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Parking money in America is no longer the routine, fuss-free, neutral optionView the full article

This week, we covered yet again some more Google search ranking volatility. Google Discover will be coming to the desktop version of Google's homepage. Google Search Analytics API now shows hourly data for the past ten...View the full article

Proper conversion tracking with Google Tag offers real insights into ad performance to optimize campaigns and reduce wasted ad spend. The post How To Install The Google Tag For Conversion Tracking appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

If you’re in the market for a new home, there’s a pretty good chance you've toured a few “flipped” houses—properties that were recently purchased, quickly renovated, and just as quickly put back on the market. Even amid the current real estate crunch, house flipping remains a popular business model: In the first quarter of 2024, 67,817 houses were flipped, which amounted to nearly 9% of all the houses sold during that period. Flipping is popular because it can be highly profitable, generating an average return of $73,492 per project. But those profits rely on a fast, efficient renovation—and some flippers may get in over their heads and end up cutting corners, while others might simply set out to rip you off by attempting to hide downright shoddy work. In either scenario, there are some common aspects of any renovation that can clue you in to incompetent or unethical work. When inspecting a house you suspect was a flip, check for these red flags. Glued-in sinksTypically, an undermount kitchen sink will be installed using a combination of adhesive and metal clips to hold it in place. Sometimes a sink will be installed with just adhesive if the clips aren’t absolutely necessary and the installer is worried about cracking the countertop or lacks the space to properly attach the clips, but they'll generally use a powerful, professional-grade adhesive regardless. An unethical house flipper, on the other hand, might use any old silicone-based adhesive to slap a sink into place, skipping the clips simply to save on time and labor costs. The sink will hang on for a while, then fall without warning—probably when it’s full of dirty dishes. When checking out a flipped kitchen, open the cabinet under the sink and look for metal support clips. If you don’t see them, it could be a sign that the flipper either didn’t know what was needed—or intentionally skipped a step. Ventilation fans that don't vent anywhereVentilation and exhaust fans are usually found in bathrooms, over ovens, and in other places where ventilation is required, and they need to be vented outside—but can simply be slapped into the ceiling and wired up, with no outside ventilation connection at all. In other words, they’ll vent the steam from your shower into your ceiling, where it can slowly foster mold and damage your home's wood framing. It’s worth checking that any exhaust fans are vented properly, and not just run into the cavities behind your drywall. Painted tubsIf the house being flipped has a unique classic bathtub—or the flipper is looking to save a few bucks on the renovation—they might decide to refinish the tub instead of replacing it. This is fine in theory, as tubs can certainly be refinished and hold up to years of use—provided the job done by a professional. It’s actually not easy to refinish a tub, as they must endure near-constant water exposure. Even a successful DIY refinish job will typically only last a few years. Refinishing a tub requires it be properly cleaned, etched, and prepped. If the flipper just paints the tub, it might look fine during a walk-through, but it will peel almost immediately once you start using it. In a flipped house, take a very close look at the tubs. Look for fine cracks, spotty coverage around drains and fixtures, and bubbling in the finish. Ask questions if you see any indication of an undisclosed refinishing job. Updated outlets hiding old wiringThe easiest way to save money on a house flip is to leave all the hidden stuff—the plumbing and electrical—untouched, and just cover it up with new fixtures. An unethical flipper might swap out old, ungrounded outlets with new, modern ones and simply not connect the ground—or, worse, jump the ground to the neutral wire (known as a “bootleg” ground). That can be dangerous, but it won’t trigger an error when the outlet is tested. It’s worth it to unscrew a few outlets and take a quick look at what's going on in the walls—if the outlets are new but the wiring is old, be suspicious, and consider having an electrician come in to take a look during the inspection process. Hidden floor damageOne trick desperate flippers will try is simply covering up problems with a new floor. Flooring is expensive, and it’s possible to put carpet or vinyl flooring over damaged hardwood, cracking tile, or other problems. Fresh carpet or planks will look good, and you might not spend enough time walking on them to notice deeper problems until well after you've closed. Another trick flippers will sometimes play is to tear off a bad floor and throw a cheap floor over a damaged subfloor in order to save a little time and money. You can look for a few tells that a cheap new floor is covering up a big old problem: Varying floor heights. If you’re constantly stepping up and down as you pass from room to room, it could be a sign that old floors were just covered over. Sags and soft spots. If the new tile is already showing cracks, or if you can feel parts of the floor are soft when you step on them, this could indicate the new flooring was either laid over a damaged floor, or that the subfloor is rotten. Gaps. If new vinyl planks are separating, it probably means a sub-par installation, and it could also be a sign that the floor under the vinyl is damaged and uneven. Unexpected carpet. Is there just one room in the house with brand-new carpet or other flooring? Be suspicious, and see if you can get a peek underneath. Loose trimWhen a flip runs out of time, it’s usually the trim work that suffers, because it’s the last step in a remodel. If you walk into a kitchen and notice the toe-kicks are missing, or the house lacks door trim, you’d immediately be worried, so some flippers will stick that trim on in fast, cheap ways—like with double-sided tape, caulk, or any old glue. It will all look fine for a while, but the moisture of a kitchen or bathroom will eventually cause it to just pop off. When looking at a remodeled kitchen in a flipped house, it’s worth it to give the trim a gentle tug. If it was installed properly, there’s no way you should be able to budge it without a lot of effort. Missing caulkSimilarly, take a close look at the kitchen and bathrooms. Specifically, look for caulk—or a lack of it. Caulk is usually one of the final steps when finishing up a bath or kitchen remodel, and you might not notice it was skipped if you’re not looking for it. Any “change of plane” (where horizontal and vertical surfaces meet) or gaps should be caulked with an appropriate caulk. Otherwise moisture, crumbs, and other debris will get between and inside things, leading to rot, mold, and other problems. Unconnected HVAC ventsJust like ventilation fans, one way an unethical (or rushing, inexperienced) house flipper might try to skate by is by skipping a crucial step with the home’s central heating and cooling: They might install the vents and returns for the system, and never connect them. Everything looks right, and when you turn on the air conditioning it fires up, but the air never actually gets into your rooms. During your walkthrough or inspection, test the system to ensure the air is flowing. Poorly placed guttersIf your flipped house has a new roof, pay attention to the placement of the gutters. A flipper DIYing a roof installation or spot-hiring subcontractors instead of going with a reputable roofing company might rush through gutter installation, resulting in situations where gutters drain water against the house or directly onto windows and doors. That’s obviously the exact opposite of the whole purpose of gutters, but the mistake won't jump out at you unless it’s actively raining, so try to tour the house under varying weather conditions. Hidden pestsYou can imagine the horror a desperate house flipper experiences when they uncover termite or carpenter ant damage in the house they just bought, and they have no budget for a thorough treatment. Signs of termites and other pests can be easy to hide—often paint is all you need to cover up some light termite damage for a few weeks, which is enough time to get through an inspection—and home inspectors aren’t always thorough, and may not look behind a fresh paint job, or moving heavy furniture to see what might be hidden. If just one area of the home has been recently painted, take a closer look. If the area under the paint is rough and damaged, it might be an attempt to hide a civilization of critters the flipper didn’t know how to evict. You can also look for insect droppings (some termites leave droppings that look like grains of rice or sesame seeds), sawdust piles, shed skins or eggs—and traps and poisons hiding in cabinets or under appliances. View the full article

