An opportunity to choose chance.
Thats what social platform startup 222 claims to offer its members. It isnt a dating apptheres no swiping, and, more notably, theres no actual choosing of who you might be meeting.
Instead, an AI-driven algorithm does it for you.
We wanted people to be out and meeting each other.It was [based] on this whole idea of the death of third places, and that people arent just running into each other anymore, says 222 cofounder and chief operations officer Danial Hashemi. Theres no more chance encounters, so the whole [algorithm] has always been about engineering chance.
A backyard origin story
In 2021, twenty-something-year-old friends Keyan Kazemian, Arman Roshannai, and Hashemi came up with the idea for 222 as part of an independent research project.
They created a personality questionnaire and asked friends and strangers to complete it. Participants were grouped based on their answers, then invited to Kazemians backyard for wine and food. Afterward, the trio would assess how well everyone got along.
It convinced us of two things: one, it is possible to solve the social isolation problem by using machine learning and AI, and two, that even at its [initial] stage, with just us randomly assigning people, they enjoyed it so much, Hashemi says.
Social isolation isnt a new problem in our increasingly digitized lives, but it remains a persistent one. Despite access to every niche thought, community, or subreddit imaginable, society is, statistically, lonelier than ever.
According to a 2023 report from the Department of Health and Human Services, we are experiencing an epidemic of loneliness. Between 2003 and 2020, time spent alone increased by 24 hours per month nationwide. Over the same period, time spent engaging with others dropped by 10 hours per month.
In 2018, only 16% of Americans felt connected to their communities.
So, can AI truly be the cure to social isolation? Hashemi thinks it canthrough 222, which he believes can deepen relationships and connect people to their cities.
How it works
The name 222 comes from the street address in Los Angeles where the idea was first developed. The platform is accessible via both app and website. There are no profile photo uploads, and the experience begins with what feels like the final boss of personality quizzes.
With prompts ranging from favorite movies to political views to how likely would you be to do cocaine?, the algorithm gathers input through a labyrinth of questions. These span categories like identity, interests, and media, shaping each users curation profile.
Eventually, users receive curated invite cards to activities like dinner and a comedy club or pickleball and lunch, matched to their algorithmic personality type.
To acceptand to help fund the app alongside its investor backingusers can pay a per-event curation fee of $22.22, subscribe monthly for the same price, or choose a discounted three-month or annual plan.
Were not trying to be some novel experience that someone tries one time and then doesnt come back, Hashemi says. Were trying to build the lasting product that people build their social infrastructure on top of.
After each group event, users can give feedback on whether theyd like to hang out or date specific individuals. This helps fine-tune the algorithm and increases the retainment factor, according to Hashemieither deepening existing connections or making space for new ones.
It just feels like were more divided than ever and theres more echo chambers than ever, Hashemi says. All of these social media platforms are only showing you what you love and arent challenging you.
Originally launched in L.A., 222 has since expanded to New York City, San Francisco, and most recently, Chicago. To date, 222 has raised $3.6 million in seed and angel investments from the likes of General Catalyst, Y Combinator, Upfront Ventures, and the 1517 Fund.
On July 2, the platform will become available internationally for the first time, launching in Toronto, with London and D.C. to follow later in the month.
The big question following U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear program is: What remains of it?
U.S. President Donald Trump has said three targets hit by American strikes were “obliterated.” His defense secretary said they were “destroyed.”A preliminary report issued by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, meanwhile, said the strikes did significant damage to the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan sites, but did not totally destroy the facilities.The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said that as a result of Israeli and U.S. strikes, the agency has “seen extensive damage at several nuclear sites in Iran,” including those three. Israel claims it has set back Iran’s nuclear program by “many years.”Officials and experts are still assessing the damage, and their evaluation could change.Two of the major questions they are trying to address are where Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is and what is the state of the centrifuges that enrich the fuel.The answer to the first is not clear, but the IAEA believes significant damage was done to centrifuges at the two enrichment facilities in Natanz and Fordo.The IAEAand the worldwant to know the state of both the uranium and centrifuges because if Iran chooses to make a nuclear weapon, then making the fuel required would be just a short, technical step away.Iran has always maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful.But it has enriched significant quantities of uranium beyond the levels required for any civilian use, and Israel launched strikes on nuclear and military targets on June 13, accusing Iran of trying to develop atomic weapons.The U.S. joined that attack on Sunday, dropping 14 bunker-buster bombs on two sites. Iran retaliated with strikes on Israeli and American targets. Israel and Iran have since agreed to a ceasefire.Here’s what we knowand don’t knowabout the state of Iran’s nuclear program.
