The internets latest obsession: training and cheering on anthropomorphized anime horses as they race around a track.
First released in 2021 as a mobile game for iOS and Android, Umamusume: Pretty Derby is both a racing simulator and a gacha game. In the game world, iconic racehorses of the past are reborn as horse girls (umamusume)anime humanoids with horse ears and tails.
The characters get the chance to race again for prizes and glory. Players dont directly control their horse girls; instead, they train them and cheer them on.
The game was already a hit in Japan following its early 2021 release, even inspiring a multi-season anime adaptation. But it remained largely under the radar for U.S. audiencesuntil this summer.
On June 18, the English version of Umamusume: Pretty Derby launched. The game quickly went viral, picked up by popular streamers like Ludwig and Northernlion. On July 9, it hit its all-time peak with 50,725 concurrent players on Steam.
As more and more fans discover the game, theyve started sharing clips and posting TikTok edits of their favorite horse girls.
@jpartnmaaa Playing Umamusume and becoming the greatest trainer in the world Catch Me LIVE THURSDAY #umamusumeprettyderby #tokaiteio #funny #viral #gaming original sound – JPartNMA
What makes the game even more compelling is that each horse girl has a real-life racehorse counterpart. TikTok creators are diving deep into their backstories, and searches for the original racehorses have spiked more than 800% since the games release.
@gameyokai Haru urara is a symbol of never giving up! Her real life horse inspires you to always try your best! #umamusume #umamusumeprettyderby #anime #horse #greenscreen 60sec.Ver – (CV. ) & (CV. ) & (CV. )
Haru Urara is a fan favorite. As one X user wrote: even though shes just a bunch of pixels on my screen i need haru urara to know that i would do literally anything in the world for her.
even though shes just a bunch of pixels on my screen i need haru urara to know that i would do literally anything in the world for her pic.twitter.com/wpUJYfHWug— Mug (@Mug4Times) June 30, 2025
The real-life racehorse behind the character became a cultural icon in Japan in the early 2000s. Despite ending her five-year career with 0 wins in 113 races, Haru Uraras unwavering spirit made her a national symbol of resilience.
Now the farm where Haru Urara is living out her retirement has responded to the wave of new fans. I dont know if this will reach the overseas bros and sisters, but Haru Urara is doing super well, and honestly, shes probably healthier and more energetic than I am! reads an X post.
1400 pic.twitter.com/E9MKbUaPRj— (@animal_love_kaz) July 3, 2025
Whatever you do, dont look up the backstory of the racehorse Rice Shower.
As job-seekers look for work in a challenging environment, an increasing number are falling victim to job scams that promise good pay for completing easy online tasks, according to the Federal Trade Commission.The scams start innocuously, often with a tailor-made text or WhatsApp message, and the scammers take time to build trust with the victim before cashing in on the relationship.“Most of the people who end up losing money to a scammer are behaving pretty rationally,” said Kati Daffan, assistant director of the Federal Trade Commission’s division of marketing practices. “Scammers are sophisticated, and they keep changing their tactics.”Reported losses to job scams increased more than threefold from 2020 to 2023. In the first half of 2024, they topped $220 million, according to the FTC. Gamified job scams, or task scams, represented a significant portion of that growth. About 20,000 people reported experiencing gamified scams in the first part of 2024, compared to 5,000 in all of 2023.Daffan said that that the number is certainly an underestimate, because many people don’t report their experiences of job scams to law enforcement or government trackers.“Only 4.8% of people complain,” she said.Here’s what to know:
How the scams work
The scam typically begins with an unexpected text or WhatsApp message from a “recruiter” offering online work, according to the FTC. The mystery texter will say you can “make good money” by “product boosting” or doing “optimization tasks” for an online platform or in an app, which might involve liking videos or rating product images.This “job” promises to earn you money from “commissions” per click. Once you complete the tasks, you’ll see an increasing tally of “earnings” on the platform or in the app. These earnings are fake.Eventually, the app or platform will ask you to deposit your own money, typically in crypto, to complete more tasks and withdraw your (non-existent) earnings. But if you do make the deposit, you lose your real money, and you never receive the illusory pay.
