The Backrooms started as internet folklore posted on 4Chan. Now its been greenlit by A24.
Last week, it was announced that 19-year-old YouTuber Kane Parsons will direct the sci-fi/horror concept The Backrooms for A24, with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve set to star. This makes Parsons the youngest director the company has ever worked with.
Variety described the upcoming film as “based on the world of Parsons viral YouTube horror universe.” The rest of the plot remains under wraps, with production expected to start this summer.
Parsons posted the nine-minute short film The Backrooms (Found Footage) to his YouTube channel, Kane Pixels, in January 2022. The film was inspired by an internet storyor creepypasta (a term used to refer to short horror fiction posted anonymously on internet message boards)that first appeared on 4Chan.
Credited as the origin of the internets obsession with liminal spaces, the original post read: If you’re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms, where it’s nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz. The image accompanying the post was later traced back to a former furniture store in Wisconsin, unoccupied during a renovation.
The creepypasta continues: approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.
Drawing on this eerie concept, Parsons original short is set in 1996, when a filmmaker is suddenly transported to the carpeted room with no way out, pursued by something that only appears in his peripheral vision.
Following the shorts viral success, the filmmaker and VFX artist has posted further installments to his YouTube channel, which now boasts 2.69 million subscribers.
Fans have long called for Parsons Hollywood debut. “This man is actually insane, he manages to create horror that is scarier than 90% of Hollywood horror films,” one fan wrote under his original YouTube video. “I feel like there should be a complete film or series of The Backrooms, another commented. The fandom is gigantic and there’s everything you need for a movie.
A24 agrees.
Slide Insurance Holdings is set to debut on the Nasdaq today. The residential insurance company out of Florida will make its initial public offering for $17 per share. Heres everything you need to know about Slides IPO.
What is Slide?
Slide is a technology-enabled insurance company for homeowners. Bruce and Shannon Lucas launched Slide in 2022 with coverage options for home, condo, and commercial residential owners. The coastal company has over 5,000 agents across Florida and South Carolina.
When is Slides IPO?
Slide announced its share price on Tuesday and should list its stock today, Wednesday, June 18. The offer is expected to close two days later, on Friday, June 20.
What is Slides stock ticker?
Slides slock will have the ticker SLDE.
Which exchange will Slides shares trade on?
Slide will trade its shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
What is the IPO share price of Slide?
Slides IPO price is $17 per share. That’s at the higher end of an estimated target range it announced earlier this month.
How many Slide shares are available in its IPO?
There will be 24 million shares of SLDE released as part of the IPO. Slide is providing 16,666,667 of these shares, while stockholders are selling the remaining 7,333,333 shares. These selling stockholders are also granting underwriters 30 days to purchase another 3.6 million shares.
How much will Slide raise in its IPO?
Slide should receive $283 million in its IPO.
Is Slide profitable?
According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Slides total revenue for 2024 increased to $846.8 million, from $468.5 million in 2023. It continues to grow, reporting $281.5 million in revenue for the first quarter of 2025, compared to $199.1 million for the same period in the year prior.
The company reported net income of $201 million last year, up from $87 million in 2023.
What else is there to know?
Despite the current economic turmoil, many companies are still proceeding with IPOsand finding success. Fintech companies Chime Financial and Circle Internet Group had positive results after debuting this month on the Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange, respectively. Each saw their stock shoot up to well above their IPO price, a positive sign for upcoming offerings like Slide.
Six of the Group of Seven leaders discussed Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Israel-Iran conflict but failed to reach major agreements on those and many other top issues closing a summit that was forced to try and show how the wealthy nations’ club might still shape global policy despite the early departure of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and his counterparts from the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Japan were joined during Tuesday’s final sessions by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO chief Mark Rutte.
“We need support from allies and I’m here,” Zelenskyy said, before adding, “We are ready for the peace negotiations, unconditional ceasefire. I think it’s very important. But for this, we need pressure.”
The remaining leaders agreed to jointly attempt to combat what they called non-market policies that could jeopardize global access to critical minerals. They also pledged to limit the downsides of artificial intelligence on jobs and the environment, while still embracing the potential of the “technological revolution.”
There was consensus on other issues, but though the summit was meant to showcase unity on top global concerns, no joint statement on the conflict in Ukraine was released.
Zelenskyy had been set to meet with Trump while world leaders were gathering in the Canadian Rocky Mountain resort of Kananaskis, but that was scrapped. The U.S. also previously signed an agreement granting American access to Ukraine’s vast mineral resources.