If you recently bought celery sticks from Walmart, you’ll want to check to make sure they are not of a certain variety. That’s because a select celery stick product is being recalled due to fears that it may be contaminated with Listeria, a potentially deadly bacterium. Here’s what you need to know. What is the reason for the recall? On April 10, Duda Farm Fresh Foods, Inc. of Oxnard, California, issued a voluntary recall for one of its products: a bag of celery sticks sold under the “Marketside” brand, according to a recall notice posted on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website. The company issued the recall because the celery sticks have the possibility to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. Duda Farm Fresh Foods said the possibility for contamination was discovered when the Georgia Department of Agriculture tested multiple samples, and one came back positive for Listeria monocytogenes. What product is being recalled? Only one product is being recalled: a bag of celery sticks, but the recall impacts 1,587 cases of the product. Here are the details of the product, according to the recall listing on the FDA’s website: Name: Marketside Celery Sticks 4 in/1.6 oz Bundle Pack Product UPC Code: 6 81131 16151 0 Lot Code: P047650 Best If Used by Date: 03/23/2025 Pack Size & Packaging: 4/1.6-ounce, bag It should be noted that while the best-by date of March 23, 2025, has now passed by a few weeks, the recall notice cautions that people may have purchased the celery sticks and kept them frozen in their freezer for use at a later date. Photographs of the recalled product in its packaging can be found here. Where were the recalled products sold? The recalled celery sticks were sold across the nation at Walmart stores in 28 states and the District of Columbia. Here are the states where the recalled products were sold: Alabama California Colorado District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Maryland Michigan Missouri Montana North Carolina New Jersey New York Ohio Pennsylvania South Carolina Tennessee Texas Virginia Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming What is Listeria? Listeria is a bacterium that has the possibility to cause severe illness in people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The agency says Listeria infections are “the third leading cause of death from foodborne illness in the United States.” It is estimated that 1,600 people become infected each year in the United States, and as many as 260 of those die. Relatively healthy people can fully recover from a Listeria infection. However, infection can present a more grave danger to certain types of people. This includes individuals who are pregnant, newborns, people aged 65 or above, and those with weakened immune systems. What are the symptoms of a Listeria infection? A Listeria infection can present with several symptoms depending on your other physical conditions and the type of infection you have (invasive or intestinal illness). The CDC says that symptoms of invasive illness (where the bacteria has spread beyond the gut) in pregnant people include: Fever Flu-like symptoms, such as muscle aches and fatigue In individuals who are not pregnant, symptoms of invasive illness can include: Fever Flu-like symptoms, such as muscle aches and fatigue Headache Stiff neck Confusion Loss of balance Seizures Those who have intestinal Listeria illness usually have the following symptoms: Diarrhea Vomiting Has anyone been harmed by the recalled product? Thankfully, according to the notice on the FDA website, no illnesses have yet been reported as a result of the products associated with this recall. What do I do if I have the recalled celery sticks? You should check your refrigerators and freezers for the recalled product. If you have it in your possession, you should not consume it. Instead, you should discard the recalled product. “Consumers who have this product in their possession, including in their freezer, should not consume and discard the product,” the recall notice states. You can find the full details of the product recall here. View the full article

Recently, I've been complaining that Google is linking many of its search features back to more search results, this is also includes the AI Overviews. Well, Bing Search is also doing this for some of their AI-based answer snippets.View the full article

A month ago, we reported that Google was testing linking words in the AI Overviews back to its own search results. We felt this set a horrible message but hey, Google did not, instead, Google made it an official feature of AI Overviews because it helps "people more easily explore topics and discover relevant websites," the company told me.View the full article

Google is testing a new ad format that overlays more product ads when you click on a "more" button. This is different from expanding a product carousel, in that this overlays on top of the current search results interface.View the full article

Google will stop showing reviews and ratings on school listings in Google Search and Google Maps. Google Business Profiles said, "Starting April 30, 2025, your school's associated Business Profile will no longer allow reviews and ratings."View the full article

Google Search representatives often tell us to use the feedback link when we see something that is off or needs improvement with Google Search. Well, what happens when you use that feedback link?View the full article

Google has expanded where the Structured data carousels (beta) search feature works and for what types of queries. When it first launched, about a year ago, it was available for flights queries in Germany, France, Czechia, and the UK. Now it is available for queries related to ground transportation, hotels, vacation rentals, local business, and things to do (for example, events, tours, and activities) in all European Economic Area (EEA) countries.View the full article

Biggest US bank posts 9% rise in quarterly profitsView the full article

Profits also fell last year at world’s largest asset managerView the full article

