WHAT: A wrenching personal story that doubles as a plea to fix Obamacare, rather than repeal it.

WHO: Jimmy Kimmel.

WHY WE CARE: Yesterday afternoon, Republican Congressman Mo Brooks, whom you can contact right here, had some words for Jake Tapper about the Trumpcare bill currently gestating in D.C.:

“My understanding is that it will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool. That helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy. And right now those are the people—who’ve done things the right way—that are seeing their costs skyrocketing.”

Congressman Brooks is the latest politician to broadly paint those who have pre-existing conditions as selfish sinners taking advantage of the righteous among us, who choose to avoid a lifestyle that attracts cancer. As a cold calculation, it might make sense to charge more for health insurance to those who are at higher risk of needing it. However, that morally bankrupt equation only makes sense if one is completely devoid of empathy, and has never met an otherwise healthy person afflicted with a sneaky disease. It’s possible some of the people making these decisions, or their constituents, haven’t even tried to imagine such a person. Enter Jimmy Kimmel.

His voice is already quivering when he launches into his monologue. That should be the first clue that Kimmel is about to deviate from his usual talk show rhythms. “I have a story to tell about something that happened to our family last week,” he starts, before warning viewers–mercifully–that the story has a happy ending. The warning is helpful, because the story itself is the nightmare of every single parent, expecting or otherwise.

What follows is the harrowing tale of how Kimmel and his wife, the very funny comedy writer, Molly McNearney, almost lost their newborn infant son. In horrifyingly vivid detail, the host recounts how their baby, Billy, was born with a heart disease, and needed surgery immediately. The ‘happy ending’ part arrives when, after a few days of touch-and-go, Billy survived. He will very likely need surgery again in the future, but for now, he’s okay. Going through this experience, however, made Kimmel and McNearney keenly aware of how lucky they were to be able to afford for their baby to be okay. At this point, the host pivots from the personal to the political, without switching subjects.

“Until a few years ago, millions and millions of us had no access to health insurance at all . . . before 2014, if you were born with congenital heart disease, like my son was, there’s a good chance you’d never be able to get health insurance, because you had a pre-existing condition. And if your parents didn’t have insurance, you may not even live long enough to get denied because of your pre-existing condition. If your baby is going to die and it doesn’t have to, it shouldn’t matter how much money you make. I think that’s something that whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or something else, we all agree on that, right?”

It’s rare for a talk show host to deviate so sharply from format with a heartbreaking personal story, and almost as rare for one to make an explicitly political plea for health care. Jimmy Kimmel’s experience was so devastating, he decided he had to use his large national platform to make that plea. Maybe it won’t take such an experience to move the average constituent toward making a similar plea to their congressperson before the latest version of the current healthcare bill gets put to a vote. Maybe it’ll just take hearing about it from a talk show host.

I am thankful to love and be loved by these two brave guys. Both criers. pic.twitter.com/NL0C3K3Q4E

— Molly McNearney (@mollymcnearney) May 2, 2017

A law firm once commissioned my creative agency to design its new stationery—cool, no problem. The only hitch was that the firm was headed by a celebrated litigator who’d developed a fearsome reputation for intimidation, both in court and in business. After we’d designed the letterhead, the firm didn’t want to pay us to oversee its printing, opting to rely on its in-house marketing team instead. And sure enough, when the stationery was delivered, it was decidedly subpar. That’s when the firm called a meeting—with me, the printer, the marketing team, and, well, the bully.

Bullying behavior is common in a lot of workplace situations, but it can be especially destructive in negotiations. When you’re sitting across the table from someone who makes it clear they’re going to intimidate you to get what they want, it’s easy to freeze up and capitulate. But you don’t have to.

Related:Four Productive Ways To Get Confrontational At Work

What Makes Bullies Powerful—And How To Defuse It

First and foremost, avoid the temptation to fight fire with fire. Behaving like a bully actually reduces your negotiation skills. The reason why is simple: It blocks you from understanding the other person’s point of view, and if you don’t have a good handle on that, you won’t have a good handle on the negotiation.

I’ve seen this happen over and over, but I’m not alone. Victoria Pynchon, cofounder of She Negotiates Consulting and Training, puts it this way: “If you believe you have to force people to do what you want in order to get what you want, you won’t bother learning how to ‘sell’ them.”

Negotiating successfully is all about understanding the other person. That takes empathy; when you’re feeling dominant, you’re less inclined to tune into others’ feelings. But is this is important to know if you’re the non-bully as well. The bully’s only real source of power is the unpleasant feelings they stir up in you. So as long as you can get past them, you can actually gain the advantage. Here’s how.

1. Know Your Opponent

Your first step should always be to learn as much as possible about the person you’ll be negotiating with, their organization, and why they’re talking with you in the first place. This holds true whether you’re negotiating a big corporate contract, a freelance project, or a job offer.

I’ve been in many negotiations when the other side really didn’t have full command of the facts. A belligerent tone can sometimes hide that reality, but if you’ve done your homework, it’ll be pretty transparent. When that happens, I make a point of listening and taking notes—some of which only serve the purpose of showing that I’m taking notes, to reinforce that I’m paying close attention. Once the other side feels confident that they’ve made their point, I share my own point of view in the politest voice possible. Then I ask their response to what I’m saying.

2. Lean Into Your Expertise

Your experience working with the issue under negotiation is a huge part of your advantage. Don’t give it up. If a bully is negotiating with you, it’s because they want something from you. Otherwise they wouldn’t waste their time and energy. So trust in your expertise and listen to learn precisely to what they think they need from you and why they need it.

Use your experience to frame your observations, by saying things like, “In my experience, the most effective way of meeting your needs would be to . . . ”

3. Bide Your Time

Bullies act first and as though with absolute confidence. They know that fast action puts their opponent on the defensive. And if you’re not prepared to deflect their certainty and aggression, you’ll be overwhelmed and likely to cave. The trick is to wait them out. Don’t respond when you’re put on the spot. When they’re finished, find a way to empathize with them, even if that means avoiding answering their demand. If they demand something ridiculous, smile and say no.

Related:When To Walk Away From The Negotiating Table

4. Keep Your Cool, And Remember You Have A Choice

When you’re in the thick of it with a bully, things can feel tense—like every second is a do-or-die moment. That’s how bullies want you to feel. But you don’t have to capitulate to this kind of pressure. As long as you’re prepared for it, you’ll have no trouble keeping your cool. I always remind myself that they have no real say over what I decide to do. The whole reason we’re negotiating in the first place is because it’s ultimately up to me to decide whether or not we have a deal. I’m in charge of me, which includes whether to get as confrontational as they are.

5. Let Them Feel Powerful

Finally, bullies need the assurance that they’re all-powerful—a need that you should indulge. Counterintuitive as it may sound, it’s actually in your interests to reassure them of their power: “Mr. President, your campaign was remarkable. What you did has never been done before. Absolutely brilliant. Congratulations.”

This is a trick that the most emotionally intelligent people use in order to be persuasive. Stroke that ego and permit them to feel dominant. Then ask for what you need from them in order to be successful on their behalf. When your bully feels like they’re on the same team as you, you’ll have a lot more leeway to get what you’re after.

Turning A Quiet Advantage Into A Win

Before that meeting with the law firm, I asked another printer we trusted to print some letterhead to our specs. As anticipated, they did a beautiful job.

The meeting began with the printer and the firm’s marketer explaining why the work didn’t meet expectations. I listened thoughtfully, nodding with genuine sympathy while examining the work. That was when the litigator unleashed a merciless verbal assault on me. He attacked me aggressively, criticizing our lack of professionalism, demanding that we not only pay printing costs but damages for delays caused by our “sloppiness.” I listened attentively to his rant—I was prepared for it, after all. When the room went silent and all eyes were on me, I continued to nod quietly for a bit, letting a momentary pause hang heavy in the air.

Then, looking directly into the eyes of the person who’d just bullied me, I said kindly, “I’m so sorry this happened. I know how important the new stationery is, and how seriously disappointing the outcome was. I was disappointed, too.”

Then, reaching into the envelope where I’d stashed the correctly printed samples, I said, “To check the specifications, and in preparation for this meeting, I asked another printer to run some samples,” which matched our original design perfectly. I laid them on the table.

There was no further mention of us paying a cent. The litigator thanked me and turned his wrathful attention to his marketing team as I left the room. I felt badly for them, but they really had blown it. They didn’t have the expertise that we did, which is what we were really getting paid for. All I needed to do was remind our client of that—just with more brains than bluster.

Ethics lawyers and historians have argued that Donald Trump has blurred the line between his public office and private business interests in an unprecedented fashion.

In another sense, it’s part of a much larger social trend.

Commercial entreaties—whether in the form of magazine ads, radio jingles, or television spots—have long been a part of modern life. But advertising is now encroaching on public space as never before.

Cities and states now grant businesses the right to put their names and logos on parking meters, bridges, fire hydrants—even lifeguard swimsuits. Public parks intended to offer a respite from the travails of daily life now allow retailers to advertise amid historical sites and nature preserves. School boards ink deals with all sorts of businesses to help them meet their budgetary needs.

It’s not just public space that is filling up with brand shout-outs. In conducting research for a new book on modern marketing and its regulation, I discovered that a host of once ad-free environments—from the living room to our friendships—are now becoming sites for ads or surveillance technologies designed to make them more effective.

Some might shrug, calling the ad creep an inevitable part of modern life. But there are dangers to this trend, along with legal remedies—if people care enough to actually do something.

Marketing’s New Frontiers

New marketing techniques and technologies allow businesses to reach consumers in new ways and venues. One space becoming increasingly critical to market researchers is the home.

Smart technologies—from Microsoft’s Xbox One to Vizio televisions—now come embedded with what could be described as “spying” capabilities. These devices can record activities once considered private, like the movies we decide to watch and even our facial expressions while playing a video game. This information becomes part of a digital profile used by advertisers to get a better portrait of who we are and how we can be convinced to make a purchase.

Meanwhile, every time we sign on to Facebook or search Google on our personal computers or smartphones, we are adding to vast stockpiles of market research. This kind of surveillance is hard to escape. Marketers have moved past cookies: They can now identify individual users from the number of fonts in their browser or the rate at which their particular computer’s battery loses its charge.

Even our brains have become fair game for advertising annexation. A landmark 2004 study asked subjects to take sips of Coke and Pepsi while a machine measured blood flow in their brains. When the brand was a secret, participants expressed a slight preference for Pepsi. But when the brand names were revealed before taking a sip, participants, both verbally and neurologically, revealed a preference for Coke. The study was widely heralded as proof of the ability of advertising to actually change our brain chemistry, to instill emotional markers that can trump objective evaluation of the actual product.