It’s possible the nuclear fuel was moved
At least some of Iran’s highly enriched uranium may have been moved before the U.S. strikes, the assessment from the DIA suggests, according to two people familiar with the evaluation. The people were not authorized to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.That would mean that some of the stockpile may have survived.The assessment was preliminary and will be refined as new information becomes available, the agency has said. Its authors also characterized it as “low confidence,” an acknowledgement that the conclusions could be mistaken.The White House has called the assessment “flat-out wrong,” pointing to the power of the bombs to back up the president’s characterization that the sites hit had been destroyed.Iran has previously threatened to hide its enriched uranium if attacked, and reiterated its pledge the day Israel launched its military campaign. Enriched uranium is stored in canisters that can be moved around fairly easy.In May, the IAEA, which is the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said Iran had amassed 408.6 kilograms (900.8 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60%. If it is further enriched to 90%, it would be enough to make nine nuclear weapons, according to the U.N.’s yardstick, though a weapon would require other expertise, such as a detonation device.Before the war, experts believe the stockpile was mainly stored in two places: underground tunnels at a facility in Isfahan, and in a heavily fortified underground enrichment site in Fordo.U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Thursday that he was “not aware of any intelligence that I’ve reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to bemoved or otherwise.”
Trucks seen at nuclear facility prompt speculation
Satellite imagery showed trucks and bulldozers at the Fordo site beginning June 19, three days before the U.S. struck.Eric Brewer, a former U.S. intelligence analyst and now deputy vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said it’s “plausible” that Iran used the trucks to take nuclear fuel away.But Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Breugel think tank in Brussels, disagreed: “I think that that was a decoy more than anything else.”Subsequent satellite imagery “revealed that the tunnel entrances into the underground complex had been sealed off with dirt prior to the U.S. airstrikes,” said Stephen Wood, senior director at American satellite imagery and analysis firm Maxar Technologies. “We believe that some of the trucks seen on 19 June were carrying dirt to be used as part of that operation.”Trump offered a similar explanation.In a post on his Truth Social network on Thursday, he wrote: “The cars and small trucks at the site were those of concrete workers trying to cover up the top of the shafts. Nothing was taken out of facility. Would take too long, too dangerous, and very heavy and hard to move!”Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that the bombs were dropped onto the two main ventilation shafts of Fordo.He said Iran attempted to cover the shafts with concrete before the U.S. attack, but the cap was “forcibly removed by the main weapon.”
Centrifuges are highly sensitive and vulnerable to damage
Inspectors from the IAEA have remained in Iran throughout the war, but they are currently unable to inspect any nuclear sites due to safety concerns.But with the “explosive payload utilized, and the extreme vibration-sensitive nature of centrifuges,” the agency believes “very significant damage is expected to have occurred” as a result of U.S. airstrikes at Fordo, according to a statement from IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi to the agency’s board earlier this week.The centrifuges there are “no longer operational,” Grossi told Radio France Internationale on Thursday.Centrifuges are used to enrich uraniumand could eventually bring it up to weapons-grade levels, if Iran chooses to do so.Natanz, Iran’s biggest enrichment site, also houses centrifuges.In its underground plant, the IAEA believes most if not all of the centrifuge cascadesgroups of centrifuges working together to more quickly enrich uraniumwere destroyed by an Israeli strike that cut off power to the site.Its aboveground plant has also been “functionally destroyed,” the agency said.Strikes also caused “extensive damage” at Isfahan, according to the IAEA, especially at the uranium conversion facility and the plant for making uranium metal that’s vital to producing a nuclear bomb.
What the damage means for Iran’s program is disputed
Much like Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Iran’s nuclear program has been brought “to ruin.”The Israel Atomic Energy Commission believes the recent strikes have set back Tehran’s ability to develop an atomic weapon by years. Israel officials have not said how they reached this assessment.The DIA assessment, however, suggested that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months, according to the people familiar with it.U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking in an interview with Politico, limited his own evaluation to saying Iran was “much further away from a nuclear weapon today than they were before the president took this bold action.”Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that Trump “exaggerated” the impact of the American strikes.