Who gets targeted
Eva Velasquez, CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center, said these types of scammers typically prey on job-seekers who are new to the job market, people who have been out of the job market for some time (such as homemakers re-entering the workforce, whose children are grown), and immigrants, who may be less familiar with the employment landscape or who face language barriers.“Often the job will have an easy interview or no interview, promise to let you work from home, and let you start right away,” Velasquez said. “Sometimes they’ll start with praise, and the person will feel their skills are recognized. ‘Oh, you think I’m great? Tell me more.'”Velasquez emphasized the vulnerability of people looking for work, especially given ongoing economic uncertainty, who may choose to accept a role even if it initially feels shady.“Sometimes the ask is to leave phony reviews for products,” she said. “The scammers are probably selling those reviews illegally, but a job-seeker might look at a line and say, ‘I’ll cross that line. I’ve got to eat.'”
Tips for spotting a task-based scam
Ignore any generic and unexpected texts or WhatsApp messages about jobs, no matter how specific or complimentary the messages. Never pay to get paid, or to get a job. That requirement is a red flag that the position is a scam. Don’t trust employers who says they’ll pay you to rate or like things online, without an above-board process for using the actual products or services you’re rating.
The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.
Cora Lewis, Associated Press
A federal judge will consider on Thursday whether to prevent President Donald Trump’s administration from enforcing his executive order limiting birthright citizenship after the U.S. Supreme Court restricted the ability of judges to block his policies using nationwide injunctions.
American Civil Liberties Union lawyers are set to ask U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante at a hearing in Concord, New Hampshire, to grant class action status to a lawsuit they filed seeking to represent any babies whose citizenship status would be threatened by implementation of Trump’s directive.
Granting class status would empower Laplante, if he is inclined to do so, to issue a fresh judicial order blocking implementation of the Republican president’s policy nationally.
The ACLU and others filed the suit just hours after the Supreme Court on June 27 issued a 6-3 ruling, powered by its conservative majority, that narrowed three nationwide injunctions issued by judges in separate challenges to Trump’s directive. The suit was filed on behalf of non-U.S. citizens living in the United States whose babies might be affected.
Under the Supreme Court’s decision, Trump’s executive order would take effect on July 27.
Looking to seize upon an exception in the Supreme Court’s ruling, the lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that the decision allows judges to continue to block Trump policies on a nationwide basis in class action lawsuits.
The three judges who issued nationwide injunctions found that Trump’s directive likely violates citizenship language in the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. The amendment states that all “persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
The Justice Department has argued that Trump’s order conforms with the Constitution and has asked Laplante to find that the plaintiffs cannot sue as a class.
The Supreme Court’s ruling did not address the legal merits of Trump’s order, which the Republican president issued as part of his hardline immigration agenda on his first day back in office in January.
Trump’s order directs federal agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of U.S.-born children who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident, also known as a “green card” holder.
More than 150,000 newborns would be denied citizenship annually if it takes effect nationally, according to Democratic-led states and immigrant rights advocates who have challenged it.
The justices ordered lower courts to reconsider the scope of the three injunctions that had blocked Trump’s order from being enforced anywhere in the country against anyone after finding judges lack the authority to issue so-called “universal injunctions” that cover people who are not parties to the lawsuit before the judge.
Although the Trump administration hailed the ruling as a major victory, federal judges have continued to issue sweeping rulings blocking key parts of Trump’s agenda found to be unlawful.
Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who wrote the decision for the court, made clear that it did not prevent plaintiffs from obtaining essentially the same type of relief as provided in a nationwide injunction by instead bringing class action lawsuits that seek to represent all similarly situated people, among other exceptions.
Immigrant rights advocates launched two proposed class actions that same day, including the one before Laplante, who in a related case also concluded in February that Trump’s order was likely unconstitutional.
Laplante, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, ruled that Trump’s order contradicted the 14th Amendment and a 1898 Supreme Court ruling interpreting it. In that case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court interpreted that amendment as recognizing the right to birthright citizenship regardless of the immigration status of a baby’s parents.
Laplante agreed at the time that an injunction was warranted, saying that “the denial of citizenship to the plaintiffs’ members’ children would render the children either undocumented noncitizens or stateless entirely.”
But Laplante limited the scope of his order to members of the three immigrant rights nonprofit organizations who pursued the case before him.
ACLU lawyers are now urging Laplante to go further by certifying a nationwide class of babies and their parents who would be affected by Trump’s order, saying that absent a court order thousands of families nationally would be unprotected.
