Author: openjargon

• Rachel Pohl and her husband left San Francisco and traveled around the US for around a year.
• They ended up looking for a place to settle down when Pohl was pregnant.
• While they thought Durham, North Carolina, would be the answer, Chattanooga, Tennessee, ended up being their home.

San Francisco is the home of the Golden Gate Bridge, the setting for "That's So Raven" and "Full House," and host to a robust professional and business services workforce.

It's also an expensive city and has seen more people moving out than in for somewhere else in the US.

Rachel Pohl, 34, who lived in San Francisco for several years, and her husband, Jesse Rosenthal, are just two of the people who left. After traveling around the US for around a year, they're happy having settled in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Pohl said while she was also happy in San Francisco and enjoyed living there, she's "grateful to call Chattanooga home" in her current phase of life. She and her husband moved to the city of more than 180,000 people in late 2021.

They had been considering moving away from California for quite some time before leaving San Francisco in the fall of 2020.

"It's very expensive, of course, difficult to buy a house, raise a family," she said. Pohl said they also wanted to live closer to family and wanted to be somewhere with a "slower pace of life" than the more fast-paced, large city of San Francisco, home to over 800,000 people.

"I think just the overall situation, livability there because of the cost of living is more difficult than smaller to mid-size cities," Pohl said.

The California wildfires in August 2020 were another reason the two decided to leave. "Around that time, we were thinking, let's get out of California. It's time," Pohl said.

'A grand nomadic tour of the US'

Amid remote work flexibility during the pandemic, the two ventured out of San Francisco and decided to explore the country to see the sights and decide where to settle down. "We did a grand nomadic tour of the US," Pohl said.

They packed up their things and put some stuff in storage. Pohl said goodbye to the city she had called home for years and where she met her husband. The two of them headed to Airbnb locations throughout the US.

Montana was one state they visited. Chattanooga was another place they got to see on their trip, and she found it was "very beautiful and lovely."

"It was springtime, and the flowers were blooming, and I thought, 'this is a nice place,'" she added. While she and her husband continued on, they eventually ended up moving there after roughly a year of travel because they wanted somewhere steady after finding out Pohl was pregnant. Pohl said she and her husband liked the size and Chattanooga's energy.

"It felt like there was enough and a lot going on for the size of the city, but not so overwhelming," she said.

They did end up in Durham, North Carolina, in the summer of 2021 before Chattanooga, partly because of its potential work opportunities. However, Pohl said they simply weren't feeling that location.

"We thought if we could pick to go anywhere, basically, in the US, we want to love it, and we want to feel great about our decision," Pohl said. "So we decided at that time to come back to Chattanooga. We hadn't been back since the spring."

The family-friendly location and other pros of being in Chattanooga

Pohl likes the access to nature in Chattanooga.

"We love to go on hikes and go by the river and go paddle boarding," she said. "We love to go to playgrounds and parks with our son. All of that is very accessible."

Pohl said people are also friendly in Chattanooga, and she thinks it's a family-friendly location. She has also found the people are more diversified in terms of jobs, as opposed to the dominance of tech in the San Francisco area.

"I was meeting entrepreneurs in the food and beverage industry and people doing all kinds of things," Pohl said about Chattanooga. "It felt approachable and accessible here to do that."

Chattanooga is also much more affordable for homebuyers than San Francisco. Realtor.com noted both San Francisco and Chattanooga as buyer's markets at the moment, where the "supply of homes is greater than the demand for homes." While that may be the case, Realtor.com also shows the median sold home price in Chattanooga is far below that across the country in San Francisco — $347,500 and around $1.1 million respectively.

"It is just much more accessible to buy a lovely larger-sized home in Tennessee and Chattanooga," she said. "Your dollar goes much further here. We had looked at potentially buying a house in California and just in the end thought this makes no sense because of the cost, because of the distance to family, and just kind of the whole situation we felt like, let's go yonder."

While Pohl is happy living in Tennessee, she misses the cuisine in San Franciso and access to some national parks nearby. Pohl noted to BI she had visited San Francisco since moving away, mainly for work. And while she does love the energy in Chattanooga, there's just something about the energy in California, too.

"It's such a beautiful state," Pohl said about California. "Sometimes I miss a little bit of the energy, but again, I feel like that was an active part of my choice to leave being in a big city, but there's so much innovation happening there around technology and AI. So sometimes, from a work perspective, I miss that."

Have you moved out of San Francisco or somewhere else in the US? Reach out to this reporter to share your moving experience at mhoff@businessinsider.com.

• AI could boost the appeal of corporate offshoring by making overseas workers stronger.
• The tech can increase the efficiency of foreign workers and make them capable of higher-skill roles.
• Andrew Yeung predicts we'll see "an army of offshore talent equipped with AI tools."

One of the tropes about artificial intelligence is that AI won't take your job, but someone who knows how to use it will.

There's another possibility, however: Someone who knows how to use AI — and who's based abroad — will come for your job.

AI-powered offshoring could pose a threat to workers in heavyweight economies by making people in cheaper markets more efficient and better able to take on higher-skill jobs.