Since then, companies have spent millions to record activity in consumers’ brains to better capture the desires we won’t or can’t articulate. Some major ad campaigns we currently see—from Samsung to Campbell’s Soup—reflect the results from this new neuromarketing research.

Our friendships and social networks aren’t immune. Marketers target “micro-influencers”—often people with modest Instagram or Twitter followings—that can be leveraged to sell products or services on social media. While Federal Trade Commission rules require endorsers to acknowledge the compensation they receive in return for giving favorable plugs for a product, enforcement is minimal.

The Consequences Of Ad Creep

Even those bullish about these new marketing gambits do admit that they can be annoying. Still, a common response to complaints about the growing presence of ads is “What’s the harm?” As the argument goes, being annoyed is a small price to pay for subsidized public infrastructure, free online content, and exposure to ads more attuned to our actual interests and needs.

My research shows, however, that there are significant costs to opening up our lives to advertisers. One is a loss of consumer agency. Reliance on brain scans to design more effective commercials strips audiences of their ability to consciously shape the advertising content they see and hear. Market research used to rely on focus groups and surveys, not the unfiltered disclosure of brain activity. The result can be advertising campaigns that celebrate biases or behaviors we would rather keep hidden from view. For example, thanks to data gleaned from brain scans, Frito-Lay launched a series of ads encouraging antisocial practices like intentionally putting Cheetos in another person’s load of white laundry. When directly questioned, sample viewers objected to the ads’ gleeful embrace of vandalism, but MRI readings told a different story.

Another cost comes from how advertising can change an environment’s character.

The civic values meant to be instilled by public schooling now must compete with the materialist messages of the sporting goods stores and clothing retailers that advertise in cafeterias and hallways. The use of micro-influencers on social media could make us less trusting, never knowing if that online friend is really a corporate shill.

And as commercial spying becomes routine, norms change to permit snooping in other parts of our life. Witness the recent use of facial recognition technology by churches to record the attendance rates of their parishioners and the placement of monitoring devices on once-innocuous objects like Barbie dolls and children’s toothbrushes so parents can keep tabs on their children.

The Need For Legal Intervention

So what’s to be done? It isn’t realistic for consumers to abandon Google, to drop off of Facebook, to take their kids out of public school, or to stop using public infrastructure. Halfhearted measures—like regulations requiring consumers to opt in to some of these troubling advertising practices—won’t do much to change things either. Studies show that such legislative nudges don’t work, that motivated marketers can get us to opt in if they apply enough pressure.

Instead of defaults, the law needs to create hard and fast rules preventing the entry of advertising and corporate spying into these spaces. This kind of reform doesn’t require a sea change in legal attitudes. The history of advertising regulation in the United States reveals several episodes where lawmakers moved to put an end to objectionable selling strategies fueled by new technologies.

The American right to privacy emerged in the late 19th century as a response to advertisers using the relatively new technology of photography to take pictures of people without their permission, and then using these photos to sell products. Judges objected to this forced blending of the personal with the commercial, with one court equating the practice to enslavement by a “merciless master.” Similar objections caused lawmakers to act against a barrage of scenery-obscuring billboards in the early 20th century and subliminal advertising in the 1950s. Of course, not every new advertising strategy has met with a legal response. But the historical record shows strong precedent for using the law to keep some areas of life off-limits from commercial entreaties.

A normalization process can easily occur once advertising enters a new territory. Take pre-film advertising in movie theaters. When it was first introduced in the 1990s, audiences howled at the presence of commercials before the trailers and the actual movie. Lawsuits were filed and new legislation proposed to stop the practice. But over time, the lawsuits and legislation sputtered out. Surveys now suggest that audiences have become ambivalent to the presence of pre-film commercials.

The story of pre-film ads should be a cautionary tale. Without a coordinated effort, this same normalization process will take place in more and more spaces, engulfing them into the vast, existing space of commercial white noise.

Mark Bartholomew is professor of Law, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. This article originally appeared on The Conversation. 

When Bayard Winthrop launched American Giant in 2012, he wanted to do much more than create a well-made sweatshirt: He had aspirations to reinvent the apparel supply chain in the United States. Over the last five years, he’s largely accomplished his goal. The brand currently sells thousands of U.S.-made garments every week, generating tens of millions in revenue every year. But until now, American Giant has been associated with its designed-to-last-a-lifetime hoodies, which were famously described by Slate as the best in the world.

These products are helping to transform American Giant from a niche purveyor of high-quality basics to a full-fledged lifestyle brand. Through its marketing campaigns, it is crafting an identity as a clothing supplier to creatives and entrepreneurs who like their fashion a little edgy. To launch these dresses, the brand did a photoshoot called “Dress Like a Badass” with women drawn from its core audience including Jenny Aborn, a tattooed surfer and skater; Ashley Holt, a baker; London Kaye, a street artist; and Eva Pullano, a dancer.

Each of these products was designed with an excruciating attention to detail. I got some insight into this process earlier this year, as it was designing a pair of pants. When American Giant considers launching a new product, it first does a market analysis, scrutinizing the most popular items currently available at other brands and looking at ways to improve them. It creates a prototype, which it sends to testers around the country who try the product for a few days, then they provide very specific feedback. (I included details like, “I wore the pants for two days, and the knees got saggy” and, “The seam in the middle shows through T-shirts.”) Then, it iterates and sends out new prototypes for feedback.

American Giant now works with six factories in North Carolina, South Carolina, California, and Pennsylvania, and it has ownership stakes in a couple of them. By having control over the supply chain–coupled with a direct-to-consumer business model–the company has been able to pay American workers fair wages, while charging fair prices. “The emphasis here is on fair,” Winthrop told me earlier this year. “We’re not competing with the $5 sweatshirts at Walmart. We’re creating a premium product and not inflating the cost.”

At Walmart, you can buy a crewneck sweater for $4.85 that is likely made in China or Bangladesh. At American Giant, a comparable design costs $69, but it is made from a custom developed heavyweight fleece that is designed to last a lifetime. While his products are not cheap, Winthrop is hoping to gently convince American consumers to think about clothing as long-term investments rather than disposable items.

To other brands making products here in the U.S. this growth is encouraging. A few months ago, I spoke with Sasha Koehn and Erik Schnakenberg, the founders of Buck Mason, a four-year-old menswear brand that makes all of its products in the Los Angeles garment district. “It shows that you can get real scale by making things in the U.S.,” Schnakenberg says. “There are lots of emerging fashion brands like ours trying to build our businesses, and it’s good to see that you can make it as an American-made brand.”

Getting blamed for a colleague’s screw-up doesn’t just feel crappy, it also puts you in a difficult spot. If you say nothing, you’re taking the fall for someone else’s mistake, which might reflect on how well (or not) your boss thinks you can do your job. But if you speak up, you risk seeming petty or even dishonest. So you have to proceed with extreme caution.

Here’s what to do the next time you find yourself in that situation:

Discredit Where Discredit Is Due

First things first, it’s almost never a good idea to just silently accept blame for something that isn’t actually your fault. There are exceptions to every rule, but here are the only two circumstances where it’s a reasonable strategy:

1. It’s such a minor issue that no one actually cares. This only applies if the supervisors or other stakeholders involved are pretty blasé about it, and if it’s an isolated incident (not the latest mistake by someone whose work is generally shoddy). If it feels like you’ll just confuse things further by trying to explain—that it’ll involve a level of detail that the situation doesn’t warrant—then you can hold off.

2. You want to do a favor for the mistake-maker—and it’s a relatively small error. If it’s a colleague who’s recently done you a solid, or someone with more to lose (an up-and-coming junior person who doesn’t have a great relationship with their boss, for instance), then you can keep quiet. However, be careful about this one, because you don’t want to be covering up someone’s chronic poor performance.

Notice that there’s no “No. 3) To be nice” or “No. 4) To avoid having a tough conversation.” Being forthcoming about process problems doesn’t make you a tattletale or a jerk—it makes you a forthright professional who recognizes when an organization isn’t functioning properly. Managers need to know if someone’s not pulling their weight—they can’t do their jobs if they’re misinformed about who needs discipline or extra coaching.

Related:5 Strategies To Stop Coworkers From Interrupting You All The Time 

So if you decide keep your mouth shut when accused of someone else’s error, make absolutely sure you’re doing it for one of these two reasons, and not out of a misplaced sense of responsibility for other people’s mistakes.

The Truth Will Set You Free

Let’s assume that none of your coworkers are outright liars. Realistically that might not always be the case, but I want to believe that most people are fundamentally honest—and more importantly, universal benefit of the doubt is the best approach strategically. If someone’s a crook, that’ll become apparent eventually, and you can watch it happen from your position on the high road.

The next step is following up with the right people. Who those people are will depend on your role, your relationships with your coworkers, and the nature of the mistake.

If you’ve been implicated in writing, then you want to make sure the truth gets documented as well. In some cases—with coworkers you know have integrity—you might even forward the original message to them with a note like, “Billy seems to think I messed up the sales projections, but didn’t your team work on that?” A good colleague will probably jump into the conversation to clear your name, but not everyone will take the hint. (Keep this in mind whenever you’re the one in the wrong—reliably taking responsibility for your own mistakes will prove that you’re trustworthy.)

Related:The Scientifically Proven Way To Deal With Difficult Coworkers

With less dependable actors in the mix, you’ll have to do the dirty work yourself—but as with any of these delicate situations, you want to be as dispassionate as possible. You might suspect there was some creative license involved with someone else’s explanation, but don’t imply that anyone was being intentionally misleading. Just stick to the facts: “Hi all, I just wanted to clear up the workflow on this project since there seems to be some confusion. The sales projections actually came from Tina’s team, so hopefully she can explain the inaccuracies.” And then you copy Tina on the reply.

Basically, the maneuver here is to pretend like your reputation isn’t at stake, in spite of how you really feel. If someone told you, “New York is on the West Coast of the United States,” you wouldn’t get all how dare you—you’d just correct them based on the factual reality of the world we all live in. That’s the tone you’re going for here as well: A kind of bemused vibe of, “I’m not sure why you got this wrong, but no worries—let’s clear it up once and for all.”

