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There are so many ways to die. You could fall off a cliff. A monk could light you on fire. A bat the size of a yacht could kick your head in. Youve only just begun the game, and yet here you are, stranded on some strange mountaintop, surrounded by ruins. If youre a newcomer, youll be dead within moments. If youre a hardcore gamer, youll probably be dead a few moments later. But death isnt the end. Death is the beginning. Youll respawn in a graveyard, and that graveyard will lead you to a vast chasma pitchblack pit of certain doom. Taking the plunge down into that pit will surely lead you to more death. If the fall doesnt kill you, its reasonable to assume that the monsters lurking down there will. You can bypass this chasm if you want tothe game will let you keep exploring and playing for hours and hours and hours. In fact, as far as the games concerned, you need never take the plunge at all. And if you were a reasonable human being, you wouldnt. But you arent a reasonable human being. Youre a gamer. You choose the plunge. You jump down into the crevasse, and its a good thing you do. Because in Elden Ring, the only way to access the built-in tutorial is by taking that leap. Its there, in that graveyard, down that pitch-black pit of certain doom, that your learning begins. The drop-out Stacey Haffner dropped out in her senior year of high school. She had enough credits to graduate, but life just kind of pulled me away, she says. In years to come, she would return to schooling three more times, and each time, life would pull her away before she finished. She did eventually get a high school diploma, but that was it. She never got a two-year degree. She never got a four-year degree. And she certainly never got a graduate degree. Where did this dropout life lead her? To Microsoft, where she worked on a Windows product serving hundreds of millions of users. To Xbox, where she launched the Xbox Live Creators program, democratizing console game development. And then to Unity, where she became the director of product working on DevOps and eventually transitioning to AI and machine learning. Her role focused on guiding large, multidisciplinary teams with the goal of launching new products within the company. Basically, I ran a mini startup within the company, she explains. My collaborator and I built the whole strategy and vision, from org[anization] culture to final product. Stacey didnt get where she is today by studying like an A-plus student. She got there by studying like an A-plus gamer, leveling up the way every gamer levels up: you see something scary, you take the plunge. Thats how she learns new software (I kind of just jump into it.). Its how she learned to overcome her fear of public speaking (I just started putting myself on stage.). And its how she navigated every step of her careerjust following the next challenge wherever it led. After dropping out of high school, she says, I didnt know what I wanted to be. I really had no clue. So I just tried things that sounded interesting. With each job, she got inquisitive about what she loved and what she hated, and then she used those insights to guide her next cycle around the loop. Eventually that process would lead her into game development, where shed go toe-to-toe with the NBA in a virtual duel to the death. But not until shed tried a string of dead-end jobs. The career game loop First she answered phones at a staffing agency. She found that work unbearably mundane, but loved learning new skills every time she got to fill in for recruiters who played hooky. So she switched to human resources (HR) and recruiting. Working in HR and recruiting, Stacey realized that her role was pretty adversarial. She was tasked with protecting her company rather than its people. And its people feared her. That wasnt going to fly for Stacey, but she did love playing analyst every now and thencrunching the data on employee performance, turnover rates, recruitment metrics, and so on. So she became an analyst next. It turned out that analyst work was only fun in short bursts, not as a full-time job. When Stacey told her staffing agency that she wanted something new, they offered her a project management role at Microsoft. And it turned out that project management was the perfect fit. About a decade later, she manages the managers. Staceys cycled the Core Career Game Loop many, many times, and each time, shes had to level up. Shes used all kinds of strategies along the way, always evaluating what skill she needs to learn, what learning opportunities are available to her, and which methods will support her best. Shes used booths at conferences, classes at a local college, company-provided training, coaching from bosses and peers, and the most reliable tactic of all: taking the plunge and figuring things out on the fly. Ill watch tutorials, or read a book, or do whatever, she says. And then at some point, Ill get bored of the tutorial, and Ill just go try, and play around, and do a thing. Thats how shes learned everything shes learned. Its how shes achieved everything that shes achieved. And its how she eventually beat the NBA at its own game. Nothin but net When Stacey isnt handling AI for Unity, she creates games for her studio, What Up Games. Shes the CEO, and her husband, Ben, is the CTO. About 10 years ago, she went to a conference where she tried virtual reality (VR) for the first time. For Stacey, it was love at first sight, and she raced home to tell Ben about it. Ben hadnt experienced VR yet, but what he had experienced was sticker shock: the developer equipment was outlandishly expensive. Stacey insisted he give it a try anyway, and Ben was willing. So they got some goggles and, as Stacey puts it, Two hours later, Ben finally took off the headset, and he was like Lets go make a game. Before doing anything else, Ben wanted to get his head around the virtual physics of VR experiences. So the two of them got to work on a basketball simulation. Basketball seemed like a fun way to figure out the mechanics of VR gravity, but the duo didnt actually know anything about sports. They didnt care much either. And, again, they were entirely new to VR technology. Im reiterating this because I really want to emphasize: these two could not possibly have been worse prepared to go up against a multibillion-dollar pro-ball brand. But did that stop them? Of