The double hit of AI superpowers plus low-cost labor could mean that the types of roles at risk of being offshored shift from repetitive tasks like data entry, which have traditionally been gestured to as actions AI can replace, to meatier work like prompt engineering, high-end customer service, and marketing, industry experts told Business Insider.

Andrew Yeung, a former product lead at Google and Meta, predicted in May that overseas workers who get their AI glow-up will someday take over numerous jobs.

"In a few years, every scrappy founder and high-powered executive is going to have an army of offshore talent equipped with AI tools that completely replace the need for traditional engineers, designers, marketers, and assistants," he wrote on X.

His thesis seems to be backed up by Sagar Khatri, cofounder and CEO of Multiplier. The company's platform lets employers hire workers from anywhere by automating functions like payroll and labor law compliance. He told BI that companies will face more pressure to go global — not to boost sales, but to find the skilled workers they need.

Thanks to productivity gains from AI, a company in New York might more easily hire accountants in the Philippines, customer-success workers in Mexico, and customer support teams in India, Khatri said.

"With AI, a customer support agent can do their job much better," he said.

Everyone's getting schooled

Online learning is making it easier for workers abroad, especially young ones in developing countries, to build their skills, according to Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera.

He told BI that workers will increasingly face competition from others overseas who are using technology to automate and be more efficient.

And it's not just learning about AI, but learning from AI. Maggioncalda said the technology can help workers in emerging areas get up to speed faster and compete with those who command higher salaries in developed economies. For many workers, a big factor will be what he calls "talent agility." Essentially, it's how fast workers can learn new things to add value to business models.

"It sounds kind of crass, but that's what it's going to come down to," Maggioncalda said.

He added that a worker in a low-cost region who might have previously taken five years to become as effective as someone in a more expensive job market can now do so far sooner. The person overseas doesn't necessarily even have to be better, Maggioncalda said.

The threat simply comes from "someone who matches you but costs less," he said.

Maggioncalda added that it's easier to hire, fire, and move workers in many developing markets. Many workers in these markets, he said, are young and hungry to gain skills that will help them build their careers. Then, you give them AI.

"Now they have a tool that has a differentially positive impact on their productivity compared to someone who's at the higher end," he said. "The only other question is, how fast is this going to happen?"

Based on Coursera's numbers, it could be soon. In 2023, the company enrolled a person every minute in a Gen AI class. In 2024, it's drawing four people every minute, he said.

Fifty-two percent of enrollments in Coursera's Gen AI classes are from emerging markets like India, Pakistan, Brazil, Vietnam, and Egypt.

AI is also making it cheaper to bring lessons on AI and other topics to people in languages other than English. Two years ago, it cost Coursera $10,000 to translate a course into another language. Now, with GenAI, the company can do it for $20, Maggioncalda said.

The massive drop in cost has enabled Coursera to translate 4,500 courses into 22 languages, he said.

"Everybody can now learn this stuff because language is not a barrier anymore," Maggioncalda said.

AI can deliver the real answer

Multiplier's Khatri said AI is making it easier for a bigger pool of workers in countries enjoying demographic tailwinds to get trained to become software developers and other lucrative roles. That's helpful, he said, for companies operating in countries with aging populations like the US, the UK, Japan, or Germany.

Khatri also said AI could make companies less hesitant to look overseas to fill needs like customer service reps because the technology can quickly serve up a "real answer" that an agent can give a caller. That can make the conversations shorter, which, in turn, reduces the risk that customers will hang up feeling dissatisfied by how hard it was to get the information they needed or because of hurdles like language.

That's because even if AI provides the answer, "customers still want to talk to a human being," he said.

Daron Acemoglu, an institute professor in the economics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told BI that AI could open up parts of the world where language barriers might have kept regions from becoming offshoring hotspots like India or the Philippines.

"Workers in Indonesia couldn't do some services because they're not fluent in English. Perhaps with better AI translators, they can do that," he said.

Acemoglu also warned that there is a danger of AI becoming so good that it undercuts the need for offshore workers.

"It has to be a sort of rather narrow path — that AI is good enough to do the translation but not good enough to do these pretty low-skilled tasks," Acemoglu said.

'This isn't the cotton gin'

Scott Vincent, CEO of Digital Futures, a UK company that helps people of varied backgrounds land roles in tech, told BI that the global trial of remote work brought by the pandemic proved to companies that they don't need all workers to be together to remain productive. As a result, he said, more organizations are looking at lower-cost locations to tap into workers.

Vincent said he's seen "a real acceleration" of offshoring offerings across industries since the pandemic.

"It poses a significant threat to the labor market," he said.

The threat doesn't stop with workers in expensive markets like the UK or the US getting undercut by someone in a developing market, Vincent said. Offshoring can make it harder for companies to produce home-grown talent that can rise through the organization, he said.

"Generative AI impacts, or can replace, a lot of foundational skills that are learned at the start of one's career. So you've got this double whammy," Vincent said.

Many big companies, he said, see Gen AI as having two horizons. One is the immediate impact on the workforce — the sugar rush of productivity gains. But the other, more consequential effect is what he sees as an "outflow of human capital" due to AI's eventual ability to do much more than it can now.