Calling For Backup

For complex or super-serious situations, it might be wise to enlist your manager as your ally (or another senior colleague who knows the whole story, if the accusation originates with your own boss). If the screw-up involves a lot of people—or one particular person who’s known to be especially prickly—then a supervisor can help get to the bottom of things. An informal (face-to-face or phone) conversation is probably best, although e-mail will work if necessary. As always, be calm and factual—and as succinct as possible—as you lay out the details and then solicit advice on how to handle it. Even if your boss tells you to deal with it yourself, that preliminary discussion will prove invaluable if things escalate.

Nuh-Uh! / Yuh-Huh!

Documentation can save your hide in these situations, but if the mistake originates in the course of verbal conversation, the only official evidence will be highly fallible human memory. Someone still has to back down, though—and sometimes, for whatever reason, that person is going to have to be you. But that doesn’t mean you have to admit outright defeat. In the same neutral “mistakes were made” tone as in all these other examples, you can issue a verdict of, “Well, I remember it differently, but what’s done is done, and I suppose this is a lesson to take better notes.” (And then, needless to say, you do start keeping a more robust record so that you don’t find yourself in this position again.)

Sometimes when a big project goes awry, there’s no clear target for blame, and so it just kind of splashes all over everyone involved. If that happens—or you otherwise get dinged for something you really couldn’t control—try not to let it get to you. A crusade to indict the real culprit isn’t a good look. If your work is otherwise good, and you’ve proven yourself to be an upright citizen in the office, your reputation can safely survive a few mistakes—even the ones that aren’t actually yours.

This article is adapted from Is This Working?: The Businesslady’s Guide to Getting What You Want from Your Career by Courtney C.W. Guerra (The Businesslady) and reprinted with permission from Adams Media, a division of Simon & Schuster.

Along with the nifty products and services that companies love to tout as their main output, what most businesses are really great at is generating greenhouse gasses from carbon emissions. Not surprisingly, the journal Science reported in August that company processes have to date supplied two-thirds of the world’s overall greenhouse gas emissions.

After all, offices, manufacturing plants, and computers require electricity a lot of electricity. Shipping things around the country in trucks or overseas on boats or planes takes gas. Toss in the fact before any product many of the raw materials are being sourced from a global supply chain, and you get a damaging amount of emissions. Those numbers are a big problem for some socially responsible business owners, who have been working to change it. But it turns out, it’s a solvable problem.

The truth is that NZ2050 sounds pretty lofty, but is imminently doable. It doesn’t take three and a half decades to go fund major reforestation programs or wind farms, both of which offer readily available carbon offset credits in exchange for financing. There’s also the matter of the fine print: The pledge’s commitment only covers those greenhouse gasses that companies directly emit, allowing tech giants off the hook a bit. Most would just have to account for the electricity within their offices and data centers, ignoring supply chain fallout from, say, mining the materials for servers, not to mention manufacturing and shipping them to server farms. They could also avoid dealing with all that energy use from customers powering up devices and running programs on them.

Salesforce, for instance, took a look at the final guidelines and decided to not just meet them, but exceed them, investing in a way that creates a carbon-neutral cloud and in environmental projects that have a social and economic impact in the developing world, one of the places expected to be hardest hit by climate change. The company hit that mark this month, 33 years ahead of the deadline, although they won’t disclose how much it cost.

“Everything we do is really in the context of living our values right every day and integrating the work that we do around philanthropy so that it makes sense in the community and it makes sense in our business,” says Suzanne DiBianca, who became the company’s chief philanthropy officer and executive vice president of corporate relations in 2016 to ensure such holistic thinking. Salesforce decided to try to meet their benchmark immediately because they view carbon emissions as an environmental justice issue. Investing now as opposed to later means having a larger impact that associated inequalities of their fixes address.

Salesforce has also strategically invested in wind farms by signing agreements with operations in Texas and West Virginia, places where the rural economy is failing and more people are in need of jobs. Eventually, the group would like to expand these kinds of operations in a way that provides more jobs in many markets where the company operates, while helping those same places run entirely on locally-made renewable energy.

None of that would be possible without addressing exactly how the company consumes energy, too. One fix: The company has developed what it dubs “multi-tenant architecture” to host separate client information together on the same server, which it claims is 50 times more efficient than standard designs, which silo client intel on separate servers. (They share more about the theory here.)

“Our approach to thinking about this mission is avoid, reduce, mitigate,” says Patrick Flynn, Salesforce’s senior director of sustainability. And, of course, to prove well ahead of time how others can be equally successful. “The challenge of tackling global inequality and climate change it’s going to require innovation on a scale that we’ve never seen.”

In an ideal world, you’d probably arrive to every interview five to 10 minutes early. This amount of time sends the signal that you are serious about landing this job, but also don’t wish to inconvenience the hiring manager.

But sometimes life happens, and even though you did everything you could to get to the office on time, you hit traffic, and that cushion time turns into a 25-minute delay. And before you know it, you’re Googling, “How to make up for running late to an interview” while you’re sitting in gridlock.

Related: Six Job Interview Questions You Should Have Asked (Much Earlier) 

As frustrating as this is, most hiring managers understand that sometimes, things just happen. But as empathetic as they can be, they also don’t like being left in the dark. So the next time you’re running behind, give the template below a try.

Oh, and if you’re worried about it working, know that it’s inspired by one of the best messages I received from a candidate who was going to be late for an interview.

When You Have A Good Reason For Running Late

Hi [name of interviewer],

I’m so looking forward to our interview today, but wanted to let you know that [your reason for being late]. In spite of this, I anticipate arriving at [a time based on your best guess for how many minutes behind you’re running].

I apologize for the inconvenience and completely understand if this new time does not work with your schedule today. If that’s the case, would you be open to rescheduling? I’m available [provide two or three times and dates] if that would be more convenient for you.

Thanks so much,
[Your name]

When You Just Overslept

This sounds great, right? Well, what if your reason for being late isn’t any good? What if it’s because you overslept, or you drove in the wrong direction for 20 minutes, or your “quick” coffee stop took forever?

If that’s the case, you’ll want to be careful just how much you share. And in fact, I’d err on the side of saying less so you don’t paint yourself in the wrong light.

Related:How To Prepare For An Interview When The Job Is A Stretch

Here’s a revised template for those times when it’s your fault:

Hi [name of interviewer],

I apologize for the inconvenience, but I’m running late to the interview today. I shouldn’t be longer than [how many minutes you’re actually late] behind.

While I’m still very excited to discuss the opportunity, I completely understand if this new time doesn’t work with your schedule today. If that’s the case, would you be open to rescheduling? I’m available [provide two or three times and dates] if that work better for you.

Sorry again,
[Your name]

When You Didn’t Say Anything In Advance

Okay, now what if you were late for no good reason and didn’t have time (or even think) to send this note before you met. No fear—you can still make up for your tardiness in your thank you email—assuming of course, that you apologized upon arrival.

Try this out:

Hi [name of interviewer],

Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me today. I wanted to apologize again for being late, it’s completely unlike me and I truly appreciate you still taking the time to meet with me.

I know this must’ve been an inconvenience to you, but I’m even more excited about what I learned about the company and the role today.

[Insert specifics about your conversation and reiterate why you’re both excited and qualified for this role.]

Thanks again!
[Your name]

There’s no silver bullet message to send when you’re running late to an interview—but regardless of the reason, giving the hiring manager a heads up will never hurt. It not only says that you’re aware that this isn’t okay, but also that you appreciate the hiring manager adjusting their schedule to meet with you.

A version of this article originally appeared on The Daily Muse. It is adapted with permission.

More From The Muse:

• How To Recover From Arriving Late For An Interview
• Dear Everyone Who’s Always Running Late: It’s Not Your Fault 
• Showing Up Late—Plus Four More Interview Mistakes Smart People Make Every Day 

Apple is working on an Amazon Echo-like device, says KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who is one of the most reliable seers when it comes to predicting Apple’s moves, in a report published on Monday. Specifically, Kuo said there is a “over 50%” chance that the new product will be announced at WWDC in early June.

Either way, it seems like a near certainty that Apple is working on such a product. And if Apple releases a smart home device, it’ll be going up against some tough competition in the form of both the Echo and Google Home. And the Amazon Echo, at least, is already deeply entrenched in the market.

To have a real impact on the category, Apple can’t just show up with a me-too device; the whole experience around the device has to be better than Echo and Home. It has to look better, sound better, listen better, and do more things (well) than those competing products.

Kuo suggests in his research note that the Apple product might at least have superior hardware. He says that its device would be “positioned for the high-end market” and cost more than Amazon’s $179 Echo. He says it would have roughly the same computing power as an iPhone 6 or 6S, and would have a high-quality woofer and seven tweeters.

Two and a half years after the debut of the Echo and its voice assistant Alexa, here’s why Apple still has plenty of opportunity to release a product that not only could compete with what Amazon and Google are doing but have serious advantages over them.

The Fully Connected Home

A Siri home assistant device might add a crucial missing element to Apple’s version of the connected home. And it could be an especially powerful device because it would be a key user interface for Apple’s powerful HomeKit platform.

As useful as Amazon’s Echo is for controlling a host of Alexa-compatible home devices, Amazon doesn’t offer its own robust central integration platform for connected home devices. To make an Alexa-compatible appliance controllable through Alexa voice commands, the user typically loads the device’s app on their phone, then turns on Alexa voice control from within that app. There’s no one app that controls all Alexa-compatible devices in the home.

With HomeKit, on the other hand, users can control the basic functions of HomeKit-compatible devices using the Home app in iOS. The platform also offers lots of security features for the devices that support it.

But as of today, Apple hasn’t provided an Echo-like front end for the Apple connected home. Users control devices in the home using either the Home app or Siri running on an iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV remote. With an Echo-esque Apple device, users could control their appliances hands-free as they walk around the house or work in the kitchen. They could talk to the device as if addressing another person in the room.

Adding such a capability would make the HomeKit platform that much stronger, and position the prospective new smart home device as a vital part of Apple’s approach to the connected home.

A Managed Experience

Amazon has given developers a lot of freedom in defining how their Alexa “skill” is called up and used. Two different connected lightbulb makers, for example, might take very different approaches to the set of Alexa voice commands that make their products work.

That freedom is one reason so many developers have hurried to add their own skills–over 10,000 so far–to Alexa’s reportoire. But it can also make for an inconsistent and confusing user experience.

Apple has historically taken a less laissez-faire approach to third-party integrations. When the company began allowing third-party app makers to add Siri integration last year, it did so for just a small group of app types, and imposed strong guidelines for the user experience.