Associated Press writers Sam McNeil in Brussels, Michelle L. Price and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington, and John Leicester in Paris contributed to this report._ The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. _ Additional AP coverage of the nuclear landscape: https://apnews.com/projects/the-new-nuclear-landscape/
Stephanie Liechtenstein, Associated Press
Apple has revamped its app store policies in the European Union with hopes of fending off escalating fines under the 27-nation bloc’s digital competition regulations.It’s a last-minute bid by the iPhone maker to avoid further charges following a 500 million euro ($585 million) penalty in April. The bloc’s executive Commission punished Apple for preventing app makers from pointing users to cheaper options outside its App Store, and gave it a 60-day deadline, which expired Thursday, to avoid additional, periodic fines.The changes made by Apple will make it easier for app makers to point users to better deals on digital products and options to pay for them outside of Apple’s own App Store, including other websites, apps or alternative app stores.The California company is also rolling out a two-tier system of fees to accommodate app developers that want to use alternative payments.“The European Commission is requiring Apple to make a series of additional changes to the App Store,” Apple said in a statement. “We disagree with this outcome and plan to appeal.”The commission noted Apple’s announcement and “will now assess these new business terms for DMA compliance,” referring to the EU’s Digital Markets Act. The rulebook was designed to rein in the power of big tech companies under threat of hefty fines worth up to 10% of a company’s global annual revenue.Among the DMA’s provisions are requirements that developers inform customers of cheaper purchasing options, and direct them to those offers.Apple’s restrictions preventing developers from steering users to outside payment channels had been fiercely opposed by some companies. It’s the reason, for example, Spotify removed the in-app payment option to avoid having to pay a commission of up to 30% on digital subscriptions bought through iOS.
Associated Press
Shares in Nike, Inc. (NYSE: NKE) are trading much higher this morning after the company announced its Q4 2025 results. Yet those results saw Nike post some of its worst earnings in a while, along with a warning that President Trumps tariffs would cost the company $1 billion in the near term.
Heres what you need to know about Nikes latest earnings and why the stock is up.
Nike reports a revenue decline
Yesterday, the iconic shoemaker announced its Q4 2025 and full-year fiscal 2025 earnings.
The results werent great. For fiscal 2025, Nike reported full-year revenues of $46.3 billiona 10% decline from fiscal 2024. The companys Q4 2025 revenues totaled $11.1 billiondown 12% from the same quarter a year earlier. The company also posted an earnings per share of 14 cents for its Q4. That EPS was down significantly from the 99 cents the company posted in the same quarter a year earlier.
However, perhaps most alarming was the fact that Nike confirmed it would take a $1 billion hit in its current 2026 fiscal year due to the tariffs imposed by President Trump on countries worldwide.
The two countries where Nike makes a significant amount of its goods are China and Vietnam. Earlier this year, Trump placed a 46% tariff on goods manufactured in Vietnam and a triple-digit rate on goods made in China. He later reduced both rates, temporarily, to 10% and 30% respectively.
Still, Nike chief financial officer Matt Friend said on Nikes earnings call that the tariffs currently in place will result in a new and meaningful cost to Nike, notes CNBC, adding that the company estimates that a gross incremental cost increase to Nike of approximately $1 billion.
So why are Nike shares up?
You would think that Nikes warning of up to $1 billion in tariff-related costs and its pretty dismal Q4 results would send the stock down, not up. But NKE stock is currently up, and significantly, as of the time of the writing. In premarket trading, NKE shares are currently up over 10% to $68.85.
There are a few likely reasons for this.
First is that, while Nikes Q4 wasnt anything to write home about, the company actually came in above most Wall Street estimates. Analysts had expected Nike to have a pretty poor quarter already, and indeed, as noted by CNBC, Nike had previously said its Q4 would be the low point of its turnaround.
This turnaround involves Nikes pivot to return its focus to athletes and shift away from its recent history of trying to cater to the wider lifestyle segment of the population. The turnaround was initiated after Nike brought in a new CEO, Elliott Hill, last October.
For its Q4, analysts had been expecting revenue of $10.72 billion and an EPS of 13 cents. So though Nikes Q4 results were disappointing, especially compared to earlier quarters, its actual revenue of $11.1 billion and adjusted EPS of 14 cents came in above expectationssomething investors typically reward.
But another reason the stock is likely rising in premarket trading is also related to that $1 billion hit Nike is expecting.
Though the company says it expects the 10-figure hit this financial year, CFO Matt Friend also said Nike expects to fully mitigate Trumps tariff costs over time.