"It is an exponential trend in terms of the pace at which it's moving," he said.

The time it took for earlier technologies — including automation and robotics — to rejigger the labor market was longer than what we're seeing with Gen AI, Vincent said.

He expects companies' spending on overseas labor will grow. Digital Futures examined spending from the top 100 publicly traded companies in the UK and found that, on average, each spent about £750 million (about $951 million) a year on offshore offices. Vincent said that works out to about 1.2 million jobs in the UK and about £16 billion in lost tax revenue.

But short-term gains overseas may not lead to long-term jobs. Drew Cesario, who consults on revenue operations and marketing systems and is the founder of Botanical Grp, told BI that the fate of some offshore workers who might work alongside AI is likely similar to that of the minders who sat in self-driving taxis during testing phases. "They are training themselves out of a job," he said.

Because of how many tasks AI can take on, Cesario expects there will be widespread job displacement both domestically and internationally.

"I would love to say that there isn't, but this isn't the cotton gin," he said. "It is a general technology versus a specific technology."

How you can use tech

Vincent said governments in developed economies and businesses need to work together to deal with the coming changes to the job market. Businesses that say they're offshoring in part because they can't find the skilled labor they require need to see improvements in education systems to produce better-prepared workers, he said.

Governments, Vincent said, could consider regulating the percentage of a company's workforce that can be offshore.

Coursera's Maggioncalda noted that if you buy a car from another country, you often have to pay a tariff.

"Maybe if you pay wages to another country, you have to pay a wage tariff," he said.

Maggioncalda said it could be a way to help even out the cost of labor.

In the meantime, he said, workers need to consider how they can "add real value in a world where more and more pieces of your job get automated."

"What you need to be thinking about is, 'How can I use technology to automate certain parts of my job?' Maggioncalda said. "Because if you don't do it, someone else is going to do it someplace else in the world."

• A new TransUnion survey found that Gen Zers are the most optimistic about their financial outlook.
• That's even as inflation remains a top concern across all generations.
• It's partly because Gen Zers have more job flexibility, and they're outpacing other generations in wage growth.

Gen Zers are feeling pretty good about their financial situations right now. Older generations can't say the same.

While inflation slightly cooled year-over-year in May, it's still high, and with the Federal Reserve holding interest rates steady yet again on Wednesday, many consumers are feeling strained.

But even with the range of financial stressors, a new survey from credit reporting firm TransUnion suggests some Americans are feeling optimistic about their own conditions over the next year. According to TransUnion's Consumer Pulse Study for the second quarter of 2024 — which surveyed 3,000 adults from April 29 to May 8 — 55% of consumers said they were optimistic about their finances over the next year, expecting to see wage increases.

That was especially true for younger generations — over 60% of Gen Z and millennials said they were optimistic, compared to less than 50% of Gen X and baby boomers.

There's good reason for Gen Zers to be optimistic. The hot jobs market means they have the flexibility to leave their current employment to seek higher wages elsewhere, and they're starting to invest and save for retirement earlier than other generations did at the same age.

Charlie Wise, senior vice president and head of global research and consulting at TransUnion, told Business Insider that "a lot of that optimism comes from a really strong jobs market."

"There are lots of jobs out there for people that want them, and who is often most positively impacted by that is the younger consumers, those consumers who have the flexibility to say, 'If I don't like where I'm working, if I don't like what I'm earning right now, I'm going to walk across the street and probably do pretty well," Wise said.

Despite that broad optimism, rising prices are still troubling Americans. 84% of respondents ranked inflation as a top-three concern, a five percentage-point increase over the second quarter of 2023.

Additionally, per the survey, everyday expenses like groceries, gas, and utilities were top of consumers' minds when it came to rising prices, and the other top two concerns were housing prices and interest rates.

Gen Zers have their own specific worries about high costs as well. Many of them are skipping out of college due to student debt, and high rent costs are hitting a lot of them hard, particularly if they don't have the option to live with their parents or a roommate.

But, Gen Z is outpacing other generations when it comes to wages, retirement savings, and homeownership — giving them reason to feel optimistic about their financial futures amid stressful economic conditions.

"Inflation, while it's still top of mind for a lot of people, it's receded significantly from the levels that we saw back in 2022," Wise said. "

"At the same time, we also see consumers are relatively confident about their financial futures," he added, and that "over a majority of them say, 'Yeah, I feel pretty good about me personally, but man, this inflation thing, this is really weighing on people."

How Gen Z can feel good about themselves — but still worry about high prices

BI has previously reported that many aging boomers and Gen Xers cannot retire or are struggling financially in retirement.

According to a recent report from the Alliance for Lifetime Income's Retirement Income Institute, over half of the "peak boomer" cohort — the final cohort of boomers that will start to turn 65 this year — have $250,000 or less in assets, meaning they'll have to run through their savings and rely on Social Security in retirement.

But when it comes to retirement preparation, Gen Z might be ahead of the game. According to a survey last year from the CFA Institute, over half of Gen Z respondents said they were already investing, and 82% of them started doing so before turning 21.