A senior Canadian official who briefed reporters at the summit said the U.S. opposed a joint statement on Ukraine amid its efforts to promote negotiations with Russia. The official said it only became clear during the summit’s first day on Monday that there wouldn’t be a joint statementthough other attendees suggested no consensus agreement was seriously on the table. Emily Williams, a spokeswoman for the prime minister, later retracted the briefing statement and said “no proposed statement regarding Ukraine was distributed to other leaders.”
In Trump’s absence, the remaining six leaders held an extensive session on Ukraine. Lacking unanimity, individual leaders also met with Zelenskyy to reassure him of their support.
The summit also was largely overshadowed by a showdown over Iran’s nuclear program that could escalate. Israel launched an aerial bombardment campaign against Iran, and Iran has hit back with missiles and drones.
French President Emmanuel Macron warned against the U.S. and other powers pushing for regime change in Iran, suggesting it could destabilize the greater Middle East.
“I believe the greatest mistake today would be to pursue regime change in Iran through military means, as that would lead to chaos,” Macron said.
Before leaving, Trump joined the other leaders in issuing a statement saying Iran “can never have a nuclear weapon” and calling for a “de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, including a ceasefire in Gaza.” Getting unanimityeven on a short and broadly worded statementwas a modest measure of success.
Macron said Carney fulfilled his mission as G7 host by preserving the unity of the multilateral organization. “We shouldn’t ask the Canadian presidency to resolve every issue on earth today. That would be unfair,” said Macron, who will host the G7 next year.
Carney said in his final remarks Tuesday evening that Trump’s early exit was about the “extraordinary” situation in the Middle East, not anything that occurred during the summit.
“There was no problem,” Canada’s prime minister said. “Mr. Trump felt it was better to be in Washington, and I can understand that.”
Carney said Canada would impose new economic sanctions against Russia and was releasing its own statement offering “unwavering support for a secure and sovereign Ukraine.” Asked if the U.S. pushed to soften any possible joint statement from the gathered leaders on Ukraine, Carney said he consulted with Trump while preparing the language his own country used.
Still, Trump’s departure only served to heighten the drama of a world on the verge of several firestormsand of a summit deprived early of its most-watched world leader. `
“We did everything I had to do at the G7,” Trump said while flying back to Washington. But things were getting awkward even before he left.
After the famous photo from the G7 in 2018 featured Trump and then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel displaying less-than-friendly body language, this year’s edition included a dramatic eye-roll by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as French President Emmanuel Macron whispered something in her ear during a Monday roundtable.
That, and concerns about the Russia-Ukraine war, little progress on the conflict in Gaza and now the situation in Iran have made things all the more tense especially after Trump imposed severe tariffs on multiple nations that risk a global economic slowdown.
Members of Trump’s trade team remained in Canada to continue discussing tariffs, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who sat at the table as world leaders met with Zelenskyy.
Trump’s stance on Ukraine also put him fundamentally at odds with the other G7 leaders, who are clear that Russia is the aggressor in the war. The U.S. declined to join new sanctions against Russia, with Trump saying, “When I sanction a country, that costs the U.S. a lot of money, a tremendous amount of money.”
Trump also said at the summit that there would have been no war in Ukraine if G7 members hadn’t expelled Putin from the organization in 2014 for annexing Crimea. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the G7 now looks “very pale and quite useless” compared to “for example, such formats as the G20.”
Additionally, the U.S. president has placed greater priority on addressing his grievances with other nations’ trade policies than on collaboration with G7 allies.
He has imposed 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum, as well as 25% tariffs on autos. Trump is also charging a 10% tax on imports from most countries, though he could raise rates on July 9, after the 90-day negotiating period set by him would expire.
One bright spot for Trump during the summit came when he and British Prime Minister Keir Starmersigned a trade framework that was previously announced in May. Trump said British trade was “very well protected” because “I like them, that’s why. That’s their ultimate protection.”
But, while announcing that agreement, Trump brandished pages spelling out the deal and dropped them. Starmer stooped to pick them up, later explaining that he was compelled to ditch diplomatic decorum because anyone else trying to help risked spooking the president’s security team.
“There were quite strict rules about who can get close t the president,” Starmer said, adding that he was “just deeply conscious that in a situation like that it would not have been good for anybody else to have stepped forward.”
___
Associated Press writers Josh Boak in Calgary, Alberta, and Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.