Nike will mitigate these tariff costs by using a three-pronged approach:
adjusting its supply chain sources
getting its suppliers to absorb some of the costs
raising prices on U.S consumers later this year
NKE shares are still red for the year
Despite Nikes 10% price surge this morning, shares in the company are still down significantly for the year.
As of yesterdays close, Nike shares were sitting at $62.54down more than 17% for the year. However, that was still significantly above its April lows of nearly $52 per share after President Trump unleashed his Liberation Day tariffs on the world.
Over the past 12 months, Nikes shares were down more than 33% as of yesterdays close.
If a Gen Alpha tween said, Let him cook, would you know what that meant? No? AI doesnt either.
A research paper written by soon-to-be ninth grader Manisha Mehta was presented this week at the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency in Athens. The paper details how four leading AI modelsGPT-4, Claude, Gemini, and Llama 3all struggled to fully understand slang from Gen Alpha, defined as those born between 2010 and 2024.
Mehta, along with 24 of her friends (ranging in age from 11 to 14), created a dataset of 100 Gen Alpha phrases. These included expressions that can mean totally different things depending on contextfor example: “Fr fr let him cook” (encouraging) and “Let him cook lmaoo (mocking).
According to the researchers, the LLMs had trouble discerning the difference. In particular, AI struggled with identifying “masked harassment,” which is concerning given the increasing reliance on AI-powered content moderation systems.
“The findings highlight an urgent need for improved AI safety systems to better protect young users, especially given Gen Alphas tendency to avoid seeking help due to perceived adult incomprehension of their digital world,” the study reads.
It wasnt just the AI models that performed poorly; parents didnt do much better. The parent group scored 68% in basic understanding of Gen Alpha slang, nearly identical to the top-performing LLM, Claude (68.1%). While the LLMs did slightly better at identifying content and safety risks in the language, only Gen Alpha members themselves scored highly in understanding the slang, its context, and potential risks.
Its nothing new for young people to feel misunderstood by their parents, but now the gap is widening. Members of Gen Alpha, born post-iPhone and known as the iPad generation, have grown up online. Their native language, often sourced from online spaces (most notably gaming), evolves so quickly that whats popular today may disappear within a month.
Mehtas research shows that parentsand even professional moderatorsare likely to miss context shifts in comment sections. For example: OMGG you ate that up fr, versus You ate that up ig [skull]. The implications of the study suggest that parents might recognize only a third of the times their child is being bullied in comments, even if theyre closely monitoring their online activity.
Simply put, the systems meant to keep kids safe online dont speak their language.
Community members whose local Kroger stores are on the chopping block are urging the company to reconsider.
Residents in cities impacted by the grocery chain’s recent announcement of store closures, including in Abingdon, Virginia; Kingsport, Tennessee; Gassaway, West Virginia; and Charlottesville, Virginia, have started petitions in hopes of convincing the company to reverse course and keep the stores open.
In its Q1 earnings call last week, the grocery retailer announced that it would be closing 60 stores in the next 18 months. Kroger Co (NYSE: KR) expects a modest financial benefit from this decision, but community members losing their stores are concerned about these closures impact on employee livelihoods and food access.
Krogers, if you leave you are creating a huge hole in our community, one signatory commented on a petition with over 1,500 signatures. We shop with you specifically and have supported you for decades. Please dont abandon us.
Other signatories cite their positive experiences with store employees as a reason to want the stores to remain open.
Kroger has stated in its earnings call that affected employees would be offered jobs at other locations. When contacted by Fast Company, a spokesperson declined to comment more specifically on the fates of employees or on the petitions from community members.
Food workers’ union involvement
Many of these petitions have been started or are supported by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 400 Union, a local union chapter that represents Kroger workers in six states and Washington, D.C.
Four stores whose employees are represented by the union are planned to close later this year.
Through these petitions, the union hopes to show the company that union members and affected communities are united in opposing the closures.
“Lets be clear: Kroger is abandoning our communities just so their Wall Street investors can make an extra buck, UFCW Local 400 wrote in a statement to Fast Company. We think our jobs and our access to fresh food are worth more than that and we shouldnt be paying the price for Krogers decisions.
In some areas, the union notes, the local Kroger store is the only traditional grocery store left.
The problem with food deserts
The USDA estimates that 18.8 million people6.1% of the U.S. populationlive in low-income areas more than one mile from a grocery store, or in low-access tracts more than 10 miles from a grocery store.