The same philosophy would likely apply to Siri interactions between a user and an app running on a new Apple smart home device. The company would likely enforce controls over the ways users could communicate with the apps. It might insist that users be able to use flexible, natural language. For example, Apple might insist on letting users call an Uber in any number of ways, not just one rigid way dictated by the app developer. In fact Apple might accomplish this by letting Siri manage the back and forth on behalf of the developer in the same way it does for third-party iOS apps.

Plug-And-Play Smarts

One of the big selling points of Apple’s HomeKit is that compatible third-party accessories are easy to plug into the platform. Apple provides accessory makers with firmware to bake into their devices so that they already speak the platform’s language when they arrive at the user’s home. The setup process involves the user scanning a code printed on the product with an iPhone camera. That process might become even simpler if the voice of Siri could be heard in the room guiding the user through the process.

Siri running on a smart home device might be used to create new “scenes” on the fly. “Scenes” are sets of appliances in the home that are programmed (using the Home app) to do a certain thing—like turn on and off—at the same time.

Privacy First

Over the past year, users have become more aware of the threat of identity theft in all its forms. With the rise of Echo, people are likely more aware of the privacy implications of having a device sitting in the home constantly listening to what they’re saying. (There’s even been a much-talked-about criminal case where data collected from an Amazon Echo was used as evidence.)

Apple has a clear advantage here. It makes much of its money by selling hardware; its core business does not rely on the collection of user data, a fact the company likes to emphasize. Apple has gone to great lengths to protect user privacy, including a high-profile face-off with the FBI over smartphone data encryption last year.

The same can’t be said for Amazon and Google, Apple’s main competition in the smart home device category. Amazon is an online retailer that relies on data to direct people to the products they’re most likely to buy. And Google’s bread and butter is selling advertising in many different forms, all relying on personal data for targeting purposes.

A Showcase For Siri

Apple likes to jump into categories after others have led the way, especially if it sees a clear opportunity to release something better than everything else. And the smart home device could be such a market. Apple could do more than just show up.

Siri isn’t perfect, but it has impressive aspects and is getting smarter. People who already use Siri might love the idea of her going beyond her usual place inside an iPhone or, more recently, a Mac. They might love talking to her across the room, then hearing her voice respond in high fidelity from the smart home device’s speaker.

A new Apple smart home gadget could be the definitive Siri device for people who have used the service on other Apple hardware. People might get a better taste for the assistant, and they might learn to use more of Siri’s capabilities if conversing with her felt more natural and lifelike. An ambient, natural language device might widen users’ understanding of what Siri can really do.

A Front In The Wider War

Apple, of course, wants iOS to be the operating system for your life, the place you go for all things digital, including communications, entertainment, productivity tools, and a thousand other things. It wants the voice of Siri to be the persona of that OS.

But in the future Apple could have difficulty winning hearts and minds over to its OS if it lacks an ambient speech-centric interface. Home owners are in a position of choosing between various tech platforms from which to control the devices in their homes. The lack of an Echo-like way of doing so could be a deal breaker for some. Which makes Apple entering this product category in some form not just an intriguing possibility but a necessity.

Part of what made Dave Eggers’s 2013 novel, The Circle, such a chilling read was that its technological trappings felt insidiously familiar. And that was before readers ever had to actually confront them with their own eyes.

In creating the film version of The Circle, a hopefully not-too-prescient tale of social surveillance further seeping into modern life, director James Ponsoldt had to assume the role of Silicon Valley impresario. He held up both a mirror and a crystal ball to the tech world; showing off what it might become, while generously larding the depiction with what it is already.

“I think we felt like we were going insane sometimes,” Ponsoldt says, “whether it was trying to create the illusion of a giant campus by using tons of locations, a campus that didn’t feel schizophrenic architecturally, or the products or the screen design. We had to design fake social media apps and emails. We had to create everything.”

Because The Circle takes place in a world in which Google, Facebook, and the like have all been swallowed up by one enormous company, Ponsoldt had to figure out what social media would look like in alternative post-Twitter universe, and what kind of device one might browse it on, with Apple out of the picture. What he ended up creating is a world that echoes the one outside the theater, but is specific to its own secret frequency. The so-called SeeChange cameras in the film, which look like elfin robot eyeballs, seem like something that might be announced at the next MacWorld Expo, with Tom Hanks’s Eamon Bailey filling in for Tim Cook.

With the film, which also stars Emma Watson, now out in theaters, Ponsoldt talked to Fast Company about his unlikely stint as tech culture surveyor.

The Campus

Around the time of the book’s release, the rumor was that Dave Eggers didn’t actually do any research to flesh out the details in The Circle. The truth is that Eggers had lived in the Bay Area for decades and had friends all over the industry, whom he could lean on for useful information. In any case, when it came time for Ponsoldt to bring Eggers’s vision to life–the two wrote the screenplay together–they wanted to get it just right.

“I went with my production designer on scouting trips to different tech campuses,” Ponsoldt says. “Really, it was with the goal of making sure we knew the world. We already knew the products, but we wanted to understand the texture of the place. We were also looking at it from a design perspective. In this building, is there a lot of glass, is there an open floor plan, are people at treadmill desks, do they have yoga ball desks, do the breakout rooms have ironic names, what do people dress like, are people on their phones all the time or looking at their watches, if there’s outdoor space is it being used, are the meals free, are they partially subsidized, what kind of public events are there, are there concerts on campus, is there free yoga, what is the sound of the place? We wanted to make sure we understood it.

The Culture

One scene invented for the movie really gives viewers an idea of what these monolithic tech companies are looking for in their employees, and the intense level of scrutiny they put into finding them. It’s an interview scene that’s capped off with a speed round of stupefying questions.

“Again, I talked to friends that worked at different tech companies and asked them different questions that might be asked at interviews,” Ponsoldt says. “There are the classic questions people are asked who are going into iBanking as well, like how would you explain our company to your grandmother who doesn’t really have an intimate relationship with technology. There are also the L-SAT type questions when you’re trying to understand the quality of someone’s thinking process. There are different throughlines that you hear at some of these interviews when you try to understand their behavior and relationship to stress. If the temperature rises in the room, someone sweats about being asked to remember the person’s name who drove them to the interview, things like that where they don’t really care about the answers but wanna see how you respond to it. Some of them start to almost feel like they meet be getting a little inappropriate, might touch into gender politics, but never getting too deep into it. Might be innocuous, might not be innocuous. Is there more to this than there seems or absolutely nothing more to this?”

The Tech

Getting familiar with the look and feel of phones, tablets, and other devices gave Ponsoldt a deep, heartfelt appreciation for Jony Ive and all the decisions his team puts into creating Apple’s wares.

“The world we live in now, I would argue that Apple and the design of Apple products and the Apple Store have done more to influence the way we think of modern design than arguably anything else,” Ponsoldt says. “There’s sleek and uncluttered minimal look that we know, and I think we both wanted to acknowledge that and live in our own world. We were building off of other products. Non-Apple products and putting scans on them, and modifying in some cases. But we had a big debate about size, whether it was with the SeaChange cameras or the phones. I think there’s always been a push toward smaller and elegant design. I mean, who knows where we’ll be in 5 or 10 or 15 years. We obviously know what cell phones looked like in the late 1980s—that big brick—and it’s something of a joke now. Where we landed was that the palm-size phone feels about right. We can have phones in our ears, we can have them in a watch, but there’s something satisfying about holding it in your hand. If you make it thinner, you might not make it durable.”

The Social Media

At the crux of the movie is the fact that the feeling of connectedness that social media provides can also feel oppressive and like a form of surveillance. One of the main ways the director had to figure out how to convey this aspect is through the nonstop comments or “zings” the protagonist, Mae Holland receives throughout the movie. Messages constantly pop off the screen, written by Ponsoldt, Eggers, and comedian co-star Patton Oswalt. Beyond the words, though, the director also had to decide how the messages would physically look.

“What I wanted to approximate with the zings, which May gets tons and tons of once she [starts recording every moment of her life for an audience] midway through the movie, is how overwhelming they are,” Ponsoldt says. “Whether the people sending them are being funny or they think they’re being funny but they’re not, or they’re off-topic or banal. I wanted it to approximate the visual Valhalla of trying to keep up with the Greek chorus of modern life when you have an audience. We wanted to give it a pop art quality, to give it a sense that they’re beautiful and they’re subjective, trying to occupy May’s headspace.”

“The design we came up with almost looked like poppy lens flares,” he adds. “Just everywhere and kind of lovely and innocuous and pleasant and not cold. Little bits of neon floating around her like fireflies, but where there was a quantity of them and in enough languages that it would be impossible to read them all. It’s a visual wall where you can just make out one or two but trying to keep up with it would make you go crazy and we went back and forth on exactly what the perfect amount was to approximate that and not antagonize the audience, but again, putting enough there so that you’re not really able to read more than one or two at a time—which might still feel slightly antagonizing, despite our efforts.”

According to a new PSA campaign, approximately 11% of all U.S. veterans come from an immigrant background. Since October 2001, more than 109,321 members of the military have become U.S. citizens as a result of their service.

And yet, a quick scan online and you will find flag-waving, anti-immigration hate by the tweetload. So military vet organization Vets Fight Hate has teamed up with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to launch a social media campaign aimed at personalizing immigrant stories for those spewing views largely based in racism.

Created with Wing, Grey Worldwide’s Hispanic communications agency, the campaign answers the anger with inclusive, positive messages and stories from immigrant U.S. vets.

It’s been an interesting quarter for Tesla. Over the last three months, the electric carmaker surpassed Ford Motor’s market cap, discussed the development of semi-trucks, and delivered a record 25,000 vehicles—putting it on track to furnish 50,000 cars by mid-year as promised. Since January, Tesla’s stock has grown from roughly $216 per share to $317.08 per share.

This all looks well and good for the young car company, but judgment day is coming. Tesla will post its quarterly earnings tomorrow afternoon, and analysts are expecting Q1 losses of 81 cents per share on revenue of $2.6 billion. A year ago, it claimed losses of 57 cents per share on revenue of $1.6 billion.

There are two main questions investors will be looking to answer: How will Tesla make good on its lofty promise to manufacture 500,000 electric vehicles in 2018? And what will be the long-term impact of its acquisition of SolarCity?

First, the vehicles: So far this year, Tesla has produced about 25,418 vehicles. To raise production for 2018, it’s going to have to sink a considerable amount of cash into manufacturing. At the end of 2016, CEO Elon Musk said he planned to spend between $2 billion and $2.5 billion on kicking up Model 3 production, its more mass-market vehicle, which is expected to debut in July with deliveries to follow.