Earlier this week, Time published an explosive story about an American company that reportedly revived a long-extinct species, the dire wolf. To some, it’s a scientific miracle: Some 10,000 years after the species went extinct, the planet is once again home to three living dire wolf pups, brought about by the ingenuity of scientists at Colossal Biosciences. But let’s not mistake spectacle for substance. Yes, it’s cool that biotechnology can now create animals that resemble extinct species. Colossal is already eyeing its next acts—the woolly mammoth and the dodo. But beyond the buzz and the billion-dollar ambition, this project doesn’t offer real solutions to our planet’s biodiversity crisis. At best, it’s a novelty. At worst, it’s a distraction—and a dangerous one. There are over 47,000 species currently considered to be threatened with extinction, including both plants and animals. Many are under threat because of human activity, whether we’ve eliminated their habitats, over-hunted them, or polluted the land, air, and water they rely on to the point that they can no longer sustain life. Colossal’s gene editing experiments are being described as a kind of “conservation,” but they won’t help the many species that are currently fighting for survival. The company has argued that their discoveries can be used to save those species that are still hanging on—for example, by “engineer[ing] more robust elephants that can better survive the climatic ravages of a warming world,” as the Time article puts it. It wouldn’t be the first time humans tested an unprecedented idea on wild populations in an attempt to influence biodiversity. In 1935, Australia introduced the cane toad as a means of controlling the sugar cane beetle population. But it backfired—not only did it fail to fix the beetle problem, but much worse, cane toads took over the region, causing ecological havoc everywhere they went. The Asian carp is another example, introduced to the U.S. by farmers in the 1970s who wanted to use them to clean their commercial fishing ponds. Today, they’re one of the most notorious invasive species plaguing the eastern United States. We know by now that meddling with natural ecosystems can cause unpredictable, damaging chains of events. Even if Colossal’s efforts go as planned, let’s be clear-eyed about what this means: We’re not fixing the damage caused by humans. We’re just modifying animals to make them less susceptible to it. Drivers of biodiversity loss like climate change and industrial animal agriculture are forces that are not going to stop on their own, which makes gene-editing endangered species little more than a bandaid. We may prolong the existence of a handful of species, but meanwhile, the core issue would only continue to grow. And what’s worse, the idea that we can bring back species from the dead may lead us to treat the issue of biodiversity loss with less urgency. If we can just fix it later, why worry too much about it now? It’s not as if this project offers any benefit for the dire wolves themselves, or any individual nonhuman animals, for that matter. When animals are “summoned back from the dead” in this manner, they can’t be reintroduced into the natural world. It’s not the same place, with the same ecology and biodiversity makeup, that the wolves lived in 10,000 years ago. Throughout modern history, there are only a few cases where captive breeding was used to successfully fortify a declining natural population, as animals kept or bred in captivity often cannot survive in the wild, let alone thrive. That’s why the three wolf pups bred by Colossal are going to spend their entire lives in a monitored fenced-in enclosure. They won’t be able to form the complex social structures wolves are known to, with distinct familial roles. They were created to be analytical subjects for human study, and will presumably never experience life in the wild. Colossal’s chief science officer, Beth Shapiro, called their pups “the luckiest animals ever,” thanks to their containment and human supervision. It’s true the wild is no picnic, but I’m skeptical that any undomesticated animal in captivity would agree with Shapiro, no matter how cushy the cage—the pups were much better off not being born in the first place. And aside from all of this, the three pups aren’t technically real dire wolves. In breeding the pups, Colossal’s scientists didn’t actually reanimate the genetic material of the dire wolves that lived thousands of years ago. They studied that genetic material, and artificially rewrote the code of a tiny portion of the common gray wolf in a slippery attempt to make it match. As one commentator put it, “You could probably create an unusually hairy elephant, but that wouldn’t be a wooly mammoth.” All in all, the genetically modified pups are bootleg-like recreations, not authentic recoveries, part of a mad science experiment to generate PR. To paraphrase a certain movie about scientists who recreated long-extinct animals for the sake of human curiosity, it’s neat that our scientists can do something like this—but it’s high time to consider whether they should. Building the off-brand dire wolves took a chunk of the whopping $200 million the company raised and the work of some 130 bright minds. It pains me to imagine other, more immediately useful ways those resources could have been applied. Few efforts are as noble as conservation, and I acknowledge that stemming the biodiversity loss is a complicated issue that’s going to call for many different solutions. But with so much at stake and a clock that won’t stop ticking, we ought to be sensible about the approaches we try. Before indulging in science fiction-inspired reveries, let’s do what we can to save those species that still have a chance while keeping the welfare of the individual animals in mind along the way. To not do so would be a colossal mistake. View the full article

The humanoid robotics revolution is just around the corner. Test models are already working in factories alongside human beings across the world, while AI companies develop new foundation models designed to help robots navigate their environments as easily as humans do. But computer “brains” are useless without the skeletons that give humanoid robots their form—and the many components that make up those skeletons need to come from somewhere. Alongside bearings, which reduce friction, motors, and gears, the average humanoid robot relies on dozens of screws—key components that convert the rotational motion produced by a motor into linear motion. Traditionally, ball screws—which feed a series of balls through a screw shaft and nut—have been the primary type used in robotics. But a new component is set to supercharge humanoid motion and could become the next must-have physical part. “Over time, planetary roller screws should represent the majority of screws used in humanoids,” researchers at Morgan Stanley wrote in a February 2025 note. Planetary roller screws are a next-generation alternative to ball screws, able to withstand higher loads and last longer—both vital qualities for the wear and tear humanoid robots are expected to endure over their operational lifetimes. Tesla’s Optimus uses four planetary roller screws in its calves, and they’re also used by Figure AI, Agility, 1X, and the majority of China’s humanoid robot manufacturers. One China-based expert, Jack Li, research and development and product manager at Nanjing Process Equipment, a Chinese screw manufacturer, told investment bank Jefferies that the total market for the screw is already $1.8 billion, and is likely to grow at a compound rate of more than 30% over the next five years. Actuators—described as “the crown jewel of the core moving parts of robots”—convert rotary motion into linear motion, a crucial function for robotics and especially for humanoid robots, says Jonathan Aitken, an expert in robotics at the University of Sheffield. “They’re highly accurate as we get good precision in conversion from angle to linear distance travelled,” he explains. “Traditionally linear actuation isn’t good for load, rotational is. This gives the best of both.” So far, the use of planetary roller screws in humanoids has been limited by their cost—a result of the specialist skills needed to manufacture them reliably, which only a handful of companies worldwide currently possess. “The bulk of the cost of a humanoid will be in the actuators,” says Scott Walter, widely considered one of the world’s leading experts on robot design. Walter is chief technical advisor for Visual Components, a manufacturing production design company. “Each bot needs 40 or more,” he says. “So that is a huge supply need.” Researchers at J.P. Morgan estimate that reducers and roller screws account for around 33% of the average humanoid robot’s “bill of materials,” or cost of parts. The average planetary roller screw sells for between $1,350 and $2,700, according to the investment bank. While Walter admits, “The logical choice would be just to use rotary actuators at all the joints, since the actuators axle can also form the joint,” cost concerns are currently holding back their widespread deployment. That looks set to change as engineering and manufacturing expertise grows alongside demand, driving down production costs. China appears to be in the driving seat when it comes to controlling the supply of planetary roller screws in the years ahead. “Because of drone manufacturing, China already had a large installed base of small actuator manufacturers,” says Walter. “While not having exactly the same requirements, they were close enough to allow China to produce enough rotary actuators at scale for initial bot prototypes,” he says. “They are in the drivers’ seat if rotary rules the day.” Chinese companies are betting on the potential of planetary roller screws to meet future humanoid demand: In October 2024, Shanghai Beite Technology—traditionally a manufacturer of auto parts—announced a 1.85 billion yuan ($260 million) investment to build a facility dedicated to the production of planetary roller screws. The West will likely need to compete by developing its own planetary roller screw supply chain—and fast—given the potential impact of increasing U.S. tariffs and the ongoing trade war with China, where most of these components are made. “The dirty little secret is even if actuators are assembled stateside, the important components are still coming from China because few companies have the expertise and equipment to produce vital components outside of China,” says Walter. “Planetary roller screws are precision equipment. For humanoids, they need to be small and efficient,” he adds. Yet there’s a complication. “The supply chain does not yet exist because the designs are not yet locked,” Walter explains. “Nor is there a consensus on the size of this supply chain.” But quick action may be required if the humanoid robotics revolution turns out to be even a fraction of the size some experts predict. View the full article

