Apart from the familial ties that I was born into, my relationship with Wells Fargo may have been one of the longest-standing of my life. Since I was 11 years old, I’ve had a savings account with the bank, linked to my parents’ finances. I don’t remember how old I was when I opened my first checking account, but I assume I was in high school. When I moved to New York three years ago, I set up my first credit card in a Wells Fargo branch office and felt very adult and also concerned about the streak of fiscal irresponsibility the new plastic might unleash in me. What company I banked with felt as inevitable as the family I was born into and the state in which I grew up. Putting my Wells card down on the table at dinner, I often felt a bizarre affection for how it identified me as a Californian.

But despite that sentimentality, Wells and I have parted ways. The decision was mine, and the idea to make it began to percolate earlier this year, as allegations of the bank’s financial investment in the Dakota Access Pipeline began to come out. That California-based sentimentality over my account had morphed into something more resembling nausea, knowing my money was funding something I didn’t believe in. But even so, it’s taken me until now (longer than it took the entire city of Seattle) to make a switch.

After I decided I wanted to pull my money from Wells, I had to confront the fact that I had no idea what I was doing. How would I go about finding a new bank I could trust? When should I move my money, and how? It took a series of conversations and months of thought and preparation, but I’m sharing what I learned here to make it clear that it’s not as overwhelming as it seems.

Do You Believe In Your Bank?

Where you bank is not fated; it’s a personal choice. Or rather, it should be, but the same forces of apathy, ignorance, trepidation, and laziness that were preventing me from taking my finances out of an institution with which I ethically disagreed prevent too many others from doing the same. When you’ve frequented the same ATMs and logged into the same online bank account for the majority of your life, a move away from that institution can feel rather like stepping off the edge of a cliff.

But it’s a cliff that’s proving increasingly intriguing for many young Americans, who have been losing faith in our large financial institutions. Wells Fargo is not alone in finding itself at the center of a scandal: In 2015, Citibank was ordered to pay back its customers a total of $700 million for misleading credit card marketing; Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is still at the helm of the company despite knowing of and ignoring to Bernie Madoff’s $64 billion Ponzi scheme, largely run through JPMorgan Chase account and considered the most fraudulent financial scheme of all time. Both institutions, along with Bank of America and Wells Fargo, were the engines that both created and punctured the housing bubble that precipitated the financial crisis of 2008. As Robert Jackson Jr., a law professor at Columbia University, told Quartz, “there’s no such thing as a ‘good’ big bank after the financial crisis.”

“Generally and broadly, there’s a lack of trust among millennials in the financial industry, and it’s deserved,” Ariel Anderson, a financial planner at Society of Grownups, a personal finance organization aimed at young people, tells Fast Company. “We constantly read headlines about the missteps of banks like Wells Fargo; we lived through the financial crisis,” she says. And large financial institutions are representative of the capitalist system, which, as Fast Company has reported, has fallen out of favor with more than 51% of the millennial demographic.

Various organizations have tapped into this trend: In 2011, during the height of the Occupy Wall Street movement, a group of organizers designated November 5th as Bank Transfer Day, and encouraged consumers to move their money into nonprofit credit unions or ethical financial institutions. This past year, Green America suggested that people funnel their Valentine’s Day discomfort into a breakup with their big bank. (Though there are no estimates as to how many people participated, Bank Transfer Day drew around 50,000 members to their Facebook page). Both organizations emphasized, however, that starting the process should not be confined to these designated days: You should begin to move your money whenever you feel ready and able to do so.

So that being said, here’s what I’ve learned from making the switch out of a big bank:

Do Your Research

Given that I parted ways will Wells Fargo over an ethical quandary, I wanted to find a new platform that wouldn’t compromise my values. Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) banks and credit unions, generally, target their investments more toward local investments and causes, rather than destructive projects like DAPL. Credit unions are highly localized, member-owned nonprofits that provide financial services to the communities in which they operate; CDFIs are private, for-profit institutions that make loans to underserved communities (read more about them here). The Harbor Bank of Maryland, for instance, recently made a loan to East Baltimore Development Inc. that has gone toward financing new science buildings for local schools. The Opportunity Finance Network, an umbrella organization for CDFIs, has a helpful search tool to use to locate nearby community development banks.

Ethical banks like Aspiration in the U.S. and Triodos in Europe, both of which boast sustainable and fossil-fuel-free investment portfolios, are another alternative. Though less hyperlocal than CDFI banks and credit unions, ethical banks are driven by good–Aspiration, for instance, devotes 10% of its revenue to charity, and charges customers only what they feel is fair to pay–and aim for institution-wide transparency to counteract the labyrinthine structures of big banks.

For the sake of disclosure, after a long and thorough search process, I opened an Aspiration account. Spring Bank, a New York-based CDFI, was a close contender, but another thing to consider about banking with a CDFI is that you ought to be firmly settled in your community to do so–I still have strong ties to the West Coast as well as New York, so I wanted a bank that would offer me more flexibility in terms of location (Aspiration is all online). But give me a few more years to become a a rooted New Yorker, and experienced bank switcher, and I can see myself opening another account with Spring Bank. Both Aspiration and Spring represent another bonus of ethical banking: They reimburse all ATM fees.

Make Some (Very Careful) Moves

Once you’ve analyzed your options and selected a new account that aligns with your ethics, now’s the time for the tricky part: Actually moving your money. This is best done very slowly (the whole process took me about two months). I talked to Andrei Cherny, CEO of Aspiration, after I decided to open an account with them, for some tips; here’s what he recommended.

