy of the company or other companies in the tech industry.
Microsofts Blue Screen of Death
This one’s been around for a while, and it’s a fan favorite.
The Finder on your Mac can show other computers connected to the same network. These computers are represented by icons. If the connected computers are other Macs, youll see icons that accurately represent the shape of the computer, such as a modern MacBook Pro or even an old G4 iMac from the early 2000s.
But if the connected computers are Windows PCs, youll see the same icon for them all: an ugly beige CRT monitor with the infamous Windows Blue Screen of Deaththe screen PC users see when something has gone seriously wrong with the Windows operating system.
The icon choice is Apples subtle dig at its once archnemesis, and it has been an Easter egg in the Macs operating systems for a few decades now.
iPhone Voice Memo app icon
In this case, the Easter egg is an iPhone app icon itself. The waveform in the Voice Memos app icon may not be just a random glyph. Instead, SiliconRepublic says, the waveform’s shape is the one you get when you use Voice Memos to record the word Apple. In my tests, its pretty accurate, but your mileage may vary depending on how you enunciate words.
Safari Reading List icon
Apple has snuck a few direct references to Steve Jobs in its operating systems. The first can be found in the Safari app on iPhone. Open up Safari and then tap the bookmarks icon at the bottom of the screen.
See the Reading List icon in the center of the pop-up? Those are a pair of eyeglassesbut not just any. They look remarkably identical to the round spectacles Steve Jobs made iconic.
Record label with Steve Jobs’s phrases
Theres another reported Steve Jobs reference in Apples software. This one is in macOS. If you open the System Settings app, click Users & Groups, and then click on your profile picture to edit it, youll notice that under the Suggestions folder full of icons, you can select an icon of a record turntable.
Well, if you go to where the icon image file is actually stored in macOS (Macintosh HD>Library>User Pictures>Instruments) and open the Turntable.heic file, youll see the record on the turntable lists four tracks on its label: 1. Magic 2. Revolution 3. Boom! 4. Unbelievable. These were all words Jobs frequently exclamed during his keynote speeches and demos, notes iDropNews.
Heres to the crazy ones
Next to its seminal “1984” ad, Apples most iconic campaign was probably Think Different, from the late 1990s. That campaign features a poem called Heres to the crazy ones.
Apple has commemorated that poem in two places in its operating systems. The first is in the System Settings app in macOS. Click on the Display preferences panel, and you’ll notice the text size adjustment icons display the opening text from the poem.
Heres to the crazy ones can also be found printed on the pages of the open book emoji found in iOS and macOS.
Let It Snow (in the Apple Store app)
Finally, back in 2021, Apple snuck a little Easter egg into its Apple Store app for iPhone, noted AppleInsider. If you type in let it snow in the search field of the Apple Store app, the app will then display digital falling snow across your screen. While this Easter egg isn’t a direct reference to Apple, it’s a fun one to trigger during the winter holidays.
A history of Apple Easter eggs
During my research for this story, I consulted several older Apple Easter egg roundupssuch as the ones published by iDropNews, MacRumors, and Mental Flossto make sure that I had forgotten any big ones. I discovered that Apple has actually removed a fair amount of them from its operating systems.
These removals include former Easter eggs that allowed you to play Tetris in the Terminal app or watch Star Wars reenacted in ASCII. There also used to be a Bitcoin Easter egg in macOS, but Apple has now removed that, too. I also remember from back in the day that when you typed evil empire into the OS X Dictionary app, you would find the entry for Microsoft. But that seems to be gone from macOS now, too.
In other words, it seems like Apple has been cracking down on Easter eggs in recent years, so enjoy the above while you can.
Robert Bordone is a negotiation, mediation, and conflict resolution expert who founded Harvard Law Schools Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program as well as the Cambridge Negotiation Institute. He was a professor at Harvard for many years and is currently a senior fellow at Harvard Law School.