Rob Gillies, Jill Lawless and Will Weissert, Associated Press
Today I woke to find that yet another CEO has written yet another memo about how head over heels in love they are with AI. This time, the memo was from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. It was posted publicly to Amazon’s website on Tuesday.
Tech CEOs have been rattling off these love letters from time to time lately, and they usually sound similar: They talk about how the technology is transformative, how chatbots will somehow benefit customers, how it will make their company more efficient because AI will enable them to lay off more humans, and, most ominously, how this is just the beginning.”
We get the gist: CEOs of large companies love the bottom line and AI is going to do wonders for it.
But since Jassy is the CEO of the largest online retailer on the planet, his all-too-samey memo raises a burning question: Who is going to buy all of Amazons products once AI takes most of our jobs?
Jassy does admit in the memo that AI is going to cost people jobs at Amazon. Speaking about how the company is rolling out AI agentsartificially intelligent programs that will do the work a company used to pay human workers to doJassy said that Amazon will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.
He goes on: Its hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.
Jassy is likely right that AI is going to reduce the total corporate workforce, but not just at Amazon. AI will reduce the total workforce at many companies in the years ahead, likely the majority of them.
How bad could things get?
Estimates vary, but a 2023 report from investment bank Goldman Sachs said that AI could threaten 300 million jobs over a 10-year period. A 2017 report from McKinsey stated that the automation of jobs could result in between 400 million and 800 million individuals being displaced by 2030.
Automation refers to the process by which code or robotics perform a task that a human was once required for, and often at a much lower operating cost than what a company would need to pay an individual.
So, again, if every company in the world does what Amazon plans to doreplace workers with AIand that does lead to a potential billion or so white-collar workers seeing their jobs evaporate, who exactly is Amazon going to sell to?
Honest question.
Once AI is doing all the work, and humans can no longer earn a paycheck, who buys Amazons stuff? Does AI start trying to sell cheap goods to other AI? I mean, surely AI has no use for clothes, sporting goods, or shampoo. And it doesnt have any need for the books, movies, or art prints that Amazon sells because, lets be honest, AI models have already stolen most of that stuff. It knows them so well that it can replicate them instantly.
AI might be a good workerand great for a companys bottom linebut it’s the worst customer a company could ask for.
So if AI cant buy Amazons stuff, and human workers are now unemployable because AI took their jobs, who shops at Amazon, then?
Thats something that none of the CEOswho seem so determined to be seen as AI thought leaders every time they rattle off one of these AI love lettersever address in these memos.
If theres one thing that humans can take heart inat least for nowit’s that some companies that have already announced their plans to go all in on AI at the expense of their employees’ livelihoods have faced public backlash for it. But I think thats a problem companies may solve as AI advances.
As for what happens to these companies bottom lines once consumers can no longer afford to buy their products because AI has taken their jobs? Well, Im still waiting to hear CEOs offer a solution to that problem.
Hello and welcome to a special edition of Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs; this week Im dropping a few extra newsletters from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning.
To hear the creative leaders assembled at Cannes Lions this week, reports of the advertising industrys death by AI are greatly exaggerated. In keynote speeches and panel discussions, advertising and marketing executives say they are wholeheartedly embracing generative AI as a partner they are integrating into their work.
In 2023, AI were the two most-used letters at Cannes, Josh Rosenberg, cofounder and CEO of Day One Agency, an independent creative and communications shop, tells Modern CEO. Fast-forward two years, and the conversation has evolved from novelty to practicality. Weve moved beyond the hype into implementation, and with that comes a more grounded understanding of both the potential and the limitations of the technology.
The AI advantage
Susan Howe, CEO of the Weber Shandwick Collective, says the communications advisory group uses GenAI to create synthetic personas to understand how different demographics and constituencies might respond to a clients message. Other executives have talked about using AI to review written work to query what questions they forgot to ask or topics they failed to address.
The AI enthusiasm is tempered by an admittedly self-serving belief that the technology is a tool that will helpnot replacethe human touch. The good news is AI is not going to kill advertising, declared Tor Myhren, Apples vice president of marketing communications, in his keynote speech here. The bad news is AI is not going to save advertising. Weve got to save ourselves by believing in whats always made this industry special: human creativity.
Day Ones Rosenberg concurs, noting, The dominant theme at Cannes isnt just what AI can do but how it should coexist with human creativity. AI will never replace our most powerful creative asset: emotion. It can accelerate workflows and expand possibilities, but it cant replicate taste, intuition, or the spark that makes a piece of work truly move people.