Trump’s administration counters that the three noncitizens parents and expectant parents seeking to serve as lead plaintiffs have immigration statuses that are too different to be able to pursue a single class action together and that an injunction at this time would “short circuit” the usual lengthier process required for them to obtain relief.
Nate Raymond, Reuters
In recent years, people have welcomed AI into their lives with open arms: as personal assistants, friends, therapists, even lovers. But one concern with having a chatbot in your pocket is that it can be hard to ignore. Reddit support groups are springing up for those struggling with chatbot addiction.
404 Media interviewed one self-confessed addict who had been staying up well into the night, compulsively talking to chatbots on Character.AI. The more I chatted with the bot, it felt as if I was talking to an actual friend of mine, the 18-year-old told journalist Ella Chakarian. Most people will probably just look at you and say, How could you get addicted to a literal chatbot?
Now addicts are trying to break the cycle. Forums such as r/Character_AI_Recovery, which has more than 900 members, and r/ChatbotAddiction are serving as support groups for those struggling.
While I have deleted the app, I keep going back to the website its practically reflex to me now, clicking back into my character ai tab. I hate it, one post on r/Character_AI_Recovery read. Nobody else knows about this addiction I have except myself because its humiliating. Another wrote: “I’m on my probably hundredth attempt of quitting.
Others use the group to share their wins and hold themselves accountable. Ive been clean for a week! one posted. Another wrote: Been off three days now and everythings going well, but I have this feeling that I wont be able to get away from character ai.
Character.ai says its striving to strike a balance between keeping its platform both engaging and safe, especially for teens, noting that this challenge is shared across the AI industry. A company spokesperson told Fast Company, Engaging with characters on our site should be interactive and entertaining, but its important for our users to remember that characters are not real people, adding that every chat includes disclaimers to that effect.
To support younger users, Character.ai offers a suite of safety tools, including filtered content, time-use notifications, and Parental Insights, the latter of which gives guardians visibility into how teens use the platform. The company says users younger than 18 interact with a separate version of its language model designed to reduce exposure to sensitive material. We added a number of technical protections to detect and prevent conversations about self-harm, the spokesperson said, noting that in some cases this includes directing users to suicide prevention resources.
While some have successfully weaned themselves off the chatbots, the likelihood of relapse remains high. Some platforms even encourage it, sending follow-up emails promoting different chatbots or offering incentives like a free months subscription to reengage users.
I hated it whenever I’d see an email from the bot that had sent you a message, one former addict wrote. Or the emails telling me that a bot misses me. Just why? Isn’t this parasocial enough to them?
YouTube is cracking down on mass-produced and repetitive content. The Google-owned video-sharing platform has released additional guidance for its YouTube Partner Program (YPP) in response to the growing popularity of AI-generated videos.
In order to monetize as part of the YPP, YouTube has always required creators to upload original and authentic content, the update states. YouTube is updating our guidelines to better identify mass-produced and repetitious content. This update better reflects what inauthentic content looks like today. The update comes into effect on Tuesday, July 15.
How much AI is too much?
However, the announcement was met with concern from some creators over whether any AI use would demonetize a video.
Rene Ritchie, YouTubes head of editorial and creator liaison, released a video in an effort to put some of these worries to bed. Ritchie called the update minor, explaining that it should help with identifying unwanted content.
This type of content has already been ineligible for monetization for years, and its content viewers often consider spam, he added.
YouTube is in a unique position when it comes to AI. Its parent company, Alphabet, is backing a series of AI initiatives, benefiting from AIs widespread use. It runs the Google AI Studio and develops AI models such as the Gemini series.
At the same time, Alphabet has to acknowledge not only the downsides of AI, but its potential to overwhelm platforms that rely on user-generated contentin other words, rein in instances of repetitive, inauthentic slop created with the very technologies that it’s investing so heavily in.
Yesterday, Nvidia Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) became the first company to surpass a $4 trillion market capitalization. The AI chip giant did so on the strength of its position in the artificial intelligence race that has been sweeping the globe. Nvidia makes the graphics cards and other computing infrastructure that power AI platforms.
A companys market capitalization, or market cap, is determined by adding up the total value of all the shares in that company. As of yesterday, when you added up Nvidias total shares, you got a value of more than $4 trillion.