Dr. Joel Salinas is a behavioral neurologist and scientist. He was formerly a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and a clinical associate professor of neurology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He was the founded and was chief medical officer at Isaac Health.
Whats the big idea?
Instead of seeing conflict as a battle to win or a mess to avoid, disagreement can be navigated in a way that creates connection and positive outcomeson both a business financial level and a relational one. There is value to emerging from our cocoons of comfort in search of the benefits that honest, direct, and courageous engagement with conflict can bring. Conflict Resilience provides usable and scientifically validated strategies to negotiate disagreements with greater confidence and clarity. Whether its in your workplace, family, or community, learning to sit with and grow from conflict can create value in every aspect of your life.
Below, coauthors Bordone and Salinas share five key insights from their new book, Conflict Resilience: Negotiating Disagreement Without Giving Up or Giving In. Listen to the audio versionread by both authorsin the Next Big Idea app.
1. Your brain treats conflict like a physical threat.
When faced with conflict, the brain reacts as if were under physical attack. The same neural circuits that process physical pain are involved when we experience social rejection or disagreement. This can trigger our fight-flight-freeze-fawn-fester responses, making us either overly aggressive, avoidant, or stuck in rumination.
From a Darwinian perspective, these five responses could have a lot of value when under attack with an existential threat. But in the context of modern day-to-day relationships with family, friends, or colleagues, these brain responses can backfire. The brains automatic effort to protect us from discomfort in the moment prevents us from responding in ways that better serve our longer-term interests.
The key to conflict resilience is recognizing these automatic reactions, being able to pause and assess whether the in-the-moment threat is real or just discomfort, and then being able to deploy strategies to sit with the discomfort because of what we call the Bigger Better Offer on the other side of conflict.
2. Conflict avoidance makes things worse.
When we avoid the discomfort of disagreement by walking away, canceling plans, or changing the topic, we often just amplify the problem over time. Its understandable why you might shy away from tough conversations with your cousin about conflicting political views. You value the relationship and wish to prevent the disagreement from causing harm. While this strategy may help us navigate Thanksgiving dinner, in the long run, avoidance leaves us feeling less connected to that cousin.
Prolonged avoidance makes us feel that we dont even know each other. Spending time with them feels painful and fake. Eventually, the connection fades. The instinct to avoid for the sake of preserving a relationship ends up being the long-term kill.
Our society is set up to aid and abet the avoidance tendencysocial media, demographic changes, trigger warnings, cancel cultureall make it super easy to avoid and just hang out with those who think like us. As we see in our polarized world, this path dehumanizes and distances.
Just like avoiding exercise weakens muscles, avoiding difficult conversations weakens our ability to navigate disagreements. By learning to name whats happeningour emotions, triggers, and fearswe can take control instead of letting conflict control us.
3. Curiosity is your best conflict tool.
We tend to enter conflict assuming we already know the other persons perspective. But true conflict resilience comes from curiosity. Instead of debating or defending, try exploring: Ask open-ended questions, listen deeply, and seek to understand before being understood. When people feel heard, difficult conversations become more productive.
Its easy to say be curious, but its hard to do when we feel like we really do know what the other side thinks. Psychological biases tend to make us certain about how those we disagree with think, even when the truth is that we are often missing a lot of important information that can unlock the door to how they think, what matters to them, how to persuade them, and how better to connect with them. In our book, we share real-life examples of how cultivating curiosity led to breakthroughs in relationships, negotiations, and deal-making.
As we explore the deeper perspectives of those with whom we disagree, the possibilities for connection grow, even if we still dont see eye-to-eye.
4. Discomfort is not damaging.
One of the biggest myths about conflict is that its inherently bad or destructive. In our professional work, we are constantly frustrated when people talk about eliminating or reducing conflict. Healthy conflict is a sign that folks feel free enough to be themselves and that there is enough diversity in the room to make life interesting and vibrant.