Additionally, a paper from economists at the American Enterprise Institute and the Federal Reserve found that the typical 25-year-old makes over $40,000 annually, which is more than 50% above what boomers made at the same age, adjusted for inflation.

To be sure, although Gen Zers are making more, they also face financial stressors that older generations did not have at the same age. A Pew report from January found that today's young adults are far more likely to have student debt, and they also have more mortgage debt compared to young adults in 1992.

Overall, the TransUnion report said, Gen Z is "the most stable of any generation" in this year's second quarter, citing 45% of them reporting wage increases in the past three months. But they can still feel worried about broader economic conditions.

"When you look at consumers and their sentiment about their personal finances, when they see wage gains, for a lot of consumers, that to them feels earned. I worked hard, I deserved that. I got that raise because I earned it. Inflation is something that is inflicted on them. It comes from outside of their control. There's nothing they can do about that," Wise said.

"And that's why, even if prices are up 5% and their wages are up 5%, I feel really good about the 5% that I'm making, but it feels like someone just took that away from me in the form of inflation," he added. "And that's got people not just concerned but, in many cases, pretty upset."

• Sam Dogen and his wife retired in their 30s, raising two kids on a nearly $300,000 budget in San Francisco.
• Dogen and his wife pull in well over six figures from passive investments and side gigs.
• Their current expenses nearly equal their net income, though they may soon face a $60,000 gap.

Sam Dogen and his wife both retired in their mid-30s, haven't had a full-time job since the mid-2010s, and are raising two kids in San Francisco on a budget of nearly $300,000.

During their careers, they frequently saved over 80% of their income and put most of their money into passive investments to achieve financial independence — meaning they could stop working and still have enough for their future expenses. After they both retired, which Dogen said is rare in the financial independence, retire early (FIRE) community, they had two kids, worked various side gigs from tennis coaching to Uber driving, and bought a new home in cash.

Dogen shared his budget with Business Insider, which, for his family of four, he expects will be about $280,000 over the next year or so. He said his budget is high because he wanted to provide the best life he could for his kids before they go off to college.

"FIRE-ing with kids is like a superpower, a secret weapon," Dogen said. "FIRE-ing with kids, especially if you really love your kids, you like to spend everything on them, and then doing that in an expensive city is really, really hard."

How a FIRE family budgets

In 2012, Dogen reached financial independence after 13 years in banking, predominantly in San Francisco. By the time he retired, his net worth was over $3 million, which he achieved by "living like a college student" for a few years and saving most of his money. His wife retired in 2015 at 35 and worked part-time until they had their first kid.

Dogen said it took years of planning to figure out how to maintain financial independence with two kids in an expensive city.

He was stressed about buying a larger home in San Francisco last year, selling off some of his investments and going back to part-time work. He said about 70% of his reasons for purchasing the home was to be a loving father so his kids could live comfortably before going to college.

Similar to how he felt after leaving his $250,000-a-year job, he spent a few months feeling buyer's remorse over the home purchase. He contemplated whether he should've continued living frugally after doing so for two decades, though he eventually came to terms with the fact that he made the right decision.

Still, this meant finding other places to cut back on spending. Using last year's budget, his family of four lives off $350,000 in San Francisco, and their net income is $223,840 after a 401(k) contribution, standard deduction, and tax bill. Meanwhile, their total expenses are practically equivalent to their net income.

Their mortgage has the highest annual cost at $46,800, and their property tax is $22,320. Utilities, property maintenance, and property insurance add another $10,260.

Childcare and occasional babysitting for his younger kid cost $29,400, while preschool for his older kid costs $24,000 yearly. The family's food costs $25,548, and they contribute $12,000 to their kids' 529 college saving plans.

Their healthcare costs are $10,200, while life insurance runs them another $2,040. Other family expenses include $7,800 for three family vacations, $6,000 for entertainment, including sporting events and social functions, and $4,200 for baby items.

Their car payment, insurance, maintenance, and gas cost $9,360 combined. They also spend $4,800 yearly on clothing, $3,600 for charity, and $1,800 for a family phone plan.

They anticipate their anticipated expenses starting in September 2024 to be about $280,000, while their pre-tax passive income will be about $275,000, as they sold a lot of stocks and bonds last year to buy a new home. Their unsubsidized healthcare insurance will jump to $2,500 a month, and they're adding $7,600 a month for both of their kids to attend Mandarin immersion school.

Dogen noted they're not technically financially independent anymore, as he estimates there will be a $60,000 gap. He's hoping to accumulate enough capital again in the next few years so there's no passive income deficit.

"I wanted to own the nicest home I could afford while my kids were still at home," Dogen said. "It's not like I'm going to buy a nicer home once they leave college since I'm probably going to downsize. I made a conscious choice to blow up my passive income by like $110,000 to buy a nicer home to provide for my family."

While he's considered moving to a less expensive part of the country, he said he values his strong network of friends and acquaintances, the city's cultural diversity, and the tech scene. He also said he feels safer as an Asian American in San Francisco than in many other parts of the country.