course not. We already covered this. Gamers are not reasonable human beings. Once theyd nailed the basic physics, Stacey and Ben figured they might as well introduce some competition. So they built their first game mode: a VR version of H.O.R.S.Ethe schoolyard basketball game where players compete to out-aim each other. Then came multiplayer mode, and before they knew it, What Up Games had a fully operational basketball experience on its hands. They called it Nothin But Net. The next time a major games conference hit their calendars, Stacey and Ben brought the game with them. And it absolutely killed. The pair had to lay down duct tape to accommodate the unexpected queue of enthusiastic players, which grew and grew as the day went on. Then came the official release date. And then came the weeping. We were devastated, Stacey says. I cried so hard! Completely unbeknownst to Stacey and Ben, a major studio with official NBA licensing had also been developing their own VR basketball game all this time. By some cruel twist of fat, that blockbuster game dropped on precisely the same day as Nothin But Net. In an instant, years of development were made completely moot. Everything Stacey and Ben had worked for. Every innovation theyd pursued. When we saw that game release, we thought that no one would even look at ours, Stacey says. They were about to be blown out of the water by a gaming goliath. Except, when Stacey stopped crying and checked the industry news a few days later, it turned out that this goliath couldnt reach the net. The official NBA game had tanked. Hard pass. Avoid it, read one review. Excerpted from The Career Game Loop: Learn to Earn in the New Economy by Jessica Lindl. Read more at www.careergameloop.com. Published by Wiley, 2025.
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E-Commerce
One of the core theories of the office market circa 2025 is the flight to quality. Workers, either hybrid staff who spend ample time at home or those prodded back into traditional five-day workweeks, have grown used to the comforts of home and bored with drab, standard office spaces. They need something spectacular to justify a commute or keep them happy, so companies increasingly seek out top-flight officesClass A or Trophy assets, as a broker would saywhich has pushed landlords and developers to spend millions on office renovations and solely focus on building new, top-of-the-line workspaces. That same dynamic, where the top-of-the-market bustles with activity while less desirable, Class B spaces sit largely vacant, has also been reshaping how coworking company WeWork manages and thinks about its portfolio of offices. In March, the company announced that it was increasing the cost of its All Access product in three cities, San Francisco, New York, and London; the $299 basic version of the service, a pandemic-era creation that allows for desk access across the companys network of spaces, has been eliminated, leaving users to upgrade to the $339 Plus version. A significant driver of the change, according to Luke Robinson, the companys regional president for North America, is that the same dynamic has hit the coworking world. In these three cities, the company plans to invest $90 million in refurbishing its top-performing locations with newer finishes and amenities because a sizable portion of the desk demand has migrated to these top-tier locations. 201 Spear Street [Photo: WeWork] You can go get cheap space, but you’re likely in a less desirable building that’s likely dead, that doesn’t have energy, Robinson says. At the end of the day, people that are coming to the office aren’t just coming to sit at a desk. They want the experience that goes along with that, right, somewhat of a vibe. This does sound a bit like the original WeWork marketing message; its just missing the free beer. But its a reality that can be found across urban office markets. Data from office analytics firm CompStak has shown that across the big U.S office markets, rents for Class B (functional space in a good location) and C office (typically older and basic) space barely budged from 2019 to today, rising from $42.45 to $43.50 a square foot. Even rents for regular Class A space, full-service offices in sought-after locations, saw a slight bump during the same time period, from $45.90 to $54.68 a square foot. 30 Churchill Place [Photo: WeWork] The story is much different for Prime Class A space, or trophy space, which started at $60.85 in 2019 and, beginning at the end of 2021, began to skyrocket, hitting $91.41 by the end of last year. WeWorks shifting space utilization mirrors that demand, with newer stock in preferred locations garnering more attention and booking. In New York City, locations at 134 N. 4th Street in Williamsburg, 33 Irving Plaza, and 154 W. 14th Street near Union Square are the companys busiest in New York City. Bookings are up 11% year-over-year, and the locations typically fill up by the time the doors open in the morning (citywide, occupancy is above 80% overall). In San Francisco, locations at 650 California Street, 44 Montgomery Street, and the Salesforce Towerwith a 7% jump in bookings in Marchhave been packed. The companys space at 201 Spear, which opened in August, also tends to fill up, with roughly half the members of that space belonging to a group of AI startups. 123 Buckingham Road [Photo: WeWork] And in London, 123 Buckingham Palace Road, 30 Churchill Place, and 10 York Roadwhich has seen bookings skyrocket 29% this March compared to last yearhave been slammed. The massive shock of instability and uncertainty that has hit the economy in the past few months has pushed more workers, entrepreneurs, and even companies to embrace more coworking, says Robinson. WeWorks internal survey of clients found that 72% of companies plan to expand their workforce in the next two years, with the majority choosing coworking and flex. A recent report from brokerage Cushman & Wakefield also found the coworking inventory in the U.S increased by 13% year-over-year, with strong growth in markets like Nashville and Indianapolis. And the $400 million acquisition of competitor Industrious by real estate firm CBRE earlier this year shows continued confidence in flexibility. If companies are going to act fast, it’ll probably be with us, because you can’t make that big of a mistake, says Robsinon. Sign a 10-year deal too early, then youve got a problem.
