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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.
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E-Commerce
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
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E-Commerce
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.
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E-Commerce
In recent decades, California residents have experienced a whiplash of weather conditions. After a few years of severe drought, heavy rains came in early 2023 that soaked the state for weeks. That rain led to mudslides, which were worsened by the fact that years of drought had dried out the soil, so it couldnt absorb the rainfall. That rain also then led to an explosion of vegetation growth, which would dry out when the next drought period hit and fuel devastating wildfires. This rapid transition between wet and dry weather conditions is a hallmark of climate change, and its also an accelerating climate threat. This phenomenon is called precipitation whiplashes, and the forces that bring these drastic swings between drought and floods are speeding up. In a recent study, researchers say we could see an increase in precipitation whiplashes as early as 2028. What causes precipitation whiplashes? Weather systems are constantly swirling around our planet, like the Arctic polar vortex, a swath of cold, low-pressure air that sits at our planets poles; or the El Nio-Southern Oscillation, a cyclical climate pattern that brings a change in winds and sea surface temperatures. Another one of these weather systems is called the Madden-Julian Oscillation, or MJO. Its a mass of clouds, rainfall, winds, and air pressure that passes over the tropics, moving eastwardly around the planet. Though its above the tropics (and can bring events like tropical cyclones), it impacts weather around the world, including global rainfall patterns, atmospheric rivers, and more. The MJO circles the planet in periods of 30 to 90 days, and it includes two phases: a period of enhanced rainfall, and then a period of suppressed rainfall. But warming from greenhouse gases is speeding that cycle up, research has already found. In a new study from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers used advanced climate models to look more closely at how rising greenhouse gasses could exactly change the MJOs behavior. Those models predicted a 40% increase in fast-propagating MJO events by the late 21st century, from 2064 to 2099, compared to historical data (19792014). But well start to see that frequency pick up as early as 2028, the researchers note. They also expect not only for this weather system to move faster, but for there to be an increased risk of jumping MJOsmeaning an abrupt shift in the phases between precipitationbeginning before 2030, too. Why precipitation whiplash can be so dangerous More frequent fast and jumping MJO events are expected to trigger disruptive weather fluctuations worldwide, the researchers writelike precipitation whiplash: rapid swings between really wet and really dry extremes. Researchers expect the precipitation impacts of these accelerated and jumping MJO events to be unprecedentedly severe. Around the world, a few areas are expected to be hotspots for precipitation whiplash including central Africa, the Middle East, the lower part of the Yangtze River basin in China, the northern Amazon rainforest, the East Coast of the continental United States, and coastal Argentina, to name a few. These hotspots can result in various forms of cascading hazards, the researchers write, that pose unprecedented stress to ecosystem services, existing infrastructure, water and food security, and human safety.” Those cascading hazards include events like what California has already witnessed: drought to rain to mudslides to vegetation growth to drought to wildfires. And as MJO events accelerate because of climate change, that will also significantly shorten response times against compound hazards, study author Cheng Tat-Fan says in a statement, catching societies off guard unless adaptation measures are in place. The impacts of precipitation whiplash, then, should be considered when it comes to future infrastructure, urban planning, and agricultural practices, the researchers say. Fortunately, these fast-propagating MJOs can be a bit more predictable. But still, researchers need to improve their forecast models to better understand this weather behavior. If they do, and if they could then forecast these extremes four to five weeks in advance, that could improve disaster preparedness and save lives.
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E-Commerce
Self-driving vehicle startups have often drawn skepticism for overpromising and underdeliveringsee: Argo AI and GMs Cruise subsidiary, both now in corporate junkyardsbut in early May, one of them achieved a milestone that had long eluded the industry: delivering a truckload of cargo for a paying customer on public roadswith no human behind the wheel. Auroras May 1 announcement that it had begun commercial deliveries for its first customers, Hirschbach Motor Lines and Uber Freight, on two autonomous semitrailer trucks between Dallas and Houston followed some eight years of work by the Pittsburgh-based firm. Aurora reached that milestone about half a year later than it had planned last year, owing to extra time needed to complete its safety case testing and self-certification. This is a multiyear journey, says Aurora president Ossa Fisher. A few months seemed minuscule in the grand scheme of both the opportunity that lies ahead of us and what came before. But barely two weeks after the announcement, the company was back to having safety operators sitting behind the wheels of the two trucks. In a May 16 company blog post, CEO and chairman Chris Urmson said one of its truck-manufacturing partners, Paccar, had requested that change because of certain prototype parts in their base vehicle platform. He wrote that after much consideration, Aurora respected their request and are moving the observer, who had been riding in the back of some of our trips, from the back seat to the front seat. [Photo: Aurora] The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the union that represents drivers, would prefer to keep things that wayand has been lobbying lawmakers in such states as Texas, California, and Massachusetts to codify that in regulations. Our position is that all trucks should have human operator requirements, says Teamsters spokesman Matt McQuaid. A long road ahead Despite the upshift-downshift progress, however, Aurora is still farther down the road than other companies in this space. Gartner analyst Jonathan Davenport rates the company as significantly ahead of such competitors as Plus AI, which