"A lot of people say, well, you can move to the Midwest and cut housing costs by 80%, but as an Asian American, it's not that simple to just go pick up and move to Memphis or Houston; it's diverse, but it's different," Dogen said. "There's this big blind spot for white people who are pursuing FIRE to just say, you can go live anywhere in the country that's lower-cost. I just don't think it's that easy for minorities to do that."

Continuing to work

In the years since retirement, he and his wife wanted to continue being frugal, living minimalist lifestyles. However, they both felt they could afford to invest in life experiences and a quality home. Though Dogen didn't want to return to an office, he felt unfulfilled without working.

Though he retired at 35, he didn't fully leave the workforce. He maintained his blog, which brought in over $1,000 in supplemental income. Between 2013 and 2015, he did part-time consulting, assisting startups in the Bay Area for 15 to 20 hours a week.

He wrote a book, "How to Engineer Your Layoff," which generates about $30,000 annually. He and his wife also slashed their expenses by at least 40% by renting out their home and buying a fixer-upper on the west side of San Francisco.

He also tried lower-income side gigs to follow his desires and continue building toward his actual retirement. He drove over 500 rides for Uber, estimating he made about $30 an hour.

He also worked as a high school tennis coach, making $1,100 a month, which, he said, allowed him to learn how to deal with high school boys years before his son reached that age.

His wife taught piano lessons in her spare time, in addition to helping him edit his book and blog articles.

Still, most of his time has been spent being a stay-at-home dad. Once his younger kid attends school, he's looking for the next challenge.

He's itching to "fill that void" with part-time consulting work in the tech or startup industry, hoping to get more involved with AI companies in San Francisco. He did fintech consulting from November 2023 to April 2024 but stepped away after it became too much work.

"Both kids will go to school full-time, leaving us with 40 hours a week to twiddle our thumbs," Dogen said. "After you've been doing something for a long time and put in so much effort, you're going to feel this trough of sorrow that I've experienced before."

Are you part of the FIRE movement or living by some of its principles? Reach out to this reporter at nsheidlower@businessinsider.com.

• Amazon's typical shopper makes 72 purchases per year from the site, usually with small basket sizes.
• Now, Walmart's CFO says Walmart+ members are increasingly placing orders of just one or two items.
• The Walmart US CEO also said it takes a shopper four orders on average to embrace frequent delivery.

Amazon was able to achieve e-commerce dominance in part through millions and millions of tiny orders.

The typical Amazon shopper makes 72 purchases per year from the site, according to consumer analytics firm Numerator, spending about $37 per order for an annual total of $2,662.

By contrast, Walmart's typical shopper shops a little less frequently and spends more per transaction, and tends to shop more in-store.

But now, Walmart's CFO John David Rainey says Walmart+ members — who spend twice as much as the retailer's typical customer — are starting to act a little more like Amazon shoppers.

"Maybe this is intuitive, but they tend to shop more frequently and also have smaller baskets. They're using us for those one or two items," he said Wednesday at the Evercore ISI Consumer & Retail Conference.

Rainey also said that while Walmart's e-commerce orders historically tilted toward pickup, more shoppers are opting for delivery in recent months.

"I believe that that's a trend that's not going to reverse," he said. "It really speaks to how customers are thinking about this convenience factor for us."

In addition, as America's grocery king, the company is able to glean compelling insights into shopper behavior, Walmart US CEO John Furner said Tuesday during the Oppenheimer e-commerce conference.

"When you look at our baskets by type of channel people shop, and we can see differences," he said. "When you see the ingredients selling, it tells you the intent."

In other words, knowing what's going on with customers' shopping baskets gives a good clue into what's going on in their minds.

Furner also said it takes a shopper four orders on average to embrace delivery.

"After the fourth delivery, we see the patterns change: more usage, more frequently," he said.

• Scott Galloway warned against following a passion, betting the farm, and paying for private school.
• The NYU marketing professor and "Pivot" co-host said rejection is inevitable on the path to success.
• Here are Galloway's four key arguments from a recent podcast.

Almost nobody should try to turn their passion into a career, bet the farm on a single investment, expect to escape rejection in life — or pay for private school, says Scott Galloway.

Galloway is a marketing professor at NYU Stern and a host of podcasts like "Pivot" and "The Prof G Show." He offered some frank and surprising advice to young people on a recent episode of the "Modern Wisdom" podcast.

1. Passion comes later

The author and founder of multiple startups including L2 and Red Envelope emphasized that chasing a passion rarely pays the bills.

"Just keep in mind that the person telling you to follow your passion is already rich usually, and they made their billions in iron ore smelting," he quipped.

Instead, Galloway advised working hard to hone a talent that lets you pursue a career you can excel in, but in an industry with ample jobs.

"Find something that you're naturally good at, that you could become in the top 10% or top 1%, in an industry that has a 90%-plus employment rate, and focus on it," he said.

The business guru said that people become passionate about careers that provide them with status and economic security, and allow them to meet the demands of other parts of life.

"As you get older, you become really passionate about taking care of your kids," he said. "You become really passionate about doing wonderful things with your spouse, taking care of your parents, and your priorities change."