But Nvidia isnt the only company that will likely cross this $4 trillion milestone. Here are other companies that are closeor relatively closeto the $4 trillion market valuation mark, as of the close of the market yesterday, according to stock market data from Yahoo Finance.
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT) closed at $503.51 per share yesterday, bringing the companys market cap to just north of $3.7 trillion.
This makes the Windows maker the second-most valuable company, only behind Nvidia. Of course, like all the companies on this list, its stock prices current and past performance are no predictor of where the companys valuation goes next.
Still, as of the time of this writing, Microsoft is less than $300 billion in value away from becoming the worlds second $4 trillion company.
Apple
Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) was the first public company in history to cross the $1 trillion, $2 trillion, and $3 trillion market cap marks. Currently, it ranks third in the worlds most valuable public companies.
Yesterday, the companys shares closed at $211.14, giving Apple a market cap of just over $3.1 trillion. That means Apple is about $900 billion in value shy of a $4 trillion market cap.
While this brings Apple closer in value to $4 trillion than the rest of the companies on this list, the $900 billion gap means Apples stock price will need to rise by nearly 25% to reach a $4 trillion market cap.
The closest Apple has ever come to this threshold is a market cap of $3.9 trillion last yearnearly there.
Amazon
The e-retail giant Amazon.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) is next closest to a $4 trillion market cap. But first, its got to pass the $3 trillion mark, too.
As of yesterdays close at $222.54, Amazon has a market capitalization of approximately $2.3 trillion. This means the stock needs to nearly double in value to reach a $4 trillion market capitalization.
Alphabet (Google)
Right behind Amazon is Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG), owner of Google. The search giants share price closed at $177.66 yesterday, giving it a market cap of just over $2.1 trillion.
Again, that makes it one of the most valuable companies ever, but it also means that Alphabet still needs to pass the $3 trillion mark before it can hope to achieve a $4 trillion valuation, matching Nvidia’s.
Meta
Facebook owner Meta Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: META) is the next closest U.S. company to a $4 trillion valuation. However, it is currently a long way from reaching that milestone.
The companys shares closed at $732.78 yesterday, giving it a market cap of just over $1.8 trillion. That means Meta shares need to more than double to reach a $4 trillion valuation.
Road to $10 trillion?
That any public company would have a trillion-dollar market cap once seemed unimaginable.
But then on August 2, 2018, Apple did just that, becoming the worlds first trillion-dollar company. It took 37 years, 7 months, and 21 days to reach that milestone after its initial public offering on December 12, 1980.
Apples next trillion dollars came much faster. On August 19, 2020, Apple became the first company to surpass a $2 trillion market capitalization. It added that extra trillion in valuation in just 2 years and 17 days. Then, just 2 years, 10 months, and 11 days later, Apple became the first company to cross a $3 trillion market cap.
Since Apple first became a 12-figure company in 2018, many other U.S. companies have surpassed this milestone. That includes Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Tesla, and Broadcom.
Whats remarkable about Nvidias rise to the most valuable publicly traded company ever is that while it took Nvidia just over 24 years to cross the $1 trillion market cap in June 2023, it took the company a mere 2 years and change to cross the $4 trillion mark. Thats an addition of another $3 trillion in market capitalization in less than 25 months.
Of course, theres no guarantee that Nvidia stays above the $4 trillion market cap mark. Yet, the rate at which the biggest tech companies are increasing their market caps in recent years suggests that, if things continue on the same trajectory, the world may very well see its first $10 trillion company (or companies) before this decade is over.
In 2022, I was hired to build out AI operations at a health-tech startupat the time, we were pioneering the use of AI in healthcare, which required abundant human oversight. Over time, new GenAI models were launching at an unprecedented pace and new iterations like GPT-4 could solve a case in 30 seconds, compared to the four months it took my team. It quickly became clear to both my employer and me that my skills were no longer needed, and there were no clear opportunities to chart a new path at my job with my current skill set. I was left with no choice but to move on.
As I reignited my job search, I was keen on finding AI-proof positionsroles that wouldnt be affected by the AI revolutionbut I persisted with a traditional search. It wasnt until about five months later that I realized this approach wasnt working. Frustrated, I paused to rethink my entire strategy and questioned whether I was looking at the problem from the right angle. Then came my light-bulb moment: instead of thinking about what AI was going to do to me, I shifted my mindset to explore what it could do for me.