Exceptional work still requires humans
Of course, Rosenbergs and Myrens organizations are responsible for award-winning, groundbreaking campaigns that embody the ingenuity, heart, and humor that feel viscerally humanat least for now. Apple is the 2025 Cannes Lions Creative Marketer of the Year, and Day One was short-listed in the last year for a Chipotle social campaign. So while a computer might not be able to conceive, script, shoot, edit, and recruit talent such as Pedro Pascal to star in a short film promoting AirPods, it is pretty easy to imagine GenAI capably replacing mediocre or uninspiring advertisingof which there is plenty.
In fact, AI is just one of the forces buffeting the ad business: The large holding companies that dominate the industry are consolidating (Omnicom late last year agreed to acquire rival Interpublic Group, prompting fears of layoffs).
Taking the lessons from AI in advertising
What lessons can the rest of the business world learn from advertisings experiences with AI? Companies in the space have successfully moved beyond proof of concept into adoption of the technology, but whats perhaps most striking is the way AI has galvanized agencies and brands to move quickly and take risks. In an environment where products and services need to constantly differentiate and reach new audiences, such nimbleness is a good skill to havewhether or not your company is responding to the potential disruption of AI.
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Including women in corporate boardrooms does more than diversify leadershiprecent research shows it can also lead to safer job sites, potentially saving companies from costly safety incidents.
Companies with more women on their boards tend to have fewer workplace safety incidentsespecially when these women hold positions of power within the board, according to an analysis of workplace safety at 266 companies between 2002 and 2011. These findings were published in April in the Journal of Operations Management.
“What’s cool about this paper is . . . by exploring the human element, it really sheds a new light on the firm’s operations and why there’s variability in different operational processes,” said study coauthor Kaitlin Wowak, an associate professor of business analytics at the University of Notre Dame.
Companies in the U.S. spend more than a billion dollars each week on workplace safety incidents. These incidentswhich range from strikes and shutdowns to worker injuriescause reputational harm and lost profits and can lead to loss of life or limb for employees. Learning more about how workplace leadership impacts safety is one step toward mitigating these harms.
To gauge differences in workplace safety between the companies analyzed, the study authors examined data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), director-level information from Institutional Shareholder Services, and regulatory violation data from the Violation Tracker database. They found boards with more women had fewer recorded incidents.
These safety benefits were even more pronounced when women held positions of power on the board, such as seats on influential committees, researchers found. When women have these positions of power, they are not only able to express their perspectives more freely, but others also pay more attention to their ideas, explained Corinne Post, coauthor of the study and professor of business leadership, management, and operations at Villanova University.
The researchers theorize that the difference in safety outcomes between boards with and without women may come down to men and women having different socio-cognitive approaches to stakeholder concerns, risk assessment, and regulatory compliance. These different approaches stem from having different experiences to bring to boardroom discussions. Women are, for example, more likely to have experience with community outreach and philanthropy, researchers note in the study. Having these different specialties and experiences represented in decision-making are a benefit of diversified leadership more broadly, the researchers say.
“It’s not just gender diversity, too, it’s all forms of diversity [that are important],” Wowak said. “When you have different backgrounds and different cognitions, you bring a different perspective to decision making that’s truly beneficial.”
This research is the first to establish a link between operational safety and diversity in upper leadership, adding to a growing literature that provides the business case for diverse leadership.
I was happy to see the findings, but not surprised, said Michael Abebe, a professor of management at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley who researches diversity in business leadership. He said the new study shows another facet of the benefits gender diversity in leadership can bring to a companyand how the research focus on diversity in leadership has changed over time.
Abebe mentions that for many years, studies about diversity in leadership generally focused on the glass ceiling, an invisible barrier that keeps women and minorities out of leadership even in otherwise diverse professions. But over the years, the field of study evolved to focus on the business case of diversifying companiesand how more diverse leaders can lead to positive business outcomes.
The paper’s authors acknowledge that this field of study is relatively new and say there is still a lot to explore at the board level and beyond. There are multiple different echelons that future scholars should explore, because they all impact a firms operations in potentially different ways, Wowak said.
For companies looking to turn these present and future research findings into real change, Abebe recommends “rethinking how we recruit, where we recruit, and go beyond the conventional to create more pathways to the top for women in the workforce.
Having women on the board does present an opportunity to really run better businesses, Post said. It’s not just about putting women in there . . . but it’s putting them in a position where they can actually voice their ideas more.”