Category:
E-Commerce
When Trump first landed in the White House in 2016, even he seemed surprised to be there. Without a transition staff in place, the Obama administration team helped shepherd in the new president while positions sat unfilled. Whereas Hillary Clinton had a complete digital site built to usher in her new presidency that would never be seen, Trump had none. But for his second term, Trumps team was more prepared. On the first day of his presidency, he appeared on WhiteHouse.gov with a heros welcome. In a video worthy of Michael Bay, helicopters fly through the mountains before delivering Trump to the White House lawn to herald a new age. Fighter jets thunder overhead. Trump squints into the distance. A bald eagle flies by. [Screenshots: White House/YouTube] The 100 days that have followed have proven blindsiding to anyone who thought Trumps second term would constitute little more than a few tax cuts to the rich. In this brief window, Trump has rewritten the propaganda playbook for the modern political age by marrying well-proven tactics from decades past with a savvy approach to our current media landscape. His approach to governing is as much a practice of world-building as it is policy building. He has woven together imagery, rhetoric, and technology to create an unnervingly convincing (if in large part illegal!) vision of the world he wants to sell (or force upon) his constituents. Trump has leveraged craftily designed aesthetics to position his destructive policies as necessary and his self-concerned personality as heroic, all while he dismantles the institutions in place to question him. A playbook from the pastand present From the earliest days of the presidency, weve witnessed a mass erasure of both the topics and people that the administration doesnt support. It happened in the digital world with the deletion of trans rights pages from WhiteHouse.gov and stories about Navajo Code Talkers removed from the pages of the Department of Defense. In the physical world, the erasure shows up as Trump eliminates civil rights artifacts from Smithsonian institutions and scrubs the Black Lives Matter mural from 16th Street in Washington, D.C. Many of these deletions are part of an executive order around restoring truth in American history. Fascists routinely erase history to write a new one. And when it comes to this, and all of Trumps other communication tricks, theres not much thats original about them. [Screenshot: whitehouse.gov] All the techniques he uses are techniques of the past. The aesthetics are aesthetics of the present, says Barbie Zelizer, the Raymond Williams professor of communication and director of the Center for Media at Risk at the University of Pennsylvania. Shes also co-editor of Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism. Zelizer believes that the entire ethos of Trump’s messaging is anchored in the early Cold War when, in the name of national security, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy declared an all-out war on communism and anyone suspected to be supportive of it. Zelizer points out that Trumps statement from 2016I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any votershas historical precedent from this era. In 1954, pollster George Gallup described McCarthys unchecked appeal to the public with a similar framing: Even if it were known that McCarthy had killed five innocent children, [voters] would probably still go along with him. The key word uniting the messaging of Trump and McCarthy? Enmity. Its us versus them. When he is able to claim accolades for himself or for his administration, it is always based on an assumption that his administration is winning out over the enemy, says Zelizer, who notes there is always an enemy beyond (like China) and an enemy within (like student protestors or the judges upholding our legal system). And whomever the enemy is at any pointif thats democratic leaders, or the media, or universities, take your pickthey’re all substitutes in a rotation. Where Zelizer sees Cold War influence, Edel Rodriguezthe Cuban-born illustrator and leading visual critic of Trumpsees the influence of the UFC and WWE. Without a hint of irony, Rodriguez points to the machismo-laden, fight-first mentality of this programming as parallel to both power-assertive fascist leadership and the greater Trump media strategy. He also admits to their strange appeal. I watch Ultimate Fighting videos because theyre nuts. But its drama. Its something, he says. And on the other side, you have the Democrats doing
Category:
E-Commerce
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