Secret weapon
AI quickly became my secret weapon. I created a custom “CareerBuddy GPT” in ChatGPT to help me with rote work like drafting a cover letter and updating my résumé to tailor to each individual job posting. Using AI cut down the time I was spending on my job search by 70 to 80% but it also saved me the headache. Anyone who is grinding on the job search knows the process can be fatiguing.
I found the best use for AI, however, was using AI as a strategic partner, assessing my candidacy for roles, generating leads for my job search, and advising on the best ways to position my experience. By simply uploading my résumé or summarizing my objectives, CareerBuddy GPT identified people to reach out to, organizations to vet, and even open job listings that I may have missed.
Untapped resource
This resulted in landing a role at a fresh new startup, which is ironically all about perfecting the human-AI relationship. Ultimately, using AI in my job search helped me realize that collaborating with AI was my greatest untapped resource. I am currently leveraging a lot of what I self-learned to improve our organizations internal AI programidentifying where AI can fill the gaps and free up my teams for more creative opportunities.
There are some revolutions so momentous that we cannot avoid them even if we want to. Unfortunately, I couldnt sustain my health-tech position as that revolution unfolded. But this situation clarified an important learning for me: the AI wave is here and there are two options: you can get pulled in by the undertow or grab a surfboard and ride the wave.
Maximizing productivity
AI can become your job hunter, career coach, your personal shopper, or your receptionist. It can help you save time, explore different paths, find space for creativity, and develop your own set of skills. My personal beliefalbeit cautiously optimisticis that human value is not going to vanish even if AI can replicate some of our capabilities. But what AI can do is help maximize human productivity and help humans unlock value they dont even know they have.
To be clear, sharing my experience is not meant to invalidate peoples stories or deny the truth. As headlines fuel fears around AI replacing human workers, layoffs are happening more frequently. Microsoftjustlaid off 3% of its workforce(7K+ employees) in order to funnel more cash into its lofty AI goals, but the two shouldnt be mutually exclusive, and in fact, its better theyre not. We know AI is most helpful in helping complete rote work. At the same time leadership is freeing up, say, software engineers to do coding, theres demand for AI prompt engineering support where human expertise is critically needed. Companies can leverage the power of the AI-human relationship to 100x their productivity, rather than have AI replace the labor theyre letting go.
This is not just one way everyonefrom the employee to the board membercan rethink the way we are approaching AI. But we can all start by dispelling our fears that AI will replace us and instead grab that surfboard and make AI our secret weapon and our key to unlocking human potential.
In 2020, the art collective Mschf cut up a $30,0000 Damien Hirst print into pieces. Hirsts 88 colorful dots were individually sold for $480, as part of Mschf Severed Spots project that explored themes of ownership and exclusivity in the art world. Now, the Brooklyn-based group is looking to chop into a new piece, but this time its their own foam sculpture of a giant baby.Based on the biblical story of King Solomon cutting a baby in half for two grieving mothers, King Solomons Baby will quite literally be cut into pieces, with the number of deli-like slices being determined by the amount of online buyers. Ultimately, it’s a new approach to how large-scale sculptures can be observed and obtained. [Image: courtesy Mschf]Anywhere from one to 1,000 people can purchase a randomized piece of the baby, with each buyer bringing the price down as the number of baby slices go up. The first person to put in their card to buy a piece of the sculpture could receive the entirety of the 15 foot-long baby for $100,000, or pay as little as $100 for a sliver of its toe, or somewhere in betweenall with no control of the end result.[Photo: courtesy Mschf]Kevin Wiesner, chief creative officer at Mschf, says he hopes the piece gets divided into 1,000 slices, as it will complete the structural transformation of the baby and allow for more people to get a piece of it.Part of the problem with artwork and for us is that whenever we want to make a singular object, we realize that the way that you can interact with a piece like that is very limited, Wiesner says. It doesn’t translate particularly well to a mass audience and people on their phones. This [Solomans baby] is a mechanism that at least scales the experience[possibly] a thousand times. All of those people then become participants in the overall life trajectory of what this sculpture is.[Photo: courtesy Mschf]The baby isnt meant to have one singular meaning, but rather its supposed to open up discussion for what ownership and division can mean to the individual viewer and buyer. As the piece gets cut, it becomes less of a three-dimensional sculpture, and more of a two-dimensional wall ornament meant for public consumption.According to the group, this isnt a new idea, but rather a coexisting example of how we visually interpret the world around us. [Photo: courtesy Mschf]You don’t you don’t know what a thing means until a bunch of people have interacted with it, Wiesner said. I mean, you see it really in on-the-nose stuff, like the Cybertruck. We didn’t necessarily know what that car was going to mean when it was first released, and now it has a very particular cultural meaning that is entirely created by its audience.[Photo: courtesy Mschf]The experimental piece will be displayed at Pioneer Works, a nonprofit arts and cultural center in Brooklyn, New York on July 10, with a ceremonial slicing of the baby down its middle. Following the sale period, the sculpture will be performatively cut into its sold pieces, which will be viewable in-person and via livestream.The final slicings’ of King Solomons Baby will remain on view at Pioneer Works through their Second Sundays event, before each piece is shipped off to its new owner.