If you ask the average American what Shutterstock is, theyll probably tell you it’s a company that collects stock images. And back in 2003, when the brand was created, they would have been right. But now, more than 20 years later, Shutterstock is attempting to transform into a creative company that can also produce advertisements, generate AI content, and train large language models. To clue in the public on this change, it just got a sleek new look.
This week, Shutterstock rolled out a rebrand that includes a new logo, updated typography, a brighter color palette, and a modernized website. The look is clean and streamlinedeverything you might expect from a leading-edge creative company. It takes Shutterstock from a visual identity that was reminiscent of the 2010s to one that reflects the companys growing ambitions.
[Image: courtesy Shutterstock]
Over the past several years, Shutterstock has expanded its stock library to encompass video and audio. It opened its own production arm called Shutterstock Studios thats created ads for La Roche-Posay, Lenovo, and Carhartt. And more recently, it has gone all-in on generative AI.
To that last point, Shutterstock has licensed its image and video datasets to tech companies including Open AI, Meta, Google, and Amazon to help them train LLMs. According to Bloomberg, Shutterstock made $104 million in AI licensing deals in 2023 alone. The company also collaborated with Databricks in 2024 to make its own user-facing text-to-image model, trained specifically to avoid copyright infringement.
So far, these moves appear to be boosting Shutterstocks business: In February, the company reported that full-year 2024 revenue was up 7%, to $935.3 million, compared to $874.6 million in 2023. Now, as Shutterstock leans into content creation and GenAI, it’s giving its branding a makeover to match.
[Image: courtesy Shutterstock]
Rebranding from 2010s to business sophisticated
According to Allison Sitzman, Shutterstocks VP of brand strategy, the company conceptualized this rebrand as a kind of reintroduction to the public.
I think our rebrand is really meant to introduce Shutterstock for who we are, which is not just a creative content provider, but really a full-scale creative partner, Sitzman says.
That process started with rethinking the companys logo and wordmark, which formerly featured a sans-serif font with a stylized o designed to mimic a cameras viewfinder. The concept made sense when it was first introduced in 2012, but became a bit dated both in terms of visual presentation and what it implied about the companys core offerings, which have since become much broader.
From top: The previous logo, and the rebrand [Images: Shutterstock]
With the rebrand, the wordmark font has been updated to a wider, rounder type called Haffer, which is also used in various weights throughout the branding. Instead of the former viewfinder, the o now features a kind of radiating ripple effect, which Sitzman says represents Shutterstocks widening impact.
[Image: courtesy Shutterstock]
Also on the chopping block was the brands former color palette, which centered an intense red along with black-and-white accents. Now Shutterstock is turning to a core palette of neutral tones, accented by pops of red, orange, green, blue, and purple. Per the brands updated visual guidelines, these hues were inspired by everyday office tools, like highlighters, file folders, and sticky notes. In all, Sitzman characterizes the brands transformation as an identity thats more business sophisticated.
[Image: courtesy Shutterstock]
Doubling down on generative AI
Alongside the rebrand, Shutterstock is reinforcing its commitment to GenAI with a new Generative AI Pro tier built for businesses. According to a press release, Generative AI Pro allows users to enter a text prompt and generate 4K visuals using a multi-model system made up of both Shutterstock’s own models (built in collaboration with Databricks) and trusted third-party models from providers like Open AI, Amazon, and Google. Essentially, Shutterstocks own AI-powered model recommender takes the written prompt and chooses which LLM to feed it to for more relevant, higher-quality results.
To Sitzman, new AI features like these are part of the company’s larger plan to “remove any friction possible” from companies’ creative processes.
GenAI is not coming; it’s here, Sitzman says. I think we do ourselves a disservice, our teams a disservice, and our customers a disservice if we ignore that. At Shutterstock, our approach has always been: This is emerging territory. How do we approach it, just doing the best that we can to try to take care of the needs of our customers and . . . creators?
Its time to stop being so humble at work. When it comes to forging a career path in a moment that is shaped by increasing flexibility, pervasive layoffs, and less company loyalty than ever, following the old rules and quietly waiting for opportunities to be awarded will no longer cut it.
Wildly counterintuitive
The reality is that today, career success requires us to be more outspoken, vocal, and self-directed. For many of us, this feels wildly counterintuitive and deeply uncomfortable. As elder millennial and Gen X workers, we were raised inside of cubicles and taught to keep our heads down, assimilate, and pursue a slow climb up a prescribed career ladder.