When an AI-assisted résumé lands on a hiring manager’s desk, most people have the knee-jerk reaction to chuck it straight onto the reject pile. While more and more companies are using AI in their day-to-day operations, when it comes to résumés and cover letters, the use of artificial intelligence remains taboo. The importance of AI-savvy talent This instinctive aversion to AI is costing firms invaluable AI-savvy talent. And with the demand and competition for AI skills so fierce, many employers are letting prospective talent slip through their fingers, straight into the laps of their competitors. It’s time to overhaul recruitment processes out of the dark ages. We need to reshape and sharpen the AI-powered workplace that’s already taking shape. To do this, companies need to root out anti-AI bias, implement AI-based tasks in their skills assessments, and then actually prioritize hiring for AI talent. The hypocrisy of rejecting AI-generated résumés A recent study by Capterra found that more than half of job seekers have used AI to aid their job search as they look to dull the sting of a brutal and unforgiving job market. Now, it’s not just the applicants who are using AI. Seven in ten businesses admit they’re happy to use AI to reject applicants without any review or oversight from a human. Yet despite their willingness to let AI make the hard decisions for them, a staggering majority of hiring managers say they view AI-generated content on a job application in a negative light. Some have even admitted that they’d be less likely to hire a candidate who’s used AI altogether. So you could be rejected by AI for using AI. The irony is palpable. Hypocrisy aside, hiring managers’ AI aversion is ruinous. Companies can’t get enough of AI at the moment. They’re so desperate for AI talent that they’re happy to sacrifice experience if it means the candidate knows how to use a chatbot. Why, then, are firms turning away candidates who use AI to aid their job search? Getting rid of anti-AI bias in hiring The first step firms must take to achieve this is to root out anti-AI bias in their hiring processes. To achieve this, executives need to make it their responsibility to ensure hiring managers are familiar with the business’s skills needs now and over the coming years. In addition, they should make sure that indications of these skills aren’t being ignored or punished at the application stage. Instilling hiring managers with a stronger understanding of how businesses are deploying AI will help reduce bias and ensure that hiring managers can spot AI talent amid a sea of applicants. Introducing AI-based tasks in skills assessments Then, we need to see companies introduce AI-based tasks in their skills assessments. This should be for all job roles, not just tech-oriented ones. Along with the usual tasks hiring managers typically give, like drafting a client brief or giving a presentation, employers should assess candidates on their ability to use and deploy AI tools effectively. AI-based tasks might include creating a prompt for a chatbot capable of outputting high-quality materials—where they mark applicants for the quality of the output. Or if the business employs specific AI tools, they can test applicants on their knowledge of the tool or ability to get to grips with it in a short time frame. Finally, employers should take the final step and strategically prioritize AI-fluent applicants over those who show no capability (or an unwillingness to learn). They might want to do this by creating an AI-capability score. Hiring managers need to prioritize AI skills, talents, and appetite, just as they have the mandate to hire for other role-relevant technical skills. AI will impact every single role within every company in the next few years. And in a world where AI tools are increasingly critical to businesses’ success, a base level of AI capability among workforces will be a make-or-break factor. Firms that continue to penalize AI use and ignore its critical nature to their business risk relegating themselves to anti-AI obscurity. They’re likely to find themselves left in the dust of their more open-minded and forward-thinking competitors. If you’re a hiring manager, why not take another look at those AI-supported applications? After all, the future of your workforce might sit behind them. View the full article

Last month I posted a job description on our blog for a chief of staff role at my venture capital firm, Graham & Walker. Turns out, that job description really hit a nerve. Within an hour, more than a hundred candidates had put their hat in the ring and filled out the long Google form that served as our only form of application. Quickly overwhelmed by the interest, I asked everyone I knew for tips on how to review all those applications most efficiently. They recommended several tools, from LLMs to custom built. I was deep in research when something happened that made me change my mind. Our Google form included an optional field for “anything else you’d like to share.” And that’s where I saw what one applicant wrote: “Applying for jobs is so dehumanizing.” In that moment, I decided that if someone was going to take the time to thoughtfully fill out my Google form, I was going to do my best to read it. I don’t hire often. I decided that this time, I would take no shortcuts. And that is how I ended up spending an entire week reading 597 job applications for one open role at Graham & Walker. Not scrolling. Not AI-prompting. Not keyword searching. Actual reading. I do realize this is not normal. Most people—most general partners, most hiring managers—do not do this. They can’t, and they probably shouldn’t. To be honest, I don’t think I will be able to do anything like this ever again. But for me, and for this moment in time, it felt like time well spent. It was an experience I will never forget. A very manual hiring process To be clear, I didn’t review 597 resumés. I reviewed 597 candidates’ answers to four open-ended questions: 1. Why do you want to work in venture capital? 2. Why do you want to work at Graham & Walker? 3. Why are you the best person for this role? 4. Anything else you want us to know? I read as fast as I could, slowing down whenever something really grabbed my attention. And based on those, I decided whether to look at the resumé. Out of 597 applicants, I clicked on 174 resumes. Two of my colleagues also reviewed around 200 applicants each. We gave a score to each one, selected the top scorers, and narrowed the field down to 15 finalists. Those candidates did a first interview. Seven moved on to a second interview. Three moved on to a third, and final, round. By which point, I could see us working with any of them. They were truly that amazing—so much so that I was sad I couldn’t hire all three. In the end, we made an offer to a stellar candidate and she accepted. What job seekers should know Let’s be real—this process isn’t sustainable, let alone scalable. Most hiring managers won’t do what I did, especially in the age of AI. Job seekers should be aware of that. That being said, one crucial tip I would share is to know your audience. Just like we tell founders to research investors before they pitch, job seekers should research companies before they apply. If you’re applying to high headcount organizations, your resumé needs the right keywords. But for smaller organizations, you can’t rely on that same resumé to tell your story. Some of the best answers came from people with the least polished or traditional resumés. And others packed both resumé power and answers that jumped off the page. There’s a big difference between someone who wants a job and someone who wants this job. That may not matter as much to employers hiring hundreds or thousands of people every year. But for a high-impact, high-trust role at a pre-seed VC fund like mine, it makes a world of difference. Another lesson? Hundreds of you bring to the table a “unique combination of strategy and execution.” I lost count of how many times I read that. Perhaps not quite so unique after all? What hiring managers should know AI is changing how we work, fund, and build. But some decisions still require a human touch—and hiring is one of them. Behind every application is a real person, with a real story. And if we want to build real companies, we can’t afford to lose sight of that. I could only hire one person this time. But reading 597 applications reminded me that talent is everywhere. It forced me to slow down and pay attention. To read between the lines. To notice the difference between qualified on paper and eager to contribute. To consider the people who have the right attitude, not just the right experience. And to remember that raw talent, enthusiasm, grit, effort, and authenticity are just as valuable as credentials—sometimes more. In venture, we talk about backing people, not companies. This was the hiring version of that. It wasn’t the most efficient process. But it’s one I’ll never forget. This story originally appeared on Leslie Feinzaig’s Blind Spots Substack. Subscribe to it here. View the full article