Studies have linked limited access to fresh and nutritious food to negative health outcomes, such as diabetes, cardiovascular issues, and obesity.
Kroger has not provided a full list of the 60 stores that will close. However, many of the doomed locations have been revealed by local media reports.
“We urge Kroger to reverse course and continue to operate these much-needed stores for the benefit of our members and the customers who depend on them, wrote UFCW Local 700.
Krogers stock price jumped from $69.43 to $72.00 between the start of its Friday Q1 earnings call and start of trade the following Monday but has since been slightly trending down.
Five years ago, I bought an e-bike. At the time, the motor-equipped two-wheelers were burdened with an iffy reputation. Was it way easier to get up a hill on one than on a bike without a battery? Absolutely. Did that mean people who rode them were lazy or even cheaters? Some cycling enthusiasts thought so.
But what if the boost provided by your e-bike motivated you to make longer trips and more of themall powered, in part, by your own pedaling? Having logged almost 10,000 miles on my Gazelle, Im certain its been a guilt-free boon to my well-being. Data backs me up.
I thought about that recently while reading about a new study conducted at MITs Media Lab. Researchers divided subjects ages 18 to 39 into three groups and had them write essays on topics drawn from the SAT questions answered by college applicants, such as Do works of art have the power to change people’s lives? One group relied entirely on unassisted brainpower to complete the essay. A second group could use a search engine. And the third could call on ChatGPT.
The study subjects wore EEG helmets that captured their brain activity as they worked. After analyzing that data, the researchers concluded that access to ChatGPT didnt just make composing an essay easier. It made it too easy, in ways that might negatively impact peoples long-term ability to think for themselves. In some cases, the ChatGPT users merely cut and pasted text the chatbot had generated; not surprisingly, they exhibited little sense of ownership over the finished product compared to those who didnt have a computerized ghost on tap.
Due to the instant availability of the response to almost any question, LLMs can possibly make a learning process feel effortless, and prevent users from attempting any independent problem solving, the researchers wrote in their report. By simplifying the process of obtaining answers, LLMs could decrease student motivation to perform independent research and generate solutions. Lack of mental stimulation could lead to a decrease in cognitive development and negatively impact memory.
The study reached those sobering conclusions in the context of young people growing up in an era of bountiful access to AI. But the alarms it set off also left me worried about the technologys impact on my own brain. I have long considered AI an e-bike for my mindsomething that speeds it through certain tasks, thereby letting it go places previously out of reach. What if its actually so detrimental to my mental acuity that I havent even noticed my critical faculties withering away?
After pondering that worst-case scenario for a while, I calmed down. Yes, consistently opting for the most expedient way to accomplish work rather than the one that produces the best results is no way to live. Sure, being overly reliant on ChatGPTor any form of generative AIhas its hazards. But Im pretty confident its possible to embrace AI without your reasoning skills atrophying.
No single task can represent all the ways people engage with AI, and the one the MIT researchers choseessay writingis particularly fraught. The best essays reflect the unique insight of a particular person: When students take the actual SAT for real, they arent even allowed to bring a highlighter, let alone a bot. We dont need EGG helmets to tell us that people who paste ChatGPTs work into an essay theyve nominally written have lost out on the learning opportunity presented by grappling with a topic, reaching conclusions, and expressing them for oneself.
However, ChatGPT and its LLM brethren also excel at plenty of jobs too mundane to feel guilty about outsourcing. Each week, for example, I ask Anthropics Claude to clean up some of the HTML required to produce this newsletter. It handles this scut work faster and more accurately than I can. Im not sure what my brain waves would reveal, but Im happy to reinvest any time not spent on production drudgery into more rewarding aspects of my job.
Much of the time, AI is most useful not as a solution but a starting point. Almost never would I ask a chatbot about factual information, get an answer, and call it a day. Theyre still too error-prone for that. Yet their ease of use makes them an inviting way to get rolling on projects. I think of them as facilitating the research before the old-school research I usually end up doing.
And sometimes, AI is a portal into adventures I might otherwise never have taken. So far in 2025, my biggest rabbit hole has been vibe codingcoming up with ideas for apps and then having an LLM craft the necessary software using programming tools I dont even understand. Being exposed to technologies such as React and TypeScript has left me wanting to learn enough about them to do serious coding on my own. If I do, AI can take credit for sparking that ambition.