Disagreement itself doesnt have to lead to division. Tension can lead to growthboth personally and in relationships. We talk about how to stay in conflict to achieve the Bigger Better Offer.
We also offer evidence-based tools to help you decide when to commit to stay engaged and when to draw the line between discomfort for growth and submitting yourself to ongoing harm or trauma. Its a hard line to draw, but an important one.
5. Resilience is a skill you can build.
Conflict resilience isnt something were naturally good at. Each of us may be more or less conflict-resilient because of our upbringing, personality, and disposition. But whether you think you are super conflict-resilient or completely avoidant, you can get better with practice.
Through small, daily actionslike pausing before reacting, naming your emotions, and shifting from defensiveness to curiosityyou can transform conflict from a source of stress into an opportunity for connection and change. The more you practice, the more youll see improved relationships, connections, and outcomes. And the more you practice, the easier it becomes.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Venice is charging day-trippers to the famed canal city an arrivals tax for the second year starting Friday, a measure aimed at combating the kind of overtourism that put the city’s UNESCO World Cultural Heritage status at risk.
A UNESCO body decided against putting Venice on its list of cultural heritage sites deemed in danger after the tax was announced. But opponents of the day-tripper fee say it has done nothing to discourage tourists from visiting Venice even on high-traffic days.
Heres a look at Venices battle with overtourism by the numbers:
510 euros (about $6$11)
The fee charged to visitors who are not overnighting in Venice to enter its historic center during the second year of the day-tripper tax. Visitors who download a QR code at least three days in advance will pay 5 euros ($5.69)the same amount charged last year throughout the pilot program. But those who make last-minute plans pay double. The QR code is required from 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. and is checked at entry points to the city, including the Santa Lucia train station, the Piazzale Roma bus depot and the Tronchetto parking garage.
54
The number of days this year that day visitors to Venice will be charged a fee to enter the historic center. They include mostly weekends and holidays from April 18 to July 27. That is up from 29 last year. The new calendar covers entire weeks over key holidays and extends the weekend period to include Fridays.
2.4 million euros
That is the amount Venice took in during a 2024 pilot program for the tax. The city’s top budget official, Michele Zuin, said last year the running costs for the new system ran to 2.7 million euros, overshooting the total fees collected. This year, Zuin projects a surplus of about 1 million euros to 1.5 million euros, which will be used to offset the cost of trash collection and other services for residents.
450,000
The number of day-trippers who paid the tax in 2024. Officials say 8,000 day-trippers paid in advance to enter the city on Friday, among the 77,000 who have already registered so far to enter the city this year. Another 117,000 have registered for exemptions, which apply to anyone born in Venice, those paying property taxes in the city, studying or working in the historic center, or living in the wider Veneto region, among others.
75,000
The average number of daily visitors on the first 11 days of 2024 that Venice charged day-trippers. That’s about 10,000 people more than the number of tourists recorded on each of the three important holidays during the previous year. City council member Giovanni Andrea Martini, an opponent of the measure, said the figures show the project has not deterred visitors.
48,283
The number of official residents in Venices historic center composed of over 100 islands connected by footbridges and traversed by its famed canals. The population peaked at 174,000 in 1951, when Venice was home to thriving industries. The number shrank during Italy’s postwar economic boom as residents moved to the mainland for more modern housingincluding indoor plumbing, which was lacking in Venice. It has been shrinking dramatically over recent decades as local industry lost traction, families sought mainland conveniences, and housing prices rose. Activists also blame the mono-culture of tourism, which they say has emptied the city of basic services like shops for everyday goods and medical care.
51,129
The number of beds for tourists in Venices historic center, including 12,627 in the less regulated short-term rental market, according to April data from the Ocio housing activist group. The number of tourist beds surpassed the number of permanent residents in 2023, according to Ocio’s monitor. Anyone staying in a hotel within the city limits, including on the mainland districts of Mestre and Marghera, pays a lodging tax and is therefore exempt from the day-tripper tax.