2. Spread your bets

Galloway said he never wagers more than 3% of his net worth on a single investment. He explained that diversifying your portfolio allows you to shrug off losses from bets that don't pay off.

"It's a bullet to the chest when it goes to zero, but I've got Kevlar," he said. "Yeah, it knocks me off my feet, but then I get up and I've got a bruise and I'm like, I'm fine.

"Nothing's ever critical, much less fatal," he continued. "Whereas before, when I got shot in the chest in 2000 with the dot-com explosion or implosion, and the great financial recession in 2008, I almost never could get up again."

3. Prepare to hear 'no' a lot

Putting yourself out there and asking for a job or date is often the only way to snag the position or partner you want, but it carries the risk of being turned down. Learning to shrug off a "no" is an important life skill.

"All you need is one good mentor, a few good friends, one wonderful mate, one business that works," Galloway said. "But to get there means putting yourself in a position of rejection over and over and over."

"You're Kanye or Madeleine Albright or Stephen Hawking, you're going to be fine," he continued. "Assume you are not that person. A much more reliable route to success is just resilience and an ability to eat shit."

4. Save, don't spend — even on your child's education

Galloway argued that paying a ton of money to send a child to private school isn't the best option for many families.

If their goal is to give their kid a better life than they had, he said, sending them to public school and investing the cash they would have spent in a low-cost index fund for the long term is a better idea based on historical returns.

"Assume you are wrong," Galloway said. "You sent that kid to public school and you screwed up. They didn't get into the best college. They ended up with a mediocre career. They have trouble buying their first home.

"They can't live the life that you got to lead or that you really hoped for them," he continued. "Here's what's going to ease your pain. If you were disciplined and reinvested that money you would have spent on Grace Church, by the time they are 35, you'll have $5.3 million to give to them."

Last week, my friend Robbie and I cycled along a bike path for about three miles, then locked our bikes and walked through brush to a small beach. No one was around, so I had a nude dip, and afterward, we sat on a rock and talked.

Robbie is my only bicycling friend, and soon we'll be cycling even more, because we both recently acquired spiffy new electric bikes. I got to know her through another friend whom I met on a retreat. Getting "out there" and circulating is one way I make friends.

Creating friendships is harder as you get older, but it's important

I'm 72 years old, and in my experience, making friends when we're older takes more initiative and creativity. We may be retired, divorced, or widowed, or have moved closer to our kids, knowing no one and having to start over.

When my husband Barry and I moved to Eureka, California, 23 years ago, we knew nobody. But over the years, we've found ways to make friends in a few different ways.

Look for people with similar interests

My friend Beth, whom I met at a meditation group, is my oldest contact in Eureka. One day I ran into her and discovered she worked five minutes away from our apartment. Barry and I invited her for lunch, and she and I discovered we had more in common, including the fact that we had both grown up partly on the East Coast and that our parents lived in the same county.

I made another friend at a Spanish-language meetup. Because Barry and I spend winters in Guanajuato, a city in central Mexico, I wanted to become more fluent in the language. At the meetup, I asked if anyone would like to meet regularly and chat in Spanish. Ever since, Sue and I have met every week to walk and talk — although, I confess, as we shared more and more about our lives, we reverted to English (so much for practicing).

Always be open to new connections

I keep an eye out for potential candidates because I've lost friends to moves and deaths. I'll ask someone out for coffee and see how it goes. Occasionally I end up wondering why I bothered, but usually I'm glad I did, because even if the connection doesn't turn into a friendship, it's worthwhile. A few years ago, for example, I discovered that a woman I'd invited out for coffee earlier was an accomplished painter. Since then, I've developed my own watercolor practice, and she has become a supportive mentor.

Last week, my yoga teacher mentioned that she was studying yoga therapy. Curious, I asked her if we could have tea so I could find out about it. I don't know if we'll become friends, but if nothing else, I'll learn about a kind of therapy I'd never heard of.

Stay connected with old friends online and in person

While I was growing up, my family moved a lot, so I treat old friends as my roots. I sleuth around on the internet, where I've found two pals from my teen years who I'd lost touch with.

A few years ago, a writer friend from high school helped me edit an essay I wrote about the death of my teenage brother. She leads writing retreats in Mexico, so we share a love not only of writing, but of Mexico.

Recently, I sent her a few questions — about what she's currently focusing on, reading, how her family members are doing, and so on — which I also answered. The interchange turned out to be both illuminating and fun.

Focus more on individual friends than couple friends

Barry and I don't have many couple friends, and for a long time it bothered me that we've rarely been part of what our single friends call the "couple culture." But I find couple friends to be overrated — a four-way quadrant dynamic is usually less intimate than a one-on-one or three-way connection. Generally, he has his friends, and I have mine, and occasionally they overlap, and that works just fine for us.

Mulling over my friends past and present, I think of the message I learned from the round we used to sing in Girl Scouts when I was 9: "Make new friends, but keep the old / one is silver, and the other gold." This timeless truth still applies to my life today.

• Ukraine showed its drones can strike advanced aircraft at air bases inside Russia. 
• Ukraine appears to be systematically attacking airbases with drones.
• Cheap drones may be one way to strike back at the Russian jets pummeling Ukraine with glide bombs.

