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An “unprecedented,” potentially record-breaking heat wave is expected to hit much of the American southwest, from California to Colorado, this week—and experts are concerned about how temperatures will affect the region’s already-low snowpacks. Temperatures in the Los Angeles area will be 15 to 25 degrees above seasonal norms on Thursday, March 12, and Friday, March 13, according to the National Weather Service (NWS), reaching into the 90s along the coast and potentially above 100 degrees in some areas. “Given the unprecedented length and magnitude of this extreme heat wave, heat stress will be increasing each day, especially in areas that aren’t used to the heat…

Just days after settling with the Department of Justice (DOJ), ticketing company Live Nation is again under fire after internal messages between employees revealed bragging about “taking advantage” of ticket buyers. In message exchanges from 2022, two regional directors of ticketing for Live Nation amphitheaters, Ben Baker and Jeff Weinhold, boasted about the prices they were able to get away with charging customers for ancillary fees, including things like parking, lawn chair rentals, and VIP access, with Baker writing, “I gouge them on ancil prices.” In one exchange, Weinhold shared how he was able to charge $250 for VIP parking at a venue. “These people are so …

Pay transparency laws were supposed to address the pay disparities that tend to impact women and people of color in the workplace. Over the last decade, 15 states have introduced laws that require varying degrees of disclosure from employers—from including explicit salary ranges in job postings to verbally sharing those details with prospective employees during the interview process. But new research out of Cornell University indicates that those laws have not been as effective as intended—in part because many employers fail to truly comply with them. These laws often do not clearly articulate how broad a salary range should be, and simply instruct companies to …

Fancy a chauffeur? Uber is courting the well-heeled with a new ride option that will see it extend its reach from a taxi alternative to offering a more exclusive, limousine-style service. Uber announced Thursday it will launch a chauffeur ride option—Uber Elite—that will offer a “luxury ride experience” targeting executives and other frequent travelers. Uber Elite will become the rideshare operator’s most expensive option, and will be offered on an invite-only basis for current Uber Black and Uber for Business clients in San Francisco and Los Angeles, followed soon by New York. Uber is banking on a market for “a more elevated experience,” though the accompanying c…

René Redzepi, the chef behind Copenhagen’s Noma, has resigned from the iconic restaurant he co-founded and its food non-profit MAD, amid abuse allegations. The move comes after protesters gathered outside Noma’s 16-week Los Angeles pop-up Wednesday. A recent New York Times article reports that former employees of the restaurant allege a pattern of abuse, including “punching, slamming, screaming,” from 2009 and 2017. The Times interviewed dozens of former employees throughout 18 of the chef’s 23 years at the restaurant. The report also alleges unpaid interns worked 16-hour days. On Wednesday, protestors outside Noma’s L.A. pop-up chanted and held up signs that read…

In 2020, Waymo began offering fully driverless rides to the public in Phoenix, turning the city into the closest thing the U.S. has to a real-world laboratory for autonomous vehicles. What began as a cautious pilot has since grown into a sprawling robotaxi network that now includes freeway travel and service to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Since then, Waymo has expanded to cities including San Francisco and Austin, while rivals like Tesla and Zoox are racing to deploy their own autonomous fleets. But the technology’s spread has come with a steady stream of logistical and political questions for the cities hosting it (especially since Phoenix, with its wid…

The biggest new restaurant trend is small. Special menus with petite, less expensive portions are popping up all over, from large chains like Olive Garden and The Cheesecake Factory to trendy urban eateries and farm-to-fork dining rooms. Restaurants hope that offering smaller servings beyond the children’s menu will meet many different diners’ needs. Some people want to spend less when they go out. Others are looking for healthier options or trying to lose weight. Younger consumers tend to snack more throughout the day and eat smaller meals, said Maeve Webster, the president of culinary consulting firm Menu Matters. “These are really driven by, I think, change…

Nothing says springtime like a canvas tote drop from Trader Joe’s. That’s right. The highly anticipated shopping bags are back and ready to fly off the shelves (and, probably, the resale sites) once again. Trader Joe’s totes are historically massively popular. The brand’s mini totes, which are just 13-by-11-by-6 inches, first dropped in 2024 and became an instant sensation after going mega-viral on TikTok. Once they sold out, they quickly began popping up on resale sites. While the totes only cost $2.99 in stores, resellers majorly marked them up, with some listing the bags for hundreds or even thousands. Since 2024, Trader Joe’s has released a few other versions of …

There’s a $298 midi dress on Reformation’s website with delicate lace detailing throughout and a button front that allows you to show some leg—it’s the kind of dress the brand is known for, versatile and a little seductive. On Quince, there’s what appears to be the same dress: It has the same silhouette, the same fabric, the same drape. The Quince version costs $69.90. That $228 difference is Quince’s entire business model. At a time of inflation, when consumers are looking to curb their spending, Quince’s approach has been wildly successful. Eight years after launch, Quince generates upwards of $1 billion in annual revenue, has a 1,000-strong staff, adds hundreds of …

James Beard Award-winning chef René Redzepi, who co-founded the iconic, Michelin Starred Noma restaurant in Copenhagen, announced his resignation on Wednesday. The announcement comes following years of allegations of abuse, assault, and the creation of a toxic work environment at the restaurant which is one of the world’s most famous, influential and acclaimed dining spots. Back in 2017, at the height of the #MeToo movement, entire industries were upended with a long-overdue, global reckoning that held countless high-profile men accountable for past behavior of abuse, leading to widespread cultural and workplace change. The chauvinistic toxicity of the restaurant indu…