plans to inaugurate commercial service in 2027 and in early June announced plans for an initial public offering (its second attempt to do so). Aurora staged its IPO in 2021, which has allowed a much clearer view of its financials than whats available from the likes of another company to make self-driving vehicles a commercial reality: Waymo. And those numbers show that running an autonomous-trucking company isnt cheap: In the first quarter of 2025, Aurora reported a net loss of $208 million. On its Q1 earnings call in May, company executives predicted $175 million to $185 million in quarterly expenses and revenue in the mid-single digits over the rest of 2025. There’s a big difference between the operating cost today and the operating cost at scale, Fisher tells Fast Company. We are not making money on a per load basis today, and that’s public information. Auroras plans include not just scaling up its fleet but also upgrading its hardwarefor instance, deploying a more compact version of its FirstLight Lidar sensor. Shrinking the sensing equipment could also help Aurora move closer to its goal of bringing its self-driving technology to passenger cars. Chirs Urmson, CEO [Photo: Aurora] We’ll have a next-generation of trucks in a year, she says. We’ll go to tens of trucks and hundreds of trucks and thousands of trucks. And as we reach scale, that’s whn you get the performance metrics to be highly profitable. Davenport says the plan is indeed feasible, but has some doubts about the timeline. We’re still going to be two or three years, probably, he says. I would still classify it as probably in the development stage of R&D. Aurora and other firms in the sector benefit from a market problem that needs solving: Traditional trucking companies can’t hire enough drivers to meet demand. But even then, Gartner forecasts that autonomous trucks will make up under 5% of truck fleets worldwide by 2029. Either snow or rain or gloom of night In the nearer term, Aurora aims to expand its operating design domainthe conditions under which its trucks can rollbeyond the current requirement of clear daylight. If there’s rain in the forecast, some days we don’t launch, Fisher says. We’re working very rapidly to resolve any and all weather issues and see that happening later this year. Here, Aurora is following a common route for autonomous-vehicle projects: Start operations in ideal weather, then drive in increasingly less pleasant conditions. Waymo, for example, inaugurated service in sunny Phoenix, but when it opens for business in Washington sometime in 2026 its robotaxis will have to deal with a full spectrum of seasonal weather that, in the case of the occasional blizzard, should keep human drivers off the roads. Unlocking commercial nighttime operationwhen a driverless truck would theoretically see its greatest advantage, by virtue of not needing to sleepis also on the to-do list for later this summer, Fisher says. We’ve been driving in night for the last three years, she says of the firms testing. It is all about securing the evidence to close the safety case. Auroras system already handles limited driving on surface streets to connect highways with the companys terminals. There’s a few things like turning tight corners as an 18-wheeler. That’s harder to do than exiting a highway off-ramp, says Fisher. But it’s a very solvable problem. Other autonomous-trucking firms have opted to simplify their own operating design domain by staying off public roads. Kodiak Robotics, for example, launched self-driving commercial deliveries on private land in the oil-rich Permian Basin of Texas. Gartners Davenport also points to such closed environments as mines and ports as easier use cases for self-driving trucks. Autonomous haulage trucks in mines, for example, they’re already commonplace, he says. Aurora, however, is not just committed to operating on public roads but planning to expand its operations outside of Texas. Well be opening up to Phoenix later this year and then, from there, expanding across the south of the United States, Fisher says. But after 22 or so hours, a truck will have to refuel, which in the case of a truck with no driver means not any old truck stop will do. Aurora plans to build its own in Phoenix to start, after which the company plans to work with unspecified third parties on building facilities to refuel and inspect Auroras vehicles. [Photo: Aurora] Rules of the roads Starting operations only in Texas has simplified Auroras regulatory operating domain, but Fisher professes confidence in Auroras ability to secure more green lights from other states, starting with New Mexico and Arizona and even California, which in April released proposed rules for heavy-duty autonomous trucks. The more and more conversations we have, and honestly, the more miles we put on the driverless truck, the more welcoming folks are, she says. And so it looks like the tide may be changing even in California. Fishers case for Auroras safety on the roads evokes that of Waymo. Like that Alphabet subsidiary, Auroras vehicles fuse inputs from an array of lidar, radar, and camera sensorsa distinct contrast from Tesla, which just began very limited robotaxi services in Austin relying on a no-lidar, cameras-only system. Fisher emphasizes how each type of sensor helps provide a fuller picture: Radar excels in fog, lidar sees farther at night, cameras do better with up-close navigation. That approach to redundancy includes having two identical brains in the back of the cab plus a backup computer that can pull over the truck if the two primary computers fail. Aurora and other autonomous-mobility developers may not have to worry about state regulations if a provision in the Trump-backed budget-reconciliation bill that would preempt state-level rules on AIand therefore on self-driving vehiclessurvives negotiations between the House and the Senate and the notable opposition of some Republicans. Fisher, for her part, voices optimism about a federal framework that would allow verification of company safety cases by third-party auditors. Before [Transportation Secretary Sean] Duffy we thought anything at the federal level might be a decade away, she says. We’re now more optimistic that this could be a year or two away, and we would welcome that. In any regulatory regime, Gartners Davenport emphasizes that companies have to take safety even more seriously with freight trucksstopping distances for one are 65% longer than for a passenger car. The risk associated with operating an autonomous truck is so much greater, he says. But, the analyst adds, the need for automation is also much greater than in taxis: It’s the use case that actually makes the most economic sense.
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E-Commerce
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