Im only so Pollyanna-ish about all this. Over time, the people who see AI as an opportunity to do more thinkingnot less of itcould be a lonely minority. If so, the MIT researchers can say We told you so.
Case in point: At the same time the MIT study was in the news, word broke that VC titan Andreessen Horowitz had invested $15 million in Cluely, a truly dystopian startup whose manifesto boasts its aim of helping people use AI to cheat at everything based on the theory that the future wont reward effort. Its origin story involves cofounder and CEO Roy Lee being suspended from Columbia University after developing an app for cheating on technical employment interviews. Which makes me wonder how Lee would feel about his own candidates misleading their way into job offers.
With any luck, the future will turn out to punish Cluelys cynicism. But the companys existenceand investors willingness to shower it with moneysays worse things about humankind than about AI.
Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on FastCompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky
Research tells us that high performers thrive on challenges. Stretch projects help ambitious teammates grow their skills, and cross-team initiatives offer greater visibility. Yet, managers are overwhelmed, often unable to curate the bespoke growth opportunities their teams desire.
As a result, seeking career growth opportunities has become the number-one reason people change jobs, according to one survey by Gallup.
If you want more out of your job, youre not alone. The good news is that opportunity is possible without plunging into a challenging job market. But its on you to do the heavy lifting.
Instead of waiting for growth opportunities to be served up, start creating them yourself. Here are three tips to get started.
Define What a Growth Opportunity Looks Like for You
The more specific you can be with the type of opportunity you desire, the more likely you are to get it. Its often helpful to work backward, first identifying the outcome you seek from a growth opportunity, and then considering the viable paths to that outcome.
Do you want to improve your technical skills to ensure you stay competitive?
Are you focused on elevating your human skills, like leadership and communication?
Is your aim to expand your visibility in the organization and develop a stronger network?
When youre clear about the endgame, youre better able to identify growth opportunities that align with your desired outcome. Youre also more confident in saying no to opportunities that dont sync up.
Spell Out the Specifics for Your Manager
Most leaders are eager to support your professional development, but they dont have the bandwidth to curate a list of just-stretch-enough options for you. Do the heavy liftingand make it easy for them to nod along.
When you make a request to your boss for organizational resources, a financial investment, or just the agreement that you can prioritize a developmental opportunity, its on you to spell it out. Whats the opportunity? Why are you asking? What do you need from your boss?
Take a look at the differences between these two requests.
Example A: Id like more professional development opportunities. Are there any conferences or trainings I can go to?
Example B: Ive shared with you my desire to move into a managerial role in the next two years. To ensure Im ready, Im making a proactive effort to develop my leadership skills. Theres a one-day conference next month specifically for leaders in our industry, called X. I would like to attend this conference to elevate my skills, network with like-minded aspiring leaders, and gain insights from other organizations in our space. The cost of attendance is Y, and Id be out of the office for a full day. Ive reviewed the agenda and identified the sessions that I believe will be the most relevant to the future of our organization. Can we discuss this at my one-on-one this week?
Example A is cordial and valid. Example B is strategic and ambitious. Connecting your goals to what the business needs adds urgency and validity to your request.
Even with a well-crafted request, the answer might be no, especially if your request involves a significant investment of organizational time or money. In that event, dont walk away defeated. Reiterate the growth youd like to achieve and why, and ask for suggestions or alternative options.
Give them time to think, be open to the paths they suggest, and know that often theyll end up saying yes to the original request if you continue to bring it up.
Cast a Wide Net
Frontline leaders are often stretched thin, managing large teams and their own mountain of deliverables. When your team is under pressure, your personal growth will not be top of mind for your (likely well-intended) leader.
To safeguard your career trajectory, cast a wide net for growth opportunities, tapping into HR, other senior leaders, and organizations outside your own. For example, if you heard a senior leader talk about an interesting project at a town hall, reach out and offer to help. If you admire the work someone else did on a particular initiative, ask how you can be a part of the next round. You know your leader, your organizations culture, and the line between self-starter and blatant disregard for the chain of command. If needed, run your reach-outs by your boss first.
In some roles, growth opportunities are truly few and far between. Look beyond your organization to challenge your brain: volunteering, industry events, and even hobby-based pursuits will wake up your mind and put you back in the drivers seat.
Waiting for a senior leader to tap you on the shoulder and dub you ready for growth opportunities can cost you years of momentum. The power is in your hands to create the opportunities you want in the job you already have.