Much like its peers in the tech industry, Oracle is pouring money into AI infrastructure. The tech giant inked a lucrative $300 billion deal with OpenAI last year to build out AI data centers, in a bid to compete with companies like Amazon and Microsoft. But the deal requires Oracle to spend a significant amount of money upfront—a move that is now pushing the company to cull its workforce. According to recent reports, Oracle is planning major layoffs that would reportedly affect thousands of jobs. The company had already earmarked about $1.6 billion for restructuring costs this year—largely due to “employee severance costs”—indicating there would be job cuts. As of F…

You’re at your usual weekly team meeting. The team leader asks for ideas, and you immediately come up with the best one. It’s not just clever. It’s perfect. You rush to say it, glowing with anticipation. Silence. Nobody reacts. You walk out deflated, wondering how a group of smart people could ignore the obvious answer. The assumption is simple. If the idea is sound, it should carry weight. We tend to believe that the one with the best ideas has the greatest impact. We take for granted that influence flows from competence and that those who are right, early and often, naturally shape decisions. But decades of research in social psychology and decision science tell a d…

My friend Jessica Kriegel often warns her clients about the action trap, the urge to do something—anything—when things aren’t going well. Yet while taking action might make us feel better, it’s no guarantee we’ll get results. Many leaders fall into this trap, confusing taking action with making an impact, which can blind us to the underlying problem. The truth is that you can’t change fundamental behaviors without changing fundamental beliefs. It is, after all, beliefs, in the form of norms, that get encoded into a culture through rituals that drive behaviors. So unless you make a serious effort to understand the underlying problem you’re trying to solve, any action y…

AI-generated content is making it harder to trust what we see and hear. But at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, a new installation is using the same tech to place people inside history’s most defining moments. “The Great Dictator,” which premiered this week in Austin, flips the script on what deepfakes have come to represent. Instead of using generative AI to create misinformation, it uses AI video and voice tools to blend participants into archival footage to experience history through their own voice and likeness. It’s the latest project from filmmaker and artist Gabo Arora, who wanted to show how emerging tech can be used for something other than profit…

About three years ago, David Lafitte surveyed the website, social media, and marketing content from Tecovas, the Western apparel brand he leads, and realized that the messaging had become “very diluted.” So the Austin-based company decided to establish a company-wide OKR—the goal-setting framework it uses, short for “objectives and key results,”—that focused on storytelling. Tecovas brought on more creative types who experimented with different messaging, including long-form commercials, and things started to click, Lafitte said during a discussion at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW. “I think everyone embraced this storytelling concept because we have to talk …

Walking down the street to scavenge for creatures like Snorlax and Squirtle was a regular 2016 activity, as the world was introduced to augmented reality (AR) games thanks to Pokémon Go. But now, 10 years later, images captured by players looking to “catch them all” are helping Niantic Spatial—a spinout of Niantic, the San Francisco–based company behind the game—teach robots to navigate the world more effectively by building a highly accurate Visual Positioning System. “It turns out that getting Pikachu to realistically run around and getting Coco’s robot to safely and accurately move through the world is actually the same problem,” John Hanke, CEO of Niantic Spat…

Earlier this month, photos depicting Zendaya and Tom Holland’s wedding just about broke the internet. Images of the celebrity power couple standing at the altar, popping champagne, and posing with a Spider-Man mask quickly racked up more than 10 million likes on Instagram. The only catch? They weren’t real. The collection of AI-generated images, first shared in a since-deleted Instagram post from AI creator Juan Regueira Rodríguez, went so viral that they reached Zendaya herself, as the Emmy-winning actress revealed in a new interview. On the latest episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, Zendaya discussed her upcoming film The Drama, which centers on her character’s…

Finally, some good news for renters: Housing rental market concessions are at their highest level in over a decade, as lower demand and higher supply drive landlords to compete for prospective tenants by offering all sorts of incentives and freebies. Let’s take a look at the numbers. In January, 16.6% of stabilized apartments in the U.S. were offering some type of concession, one point higher than the previous month, and the highest since over a decade ago in 2014, according to RealPage Market Analytics as reported by CNBC. What is a rent concession? Rent concessions are generally one-time incentives, freebies, or perks, such as free rent for a few months, free…

Elon Musk and Tesla want to call their autonomous robotaxi service Cybercabs, a name that would seem to fit snugly with the company’s line of “Cyber” products. But an obscure French beverage wholesaler, run by someone who appears to be a devoted Musk fan, could ruin those plans. UniBev, based in Ajaccio, France, beat Tesla to filing for the trademark for Cybercab. Last week, Musk’s company struck back, filing a 167-page complaint with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that called UniBev “a bad faith trademark squatter, who started as a Tesla fan.” UniBev has until April 19 to respond to the complaint. Should the issue go to trial, a decision could be delayed un…

Incredibly, when you think about it, US-based venture capital has remained structurally unchanged for half a century. The well known model revolves around the 10-year fund lifecycle, the 2-and-20 fee structure, and the relentless push for growth and outsized returns. Decisions are made in mysterious ways and are known to be full of bias against founders who don’t fit a certain mold. But even as rivers of investment flow into anything touching AI, there may yet be an ironic twist to come. Venture investing involves optionality and power laws. Very few investments will generate any returns at all, but the sector is premised on the idea that within any portfolio there will…

As a graduate of Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School I believed full-time roles were the only way to succeed, until an unexpected Bollywood acting opportunity opened my eyes to freelance-forward careers. Since then, I have toggled between holding full-time executive roles and fractional ones. If you’re not familiar with the phrase, you can think of fractional work as the executive version of freelancing. Fractional leaders work in a C-suite or other senior role part-time, usually for multiple companies simultaneously. Landing a fractional role I landed my first fractional General Counsel role when I attended an industry conference in the hopes of…