Freelancing is gaining popularity today, given the instability of the full-time job market and the benefits that self-employment can offer. Nearly 58 million Americans consider themselves “independent workers. Thats 36% of employed respondents, up from 27% in 2016, according to a McKinsey survey.
Despite increasing interest and the numerous perks to freelancing, it can be difficult to start. As a freelancer of 12 years, the beginning is what I call the push season. This requires a significant push to attract clients, deliver work, and set up operations.
At first, there are many uncertainties. Youre reassessing your professional identity, which can bring up a lot of new feelings. Youre also responsible for taking on every function of the business, from accounting to marketing and sales. And most important of all, youve got to bring money in the door to ensure its a viable venture.
Whether youre putting in more hours, effort, or energy, the goal is to establish your client base and business foundation. At the same time, you want to avoid burning out in the process.
Navigating this push season intentionally can better position you for continued stability as a freelancer. Heres what worked for me and other seasoned freelancers.
Attracting clients during the push season
When you first get into freelancing, youre starting fresh. Yes, this is still the case even if youre leveraging some of the trust, connections, and experience youve built in previous full-time roles.
Its going to take time to build up your reputation, relationships, and expertise around offering your services in a freelance capacity. The initial two to three years are often the push season, This is where youre building significant momentum around your offerings as an independent contractor. Youll mainly focus on three key areas: attracting clients, balancing your workload, and structuring your business for longevity.
Bringing on clients, for example, requires you to make consistent efforts to market yourself to potential customers. This is likely going to take up a lot of time in the initial period. When I started freelancing, I sent about 20 cold email pitches a week to companies that would benefit from my writing and marketing services. I also messaged colleagues on LinkedIn. That way, they can keep me in mind for this type of support, and I regularly shared educational posts on social media.
Now, some of this is about scale (like how much outreach youre doing), but most of this effort is about regularly communicating your value to the right people in the right places.
I had to invest way more time and energy into finding paying work and clients. That’s a bigger time suck than people might think it is, says Kat Boogaard, a freelance writer of 11 years who sometimes worked 60-plus hour weeks during her initial push season.
While I used to spend a lot of time sending cold emails and scouring freelance job boards, more of my work started to come through referrals or other inbound efforts as I got more established, she says.
Landing clients takes a lot of effort up front, but it is a worthwhile investment. Once youre established and clients know you from your work, you can begin to ease up on these activities.
How to balance a freelance workload
Another important aspect is balancing your workload is determining how many projects you need to take on to build financial stability. At the same time, you don’t want to sacrifice quality or burn out. This will require some trial and error. As you take on a mix of tasks and different deliverables for clients, assess (and document) how long it takes you to complete them.
Taking on too many assignments or a project requiring more time than expected led to many long work days in this phase of my freelancing. Limit spells of overworking by giving yourself more runway on each project. This way, you can leave room for downtime between tasks, and thoughtfully increase your pricing over time.
Mimi Gonzalez is a a social impact strategist and Gen Z inclusion consultant. She’s been freelanced for close to three years, and said that this season required her to let go of certainty and structure. Systems that once felt safe no longer served her when she became a freelancer.
Recognize that moving to freelance work requires a considerable mindset shift. Youre going from completing assigned tasks in a full-time role and being accountable to a boss, to designing your workload without supervision. This change may also require you to redefine what career success looks like to you.