For years, baby boomers have been “aging in place” and keeping home turnover low. And now, not only are boomers holding onto their homes, they’re also the generation buying the most property—boxing out millennial homebuyers for only the second year since 2013. Millennials, who range from 26 to 44 years old, have largely dominated the housing market for the past decade. The only exceptions to this rule have occurred in 2023 and 2024, according to data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Between July 2023 and July 2024, the share of millennial homebuyers dropped to 29%, down from 38% a year ago. Meanwhile, boomers (ages 60 to 78) accounted for 42% of home purchases. “In a plot twist, baby boomers have overtaken millennials—the largest U.S. population—to become the top generation of home buyers,” Jessica Lautz, NAR deputy chief economist and vice president of research, said in a press release. “What’s striking is that half of older boomers and two out of five younger boomers are purchasing homes entirely with cash, bypassing financing altogether.” What does this mean for aspiring homebuyers? While this is only the second time that boomers have overtaken millennials in recent years, it does represent a larger pattern: First-time homebuyers are getting older. In 1991, the median age of first-time homebuyers in the U.S. was 28 years old. In 2024, it was 38 years old. As real estate expert Lance Lambert put it, “the median first-time U.S. homebuyer in 2024 (age 38) has been out of high school for 20 years but is also only 24 years away from the earliest age at which they could receive Social Security benefits (age 62).” One main driver for this shift is the fact that both cost of living and home affordability have increased significantly in the past several years. Since 2020, the income needed to afford the average American home has shot up by a whopping 79%. Starter homes are a thing of the past for many aspiring young homebuyers. Still, some young Americans are managing to become first-time homebuyers, and they’re establishing new standards for home ownership along the way. Per the NAR report, 3% of homebuyers over the past year were Gen Zers. “Gen Z is slowly entering the housing market with the lowest household income and they’re more likely to be single than other buyers,” Lautz said. Of the generations, Gen Z had the largest share of single, female homebuyers—presumably as many women put off marriage or choose to remain single. View the full article

Where legislatures have refused to boost pay and benefits for workers, advocates have often taken the fight straight to voters. In recent years, voters in Michigan, Missouri, and Nebraska overwhelmingly backed higher state minimum wages and guaranteed paid sick leave at the polls. But despite that strong showing of support, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are now trying to water down or even roll back the measures their constituents approved. In November, 58% of Missouri voters approved Proposition A, which raises the state minimum wage to $15 by 2026 and requires employers to provide paid sick leave. That level of support, said Missouri Jobs with Justice Policy Director Richard Von Glahn, stems from the fact that the measure “speaks to the experiences that voters have in their lives and where the economy is not working for them.” Typically, when his organization was out gathering signatures, voters expressed surprise that the minimum wage was not already $15 an hour and that paid sick leave was not already a guarantee. The vote shows it was “the clear will of what voters want,” Von Glahn said. But in March, the Missouri House passed legislation repealing the paid sick leave measure and undoing the state’s decades-long practice of regularly updating the minimum wage to keep up with inflation. If the bill becomes law, wage increases will cease in January 2027. To justify such changes, Republican state Representative Mitch Boggs said, “Of course the people voted for it. It would be like asking your teenager if he wanted a checkbook. They’re going to vote for it every time.” Republican state Representative Scott Miller put it another way: “Just because 57% of the people that voted that day voted in favor of something, that doesn’t make it right. They’re taking away the choice of businesses to engage in [the] free market.” It’s not just lawmakers trying to undo the will of the voters, however. A group of businesses and individuals have asked the state Supreme Court to strike down the measure entirely, arguing that it violates the state Constitution’s single subject requirement. In their lawsuit they claim that wages and paid sick time are separate issues that should not have been combined in a single measure. Von Glahn pushed back on that argument: “Wages for hours worked and wages for paid sick time, that’s part of total compensation. As a working person, if I have money in my check, do I care if it’s from paid sick days or from hours that I worked?” Nebraska voters passed their own paid sick leave ballot measure by a staggering 74% this past November. A majority of voters in every legislative district supported it, and the support was higher than for the lawmakers themselves. That’s not the only measure state lawmakers want to change, however. In 2022, nearly 59% of voters approved a measure that will raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026 and keep increasing it in later years to keep up with inflation. “Nebraskans really care about their neighbors,” Jo Giles, executive director of the Women’s Fund of Omaha, said of the support both measures received. Paid sick leave, she said, is “a common sense solution.” As in Missouri, many voters she spoke to while gathering signatures were surprised it wasn’t already guaranteed. And yet efforts to get lawmakers to take action themselves had not succeeded. “We tried for many years,” Giles said, including during the height of the pandemic when workers were getting sick by the thousands. But bills never moved forward. “After many, many attempts, we determined, ‘Okay, we’re not going to get it through the Legislature, so let’s ask the people what they want,’” Giles said. “It was pretty clear what the people wanted: They wanted paid sick leave, they wanted to increase the minimum wage.” That hasn’t stopped Nebraska lawmakers from seeking to change the measures approved by their constituents. Last year, two state lawmakers introduced bills to exempt young workers from the higher wage. The Nebraska Legislature is officially nonpartisan, but one of the lawmakers was aligned with Democrats and the other with Republicans. The effort failed to advance in the Legislature. This session, those two lawmakers and others are seeking to weaken both the minimum wage and sick leave policies. Legislative Bill 698, introduced by a Republican-aligned senator, would exempt companies with 10 or fewer employees from the paid sick leave requirement. Yet the measure voters passed already makes an allowance for small businesses by allowing those with 20 or fewer employees to provide their workers with fewer days of leave. The bill would also exempt agricultural workers and those under 16 while eliminating employees’ right to sue their employers if they aren’t given the leave they’re owed. Giles argued that these changes gut “the core aspects” of the initiative. Another bill introduced this year, Legislative Bill 258, meanwhile, would allow employers to pay people younger than 19 a lower minimum wage and would eliminate future minimum wage increases. Beyond the impact on workers themselves, Giles believes lawmakers’ actions could harm the entire state. “What does that mean for our overall democracy if people cannot exercise their voice and implement policies that are popular?” she said. Residents’ votes “should be honored.” In both Missouri and Nebraska, conservative lawmakers have led the charge to roll back ballot measures. In Michigan, Democrats have joined the effort. Back in 2012, Mothering Justice, a nonprofit that advocates for issues impacting women of color, started pushing for a paid sick leave bill in the state Legislature, but Republicans stood in the way. It became clear that “if we wanted to get this done, we would have to go straight to voters,” said Danielle Atkinson, the nonprofit’s founder. Her group was poised to do so, submitting more than 280,000 signatures to put both paid sick leave and a higher minimum wage on the ballot in 2018. There was “always overwhelming support” from voters, she said, because it “was extremely popular and needed.” But then the Republican-controlled Legislature stepped in that September. Over united Democratic opposition in the state Senate but with some Democratic support in the state House, lawmakers passed legislation to raise the minimum wage and institute a paid sick leave requirement before voters had the chance to weigh in. That wasn’t because lawmakers agreed with the ballot measures; they did so explicitly to come back and gut both measures later on, something that would have been much harder had the issues passed by ballot measure. State Senate Republican Majority Leader Arlan B. Meekhof explained the vote this way: “The Senate adopted the policy to preserve the ability for this Legislature and future legislatures to amend the statute to better fit our state and our economy.” And lawmakers did in fact later amend the legislation by voting to delay the minimum wage increase by nearly a decade, scrap future inflation adjustments and preserve a lower tipped minimum wage. Lawmakers also exempted employers with fewer than 50 employees from paid sick leave and scaled it back for everyone else. The groups behind the ballot measures fought back in the courts, arguing that what lawmakers did violated the state Constitution. That took “time, energy,” and “a considerable amount of resources,” Atkinson said. “But we thought it was important to fight for the will of the people and direct democracy.” Last summer, it seemed they had finally won: The state supreme court found the Legislature had indeed violated the state Constitution and reinstated the original wage and sick leave measures. The new benefits were set to go into effect on February 21. “We were extremely hopeful,” Atkinson said. “We were like, ‘Great, on to the next fight.’” But the Legislature wasn’t done intervening. An hour before midnight on February 20, lawmakers passed bills to preserve a lower tipped minimum wage, delay implementation of paid sick leave, exempt young and temporary seasonal workers, reduce guaranteed unpaid time off for employees of small businesses, and strip workers of the right to sue employers for violating the new rights. This time, nearly half of Democrats in both chambers joined with all Republicans to pass the measures, and Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed them into law. The governor had “heard concerns about implementation of the new law,” according to a statement from spokesperson Stacey LaRouche, while the bill was under consideration, and supported “a bipartisan deal that protects servers and wait staff, while also providing certainty to small businesses and helping Michigan remain competitive.” Business groups, particularly the Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association, had lobbied hard for the tipped minimum wage changes. It was “very clear” that lawmakers of both parties “were being influenced by the business community,” Atkinson said. “The restaurant industry did a very good job of manufacturing outrage.” Atkinson is frustrated that those tactics succeeded. “Michigan is a place where we’re known for workers’ rights, and we had an opportunity to be a pretty big part of a larger movement to eliminate a sub-minimum wage, and we missed it,” she noted, referring to the lower wage employers can pay tipped employees. Having Democrats join in was even worse. “When you see Democrats introducing legislation that’s undermining workers’ rights, it makes . . . an easier target for Republicans to do the same,” she said. “It’s really unfortunate that that came from members of a party that claims to be for workers’ rights.” This piece was originally published by Capital & Main, which reports from California on economic, political, and social issues. View the full article