A recent Ukrainian drone strike appears to have damaged one, possibly two, of Russia's rare stealth fighters in an airbase deep inside Russia, highlighting a problem for the Russian Air Force.

No matter how many aircraft it has, those planes have to be parked somewhere. And even hundreds of miles inside Russia, those airbases can be attacked by cheap drones.

"Kyiv appears to be pursuing a clear strategy to force the VKS to either vacate its bases within several hundred miles of Ukraine's borders or dedicate an inordinate quantity of air defense systems to defending them," wrote Justin Bronk, an airpower expert, in an essay for the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.

Where to base combat aircraft is always a dilemma. The closer they are to the front line, the more ordnance they can carry rather than fuel, and less time is wasted flying back and forth from base to battlefield. But this exposes them to rocket and drone attack, as Ukraine demonstrated in 2022 and 2023 with strikes against Russian jets and helicopters on the ground, many of which were parked on airfields that were close to the Ukrainian border, though others were deeper inside Russia.

But these were pinprick attacks designed to embarrass the Kremlin and demonstrate that nowhere in Russia is safe from Ukrainian attack. Now, Ukraine appears to be systematically attacking airbases with drones, much as it used long-range American-made HIMARS guided rockets in 2022 to dismantle Russian logistic and command networks.

Details are murky about what exactly happened to the Su-57 (NATO code name: "Felon") stealth fighters parked at the Akhtubinsk airbase in southern Russia, near the city of Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) and about 370 miles from Ukrainian territory. Ukrainian intelligence released images earlier this month that appeared to show a Su-57 —parked in the open — that was allegedly damaged by long-range Ukrainian drones, and a top official claimed a second may have been damaged in the same attack.

"It is unclear how much damage the Su-57 in question has sustained," Bronk noted. "The satellite photo appears to suggest that two relatively small explosions occurred within around 3–5 meters [10 to 16 feet] of the aircraft, which was parked on an outdoor concrete hardstand."

The aircraft didn't appear to catch on fire, suggesting the damage wasn't catastrophic, perhaps to be expected from small drones with small warheads. On the other hand, the plane did appear to have suffered damage to its nose and tail, which is no small matter for fragile high-performance aircraft.

"Shrapnel damage to the rear section might be relatively easy to repair with an engine change and replacement horizontal and vertical stabilizers, but shrapnel damage of any significance to the nose section would be much more serious," wrote Bronk. "It would likely cause damage to the radar array(s), Infra-Red Scan and Track sensor, and cockpit, as well as instruments and electronic systems critical to the functioning of the whole aircraft."

One interesting question is why the drones weren't neutralized by Russia's massive jamming capability, which has neutralized many GPS-guided rockets and glide bombs supplied by the West, and disabled numerous Ukrainian radio-controlled drones. Leveraging the Soviet Union's vast investment in electronic warfare, Russia has used mobile and fixed jammers to saturate the airwaves up and down the 600-mile-long front line. The Akhtubinsk attack suggests that Russian electronic warfare capacity has sufficient breadth to cover the front, but not depth to protect the Russian interior.

In itself, the recent Ukrainian strike was no more than a symbolic blow against a symbolic foe. Russia has perhaps a dozen Su-57s, which is Moscow's answer to the US F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters. Much like Russia's vaunted T-14 Armata, the Su-57 has been conspicuous by its absence from the Ukraine war. This probably reflects fear of embarrassment from losing an advanced weapon — and perhaps a lack of confidence that the capabilities of these weapons won't match the rhetoric.

What has been hurting Ukraine over the last six months are massive numbers of glide bombs dropped by older Su-34 and Su-35 jets. Stealth fighters aren't needed for Russia's un-stealthy strategy: obliterate Ukrainian defenses with glide bombs, then send in poorly trained convict-infantry to mop up. It's a crude, costly approach that nonetheless has enabled Russia to capture some small chunks of territory.

Even with American-made F-16 fighters arriving soon, Ukraine's air force probably can't drive off Russian jets lobbing glide bombs from 50 miles behind Russian lines, safe behind ground-based air defenses. Cheap one-way attack drones may be the next best thing.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

• When my dad died at 67, no one was surprised because he smoked packs of cigarettes a day. 
• I tried to connect with him over hobbies that didn't involve beer or cigarettes. 
• Now that I'm 67, I'm learning to love him the way he was. 

If my father was an advertisement for physical fitness, he resembled the "before," not the "after" picture — overweight, a big beer drinker, a four-pack-a-day smoker. Even in my wedding photos, there was a lit cigarette in his hand. When Dad died after a massive stroke at age 67, none of us was particularly surprised.

Dad seemed to have no memories of his youth — at least none he cared to share. In elementary school, we were told to ask our parents about their childhoods. When I approached my father for his recollections, he responded, "Tell your teacher…" I waited eagerly, pencil in hand. He continued, "Tell her… that it's none of her damn business." I still remember my embarrassment. Nine-year-old me realized that, apparently, my father's life was none of my damn business either.