Prioritize longevity in your practice
Youll also want to structure your freelance practice for the long term. Many people treat freelancing as a stopgap, which is great if thats what youre after. However, if you want to ensure that its a viable career trajectory over time, youll need to diversify.
This entails finding a mix of clients, supporting multiple industries, or trialing different service offerings. Doing so allows you to gain stability and reduce reliance on any single source of income. At the same time, youre likely setting up a website, business insurance, accounting system, and the other typical building blocks of getting your freelancing in motion.
The challenge here is prioritizing these tasks that will allow you to get your practice running while making long-term investments in future progress. Its a constant process, but like any season of freelancing, youll move through it.
Push seasons arent one-time events. Every new level of visibility, income, and purpose brings a different kind of push and set of decisions you have to make, says Gonzalez.
Gonzalez went on to say, And then there are calmer seasons, when your work carries its own momentum and opportunities arrive because people already believe in what youve built. That first push season will always stay with me, though. It required urgency to build visibility and momentum quickly.
Samsung is the worlds leading consumer electronics company, and its technological innovations (like folding phones with deeply integrated AI) are unmatched. But its hard to be the biggest or best at everything, and the companys market share has eroded for the first time in a decade across some of its biggest categories: smartphones, televisions, displays, DRAM (computer chips), and car displays.
The company is not on fireits revenue grew 11% in 2024 to reach nearly $220 billion. But its identity remains monolithic, while it faces headwinds in almost every direction, literally, from Apple in America to a slew of electronics companies in China. Furthermore, it must contend with a simple truth facing everyone in this industry: The next five years of AI development could very well shape our next 50.
Its why Mauro Porcini has such an overwhelming task in front of him. After leaving PepsiCo earlier this year, hes become Samsungs first chief design officer and its first foreign design lead. His hiring signals an intentional shift in Samsungs strategy to look beyond Koreas own rich design culture and modernize the global brand for the era ahead.
For his first interview in the role, Porcini sat down for an exclusive conversation with Fast Company to outline his vision after his first three months in Seoul. Anyone who has followed Porcinis career will be unsurprised by his liberal references to fuzzy feelings. He insists that its Samsungs role to address Maslows hierarchy of needs in each of us, while positioning design as an act of love and literally making sure that we put people at the center of everything.
But within this greater viewpoint, Porcini revealed a lot about how Samsungs 1,500 designers are approaching the future of product, AI, and brandincluding a new approach to AI that will start with AI-infused glasses and follow you right into your home.
Here were my four biggest takeaways from our conversation.
Samsung needs to express a bolder POV
With few exceptions, both Samsungs products and brand are somehow ubiquitous and anonymous at the same time. Despite its market share, Samsung rarely feels iconic.
From a design standpoint, what is the right tonality? What is the right visual code? Porcini muses aloud. How can we have a point of view on the world that is totally original, that is unique to Samsung?
He doesnt immediately answer his own question, but provides a few clues to where hed like to lead Samsung next.
When it comes to the brand and what it means to peoplewhat Porcini academically calls the semiotic meaning of Samsunghe wants to reposition what adopting a Samsung product says about you. But what do people even think Samsung means as a brand? I suggest that when I see someone with a Galaxy phone, I tend to think that person simply refuses to use an iPhone.
What you just shared can be interpreted in a different way, Porcini counters. That [idea] is, I don’t want to fit in. That is all about self-expression, and this is one of the pillars I want to invest in: this idea that Samsung is all about creative expression. Within this pillar, Porcini wants to position the company as a creative force thats not afraid to fail.
It’s really about saying, You know what? This is how we see things, he says. And by the way, this means that sometimes you will get it right, sometimes you wont. But I think people will appreciate the courage of having a point of view, the courage of experimenting.
The Frame TV [Photo: Samsung]
This point of view needs to be articulated by genre-busting products as well. Porcini points to Samsung’s Frame TVs (designed by Yves Béhar), which disguise a television as a work of art, as a bright spot in the companys product portfolio for their originality.
The Frame TV is the first attempt in recent history in our industry to give the TV a different meaning, even when you don’t use it, he says. What are the new archetypes of TV, of phones, of washing machines, of refrigerators, that are relevant to people today?
Samsung is looking at two very specific flavors of AI
Artificial intelligence is confusing because, while it can seemingly do anything, its challenging to even make it do something.