25 to 30 million
The number of annual arrivals of both day-trippers and overnight guests roughly confirmed by cellphone data tracked from a Smart Control Room since 2020, according to city officials.
Colleen Barry, Associated Press
The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
It’s been five years since the intense early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and the first round of lockdowns that mandated work-from-home for companies around the world. Among the debate at the time: concerns about how younger workers and new recruits would cope without access to experienced colleagues and mentors.
Doomed to impersonal video conferencing in converted bedrooms, these youngsters couldnt hope to gain the confidence and deep experience of their predecessors. They would make their mistakes out of sight, and fail to learn.
Now imagine those new workers and interns are digital, not human. Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT at the end of 2022, its not unusual to see generative AI systems referred to as interns, coworkers or even colleagues.
In that case, its tempting to see their offspring, AI agents, as more experienced employees. Using the brain of a large language model, agents are given a specific purpose and granted access to an organizations software tools and data in order to autonomously fulfil their task.
For many enterprises, the question is not whether they should adopt agentic AI, but how quickly and how widely. Gartner forecasts that, agentic AI will address and resolve 80% of regular customer service issues with no human intervention by 2029, and this will result in a 30% reduction in operational costs. With stats like that, other business functions will surely followand fast.
Chain of thought
Big-name tech companies such as Salesforce are going all-in on an agentic future and AI companions are already a common feature in business tools such as Zoom and Slack. AI rivals are reaching agreement at an unprecedented pace on new technology protocols that allow the integration of AI models with all types of business tools and applications.
In this new era, the digital workers are being handed the keys to the enterprise. What can possibly go wrong? Potentially, quite a lot. All the major models are fallible and flawed. As Anthropic, maker of the popular Claude family of AI models, explains in a new research paper:
Language models like Claude aren’t programmed directly by humansinstead, theyre trained on large amounts of data. During that training process, they learn their own strategies to solve problems. These strategies are encoded in the billions of computations a model performs for every word it writes. They arrive inscrutable to us, the models developers. This means that we dont understand how models do most of the things they do. [Italics added for emphasis.]
Anthropics own research shows Claude being tricked into naming the ingredients for a bomb, though stopping short of giving instructions on how to make one. Separate Anthropic-backed research found that more advanced reasoning models, which show the chain of thought they use to reach their conclusions, dont always say what they think.
Without the ability to rely on chain of thought, there may be safely-relevant factors affecting model behavior that remain hidden, the researchers concluded. (The researchers evaluated the faithfulness of two state-of-the-art reasoning models, Claude 3.7 Sonnet and DeepSeek-R1.)
Connecting AI models to business tools, via agents, raises the safety stakes. An agent that has access to an email system can be exploited as a useful tool for attacker intent on phishing. Access to database systems can be levered to extract valuable data from an organization. Even instances of accidental misuse can have significant consequences in terms of disruption, cost, and reputational damage to an organization.
An adult in the room
In the absence of the ability to predict or drive the behavior, these new digital colleagueslike their human counterpartsneed chaperones to provide guidance and feedback. Its important there is at least one adult in the room to constantly monitor these (not very streetwise) interns, intervening in real time when they may be sent on a fools errand, tricked into handing over their wallet, or encouraged to say or do something offensive or illegal.
We know from experience that attempting to rapidly introduce new technology across an enterprise can be a recipe for chaos. Someone, somewhereand likely many peoplewill find themselves in the headlines looking silly, at best. At worst, they may lose valuable intellectual property and suffer serious financial and reputational loss.
The best solution for an agentic workforce is agentic oversightusing powerful, customized agents to simulate real-world scenarios and probe AI for weaknesses. Continuous, automated red teaming of these new technologies, at speed, can give enterprises the confidence they need before they send their armies of new interns and employees out to do real jobs.
This agentic warfare approach offers the greatest chance of implementing enterprise AI for its intended purposes. After all, you wouldnt give an unvetted new employee completely unhindered and unsupervised access to your business systems, would you?