Meanwhile, we watch as our younger counterparts boldly start their own companies, juggle side hustles, draw clear boundaries at work, and build their identities online. I coach executives all the time who privately express distaste at seeing professionals muddy the boundaries of what we are, and are not, allowed to say, express, or expect in work settings. It appears too entitled, or tone deaf, for these workers to think and talk about their needs and wants so much.
But the truth is, many of us struggle to self-advocate simply because weve lost track of what we need and want in the first place. Years of seeing this behavior as selfish has kept us locked in place until we eventually crash, crack, or simply lose ourselves altogether. Its time for a reframe.
Getting what we want
Here is what Gen Z knows, and what we all need to learn: When we take the time to explore and advocate for ourselves more vocally at work, it helps us and our colleagues to succeed and thrive.
Running too hard up someone elses ladder will inevitably lead to burnout and helps uphold those outdated norms that need to change and evolve. Meanwhile, knowing ourselves and pursuing what we want will ultimately lead to a healthier workplace culture that endorses individual needs and identities, rather than stifles them.
As leaders, this is something we need to practice as well as preach. So, for anyone who feels a little queasy about this change and unsure where to begin, I offer you this list of four ways to be more selfish at work.
Step 1: Revisit your past desires
The very best way to begin this process for anyone who feels adrift or unsure what they want in their careers is to look backwards and revisit the past.
I find that this is helpful because, quite often, career success makes us feel disconnected from who we are and what we really want to do. We get so fixated on one trajectory or stuck in the industry or skill sets we have cultivated that we lose sight of whats even possible beyond that.
So, I always begin with my clients by going back to some of the earliest moments in their lives. We discuss questions like:
What were you like around age 10? What did you want to be and why?
Where did you go to college? What did you study? Why?
Where did you almost go? What did you almost study? Why did you change paths?
We are looking for early interests, then breaking them down to examine what it was that piqued your curiosity. I want to know what it was about a place or topic or theme that appealed to your identity, or what forces and beliefs and obligations led you to pick one thing over another.
Revisiting these old passions and big decisions help remind you what has motivated you in the past, and the insights will be revealing because of what has changed, or what has stayed the same.
Free writing, talking with a friend or colleague, or bringing these questions into therapy can help immensely. Make sure to take notes on observations and patterns that emerge.
Step 2: Explore favorite moments
Moving forward in time, I like to ask people to consider their favorite days or moments at work and in life. This isnt about what you are doing so much as connecting the activity to the way it can make you feel.
Questions to consider might include:
Describe a typical favorite day at work. The kind that leaves you buzzing.
What are you doing? Are you alone? In groups? A combination?
What is your ideal weekly cadence? Is it a mix of live and virtual? High stakes and low key?
When you design your perfect day off to spend alone, what are you doing?
Why? Has this changed over time?
Personally, I did this exercise at a moment when I felt irretrievably stuck in my job and unable to divine my next steps. What it revealed for me was that, while I love people, I dislike managing them. I had conflated the two for a long time, in part because of my preconceived notions of what career success looks like.
When left to my own devices, Id rather spend my work time alone, and my personal time with people. That insight helped unlock new angles on my goals and needs going forward.
Step 3: Seek out new inspiration
The biggest limitation that many of us face in designing our own career path is simply a lack of imagination and inspiring examples. The further we go in one industry, company, or trajectory, the more entrenched we become in one version of how its done.
So, as you spend time revisiting your past and becoming reacquainted with your desires, make sure to cast your networking reach wider to see what others are doing. Invite in new thinking, pay attention to other modes of working, and ask lots of questions.
There are two great ways to get started: First, brainstorm. Think of people whose work lives and job situations you admire. Maybe its a solopreneur you know, or a friend who works in a field you covet, or someone who has achieved a work-life balance you always pined for.
Reach out to these people. Ask them how they make it work, how they address the things you worry about most: money, rates, income, fluctuations. We are always constructing obstacles that stop us from pursuing big dreams. Your goal is to name those, then talk yourself through them by seeing how others have tackled these barriers.
Second, turn to LinkedIn. Curate your feed. Find people who do the kind of work you might enjoy or secretly admire and follow them. Follow who they follow. Expand your universe with people in different fields or situations and engage with them in the comments, build relationships.
Seek out advice from these people, too. Invite in new ways of thinking. It will be revealing, I promise.
Step 4: Speak up at work and beyond
As your aspirations and ideas become clearer, start putting your needs and wants in writing. Think about one step you can take to get you closer to where you want to head and start asking at work for a small but significant shift.