@gucci_mau July

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 13, 2017

As for SolarCity, the company will start taking orders for the unit’s sexiest product, solar roofing, in April. However, only two styles will be available, with another two to come online in 2018. While Musk has promised to focus on making Tesla’s solar business profitable, not everyone is convinced.

Last month, CNBC reported Bank of America analyst John Murphy gave Tesla stock an underperform rating, noting, “We believe the SolarCity acquisition introduces material risks to the longer-term viability of TSLA, while the recent capital raise only serves to further dilute potential shareholder value.”

Tesla will report first-quarter 2017 earnings on Wednesday afternoon after the closing bell. We’ll have a full report then and will be listening in on the earnings call for more updates.

Nationally, nearly half of all inmates released from prison return there after committing another crime. But the recidivism rate among those who’ve earned college degrees through the Bard Prison Initiative, an adjunct program operated by liberal arts school Bard College inside six medium and maximum security prisons in New York, is far lower: Since the program began in 2001, more than 400 convicts have graduated and eventually been released. Just 2% end up back behind bars.

Most also have no trouble finding work. “It’s not that they just don’t return to prison,” says BPI founder and executive director Max Kenner. “It’s that they become independent middle-class taxpaying citizens, neighbors, and pals. They’re engaged in their communities and all kinds civic and positive and educational ways.”

The program is structured to resemble a classic college curriculum for associate and bachelor level degrees. BPI has roughly 60 classes overall, which span the liberal arts spectrum from advanced calculus to genetics, and Mandarin Chinese. Students are encouraged to take a full load—about four to five classes per semester—to complete their degrees within the same timeframe as those might outside the walls. Common majors include mathematics, humanities, and social studies, which include a senior thesis that must be defended in front of an academic committee.

Overall, Bard has 90 teachers spread between their six sites. Many are from Bard, but also Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, and Columbia, the latter of which for example, has renowned faculty at the Mailman School of Public Health, who help anchor similar studies.

Access to quality higher education can make a serious difference someone’s future potential, particularly those in need of second chances. (BPI students would happily argue this fact; their debate team made headlines in 2015 for beating Harvard.) From a fiscal standpoint, though, the reason that the program works is because BPI is frugal. It can’t charge prisoners tuition, but uses their building and supplies as a remote campus. As Kenner puts it, “another institution is picking up the overhead.”

Such thinking has led other universities and colleges in at least 15 states try similar programs. To that end, Bard has developed the Consortium for Liberal Arts in Prison, which allows places like University of Notre Dame, University of Vermont, and Wesleyan to share what they’re learning create a strategic planning blueprint that others can follow in hopes of keeping their programs effective and sustainable.

But a couple years ago, Kenner realized there was no need to keep the model prison specific. To counter the “crises of cost and access in American education” Bard could expand their model to places like social services centers or even libraries, which could do the same thing on a community level.

Bard’s pilot program for that is a “micro-college” at The Care Center in Holyoke, Massachusetts, which provides support to low-income women interested in passing a high school equivalency test. Holyoke is the poorest community in the state, so in addition to tutoring, the group provides participants with food, access to health services, transportation, and childcare. The goal is for students to earn a basic diploma first, and then move on to college, which
Care Center executive director Anne Teschner, calls “a pathway to the middle class.” Over the last eight years, roughly 75% of their enrollees did just that but then dropped out because they lacked the same kind of support.

As would be expected on a traditional campus, Bard Microcollege Holyoke offers the equivalent of two full years of bachelor-degree work, including lots of writing intensive workshops (titles include: “Language and Thinking” and “Citizen Science)” and a seminar series covering literary classics that Bard has mandated all students study for more than a half-century, including The Republic, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, and Go Tell it on the Mountain.

At the same time, the Care Center has established a post-grad career path: Teschner says there are plenty of health care, insurance, and higher education jobs available in the surrounding Pioneer Valley. There isn’t specialized training for these jobs, but many require some sort of higher education, which helps demonstrate that candidates have strong critical thinking, time management, and problem-solving skills.

So far, the school has enrolled roughly 18 students and expects to reach about 70 over the next few years. Students don’t have to pay for books, which–along with the rest of the school’s budget–are largely covered by private donors.  At the same time, those who enroll are being asked to apply for Pell Grants, which would allow the school to charge a small tuition that could eventually create enough funding as the student body grows to make the college self-sustainable.

Kenner says the micro-college program is already seeking other places for expansion. “We’re crashing through some assumptions here including the idea that if you don’t get what you need by age five, then you’re doomed,” adds Teschner, only half jokingly. “Well, it is harder but people aren’t doomed. People are fine. People are incredibly resilient.”

Apple reported financial results for the first three months of 2017 that were mainly in line with expectations, with a couple of concerning line-item misses.

The company earned $11 billion on revenues of $52.9 billion. The revenue number just missed the $53 billion most analysts expected, but landed toward the top end of Apple’s own projections for the quarter. The company said earlier it expected to report between $51.5B and $53.5B.

iPhone: The Waiting Game

Apple sold around 50.8 million iPhones during the March quarter—a one percent increase over Q2 last year.

The first quarter of the calendar year is typically a seasonally down quarter, so expectations weren’t high. Last quarter (including the holiday season) Apple sold a surprising 78.3 million of the devices, ending a three-consecutive-quarter trend of declining sales.

Also, the hype cycle about the Apple’s next phones—likely announced in the fall—is well under way and many people are probably holding off upgrading their iPhone in the meantime.

Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledged this during the earnings call with analysts Tuesday. “We’re seeing what we believe to be a pause in purchases on iPhone, which we believe is the result of earlier and much more frequent reports of future iPhones,” he said.

Services: Big And Getting Bigger

Investors have been emboldened by the impressive growth of Apple’s services business, including all the digital content we buy from the App Store or iTunes. Apple reported services revenue of $7.0 billion, off 2% from last quarter but up 18% from the March-ending quarter last year. Analysts had expected about $6.78 billion.

Services also grew 18% in final calendar quarter of 2016, contributing $7.2 billion of revenue (Cook said the services business contributed $20 billion in revenues in full year 2016).

“It’s well on its way toward being the size of a Fortune 100 company,” Cook said during the earnings call.

Apple has big plans for the business: Cook said Apple is trying to double its services business in the next four years.

China: The Slipping Giant

In the nearer term, Apple is depending on strong revenues from sales in China, which it expects to be its largest market in the world. But China sales haven’t been growing as hoped, slipping below European sales in the last three quarters.

This quarter was a continuation of the theme. Apple reported China revenues of $10.7 billion, a drop of 14% from the $12.49 billion in sales from China in the March-ending quarter last year. Analysts had expected sales of less than $12 billion.

Cook did his best to spin the situation to the positive, pointing out during a call with investors that the first two fiscal quarters combined had significantly more China revenue than the final two quarters of the previous year. “We continue to be very optimistic about our opportunity in China,” he said.

Macs: Still Life In The Old Platform Yet

Mac sales are a pleasant surprise this quarter. Apple says it sold 4.2 million units, an increase of 4% from the same quarter last year. Mac sales had slid down for a whole year before growing slightly year-over-year last quarter. The continued growth is welcome news, especially as some users (creatives and professionals) have questioned Apple’s commitment to the Mac.

iPad: The Doldrums Continue

We’ve been waiting for some good news on the iPad front for a good while now, and we didn’t get it today. iPad sales fell again to 8.9 million units, a 13% slide from last year’s March quarter.

Apple recently announced (in early April) a competitively priced $329 iPad, but it’s too early to see exactly how enthusiastically the market is receiving that device.

Apple has been trying hard to sell iPads (and iPhones) into enterprises, and is apparently making some progress. CFO Luca Maestri said Apple set an enterprise sales record in the March quarter, and he expects the same kind of growth in enterprise sales over the next few quarters. But so far, the enterprise growth hasn’t been enough to move the needle on iPad sales.

Cook spun the iPad picture by citing a 451 Research study saying that satisfaction levels for the iPad were 95% and above. (He smartly avoided mentioning the most recent J.D. Power user satisfaction report that put Microsoft’s Surface Tablet ahead of the iPad for the first time.) But later on in the earnings call one analyst pointed out that the same 451 Research study reported a nine-year low in iPad purchasing intent, as well as a drop in retention rates. Spin unspun.

Apple Watch: Doing The Math

Apple doesn’t report unit sales or revenue numbers for the Apple Watch, lumping it in with “Other Products” that include accessories and AirPods. But the numbers suggest that Watch sales had a solid quarter. Total Other Products revenue for the quarter was $2.8 million.

Above Avalon analyst Neil Cybart calculated that if Other Products revenue was close to $3 million for the quarter it would indicate that Apple sold more than 3 million Watches. If the revenue number had been closer to $2 billion, Cybart said, Watch sales would have probably been closer to 1 million units.

Analysts were looking for signs that Watch sales sustained somewhat after a breakout holiday quarter in which the wearable may have sold as many as 5 million units worldwide. A strong performance this quarter would suggest the Watch is making progress toward being a mass market product.

Finally, Apple gave some encouraging guidance numbers for the June-ending quarter, predicting between $43.5 and $45.5 billion in revenue.

Electric pickup trucks are almost a reality and the first one to make it to market might come from an unexpected source: an Ohio company called Workhorse that is best known for manufacturing trucks for UPS. Workhorse’s W-15 is an electric pickup truck that accelerates from 0-60 miles per hour in 5.5 seconds, has an 80-mile range, automatic braking, all-wheel drive, and barely makes any noise.

On a recent Monday afternoon, I took it for a test drive.

Driving or riding in an electric pickup truck is a strange experience. For those drivers familiar with the eerie quiet of being inside a speeding Tesla or who have experienced a Prius’s regenerative braking, being inside the W-15 feels very different.

Taking a W-15 concept car for laps around a Long Beach, California, parking lot, the truck’s silence surprised me. Workhorse’s president, Duane Hughes, showed me how quickly the vehicle accelerated (quickly), and how the lack of an engine gave the pickup truck extra storage space in a “frunk.”

Workhorse’s vehicle is expected to go on sale in the 2018 model year. It’s just one of the competitors in a pretty crowded market for electric pickup trucks. In April, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla is launching a pickup truck within two years. Another company, Utah-based Via Motors, (helmed by auto industry legend Bob Lutz) is also working on an electric pickup truck.

There’s only one catch: If you’re an ordinary consumer, you won’t be able to buy one of Workhorse’s electric pickup trucks anytime soon.