AI is an extraordinary tool that amplifies our cognitive capacity. It can analyze, summarize, and generate content faster than any human. However, AI is only ever as good as the questions we ask it. It will never replace our capacity for thinking, and can, in fact, reinforce bias because it is learning what we teach it. For this reason, the top skills of the future include thinking skills. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report, employers anticipate that beyond technical literacy, the most in-demand capabilities will be creative thinking, critical thinking, resilience, and the capacity for learning. Thinking is a premium, and yet it is also the very thing that is most at risk. We all know that when it comes to data, rubbish in = rubbish out. The same goes for our mind. What we feed it and how we use it determines the quality of our contribution and the value we add. As a high-performance coach and leadership expert, I spend my time consulting with leaders and their teams, challenging them to do better thinking and extract the value of their collective capacity. Modern-day workers are facing a triple threat from the joint epidemics of algorithms, attention theft, and burnout. Here’s why: 1. Algorithms reinforce biases More and more, our capacity to think, create, and problem-solve is being challenged by algorithms delivered through social media. Our viewpoints are being regurgitated back to us via algorithms that sense what we like, what we tolerate, and what we think we need. Social media serves to reinforce existing beliefs, not challenge them. We are slowly losing the capacity for critical thinking, and this is the very capacity we need to develop if we are to remain adaptive in a world where cognitive load is being managed more and more by computers. 2. Attention theft robs us of time Attention theft is catastrophic to independent thinking and crippling our ability to focus. How many notifications are pinging right now to pull your attention away from reading this article? How many times a day are you pulled away from the task at hand? Research from Tania Barney, neuroscience and sensory processing expert, suggests that distractions are costing us time as well as money. Her research found: An average of 2.1 hours are lost daily as a result of distractions. The average time spent on a task before we get distracted is 11 minutes. The average time it takes after a distraction to return to a task is 25 minutes. After meetings, emails, unplanned interactions, and rest breaks, how many hours do we have left in a day for thinking and productive work? We get pulled into the urgent things that feel pressing but do not meaningfully matter (like chats with colleagues, reply-all emails, and notification alerts). All this leads to the next major threat to thinking—burnout. 3. Burnout robs us of energy Burnout is the compound interest on lost productivity due to attention theft. Just because we’re getting distracted by “urgent” unimportant stuff doesn’t mean that the real important stuff goes away. It piles up, weighing us down psychologically and eating into recreation hours where we should be recharging our batteries through rest, exercise, or time with loved ones. Burnout is a global issue, costing humans their well-being and businesses millions in lost productivity. Burnout is the result of prolonged work stress. Symptoms include overwhelm, constant exhaustion, and a feeling of being ineffective at work no matter how hard you try. Increased rates of burnout add up to bad news for business. Burnout has been identified as one of the leading causes driving people to leave their jobs. But it also leads to disengagement, which can cost employers 34% of a disengaged employee’s annual salary, according to the Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2021 report. Prioritize team thinking time to leverage collective potential With the joint epidemics of algorithms, attention theft, and burnout, our most precious resources have changed from time and money to energy and attention. To counteract this, we all need to be more curious. Promote and legitimize thinking time by asking more questions in daily interactions. Encourage your team members to build on one another’s ideas. Create regular cadences when the team meets to reflect, reprioritize, and reset, such as quarterly team-planning workshops. The future of work is human—and your capacity to create spaces and places where people can think, learn, adapt, and grow is what will allow teams and organizations to transform and endure. View the full article