Donnchadh Casey is CEO of CalypsoAI.
The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
Leadership transformation isn’t found in boardroomsit’s happening in our homes. In a world facing converging crises of climate, technology, and social displacement, how we create our spaces reveals everything about how we’ll lead through these transformative times.
Integrity derives from the Latin word “integer”meaning whole, complete, undivided. This word describes both ethical leadership and structural soundness. A home lacks integrity when its foundation cracks or its systems fail to work as a unified whole. Similarly, leadership without integrity fragments under pressure, creates waste through misalignment, and fails to shelter those who depend on it.
The decisions that shape our homesfrom material sourcing to energy systems to spatial designare fundamentally ethical choices. They reveal whether we truly understand our relationship to resources, community, and future generations.
This connection between home and leadership becomes clearest when we contrast two fundamentally different approaches:
The extractive mindset designs homes that deplete resources, prioritize appearance over performance, and externalize their true costs to communities and ecosystems.
The regenerative mindset creates living spaces that work in harmony with natural systems, optimize for both human and planetary health, and regenerate the communities they exist within.
The mindset we adopt when designing our homes reveals our relationship with material resources, directly reflecting our capacity to lead with integrity. The same patterns of thinking that have contributed to environmentally wasteful building practices in the past inevitably also surface in organizational decision making. The good news is that embracing regenerative practices creates a virtuous cycletransforming our homes, reshaping our mindsets, and ultimately enhancing our leadership abilities.
Beyond four walls
Visionary leaders recognize that their organizations, like homes, exist within living systems. Just as a sustainable home requires understanding energy flows, material lifecycles, and community impacts, effective leadership requires seeing beyond isolated metrics to the health of entire ecosystemsorganizational, financial, social, and ecological.
These systems transform leadership in four critical dimensions:
Holistic integration: The alignment of systems, values, and resources to create a unified whole greater than the sum of its parts. In homes, this means designing spaces where energy, water, materials, and human needs work in harmony. In leadership, it means cultivating organizations where purpose, people, profit, and planetary impact reinforce rather than undermine each other.
Regenerative stewardship: Moving beyond sustainability to actively restore and enhance the systems that support life. In homes, this means creating spaces that give more than they take. In leadership, it means building organizations that actively heal social divides, regenerate depleted resources, and leave ecosystems healthier.
Honest materiality: Embracing the true nature, origins, and impacts of what we build with. In homes, this means selecting materials for their authentic properties rather than superficial aesthetics. In leadership, it means fostering transparency about how value is created, and impacts are managed throughout the entire organizational ecosystem.
Adaptive co-evolution: Designing for a dynamic relationship with changing environments rather than rigid control. In homes, this means creating spaces that respond to seasonal shifts, climate extremes, and evolving family needs. In leadership, it means developing organizations capable of thriving amid uncertaintysensing, responding to, and shaping emerging futures.
As technological acceleration and climate impacts intensify, transformative leaders mirror sustainable builders: envisioning regenerative systems, pioneering new methods, and understanding the interconnectedness of people and planet.
The next generation of breakthrough leaders won’t just manage extraction more efficientlythey’ll architect regeneration more intelligently. And like all great architects, they’ll understand that integrity isn’t just a virtueit’s structural necessity.
The whole puzzle
Traditional leadership focuses on optimizing fragments: profit centers, performance metrics, quarterly returns. This fragmentation is like building a house by perfecting individual rooms without ensuring they work togethera strategy that inevitably creates dysfunction at both local and planetary scales.
The integrity-driven approach sees the whole puzzleunderstanding that a home, like an organization, exists within Earth’s living systems. When our homes and businesses operate with fragmented thinking, the collective impact accelerates climate destabilization. When we design with integrity, we create regenerative ripples beyond our immediate sphere.