The company’s business model revolves around fleet customers–that is, UPS and United States Postal Services and trucking companies and public transportation systems around the world. For automakers, selling to fleets is a much easier proposition than marketing to ordinary consumers: Fleet operators buy dozens or hundreds of vehicles at once, and usually enter into long-term business arrangements with their vendors.

Hughes says energy utility Duke Power has signed a letter of interest to purchase up to 500 trucks, and other potential purchasers include Portland General Electric, the City of Orlando, Southern California Public Power Authority, and Clean Fuels Ohio. Trucking giant Ryder has also filed a letter of intent to enter into a partnership. “We signed up Ryder as a strategic partner for distribution, sales, service, maintenance, which gives us a nationwide footprint,” Hughes added.

When I was getting the full demonstration (which includes most of the standard electric vehicle features, as well as a supplemental gas tank and power ports to charge industrial equipment as the car drives), Hughes was careful to emphasize the dollar proposition for buyers: The truck offers the equivalent of 75 miles per gallon, and he says maintenance costs are sharply reduced compared to a conventional pickup truck.

Workhorse, like many other small automakers in the electric world–including competitors Via and Tesla–is an American operation. The company’s corporate headquarters are located in the suburbs of Cincinnati; it owns an Indiana assembly plant, and it has a production facility in Ohio.

The big challenge facing both Workhorse and its competitors, however, is the volatility of the electric truck market. Rich hobbyists with a love of status symbols have turned Teslas into coveted commodities and lower-cost hybrid vehicles like the Prius and Chevrolet Volt have found a niche among budget-minded consumers. But trucks are work vehicles that carry heavy loads, tow equipment, and do unglamorous dirty jobs.

For fleet operators, electric trucks need to offer significant savings and benefits in order to escape novelty status. There are also larger structural and supply issues for both electric vehicles and the auto industry at large during the Trump administration, which has floated the idea of a border tax and altering long-standing trade deals. There are also other factors at work: Workhorse and partners VT Hackney are among the six finalists for a massive, $6 billion United States Postal Service contract. Although Workhorse says winning the contract will not delay the rollout of the W-15, fulfilling the Postal Service’s needs could potentially take up much of the company’s manufacturing and logistical bandwidth.

Workhorse says sales of the W-15 are expected to begin next year; the trucks will cost approximately $52,000 each.

If you live in Los Angeles and plot your daily commute on a new map, it shows you how many pedestrians and cyclists (and drivers, for that matter) have died in traffic deaths along the way.

Each death on the map is marked with the victim’s age, and, in cases where the family consents, a memorial with more information. A 17-year-old wanted to be a film director and support his parents before he was killed crossing the street on his way to school in Highland Park in late 2015. A 72-year-old woman in North Hollywood was killed when crossing the street in a wheelchair. The city estimates that an Angeleno is killed in traffic roughly every 40 hours.

The data visualization “humanizes the problem and brings it to life,” says Levi Brooks, CEO and founder of Use All Five, a Los Angeles-based design studio that worked with the city to create the map.

When the city studied the problem of traffic deaths, it found that male drivers between the ages of 18 and 54 were responsible for a disproportionate number of crashes–but their younger siblings or children were able to influence them to drive more safely. Armed with that knowledge, the designers worked closely with teenagers as they created the visualization. One of the teenagers suggested showing a daily commute.

The visualization is part of the city’s Vision Zero initiative, modeled on similar projects in other cities. The city is also running a series of traffic safety education campaigns. Next to MacArthur Park, in a neighborhood that is particularly dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians, volunteers will host a mapping and model-building workshop to help plan safety interventions and will host Peatonito, a pedestrian safety masked superhero from Mexico City.

For pedestrians and cyclists, the map could be used (at least temporarily, as safety improves) to consider an alternate route. “When you personalize the data, it possibly changes your opinion about whether this should be the right route, especially if you’re riding your bike a lot,” says Brooks, who bikes to work. “Or, if you’re a driver, maybe it makes you more cognizant of ‘Hey, that intersection has had a few problems, maybe I should slow down.’ Hopefully, that’s the biggest output–to change some behavior.”

James Gray used to love Disneyland—until he didn’t.

“I went a lot as a kid. And certainly into my late 20s,” the director says. But these days, he laments, “Now I feel like there’s a bit of damage done. Disneyland used to have a slight World’s Fair feeling to it. And now it’s just corporate tie-ins. It’s franchised.”

Needless to say, today’s big-budget, four-quadrant blockbusters continue to drive that trend. In fact, it’s the landscape of supersized sequels and cinematic universes that makes Gray’s modest, adult-oriented approach stick out among his contemporaries, even nearly a decade and a half into his career. From his melancholy debut Little Odessa to 2013’s period piece The Immigrant, his body of work trades in spectacle and special effects for mood and human drama.

That’s what makes his most recent, The Lost City of Z, so simultaneously in line yet out of step with everything else he’s done. On one hand, it may be Gray’s biggest film to date, at least in terms of scale: The film spends a great deal of time in the South American jungles, shifting between scenes of Amazonian natives and World War I battles as it follows British explorer Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) on a 20-year search for an ancient civilization. Moreover, it’s his first story set outside his native New York, settling instead in London for the non-jungle scenes.

On the other hand, many elements—an alienated protagonist, class tensions, era-specific atmosphere—are touchstones of Gray’s, and serve as throughlines across his six works. His fascination with humanity—“Every human being has the potential for beauty and majesty,” he says—shines through some of the more action-adventure aspects of the film. And it’s the introspection and groundedness that ultimately keep Lost City of Z from too closely resembling a tentpole release in the vein of, say, Indiana Jones.

After earning glowing reviews from its premiere at the New York Film Festival, The Lost City of Z is now playing nationwide. Fast Company had a chance to speak with Gray himself about his creative process and overcoming the fear of being different.

Dare To Do Something Different

“It’s weird when you make movies, because you’re trying to do the same movie over and over again—just in a different costume or something. And so you’re trying to express the same themes, but you’re trying to make them richer, more complex. And I think that I just felt I didn’t want to get stuck. I didn’t want to do just New York over and over again, much as I love it. I needed to break it up.”

Take Creative Liberties In Film

“One’s approach to history has to be open when it comes to this artform. When you’re doing a narrative feature, you’re allowed a greater exploration of a different kind of truth. Which is not to say you approach it like fiction. But you approach it without too much of an obsession with the facts on the ground, because that’s not the point of why we’re doing it. So somebody could watch the movie and say, ‘Fawcett didn’t have that kind of hat,’ but in the end, it’s a silly criticism because that’s not why this artform exists. And if that’s what you’re looking for, there’s plenty of history books you can pick up.”

Identify With Your Characters

“I felt that Fawcett’s character and I are exactly the same. We both have felt a certain lack of respect, like you’re shut out of the exclusive place in the club. And his obsession [with the lost city of Z] is a bit like making a film: You go off, you make a film, you neglect your family, then you go off and make another movie, and then you neglect your family again. Sooner or later, you wind up realizing that art imitates life and life imitates art. My wife had said to me, ‘This is kind of like the story of you.’ Plus, Fawcett had a wife and three children—two boys and a girl—and I also have two boys and a girl. You realize it’s the same damn story.”

Each Movie Should Have A Goal

“All of my efforts when I make a film are a removal of the wall of irony and cynicism. It’s a huge wall, a high wall. So each film is an attempt to break down that wall just a little more, and to express ourselves clearer and more straightforwardly and more sincerely. The closer we get to that, I think the greater the film. I think Stanley Kubrick put it perfectly, as he usually did, saying movies should always be more daring and more sincere.”

Focus On The Process, Not The Result

“You cannot guarantee result. If you say you’re going to make a film that 200 million people see, you can’t guarantee that. But even if you could, what kind of goal is that? For the biggest directors like Steven Spielberg, I bet you that’s not his goal. Look at ET. It’s actually quite a heartfelt movie, not some sellout movie. And it happened to connect to other people because it was heartfelt, not because he was selling out. So you can never predict results. The only thing you’ve got is your attempt.”

Challenge Society, Especially Now

“This film was made before Trump. But the idea was always in my mind that human beings have this terrible desire and capacity to rank along ethnicity, gender, religion, or class. And this tendency to put us in categories is among the most noxious qualities that the human race has nurtured. So that was very much in my mind in the film. It looks down on that. Challenging assumptions is important, and the closer we get to the acceptance of human beings, the better off we will be.”

Find Confidence In Standing Alone

“It can feel alienating at some times, to not be in the club of doing superheroes or sequels or anything like that. And it can be a struggle to get films like this made. And then even if you get the film made, people might not see it. And even though it’s not what you’re supposed to be working towards, there is a natural tendency to want to become a member of that club. Now, obviously, that part of me is still much less than the part of me that wants to do my own thing and make my own statements. Because if wanting to be in the club overtook me, I wouldn’t be doing this.”

It seems these days anytime the subject of internships make the news, it’s usually for the wrong reasons, whether it’sbillion-dollar companies settling lawsuits brought by unpaid interns, or companies thinkingit’s okay to pay interns with food. Even major job boards are nowbanning companies from listing unpaid internships. Yet despite the bad press lately, studies show thatcollege students who intern are more likely to find full-time employment—especially ifthose internships are paid.

With that in mind, it’s probably no surprise thatcompetition for internships is intense, particularly athot companies like Apple, Google, Tesla, and others. So how do you get an internship at these coveted companies? I spoke to Maxime Britto, who is now a software engineer and the founder ofPurple Giraffe, a French online school for mobile developers. But before he founded Purple Giraffe, he got his start at Apple working as an intern. In his own words, here’s how he did it and what the experience was like.

On His First Day As An Intern At Apple

I was there during the summer of 2008; I arrived the day before the WWDC. I remember it clearly because my manager met me at Apple’s front desk, but instead of going in, we turned around and went to the parking lot. He gave me a ride in his Mustang (we’re not used to this kind of car in France!) to San Francisco and I was able to attend the WWDC conferences with the team. We finally went to the office at around 11 pm, after a full day and the WebKit Open Source party. That was a great first day.

On His Internship Role At Apple

I was part of the WebKit and Safari Team. I was squashing bugs on WebKit and I also spent quite some time on Safari for Windows. Windows users were requesting that we add pan scrolling (where you wheel-click to enable pan scroll mode and then the web page follows your mouse movements). It was quite a challenge for me since I was still discovering the immensity of the WebKit and Safari code base.