AI is a word that is being so abused. When we talk about AI, were talking about all kinds of [different] things, Porcini says, arguing that its time to simplify how we consider the technology, at least within Samsung. To that end, the company is pursuing two specific approaches to AI.
The first approach is AI to control and enhance the capabilities of a product. This is often the AI that many of us know simply as the invisible algorithm, or software powering a device. He points to Samsungs new washing machines as exhibiting this approach; they allow you to simply toss in your clothes while they deduce the right cycle to clean them.
That’s an example of AI used in a meaningful way, he argues. Its not about receiving calls with a washing machine.
The second is the AI companion. This is a personality that you can ask questions of and communicate with directly. Porcini sees the companion as an essential way to pull insights from Samsung AI, but perhaps not via every single Samsung product.
The washing machine is probably not going to be one of these devices tat are going to have the AI companion in it where were going to talk about all our problems in life, he laughs, before noting a real issue may be less that your washing machine couldnt be your friend than it tends to be tucked away in a small room where its tricky to talk to. But what about a TV or a refrigerator, set in more social spaces like a living room or kitchen? Possibly, he says.
Naturally, there will be some fuzziness to Porcini’s AI strategy across so many products. But simply put, Samsung appears to be treating AI as automation or conversation.
Samsungs wearable glasses will be the companys first big piece of AI hardware
Porcini confirms that the first AI wearable out of Samsung will be a pair of AI glasses that capture video and audio constantly, meaning Samsung is pursuing a similar technological path to Meta, Google, and Snap as the tech world chases the fourth great interface.
[Glasses] are already part of how we interact, he says, pulling his own glasses back to his face. And so this is an obvious bet. It’s very complex from a technological standpoint . . . but something that makes a lot of sense. And that’s why we are betting on that right now.
For our AI companion to have insight into our lives, he says it needs to see and hear what we do. That means Samsung has to think beyond a phone that lives in your pocket. But beyond that requirement, hes not beholden to a form factor long term. He admits hes unsure well see industry consolidation quickly as to the right form factor of AI hardware, and whether we might carry several devices instead of one.
There will be multiple bets [from Samsung] as what we need to achieve is a seamless integration with our body and a presence that is almost invisible, Porcini says. I think if we [can develop] one device that people are going to use in a totally seamless, natural, organic way, then there will be [industry] consolidation. If instead every device feels like a trade-off, then there will be a system of different forms and shapes that serve the needs of different people.
Clockwise from right: the Galaxy Watch8 (white band), Galaxy Watch Ultra, and Galaxy Watch8 Classic [Photo: Samsung]
Wearables are just one part of Samsungs AI strategy
Porcini argues that we will need AI wearables for our commutes, and when were out and about. But beyond that?
The question is, when you arrive home, do you still want to wear this stuff? Or is the ideal vision . . . you want just the invisible [AI] friend there with you? he asks.
Samsung is betting on the latter, and Porcini points out that its TVs, fridges, dishwashers, and other appliances can all be fit with sensors that could take over the job of monitoring your life.
What if, when you arrive home, you can put this wearable device somewhere, and then the home becomes intelligent? he muses. It sees what you see, hears what you hear. You have a galaxy, no pun intended, of different objects inside the home that essentially are there being your companion and learning about you, and with the perfect privacy of a system that is not in the cloud.
Caveats abound, of course. Porcini quickly notes that Samsung doesnt have all its AI running locally, and AI training could involve different servers. But as a strategy, turning every Samsung appliance into an AI-adjacent device gives the company an advantage over competitors with a narrower list of products. And if Samsung could become a true moat of data privacy in the age of AI, that could become a considerable competitive advantage.
Life infused with Samsung AI might look a little something like this: A Samsung smartwatch monitors your antioxidant levels. The Samsung Health app notes you need to eat more vegetables to boost those levels. Its refrigerator uses cameras to spot the fruits and veggies for you to eat before they expire. Your smart glasses might track the actual veggies as you eat them. The TV could present a workout optimized to help rebalance your antioxidant levels.
Much of this capability exists in the right collection of Samsung products today. Other bits might be realized through AI and additional sensors. But in any case, its a demonstration of the sorts of UX that Samsungs collection of domestic devices could enable that an Apple would be challenged to realize without rethinking its entire business.
The beauty of the model that we have today, Porcini says, is that those products are already there.