This planetary perspective transforms leadership from an exercise in optimization to an act of stewardship. It requires alignment between systems, purpose, and impact across scalesfrom the individual home to the global commons we all share.
The future of leadership starts in the home because our profound transformations begin with reconsidering what we’ve taken for granted. By examining the integrity of our fundamental structuresour living spaceswe reveal the blueprint for leading organizations capable of thriving amid complexity while contributing to a flourishing world.
The leadership our future demands builds on the same foundation as sustainable homes: the recognition that integrityboth structural and moralisn’t optional. It’s essential for creating systems that withstand time, resource constraints, and accelerating change.
Gene Eidelman is cofounder of Azure Homes. Rachel Weissman is founder of Congruence.
When Twitter cofounder and Medium founder Evan “Ev” Williams was planning his 50th birthday party, he didnt know who to invite. Having spent more of his life building and scaling tech companies, he found himself feeling disconnected from friends. Thats why he started Mozi last year with Molly DeWolf Swenson, a marketer and producer. Swenson, who serves as CEO of the company, says that the appwhich lets users check in to certain locations where other contacts can join them and vice-versais intended to facilitate spontaneous, in-person interactions.
Launched in December 2024, Mozi raised $6 million in seed funding from Williams Obvious Ventureswhich he cofounded with Vishal Vasishth and James Joaquinand is live in 135 countries.
During South by Southwest, Swenson and Williams joined Most Innovative Companies host Yasmin Gagne to discuss what inspired the app, how it works, and how they plan to make money off of it.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
How does Mozi work?
MDS: You set up a basic profile. The only information we require is what city is your home base, a photo, your phone number, and your name. Then you sync your contacts so that we know which of them are on Mozi. Then you can decide whether you want them to be able to see your plans or not. Then as you go, you input your travel plans or your local plans. The idea is that you open up Mozi and you see where your friends are and the things that they’re doing that you could join them for, whether that’s coworking at a coffee shop, or going to a show that night. Those are the kinds of things we’re trying to drop people into. It’s not something where you’re spending a bunch of time on your phone. You’re actually getting together in person.
Molly, what attracted you to the business?
MDS: I had a spreadsheet of 450 people that I started at my first company, Riot, which was a media company. We’d be traveling back and forth to New York a lot and I’d be like, Ive got to remember to reach out to these people when I’m in New York. So it just started with Who are the important people I need to remember to reach out to that live in New York?. And then that expanded to Who’s in San Francisco? and Who’s in these other cities? Then that list ended up expanding to potential clients, people with audiences, people who are single so I could set them up. It wasn’t very accurate for very long because it takes a lot of effort to keep something like that up to date. So when Evan and I came together to talk about Mozi for the first time, I described the spreadsheet to him.
Do you worry about the app promoting behavior like stalking?
MDS: Its encrypted as fuck in terms of personal information. We’ve been really, I’d say conservative on making sure that privacy is protected for you and your contacts.
EW: We don’t just broadcast your location to everyone. We only tell people the plans you share with a subset of your contacts. Nothing in Mozi is public.
Cant you just text your friends to make plans?
EW: But through Mozi you could share plans with people who you want to know better as well.
How are you going to make money through the app?
MDW: Premium features. There’s dating apps now that people will pay for, there’s health tracker apps that people pay for. There’s tons and tons of utilities on our phones that people are willing to pay some amount for. you We have a thesis that people would be willing to pay for an app that is purpose-built for maintaining and strengthening their friendships and relationships. People write to us saying, I’d be willing to pay for a product like this, just don’t bring ads into it. A lot of our users initiallyMozers, as we call themare in an older demographic. They’re in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s. They’re less price-sensitive than some of the [users of] social platforms that are targeting younger users.
EW: Mozi is really in the category of utilities. The types of apps Molly was mentioning are utilities; they can charge a subscription because people don’t spend all day on them. You kind of need people to spend all day on the app if you’re going to make an ad model work. We’re not focusing on monetization right now. We need to grow the network. But it seems very likely to us that this can provide such value in life as a utility.