My last two weeks were dedicated to early design research on a very cool (not yet released) feature for Safari, and I presented it to Scott Forstall who was our VP back then. Again, an awesome experience.

On How He Found Out About The Apple Internship

My previous internship was with a French company named Pleyo who wanted to contribute to the WebKit open source project. I spent the whole summer of 2007 working on WebKit bugs, chatting on IRC, and getting to (virtually) know WebKit regular members. Those members were mostly from Apple, and I didn’t know it then, but they were my future teammates. At the end of my French internship, my manager at Pleyo told me he exchanged emails with an Apple manager who said they were very happy with the work I provided. He advised me to get in touch with this manager to see where this could go. So I did.

On The Interview Process With Apple

Since they already knew me and my work, I think the interview process went a little bit quicker than with other interns. I had two phone interviews. The first one was more of a presentation and general questioning, and at the end, he gave me some technical areas to look at before the second interview (which would be more technical). I remember I was so stressed because one of the subjects I was supposed to work on for the upcoming interview was the Mach Kernel, and I didn’t know a thing about it, nor low-level programming for that matter. I spent hours reading and printing articles about the Mach Kernel. When D-day arrived, I was ready to go full encyclopedia about the Mach Kernel, but we ended up barely talking about it!

A few days later, I was at a restaurant with my future wife when I received a call from a U.S. phone number. The adrenaline surged, I looked at her, and said, ‘Honey, I think that’s from Apple!’ It was indeed the recruiter who said, “Maxime, we would like to make you an offer.”

On The Qualities That Helped Him Score An Apple Internship

Before applying, I had the chance to prove my value for four months while getting along with the team. I started as a rookie (it was my first year of programming, and the WebKit is huge) and once I started to fix bugs, it became easier. I guess they noticed that, and appreciated the fact that I never gave up and ended up actually fixing real bugs.

On The Average Workday Of An Apple Intern

Just like regular Apple engineers, I had my own office (with my name on the door!) and a magnetic badge to open doors. I was able to get in at any time of day or night. I also had two MacBook Pros and was able to connect remotely to the network to work from home when needed. Our offices surrounded a relaxing area with couches, and most of the time we were working on those couches with our laptops, working and chatting. When someone needed some quiet time to focus, he or she would go into his office and then come back later.

Also, having access to Apple HQ 24/7 allowed us to come back at night and play volleyball with other interns on the court inside.

On Some Of His Best Experiences As An Apple Intern

My first day at the WWDC is definitely in the top three! I also loved bonding with other interns from around the world. We were sharing apartments, playing sports together, going out to restaurants during the weekdays, and to San Francisco on the weekends. I learned so much from this cultural mix and came back a different person. Another exciting perk was the VP series: Once a week, interns were invited to a lunchtime talk with a VP. We got to meet and pose questions to incredible people like Jony Ive, Bertrand Serlet, Scott Forstall, and more. And, the last week of the series it was Steve Jobs. All those talks were mind blowing.

On Whether Apple Could Improve Its Internship Experience

Seriously, no they couldn’t. They took care of everything for me: travel arrangements, housing, local transportation, they even hired a company to help me with the J1 visa. They organized the VP series and other intern events (theme park outings, baseball games, etc.) and made sure everything went well for us. The team welcomed me in and I was trusted with real and challenging work. I had one of the greatest summers of my life, and I can’t think of anything missing from the equation.

On The Lasting Benefits Of An Apple Internship

At the end of my internship, my recruiter repeated the same line that got me the Apple internship: “Maxime, we want to make you an offer.” I was psyched and I wanted to say “yes” again, but leaving my family and friends to live abroad was hard, and I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit. I figured I should first finish my studies and then would find a way to come back if I still wanted to.

Apple pays their interns really well, but the most impressive thing was that after I added that I worked at Apple to my LinkedIn page, I started being contacted by recruiters from other top companies. I’ve never tried to go very far with those interviews like I did with Apple because I had my own projects, but it was still cool to feel wanted.

On What Others Could Do To Land An Internship At Apple

The way I got the internship is a difficult one, but it is also one of the most likely to succeed if you’re a software engineer like me. It was difficult because Apple’s open source projects are often huge and come with a steep learning curve. I was lucky to have four months’ full time to do it (my 2007 French internship). But getting involved with Apple’s open source projects is a way that is very likely to succeed because few people go through with really contributing to the projects, and if you do, you are noticed by Apple’s team from the inside–and that is your ticket. So my advice is: Find an open source project you like, work hard on it, and be nice and helpful. It will eventually work out, and besides, you’ll learn a lot.

It’s famously “there,” so a whole lot of people want to climb Mt. Everest. But the vast majority of them will never get anywhere near the peak in the Himalayas. Now virtual reality can take anyone to the top of the world’s tallest mountain.

For some time, it’s been possible to “climb” a computer-generated Everest, thanks to “Everest VR,” which lets users of high-end VR systems like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive ascend to 29,035 feet in an entertaining, albeit facile, facsimile of the experience of summiting. Save for a scene or two in which you disappear in a fog of wind and snow, though, you don’t get much of a sense of how incredibly dangerous climbing Everest is.

Today, Sports Illustrated adds a new, more visceral entrant to the Everest VR canon. With Capturing Everest, which it is promoting as the first-ever live-action virtual reality film of an Everest summit attempt, viewers are invited along on the successful 2016 climb by Brent Bishop, Lisa Thompson, and Jeff Glasbrenner. Adding to the intrigue of the effort is the fact that Glasbrenner is an amputee, making his climb enough of a heroic venture that “SI” is putting him on the cover of its next issue.

For her part, Thompson is a cancer survivor who seems to be looking for a new life after a divorce and leaving behind a lucrative career. The climb itself was hampered by poor weather and afforded the team just a single shot at the summit. Along the way, viewers are treated to an inside look at the travails of trying to reach the top on a NASA-designed prosthetic leg, being far from friends and family in frigid, dangerous conditions, and crossing Everest’s famed (and sometimes fatal) ice falls.

For Sports Illustrated parent Time Inc., presenting Capturing Everest through the Life VR app fits right into the company’s DNA, given that Life magazine documented the original Everest ascent by Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953, explained Mia Tramz, the managing editor of Life VR.

To be sure, climbers have in the past shot 360-degree video from Everest’s summit using inexpensive consumer devices like the Ricoh Theta, said Bonnie Pan, president of the film’s coproducer, Endemol Shine Beyond USA, but no one has shot the “bottom to the top [climbing] experience” in VR before.

Unlike traditional professionally shot Everest films, both fictional and non-fiction, the Sports Illustrated project, presented initially through the Life VR app and broken into four episodes, was shot mostly by the climbers, who had received limited training at Everest Base Camp in capturing footage with custom VR rigs made from a set of GoPro cameras.

In part, Pan explained, that minimal amount of training stemmed from the fact that the project was only locked down as the climbing team was en route to the mountain.

“They are not filmmakers,” Pan said of Bishop, Thompson, and Glasbrenner, yet the project offered “a once-in-a-lifetime look from the perspective of a climber.”

Part of the experience involves the extreme danger of an Everest expedition. Over the years, many have died on the mountain, including famed Swiss adventurer Ueli Steck, who perished near there just this past weekend.

That’s why one element of the training the team got involved understanding how to navigate the challenges of carrying the VR camera gear, “especially when your life is at stake,” Pan said.

Those familiar with previous Everest films will quickly notice that the SI project, while definitely showing the beauty of the mountain, does so at a much lower visual quality than one might expect from a project produced by a major media company. But that’s a function of the gear the climbers used, their minimal training, and “because we wanted that raw gritty look at what they were doing,” Tramz said.

In fact, she added in an exclusive interview in Sports Illustrated‘s New York headquarters last week, she wouldn’t have wanted to use professional-quality VR camera gear, even if the climbers had been able to carry and use it, “because there’s nothing polished about spending two months on a mountain and risking your life.”

Virtual reality, Tramz argued, is about putting viewers in the middle of an experience and helping them “feel that moment and how rough it actually is. If it had [felt] polished and produced, it would have felt inauthentic. I’m very proud of how honest the summit [experience the film offers] is.”

In more traditional Everest film projects, the money shot is, of course, a stunning panoramic view from the highest point on Earth, a look at the broad majesty of the Himalayas. And while the 360-degree camera used in Capturing Everest does show some of the view from the top, it’s almost an afterthought, and it’s by no means fully panoramic. Instead, it’s limited by the placement of the camera, which was blocked by other climbers on one side.

So why didn’t the team make sure to shoot unspoiled footage from the summit? That was a function of one of the realities of how difficult it is to actually reach the top.

“When they all got to the top, they all wanted to immediately go down,” Tramz said. “The most dangerous part is going down. There’s a few moments of pride and then it’s, ‘How do we get down?’ We’re trained as film watchers and book readers to expect a beautiful view, but really, it’s “Gotta go down.'”

Viewers will note that the four episodes focus almost entirely on preparations for the expedition and then the ascent. But the film more or less ends once the team has summited, and there’s no footage of the more dangerous descent.

That wasn’t intentional, Tramz and Pan explained. In fact, it reflects exactly how dangerous Mt. Everest can be. “What we have is a testament to the difficulty of collecting and then then getting the footage back,” Tramz said.

The team had been aided during the climb by a group of Sherpas, the Nepalese natives for whom Everest is like home, and who often carry gear for climbers on the mountain.

As they made their way back to the bottom, one of the Sherpas was carrying a bag that contained footage that had been shot on the way down. Suddenly, he began to fall into a crevice and it was him or the bag. He appeared prepared to save the footage at the expense of his own life.

“People were like, ‘Are you crazy? Drop the bag,'” said Pan. “So he dropped the bag.”

Dots cofounders Patrick Moberg and Paul Murphy are an unsurprising duo. They are both well-groomed white men working for a popular technology company. Murphy, the CEO, is very good at inserting business information into the conversation. Moberg, the chief creative officer, is, well, the creative one. He has shaggier hair and the lanky, cross-legged disposition of someone who works with ideas. He sometimes speaks in almost a whisper, as some creative genius is perhaps wont to do. Put together, the two almost comically represent business and creativity.

Dots is about to announce a new game on a new frontier for the company. The company’s mobile games up until now have been fun, aesthetically pleasing puzzles that help you bide away time on your smartphone. But Dots’ still-somewhat-mysterious upcoming app, Wilds, is avatar-driven, meaning players control a character who leads the adventure. And Wilds’ protagonist is a woman. In Wilds, players move the main character through a naturalistic 3D world. As she walks around, players encounter “obstacles” to get her through, in the form of “Tetris-like” puzzles.