I tried so hard to connect with him

In my early teens, I thought I could endear myself to this odd, distant man by sharing a hobby with him. His main hobbies involved beer and cigarettes, but he also loved listening to the radio. This hearkened back to his own lonely childhood. A radio had been his constant evening companion when his parents were out on the town (which was almost nightly). Dad grew up on the sidelines, an eavesdropper on life. While he never told us which programs he enjoyed in those early years, by the time my sisters and I came along, he'd become an avid listener to a police scanner. From behind his home office door, we'd hear the sound of the dispatcher's voice, the mysterious numerical codes indicating robberies, assaults, and car chases in progress.

One week, when Dad was away, I memorized a sheet of paper I'd found with the codes, hoping for some meaningful father-daughter time. When he arrived home and turned the radio on, I said, "Domestic dispute, huh?" He coldly replied, "No. What are you talking about? Those codes have all been changed." And with that, he turned away, causing me more embarrassment and disappointment that Dad didn't care about the effort I had made.

After he died, I thought about Dad less and less. He had stayed on the sidelines of his daughters' lives, just as he was a silent listener to other people's dramas on the police radio. And so, I sidelined his memory from mine.

I'm the age he was when he died

I'm 67 now, the age Dad was at his death. While I expect to live a good bit longer, as this anniversary arrives, I find myself wondering how much time I really do have left. I am much healthier than he was, but I realize that's no guarantee of longevity.

How do I mark the day when I'm older than he ever got to be? How do I use whatever time remains to me? I know I will refuse to sit on the edges of life, listening passively to other people's adventures. I will continue to engage with my family, my friends, and the world. I will, as always, be very different from my father.

But here's a curious thing. Though I seem to be an extrovert, I too struggle to connect with people sometimes. I too can be awkward, can say hurtful things to those I love. I too have parts of my past that I don't want to share. Maybe, not totally different from Dad after all.

Now, I think about him every day. Now, I realize that my big mistake was always expecting my dad to be something he wasn't capable of being. In my heart, I know it hasn't been fair to judge my father so harshly. For 67 years, he struggled along and did the best he could. I will try to live "smarter" than Dad did, to eke out more quality time on the planet. But now I remember that lonely little boy, listening to a radio in a darkened apartment, with compassion.

On this Father's Day, when we both are 67, I'm finally learning to love my father just the way he was.

• 21-year-old Nancy Qi has interned at Google for the last three summers.
• She said she found it important to get to know other Googlers and stay motivated through the summer.
• These are the four tips she recommends to Google interns hoping for a return offer.

Nancy Qi is a 21-year-old student at Columbia and she's spent her last three summers interning at Google.

This summer, she's working with Google Photos on the Android development side in New York City. She previously worked for Google's Core and Shopping team in Sunnyvale and Mountain View.

Qi recommends applying for a Google internship sooner rather than later, as she feels there can be an advantage to interviewing early in your college career. You might not get the highest levels of technical questions as a freshman when interviewing, for example.

But when it comes to getting a return offer, it's about everything that comes after you get the job, according to Qi. She's received two return offers so far and while there's no perfect formula, these are the four tips she recommends to current Google interns hoping to come back.

Get to know your host

Google interns are assigned a host or manager, and Qi said she considers them the "number one most important person in your internship."

At the end of each internship, Qi said hosts have to complete a review of how the intern performed. Some of the metrics can include improvement, communication with the team, and code quality.

Qi said she used to meet with her host once every couple of weeks during her first internship. Now, she said meets with her host basically every day, and it's a game changer. She speaks with her host about the progress she's made and any blocks she encountered.

When you need inspiration, visit a new office

Qi said one of the perks of working at Google is having access to all of its offices. Qi said during her first internship, she visited a different office once a week on her hybrid day and it helped give her a change of scenery and kept her inspired throughout the summer.

"I was walking through all the offices and I would be stunned, my jaw on the floor every day," Qi said. "And I felt so grateful to have that experience."

Qi said visiting different offices keeps her motivated in her internships. She said she "never really lost that feeling of 'Wow, I can't believe I landed this internship.'" She still does this tradition every Friday.

Socialize with your team

Google offers various events to its employees, such as team socials and lunches. Qi recommends taking full advantage of these.

Qi said she thinks these events offer your team a chance to see more of your character, and they may be "more inclined to support you along your career and want you to succeed."

Qi said many of the full-time staff have wisdom to share and she was able to get valuable technical and social advice from an employee she became close to last year.

Aside from networking and career development, Qi said the end-of-year reflection has a slot to add references from other Googlers who saw your technical ability or got to know you. She said she thinks being able to list people can be an important factor for conversion.

Spend time on your evaluation form

Google interns complete a self-reflection at the end of their internship, and Qi said she spends a lot of time on this.

At the end of every week, Qi writes down what she was stuck on and what she accomplished. When she filled out the reflection at the end of her last two summers with the company, she included screenshots and links to those weekly summaries.

She said she thinks it could have helped her receive her return offers because it showed how much effort she put into the internship. Even if she took longer on certain tasks, the reviewer was able to see her problem-solving process and how she approached each issue.