Maybe to begin, you just need some space. Consider a relocation, or a change in work schedule. Maybe you need accommodations to work remotely more often, or you want to try a new project on the side to build a new skill set and pilot something.
Ovr time, with each ask, youll get stronger at self-advocacy. Each time you challenge a rule thats been set or implied about what you can and cant have or do, you will increase your belief that you can design things in a way that works better for you.
New surroundings
For me, my first big change after nearly a decade in one job was to physically move. After my family relocated, I found it easier to dream of other things Id like to change, as if I had released myself from a fixed sense of who I was and what I could become. I also found myself getting less afraid to try things or ask for things that I had assumed I couldnt have.
Step by step, I left my job, built my own business, started speaking more, and built a platform to write in a way Id always longed for. It didnt happen overnight. But with each step I regained my confidence in my instincts and found it easier to tap into what I want and need.
Give it a try. Listen to yourself. Examine your past. Surround yourself with fresh thinking and people who believe in you. And start getting much more selfish at work.
Maybe youll surprise yourself with where it leads you.
As a proud Gen Xer, I remember that most of my college buddies and I had similar aspirations: land a full-time job, hope the hours werent too brutal, pay off our loans, maybe buy a car and, one day, a home.
Now, as the CEO of a company with a growing Gen Z employee base, Ive found it fascinating to see how different their outlook is. This generation isnt interested in hustle culture if it doesnt lead to something meaningfulor sometimes, even if it does.
As a growing number of studies show, the youngest cohort of professionals isnt focused on ownershipthey care more about access. Theyre not blindly chasing higher salaries or leadership roles. Those things still matter, but finding purpose in their work is just as important.
Their ambitions may be different from mine at their age, but I dont disagree with them. In fact, I think its possible to find that elusive trifecta at work: money, meaning, and well-beingif leaders are paying attention. And increasingly, they have no choice. Gen Z cant be ignored; theyre the ultimate influencers. As Janet Truncale, global chair and chief executive officer at EY, puts it, Gen Z is like a gravitational force pulling all other generations into its orbit.
Heres how leaders can embrace Gen Zs demand for purpose and flexibility at work.
Give employees options for how to approach tasks
When I entered the workforce, working remotely was virtually unheard of. For Gen Z, its nearly a baseline expectation. Many came of age during the era of digital nomadism. Some finished school entirely online.
In short, Gen Z is used to a high degree of autonomy. Micromanaging simply wont work for this generation.
When assigning work, consider delegating not just the task but the how as well. Trust employees to figure out the best way to meet objectives. For example, if a younger employee is tasked with a presentation, let them choose the formatslide deck, short video, or live demoinstead of prescribing every detail. If theyre emailing a client, let them use their voice, instead of insisting they imitate the boss (as long as theyre appropriately professional).
This kind of trust builds confidence and sparks creativity. Whats more, it helps younger employees feel a sense of ownership over their work.
Break hierarchies and keep communication open
In the past, workflows followed a strict order, and expertise flowed from the top down. But at Jotform, weve seen firsthand that every generation brings unique value. Expecting new employees to listen but not be heard is not only outdated, its a disservice to your organization. Gen Z, for example, is fluent in tech and social media, whether theyre editing iPhone photos or explaining why Snapchat still matters.
To harness their strengths, leaders should move away from rigid hierarchies and overly structured processesthese can lead to burnout and frustration. Instead, create space for two-way dialogue and cross-generational collaboration. Create open channels for communication, like all-hands meetings, online feedback forums, and AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions with leaders. When all voices are invited to contribute, weve found that innovation accelerates in the day-to-day.
Focus more on outcomes, less on hours
Rather than sticking to the traditional nine-to-fine for the sake of clocking 8 hours, Gen Z is focused on working smarter. One growing trend: microshifts. As outlined in a recent workforce report from business software provider Deputy, Gen Z is reshaping shift work through short, flexible blocks, typically six hours or less, that support more adaptable schedules.
These slightly shorter shifts help employees juggle responsibilities like caregiving or ongoing education. Gen Z now accounts for 51.5% of all microshifters, and the majority say it improves their roles. It makes sense: when were able to manage outside responsibilities alongside work, were more energized, more present, less stressed, and less bogged down by busywork.
You dont have to give employees total control over their schedulesa little flexibility goes a long way. At Jotform, our office hours are fairly traditional, but within that structure, employees are trusted to manage their time. If someone needs to step away for a personal obligation, they can shift their workday, as long as quality doesnt suffer. That kind of autonomy supports both productivity and well-being. Gen Z employees get the flexibility they want, and the company gets the focus, brainpower, and creativity it needs.