The 1994 Frank Darabont film The Shawshank Redemption may be everyones favorite movie to catch on TNT on a rainy Saturday, but its not an obvious place to go looking for money lessons. This quiet film is a meditation on the power of hope to change liveswhich hardly seems like a message one can expect from financial professionals (ahem).
Yet, the story of Andy Dufresnes time in (and spectacular escape from) the Shawshank State Prison provides a blueprint for smart financial choices. And the story of how the film itself gained traction despite a lackluster initial reception can also teach us important money lessons.
What we see: a rock hammer and weekly correspondence
Following his wrongful conviction for murder, Andy Dufresne arrives at Shawshank to serve two consecutive life sentences. He befriends another lifer, Red, who runs an illicit smuggling business. Andy asks him to procure a rock hammer and a large Rita Hayworth poster. (The movie, of course, springs from the 1982 Stephen King novella, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.) Andy claims that he wants the rock hammer for carving, and he does indeed create small sculptures with it.
But thats not all he uses it for. By the end of the film, we learn that Andy has spent 19 years digging a tunnel through his wall with the hammer, using the poster to cover up his work. Despite the rock hammer being a tiny tool for work of that magnitude, Andy never gives up his slow, diligent, and methodical approach to escaping.
Andy is equally methodical in his efforts to improve the decrepit prison library. He sends weekly requests to the Maine state legislature for funds to buy used books. After years of relentless effort, Andy secures a $500 annual appropriation for the prison library, granted by the state just to shut him up.
What we learn: be methodical with whatever tools you have
Part of what makes Andy Dufresne extraordinary is his ability to take the long view. Most of his fellow inmates lose themselves in dreary thinking about their imprisonment, but Andy sees an investment opportunity. He recognizes time as a tool. He doesnt have freedom in Shawshank, but he can take advantage of time in a way people on the outside cant.
By recognizing that time works differently on the inside, Andy is able to use the very punishment hes been given as a way to maintain his hope and persist with projects.
Warning: This scene contains coarse language.
What we see: confronting Hadley and becoming Randall Stephens
A few years into his time at Shawshank, while working with a crew of inmates to tar the prison roofs, Andy overhears Captain Hadley, the brutal and vicious lead guard, complaining about having to pay taxes on a $35,000 inheritance. Andy recklessly approaches Hadley and him if he trusts his wife. Hadley responds to the impudent question by rushing Andy to the edge of the roof to toss him to his death, but Andy saves himself by saying he knows how Hadley can minimize taxes on the inheritance.
Andy becomes the unofficial CPA for the prison staff, and as the years pass, Andy also starts helping the warden launder money using his skills with accounting. He also secretly creates a fictitious identity, a businessman named Randall Stephens. When he escapes Shawshank at the films climax, he steals all of the wardens laundered money by posing as Stephens at the bank and withdrawing all of the ill-gotten gains.
What we learn: know when and how to take risks
Ignoring the advice of his inmate pals, Andy risks his life to gain leverage with Hadley. The only immediate reward is a case of cold beer for the rooftop work crew. But Andy is thinking longer-term, as he is from the very first moments of Shawshank Redemption. The risky gambit leads to work that better suits his knowledge and intelligence, providing new opportunities.
His construction of Randall Stephens is equally risky. He knows that the money he is withdrawing is laundered, that Stephens doesnt exist, and that his absence from his cell has probably already been discovered. Though Andy never broke the law before he went to prison, he does so when inhabiting the Stephens persona he invented.
But like the risk of confronting Hadley, pretending to be Stephens is calculated. Andy prepares everything he needs to pull off the ruse ahead of time, using his knowledge and intelligence to mitigate the risk.
The lesson? Risk-taking makes sense when were well-prepared and set up for success.
[Photo: Warner Bros. Entertainment]
What we see: a box-office bomb becomes universally beloved
The Shawshank Redemption famously tanked at the box office, initially earning a measly $16 million against a $25 million budget. Though it was nominated for (and lost) seven academy awards and lauded by critics, the studio had no idea how to market a character study set in a mid-century prison and audiences were apparently confused by the films (admittedly baffling) title.
Then a funny thing happened on the way to certain obscurity: The Shawshank Redemption slowly found its audience. But unlike many other box-office failures that became cult classics, this film didnt just appeal to a niche audience. Over the past 30 years, it has become recognized as one of the best movies ever made and consistently tops IMDBs list of favorite films.