With their drab gray suits and their Buddy Holly glasses, the so-called traitorous eight don’t look like revolutionaries. Given no context, you can imagine them occupying some kind of middle-management role at a small regional bank. And yet these are the people you can thank for the digital world. The eight—which included Intel cofounder Gordon Moore—had departed Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory to found Fairchild Semiconductor, which soon became the world’s biggest producer of electrical components for computers. Many of its founders would, in turn, leave again to launch their own ventures. Many of these companies coalesced in the same area—the place we now call Silicon Valley—creating an ecosystem for innovation and technological development that endures to this day. Look again at that photo. Even with the suits and the glasses, these are arguably some of the most interesting and influential people that the technology industry has ever known. Even if you don’t know their names, and even though they have never appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast, they still have a legacy that endures to this day. The Power of Hardware On a personal level, I have always found hardware more interesting than software. There’s a joke that CPUs are just “rocks we tricked into thinking,” which has some truth to it. You can’t help but be amazed at the process that turns iron, copper, gold, and silicon dioxide into something that can run unfathomably complex mathematical calculations, play chess, and stream Netflix. And that’s before you take into account that even the most basic consumer CPU has billions of transistors, each measuring a fraction of the width of a hair. Perhaps the main reason I’m drawn to hardware is that it’s often easy to measure whether something is better than the thing that preceded it. With a tape measure, you can see whether one computer is smaller than another. You can calculate how many mathematical operations a CPU can perform in a second, or count the number of pixels on a display. You can measure its weight, or the heat it gives off, or whether one battery has a larger capacity than another. Hardware is clean-cut. Straightforward. Unambiguous. And these improvements aren’t theoretical, but are felt directly by the end user. When a physical object is meaningfully better, you can tell. If you have upgraded from an Intel to an Apple Silicon Mac, you know this. You probably remember what it was like when you ditched your bulky CRT monitor for an LCD flat panel. You know the difference between a computer with a mechanical hard drive and one with flash storage. Hardware is typically built with utility in mind. The old adage “hardware is hard” is true, but it neglects the fact that it’s also pretty expensive. You only really build something if you believe it’s better than the existing thing, and that somebody will find it useful enough to pay for it. Silicon Valley Needs to Rediscover Its Roots The modern tech industry—especially that which now occupies the same hallowed ground once trod by the treacherous eight—has become a shell of its former self. Tech’s “innovations” feel only marginally iterative at best. It is this that makes me nostalgic for the era when Silicon Valley was about silicon—or, more specifically, physical, tangible objects that changed the world. And I believe it is an era that we can, and must, return to. The Silicon Valley of the late 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s was a glorious time of American innovation and engineering, where verifiable geniuses discovered the breakthroughs that allowed our current world to exist. The integrated circuit. The microprocessor. The computer mouse. It was an era when technological vision and clear-thinking business strategy combined to bring new inventions to a market, and then popularize them to a global scale. And in doing so, Silicon Valley changed everything. To be clear, I am not just talking about vision. I’m talking about hardware. The applications we will need to run in the future will require faster, better computers, and we need somebody to invent them. Faster, better computers will allow us to reclaim ownership of the tech we use, enabling us to finally break free of the cloud. It will help undo some of the disastrous cultural changes that have occurred over the past decade or so, when people got used to the idea that they must always be subject to the mercies of another, larger tech company. Hardware is hard. Change is even harder. But in this case, I think it’s worth it. The Bright Light on the Tip of the Spear So, there is some cause for optimism, and it’s not in giant GPUs. Buried in the news coming out of CES was the announcement of Nvidia’s DGX Spark, a $3,000 desktop computer powered by Nvidia’s GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip, that went relatively unnoticed but I believe is a significant moment in personal computing. The DGX Spark delivers up to 1 petaflop of performance in a compact form factor, giving researchers and developers unprecedented access to cutting-edge computational power directly at their desks. It’s like having a computer that’s a thousand times faster than a regular desktop in the body of a Mac Mini, and I’m a little surprised it isn’t being taken more seriously. In more human terms, Nvidia created an ultrapowerful Mac Mini that developers, data scientists, and AI researchers are able to use to run reasonably large data workloads and AI models on their desk as opposed to a fleet of massive GPU servers in the cloud. While Silicon Valley’s biggest companies have grown on the back of software, the truth is that it needs hardware to grow any further, and while those GPUs might be the headline-grabbers during Nvidia’s earnings, creating meaningful new kinds of computing is what will lead to actual innovation in software. As a result, by creating a Blackwell chip inside a Mac Mini-size supercomputer, Nvidia allows companies to crunch through large data sets or run self-hosted generative AI models quickly and efficiently, all without relying on the cloud to do so. This vastly lowers the barrier to entry for high-performance computing, which currently requires buying or renting expensive specialized hardware or spinning up expensive infrastructure. I’m going to dive briefly into why this matters. For years, both at Voltron Data and previously at BlazingSQL, I’ve advocated for clustering smaller, more efficient, and less-expensive GPUs together using high-performance networking. However, network limitations have always prevented full utilization of the cluster’s compute performance since data simply couldn’t move fast enough to keep GPUs fully fed. While it hasn’t shipped yet, Nvidia has specifically called out the inclusion of ConnectX to allow users to connect two Nvidia DGX Spark computers together, as well as other features (NCCL, RDMA, GPUDirect storage) that are specifically built for faster networking. This will enable efficient parallel processing and high-bandwidth communication, making high-performance AI and analytics workloads accessible to a broader range of researchers and enterprises. A distributed model using a cluster of Nvidia DGX Spark units could offer a more cost-effective and flexible alternative to currently available GPU clusters, lowering the barrier to entry for basically any high-performance computing use cases. My focus on Nvidia DGX Spark is to illustrate a greater point about what will keep Silicon Valley at the forefront of technological progress. True innovation doesn’t come from just making things “bigger” or “more powerful,” but in the distinct relationship and interactions between software and hardware, and even between different pieces of hardware. Nvidia DGX Spark isn’t just Nvidia making a chip smaller, but finding ways to add faster on-device memory, software to make getting the data to both the memory and the GPU faster, and (I imagine) some unique ways to keep it cool. The truly world-changing innovations and technological breakthroughs that will advance humanity will come from a deep commitment to silicon engineering, and Silicon Valley needs to remember that this is the only way that software will continue to grow. View the full article

Question keywords are questions people type into search engines to find information, answers, or solutions. View the full article