For the uninitiated, Dots launched some five years ago with a truly addictive and beautifully designed game called, funny enough, Dots. It was the simplest of gameplay–use your finger to connect dots and voila! they disappear. Because our feeble minds love bright things and patterns, the barebones aesthetic of Dots–along with its addictive gameplay and lovely UI–made it into a huge hit. In the following years, Dots came out with two more games–“Two Dots” and “Dots & Co“–both of which have a similar puzzle-like design but with a few more frills. The apps combined have seen more than 100 million downloads. Dots & Co was released last summer, and introduced some characters who sit on top of the puzzles to help players complete them, as well as a digital currency so people could make in-app purchases more easily (these puzzlers are so addictive, it’s very easy to be tempted into buying more gameplay turns).

But unlike Wilds, in the Dots games, players move through the game level by level in a linear fashion–once you complete a level, you only have one choice as to where to go next. Meanwhile, Wilds is an open-map game that lets players pick from a multiple of options and decide for themselves where they want their character to go next. Wilds allows players to make decisions about where to move, including moving to different puzzles, which will ultimately alter the outcome of the game. Wilds’ avatar play is not untested by the company. The animals in Dots & Co were side characters and could not be moved around from puzzle to puzzle, but they did help provide a blueprint for the designers as they figured out how to inject animate objects into Wilds.

“The [Dots] games have had these linear paths that you work your way through,” says Moberg. But Wilds allows users to play around with different map courses, so “you can explore the different worlds as you see fit,” he says. “There’s way more player agency,” he continues. “The player can choose where they effect the map and when.”

Each of his company’s games, says Moberg, focuses on different types of players and what they look for in a game. The first Dots is for someone who probably doesn’t even have a game on their phone–the cofounders say a third of their business’s audience don’t have any other game besides Dots on their phones.

Beyond the name and knowledge of the shift, I have not been given much more to play with. Dots produced a teaser, which features a strapping blond person in a forest who finds a hovering orb (because of course) and then touches it… which tells me very little about Wilds. The cofounders, however, very proudly showed me the teaser in their snazzy audio video editing cave (I had already seen it, but it was nice to hear it with good speakers and on a big screen).

They did try to explain to me what the game will most look like at the start. Basically, the woman character walks around the game’s world and finds “obstacles” blocking her way. “Once you walk up to one of those [obstacles], that’s when a game of Dots will open.” But, he explains, the game will not be the traditional Dots game we know and love. It will be more like Tetris and, similar to Dots & Co, little creatures embedded in each puzzle will help players out. Ultimately these obstacles will be “very familiar mechanics but with a new twist,” says Moberg, cryptically.

The team has been working on Wilds for nearly two years. In fact, this game was in development before Dots & Co. Dots & Co was almost a testing ground for the new things Wilds is trying. For one, it was the first Dots title to introduce a virtual economy. Moberg and Murphy felt it necessary to have this money system in Wilds but wanted to have a better handle on that process before releasing this more ambitious game. And as noted earlier, Dots & Co also included characters, which they wanted to introduce to the gameplay before going full on into Wilds avatar-driven UI.

“Once we start to understand [those things],” says Moberg, “we could make sure we apply them in the right way with the new title.”

According to Murphy, his team wanted to make a type of game that hasn’t really made it big in the U.S. yet. Role-playing games that include puzzles, he says, are huge in countries like Korea, Japan, and China. “There hasn’t been one that’s really taken off in the West,” he says. But now is the time to strike. Pokémon Go and a few others games have hit the American market and caused quite a stir–the West is finally opening up to new, more complex mobile game forms.

The hope is to get a new kind of player–one that loves this sort of immersive avatar play–while also keeping the people (like me) who just like connecting dots while avoiding strangers’ eye contact on the subway. Both Moberg and Murphy think Wilds will appeal to both types of people, but they’re also still building it out to make it just right. The ultimate metric for success will be retention. Currently Dots’ player retention rate is “well ahead of” 50%, which Murphy describes as “really good.”

The real question is whether Wilds will be a similar, if not better, success. 2016, says Murphy, was the year Dots really figured out its business. The games continued to be wildly popular and the business team–consisting of marketing and data science–finally hit its stride with the creatives. The company saw revenue grow by over 3x in the last year, he says–some months the company was profitable, although other months they had to spend a bit more on marketing, which put them below that threshold. But together, the business and creative teams tinkered with the games’ virtual economies and in-app purchases, which will hopefully be perfected with Wilds. The plan is to, first, build a good game people want to play. Second, once retention is high, build more in-game opportunities and systems that allow players to make payments. Once those two pieces are in place, says Murphy, Wilds will be more widely marketed. This development process, which focuses on retention first, is what helped Dots create three addictive games that bring in money.

Given that we don’t have much more information about Wilds beyond Moberg and Murphy’s words, we’ll have to wait and see how truly addictive this new game is. The duo, however, are excited. “Someone was telling me earlier this week,” says Murphy while smiling, “that it reminds them of the feeling of when they first saw Dots.” We’ll see!

Two brains can be better than one. Some of the most successful companies evolve by forming strategic relationships with other innovative minds.

“Even the most progressive companies are forced to constantly think about the evolution of their business,” says David Nour, author of Co-Create: How Your Business Will Profit From Innovative and Strategic Collaboration. “They know what got you here won’t get you there. Strategic relationships allow companies to rethink their businesses and their evolution.”

The important word is “strategic,” says Nour. “No one builds relationships because they’re bored,” he explains. “They’re created because nobody has all the answers. The collaboration is to make the end result different–smarter, stronger, faster. It happens when you both have a vested interest in each other’s success.”

Relationships With Other Companies

Strategic relationships with other companies are different than partnerships, says Nour. “Partnerships are transactional,” he explains. “Strategic relationships are transformational. You create something you wouldn’t be able to do by yourself.”

Hilton and Uber recently joined forces to cocreate value in the hospitality industry, says Nour. Hilton had hung a lot of pride on the fact that it was the first hotel brand to place color televisions in rooms and offer room service, but executives realized that these things aren’t important to the millennial audience. The company had to think beyond its walls.

Recognizing Uber’s growing market reach, Hilton created a new service that presets the hotel as the recommended destination on the Uber app. “By joining forces, the two companies are cocreating value when none previously existed,” says Nour. “In other words, the space between a hotel and various events or between the airport and the hotel used to be a bit of an anonymous wasteland. But now it is becoming a seamless extension of both brands.”

Hilton’s guest satisfaction is no longer limited to the experience inside the hotel property; it is deeply linked to the outcome that brought the guest to that hotel location. Uber is getting the opportunity to be the transportation provider to events and activities outside of the hotel.

Relationships With Employees

Strategic relationships can also happen between companies and their employees. In 2015, Adidas decided to challenge its business model, with its new CEO, Mark King, asking employees for their best ideas to move the brand forward. Nearly 500 viable projects were proposed, and the winner was an idea that included three simple words: Netflix for runners.

A year later, Adidas launched Avenue A, a subscription service for runners that delivers a box of items curated by well-known runners, such as fitness instructor Nicole Winhoffer.

“Adidas’s Avenue A took them way out of their comfort zone as a sports apparel and footwear company and into curated, cobranded merchandising where those curators do not work directly for Adidas but bring their own leading-edge brands to the table,” says Nour. “This activates an army, and now Adidas is taking curation to other parts of their business.”

The success of forming strategic relationships with employees also prompted Adidas to create the Adidas Group Innovation Academy, an online learning platform that encourages employees to be more creative and invites them to submit more ideas. After 1,000 employees had passed through the academy, Adidas announced a Shark Tank-like competition to choose more winning ideas.

“This is CEO King putting his money where his mouth is, while at the same time ensuring that the right risks are being taken and firing up employees around the world,” says Nour.

Relationships With Customers

Tesla has evolved its company by being deeply aware of the customer experience and forming relationships with drivers, says Nour. In September 2015, the company launched its Model X, an electric sports utility vehicle that also competes with traditional SUVs on the interior space and amenities. But the design of its doors is where the Model X leaves iteration in the dust, says Nour.

“Every facet of the design of this car takes into consideration all the complaints about today’s minivans and SUVs,” he says. “The falcon-wing doors solve several of those with amazing elegance.”

For example, buyers with children need to install car seats in the second row, which makes the third row of seats nearly impossible to access. Parking in tight spaces is also challenging to buyers who need to help their children out of the car.

“The Model X’s falcon-wing rear doors rise up and fold out of the way,” says Nour. “While Tesla obviously has bright engineers, I suspect that the company is actively cocreating its future with its customers, anticipating their needs and innovating radical, effective solutions.”

How To Form A Strategic Relationship

To form a strategic relationship with another company, your employees, or your customers, you need five things, says Nour.

1. Strategic thinking. Strategic relationships aren’t simply about iteration, says Nour. “Too often, companies innovate by coming up with a better product, new color, or new flavor,” he says. “They’re doing the same thing a little bit better. Few companies do that intuitively well, but fewer do disruption. That’s about new things make the old things obsolete.”

“Forget five to 10 years’ strategic plan; it’s impossible to predict that far,” says Nour. “You can forecast the next 18 to 36 months. How do we need to behave differently to succeed to the next chapter?”

Nour suggests asking yourself, “If I’m your biggest competitor, how will I disrupt you?” “If you don’t disrupt yourself, someone else will,” he says.

2. A visionary leader. Great companies start with visionary leaders who challenge the status quo, not defend it, says Nour. “Business has to evolve and fundamentally change,” he says. “We don’t admit that we don’t have all the answers.”

This can be scary because when you cocreate, you give up part of yourself, says Nour. “It’s intrusive and invasive, and it’s not for just anybody,” he says.

3. Another party. Find another party that can bring a unique perspective or lens around common mission, vision, or enemy. “Who has a vested interest in your success?” says Nour. “Who will dramatically benefit? Who can bring a very different part?”

Each party needs to bring a piece of the puzzle and together create something that’s different.

4. Executive buy-in. “If reinventing business isn’t one of the top three priorities of senior leadership or board, it becomes somebody’s pet project, and the rug will get pulled out from under it,” says Nour.

5. Someone who owns the execution. Someone has to be in charge of the project, identifying what works and creating a prototype. “Be realistic about your resources,” says Nour. “How much time will this take? What does the strategic relationship need to think and execute? What are your milestones and metrics? Then how do we take it to market?”

A lot of great ideas die on the vine, says Nour. “Progress trumps perfection every time,” he says.