Just as Andy diligently works at tunneling through his wall, building the prison library, stealing the wardens laundered money, and making himself indispensable to his best friend Red over a period of nearly two decades, the film showcasing Andys story also took its time to garner the appreciation it deserves.
What we learn: proof of concept can take time
We tend to want instant results as a culture, especially when it comes to investingand Hollywood is one of the worst offenders. If a film doesnt make major bank in its opening weekend, studios may be willing to write it off.
Frank Darabont, Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, and the rest of the professionals who worked on The Shawshank Redemption believed in it and gave it their all. The lackluster initial reception must have been incredibly disappointing. But the film is much more than its first three months revenue, as Shawshanks enduring popularity has proved.
Honestly, we need to increase our time horizon for all types of investments, not just Hollywood movies.
When it comes to financial investments, quick returns are typically the province of scams (like the wardens money laundering) or luck (which you cant prepare for). Andys example makes it clear that you should try to invest like the quiet, falsely convicted banker. He does his homework, invests in something he believes in, does as much preparation as possible, recognizes when to take a risk, and uses time to his advantage.
For other types of investments, from your own pursuits to building a business, take a page from the success of The Shawshank Redemption. The right combination of diligence and patience remains the most predictable investment strategy.
It can be easy for consumers to feel like we now live in a two-tier economy: one geared toward showering the wealthy with perks, extras, and exclusive access, and the other for us normies. But one place you might not expect that is at Costco.
Which might explain the mixed reaction to the recent news that, starting June 30, Costco U.S. locations that now open at 10 a.m. will open an hour earlier Sunday through Fridaybut only for certain people. Holders of its Executive Member card, which at $130 a year costs double the standard Gold Star membership fee, are allowed into the store early. (Those fees are up from $120 and $55, respectively, as of last year.) And locations that already open at 9 will now also make that first hour Executive only. (Saturdays its just for Executive members for the first half hour of operation.) All members will be welcome to shop starting at 10 a.m. Monday through Friday and Sunday, and at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, an announcement on Instagram explained.
Some responses to that post suggested that this new Executive perk came across like second-tier treatment for devoted Costco shoppers. Why reduce the value of a regular membership for US members? one asked. Extended hours should be for all members, another argued. As members we all pay to shop there, a third added. Inconveniencing your loyal customers for 30 mins to an hour is actually not cool.
It might seem counterintuitive that a brand so fundamentally tied to bargain hunting, volume discounts, and savvy shopping would have an elite membership level at all. While Costcos product mix has come to include items targeting higher-end consumersfrom fancy champagne to Rolex watches to actual gold barsthe Costco image is tied to the idea that finding a great deal is the ultimate equalizer. The appeal of, say, the chains famous $1.50 hot dog cuts across class lines (at least symbolically).
Costco has long enjoyed a broad and loyal fan base, and over the past year its reputation has seemed particularly virtuous. Its in-house Kirkland brand, already popular, has become arguably even more appealing as shoppers contend with tariff-war uncertainties. More broadly, Fast Company recently named CEO Ron Vechris Visionary of the Year for standing by diversity, equity, and inclusion policies that the company believes are good for business. As Target and other rivals have been dinged for seeming to cave to political pressure, Costco has gotten more popular. Its sales were up 8% in the most recent quarter, just shy of $61 billion and ahead of analyst estimates.
But that includes its Executive tier: It turns out that a remarkable 47% of Costco members pay extra for the black-card Executive level. This currently entails a 2% reward on qualified purchasesmeaning that its actually possible to earn back the extra fee cost if you spend enoughand discounts on some Costco services and Costco Travel deals. In addition to the exclusive shopping time, Costco is also adding a $10 credit for certain home delivery orders (a segment the chain has been pushing, including an Instacart partnership) for Executive members.
Maybe more to the point, Costco rival Sams Clubs elite tier already includes exclusive shopping time (and Costco itself actually had an earlier version of the perk that was discontinued in the peak pandemic era). And notably, Costco has said its Executive customers account for about 73% of its global sales.
In other words, given what those elite, black-card-carrying customers contribute to Costcos business, maybe they deserve more special treatment. Thats certainly how some reacted to that Instagram post announcing the new hours. Nice added benefit to those with the Executive membership, wrote one member. Hope to see more distinguishing benefits down the road. Another added: Finally, something exclusive for Executive members. Others sounded a more appreciative note. Fresh morning hot dogs, one wrote, for me and my black card! Such are the privileges of the Costco elite.