ChatGPT's enhanced memory remembers your preferences across conversations, giving more personalized responses without repetition. The post ChatGPT Expands Memory Capabilities, Remembers Past Chats appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Pharma group builds out American supply chains as part of preparations for potential US tariffsView the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. I can only rate one person on my team “exceptional” no matter how well they do My company uses a fairly robust framework for discussing performance. This is generally really helpful, as it provides me with clear feedback to share with my team. For example, I can say, “Good performance is handling your workload independently. Exceptional performance is also mentoring newer colleagues while you stay on top of your work.” The problem is that the framework was designed for companies with complex hierarchies with many positions to move through. My company has only 10 levels between the CEO and the lowest person on the chart, so promotions are rare. Between AAM advice and pure luck, I’ve assembled a really high-performing team. Everyone is super motivated and wants to excel. We’ve now worked together for 5+ years and everyone understands how to surpass the expectations for their roles to the point where a few are even working at my level. But now I’m getting pressure from a new grandboss to force-rank my team and grade them on a curve. On one hand, I get it, the bar can reset to “new normal,” but on the other hand I’m at a loss. If I’m giving Brian feedback, I need to outline a path where he can succeed, but if I get to the end of the year and Abby still stayed slightly ahead of him, I can’t give him the higher rating even if he put in all the work I outlined for him to earn it. My own manager handles it by suddenly getting super critical of things that she’d been saying were excellent, and based on how it makes me feel, I don’t want to manage my team in that way. On my end, I usually try to help my team understand how our systems work, but saying some polite variation of “even though you’re amazing, Abby’s a step ahead of you, so I’m not going to reward you fully because there’s a curve” is clearly a terrible idea. Personally I think it’s ridiculous that we can’t reward long-tenured employees who are super engaged with the rating they deserve or at least create smaller steps up the ladder to properly reset expectations along the way, but this is a battle I don’t have political standing to fight. So my question is really more how do I speak with my team about their performance in a way that doesn’t demotivate them yet also doesn’t leave me at the end of the year with four employees who did everything I outlined as exceptional behavior and only one rating to award? The best thing you can do is to be honest about how the system works: let them know you’re being required to force-rank and only have one “exceptional” to give out. Tell them that’s not the way you would have structured it and you’re aware that it creates an opening for people with truly exceptional performance not to be rewarded for it. This won’t be good for morale, obviously — but pretending that it’s not happening (or trying to convince people it’s their fault, as your boss does) would be even worse. Meanwhile, can you push for them to be compensated appropriately for their high level of work even if they don’t have an “exceptional” rating? Or do raises correlate with the ratings? If the latter, this is even worse — and a recipe not only for demoralizing your team, but for tension in their relationships with each other too, since people are less likely to be supportive of and collaborative with coworkers who they see as being in direct and unfair competition with them for fair pay. In addition, can you look for other ways to ensure they’re rewarded and be explicit that you’re doing that, even if it’s just getting them more professional development funds or the opportunity to work on a project they’re really interested in? But also, please try pointing out all of this to your grandboss. I know you said you don’t have the standing to fight this battle, but you don’t need to approach it as a battle; you can simply share the way you expect it to play out on your team, and that it’s likely to disincentivize the high performance you’ve gotten from them under the previous system. 2. My boss asks for weekly constructive criticism, and I don’t have any My relatively new boss just took a management seminar and came in with a new framework for our weekly check-ins. It’s two pages long and, among other things, asks me to fill out one thing from the week I think I can do better, and one thing I think my boss can do better. I appreciate the sentiment but I feel like I don’t have anything to say to my boss. I’m new in this role too and, while he does bug me sometimes, I feel like I just need to be taking everything in and adapting right now, not sharing any poorly-thought-out feedback with him. He’s also extremely conscientious and type A so I think would be very sensitive — perhaps overly so — to any comments I offered. I want to just say something kind of anodyne, but the prompt is so precise that I can’t think of the right thing to seem like I participated without being specific. (I can answer the question about what I personally can do better okay, although I hope it doesn’t end up being ammunition to use against me later.) Big picture, I think this structure is unnecessary on a weekly basis — annual maybe — and I’m guessing it will naturally trail off over time … but I don’t want to reject a new idea he’s excited about by saying this isn’t really my kind of thing, especially when our relationship is so new. I’m not much of a talker naturally and tend to be more task-based, while these questions are bigger-picture. Do you have any suggestions about what I can put in the box besides “nothing” every week? You can write, “Nothing this week” or “Nothing comes to mind this week but I will share if/when something does.” However, you could also use that space just for things you need in your job, like “could I get more training in X?” or “this isn’t something you should do better, but I could use your help brainstorming Y.” You’re right that this question is too much for weekly, especially for someone who’s new! And I suspect you’re right that its use will trail off over time. But if he does nudge you about it meanwhile, it’s fine to say, “I appreciate you making space for it, but I’m still new and learning and not in a position where I have that kind of feedback yet.” 3. Who pays for lunch? My former manager recently retired and told me that they’d love to meet up for lunch periodically. We had a great working relationship and I’d love to have a friendship moving forward now that they’re no longer my boss. So far, we’ve had one lunch (they paid). We have another lunch scheduled for next month, which they initiated. Should I assume that my former manager is typically going to pick up the check, or should I offer to pay every other month, or split the bill? Does it depend on who initiates the lunch? I don’t want to offend them by offering to pay, or by NOT offering to pay! If it matters, my former manager is around 30 years my senior and made around five times my salary (my position is slightly above entry-level). You should offer to cover the check every few lunches. Chances are good that your former boss will say no, it’s on them (because of the differences in seniority/stage of life)— but you should at least offer and be prepared to follow through. You’re very unlikely to offend them by offering to pay (even if they tell you no), and there’s a higher risk of them noticing you never offer and feeling taken for granted (especially if this is moving more toward friendship than business acquaintances). 4. Could a bonus be considered a disability accommodation? I currently have an injury that makes it painful to work unless I’m lying flat on my back. WFH and 90% behind the scenes work means this hasn’t been a problem, but once in a while I will grit my teeth to sit in an office chair so I can look professional on a client-facing Zoom call. This isn’t strictly required, but it certainly contributes positively to the client relationship. I’ve been joking with my manager that the company owes me $100 for every hour I sit up in pain for them. Obviously this would never happen. But I’d like to dream. So is it technically possible to get a spot bonus as an accommodation for doing work that my disability prevents me from doing without significant pain? It could go toward physical therapy or my upcoming surgery bill … I just got off one such call and had to roll around shouting and crying while my body adjusted back to not being in The Bad Position. Being paid extra money as an accommodation would be a hard sell under the framework of the law. Legally, the point of accommodations is to make changes that allow you to perform the essential functions of your job — so removing an activity that causes you pain, yes, or buying an adaptive tool that allows you to sit up without pain, sure. But “be in pain and we’ll pay you extra for it” isn’t likely to be considered an accommodation in the legal sense. A reasonable accommodation in this case would be “you don’t have to be on camera on client calls, so you can staying lying down.” That sounds like the thing you should be asking for! (In fact, it sounds like you could just do it, if you’re the one who’s been choosing to be on camera. Please choose that rather than the thing that makes you cry in pain!) View the full article