Media portrayals of college life often show the dorm as a melting pot, where students from a diversity of backgrounds get thrown together to learn about life beyond the classroom. But the reality is that just one in five coeds in the U.S. today actually live on campus in such a setup. Many live off campus, a majority face significant affordability challenges, and stable student housing is far from a givenan ongoing crisis that threatens the achievement of higher education.
An experiment in housing affordability, which turned a dilapidated motel into a new home for students, is a case study in building cheaper, more affordable student housing, and ideally an example of how to create a more equitable college experience.
Recently opened in a suburb of Portland, Oregon, Abigail Court offers a new model for serving the significant population of college students in dire need of affordable housing. What was once a falling-apart motel has been remade into a series of 70 studio apartments with an airy common room and a brick-lined courtyard. It houses students from Mt. Hood Community College, Portland State University, and Portland Community College.
Its the work of College Housing Northwest (CHNW), a Portland nonprofit focused on designing and building affordable, accessible spaces for students. For this 55-year-old nonprofit, Abigail Court became a new model for funding and creating a space thats better suited for students to study.
[Photo: courtesy CHNW]
As the nations college population began an upswing starting in the 1960s and 70s, due in large part to expanding access to more Americans from different economic backgrounds, the cost of collegeand especially housing near schoolbegan increasing as well. Room and board, the fastest-growing expense for students, can often be more than tuition, said Jim Rader, CHNWs executive director. There was an expectation when the organization started in the 60s that any college student had family support and didnt need to worry about housing costs. A 2025 report from Temple Universitys Hope Center, which studies challenges in college life, found that 48% of U.S. college students are experiencing housing insecurity today, with 14% having experienced homelessness.
Student housing is also one part of the affordable housing puzzle that often doesnt get addressed, and its a crucial one, since enabling students to make it through to graduation helps them better their earning potential and access better housing later in life.
According to Sara Goldrick-Rab, a sociologist and academic who studies college affordability, existing research clearly shows that housing access and affordability greatly improve educational outcomes for students. A multiyear study Goldrick-Rab ran in Tacoma, Washington, found that federal housing assistance for students not only increased their graduation rates but also improved their overall physical health; they had fewer emergency room visits, lower rates of food insecurity, and fewer interactions with police or law enforcement.
Its a huge deal, Goldrick-Rab said. About 50% of college students are struggling with rent.
[Photo: courtesy CHNW]
Today, the nations colleges and universitiesincluding community colleges, which often draw more working-class and low-income studentshave begun to build out more dorms and housing meant to help close the gap, but institutions dont have the means to meet the scale of the challenge. Goldrick-Rab believes many institutions starting to build out housing simply arent experienced as developers or landlords.
In addition, two of the nations more prominent affordable housing programsLIHTC, or the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, which finances new housing construction, and Section 8, a voucher program to help assist with rental paymentsdont apply to college students. Along with a booming for-profit student housing industry (the surging sector of commercial real estate saw $8.5 billion in transactions last year alone), this lack of public funding has created a college housing market much like the larger rental market in the U.S.: lots of high-priced, market-rate options, a handful of highly subsidized units for those most in need, and a widening gap for those with low to middle-range incomes.
CHNW was able to afford to do the Abigail Court project via an Oregon state program called Project Turnkey, which launched in 2020 to help create housing for Oregonians displaced by wildfires. Alex Wallace, a real estate manager at CHNW, heard about the program and decided to see if it might be applicable to college students. CHNW proposed to use funds to turn the Ponderosa Inn of Gresham, Oregon, into a new kind of student residence, and was awarded about $6 million from Project Turnkey to acquire the property.
[Photo: courtesy CHNW]
The nonprofit spent another $8 million to adaptively redevelop the lodging into modern student housing, which added up to about $112,000 per unit, less than half what Wallace estimates it would take to build a brand-ne dorm from scratch. The whole build-out, which took 18 months, opened last September with rent for a studio set at $915; its now 100% leased, and a state-funded rental assistance program helps 32 students pay functionally zero rent.
In May, CHNW got approval to use state tax credits for affordable student housing, and hopes to use this ability to buy a 100-unit building near Portland State University that it can convert into a similar housing project.
Hotels and motels of this size are great for small housing, Rader says. We go into these areas where theres a community college, its often in need of revitalization, and these renovations can help revitalize the community.