What would a premium feature look like?
MDS: We prototyped a map view with a slider into the future. You could, at the city level, see where your friends are, then you slide into the future with your finger and all those little bubbles move to different cities where they will be. That could be one. Ive also talked about this feature of being able to sort my contacts by who is single so I can set them up.
EW: Another cool feature idea is an intro feature where if you see two people who don’t know each other who are going to be in the same place, you can introduce them. Normally that would take a good six text messages, but in the app you could do it like boom, boom, if they both opt in.
MDS: We actually had a cool Mozi moment yesterday. Two people connected at the Mozi event and they realized they had the same birthday they just happened to see each other’s profiles. We should have just popped that information up when they connected on the app. Theres things like that where you connect and it’s likehere’s your common ground. How do you figure out you have the same birthday that fast?
Evan, you cofounded X (formerly Twitter). What is your relationship like to social media now?
EW: I don’t spend much time on it at all. I just think for mental health and for ROI on time invested, I like to do other things. Twitter is still an amazing source of tech information if you want to know what’s happening. If you want to recruit people, LinkedIn is social media. But now I’m just enjoying my time reading books and hanging out with friends.
Have you made any friends through Mozi?
MDS: We found out a friend was in Kyoto and went out to drinks with her and her brother because of Mozi. I heard from someone yesterday who was like, I ran into someone because of Mozi in Dubai. We hadn’t seen each other in four years. It feels like we’re delivering on something important. We want to increase the surface area of that social serendipity.
As the cost of a college education has ballooned to nearly $100,000 a year, a new generation of workers may be opting out of a four-year degreeand seeking out trade jobs instead. Among Gen Z, blue-collar jobs in industries like plumbing and construction have grown more appealing, promising job security and decent pay. A survey conducted by the Harris Poll last year found that Gen Z expressed a marked interest in moving into the trades, and that they were more likely to view those jobs positively when compared to corporate roles.
The trades are also desperately in need of younger workers, as they struggle to meet demand and find skilled workers. That’s especially true in the manufacturing industry: A new Deloitte report estimates that within the next decade, manufacturers may need to fill 3.8 million open roles, as people age out of the workforce and more jobs are created.
President Trump’s far-reaching tariffs could also drive up the labor shortage in the manufacturing industry. A recent Goldman Sachs analysis concluded that the tariffs are likely to create 100,000 new manufacturing jobs, according to Axios. In fact, the manufacturing industry has seen significant growth since the pandemicin part, driven by initiatives to create more semiconductor and clean-energy jobs.
But unlike other trades, the manufacturing sector may not be able to rely on renewed interest from a new crop of young workers. It seems, manufacturing jobs don’t hold the same allure for Gen Z workers; in surveys, they have shown little desire to engage with industrial work due to concerns over wages and safety. A study by the workplace safety software company Soter Analytics found that one in five Gen Z respondents believed industrial work paid poorly, and a quarter of them also did not view industrial work as safe.
Another sticking point for Gen Z is flexibility, something young workers repeatedly cite as a major priority. As the Deloitte survey notes, manufacturing executives are aware this presents a challenge in an industry that typically relies on in-person work with fixed schedulesbut many of them also reported that offering flexible arrangements like splitting or swapping shifts had helped increase retention. (By contrast, other jobs in the trades can offer more flexibility or allow workers to set their own hours.)
But perhaps the greatest hurdle to luring young workers to manufacturing jobs may be that Gen Z often wants to feel a sense of purpose at work. Job satisfaction tends to be especially low among blue-collar workers: According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, only 43% of those workers said they were very satisfied with their jobs, as compared to 53% of employees in other industries. Younger workers were even less likely to be satisfied than their older counterpartsand also less likely to view their job as a career. If manufacturing employers can’t find a way to address issues like job satisfaction and flexibility, they may continue struggling to appeal to Gen Z workers.