If you have more than one account open with your big bank–I had two checking accounts and a savings account–consolidate your money into one account, then alert your bank that you will be closing the others. I communicated with Wells Fargo through email, which was surprisingly simple, but you can also visit a physical branch and meet with a representative who will walk you through the process. Then, open your new account–I transferred just $500 to begin with, and most banks will suggest a minimum deposit–and if you’ve been receiving direct deposits from your employer, talk to your HR representative to get a new form to route your checks into your new account. I recommend doing so immediately after receiving a paycheck, so there will be enough time in between checks to link the new account. For me, it took less than two weeks.

While you’re waiting for your new card to arrive in the mail, go through last month’s bank statement from your old account to identify and cancel automatic payments and recurring transfers (some examples: the amount I regularly moved into my savings account with each paycheck; my Optimum bill; my monthly Netflix payment). Then, go through your payments systems, like Venmo and Apple Pay, and make sure those are linked to your new account or card, when it arrives.

When it does, you can do a big transfer from your old account to your new one. To do so, you’ll need to link your old account with your new one. On your new bank’s website, find the “bank transfer” section, select your old bank from a list (you’ll see all the big ones–Wells, Bank Of America, Citi, and so on), and sign in. You’ll then select whatever account you want to link, and how much money to move to your new bank.

It’s best to keep some money in your old account if you’ve missed any automatic payments–you don’t want to be hit with an overdraft fee while you’re trying to financially liberate yourself. And it’s also best to keep that old account open with a small amount of cash in it for a couple of months after migrating, just in case of emergencies.

While You’re At It, Face Down Your Finances

I expected to feel good about putting my money into an account that I chose, and I do. But the unexpected benefit to this whole, long process, was the opportunity to get up close and personal with my finances. In addition to a distrust of large financial institutions, JJ Ackles, the director of marketing for Long Game, a prize-linked savings account app, tells Fast Company that young people tend to get trapped in an avoidance cycle when it comes to their money. “It’s like: I feel shitty about my money, therefore I don’t want to look at it, therefore I don’t look at it, therefore I feel shitty about it,” Ackles says.

When you move all your money to a new account, you have to look at it. And that opens the door to considering new ways to handle it. There are apps like Long Game, which reward every time you move money into your savings account with the opportunity to play addicting, lottery-like games and potentially win more money; other savings platforms like Digit help you set up specific savings goals.

And it’s also, says Erin Lowry, blogger and author of Broke Millennial, not a bad time to consider investing, if you haven’t done so already. Though the financial industry has a history of making investing into an opaque endeavor, available only to those with substantial monetary worth and knowledge, that’s actually not the case. New tools now exist that both lower the financial bar to investing, and make it easier to tailor your investments to support causes you care about. Aspiration, for instance, manages two funds with a $100 minimum investment, both of which support only companies with solid environmental and ethical commitments. The startup OpenInvest has a $3,000 minimum investment, but takes the unique approach of asking you what you care about, whether it be climate change or low-income housing development, and builds out a portfolio unique to you. (Fast Company has done a thorough roundup of what you need to know to invest to fit your values.)

Taking your money out of a bank with which you clash ethically frees you to use your money to have the kind of impact you want on your life and on the planet. “People are looking for better tools and better ways to manage their money,” Ackles says. “We want to create a way for people to have a positive interaction with their money.”

And taking that step, Lowry says, will begin to put pressure on the big banks to reconsider their own ethics. “We need to educate ourselves and we need to stop putting our money in institutions that we feel are unethical,” Lowry says. “So many people don’t even bother to do the diligence and just stick with the status quo. That makes it easier for the old banks who have not changed their policies to behave in the way they have always done, just because they can.”

Managers often ask us to do things we don’t want to: work late, work on a weekend, attend a conference the same weekend we have concert tickets, help a difficult colleague finish a project. While it’s important to be a team player, it’s equally important to stay happy at work.

In fact, it might even be good for your career to occasionally say no, says Suz O’Donnell, founder and CEO of Thrivatize LLC. “You may worry a boss may be mad if you don’t stay late or work over the weekends, but at the end of the day, you are much more innovative and productive when you’ve had some time to relax,” she says.

Most employees worry that setting boundaries gives the impression that they aren’t a dedicated worker, but in reality the opposite is true, O’Donnell says. She recalls a coworker who consistently worked extra hours because he didn’t have pressing weekend plans and it made him feel important. However, his reputation in the office didn’t improve because he worked every weekend. “It made him seem less powerful and more like someone people could push around,” O’Donnell says. In fact, she says, everyone on the team who consistently declined weekend work was promoted, while the coworker who repeatedly put in extra hours didn’t get a promotion. Perhaps, she says, it was because those who took a break came back to work refreshed and ready to produce.

It’s never easy to say no to your boss, but here are five ways to decline work without actually using the word “no.”

Say “Yes, And . . . “

When your boss insists you stay late to finish a report, acknowledge the request, but set boundaries for completing the work, says executive coach Tammy Gooler Loeb. Instead of saying to your boss, “No, but . . . ” trying saying, “Yes, and . . . ” For instance, try saying, “Yes, and I have I commitment tonight that I cannot break. What time do you need it by?” Your boss will know that you heard them and that you’re prepared to help, she says.

Asking for clarification about the deadline can help you understand the urgency of the request and determine if there is a way to empathize and express shared concern, as well as offer an alternative timeline that doesn’t interfere with your plans, says Danielle Beauparlant Moser, talent management principal and practice leader at bltCareers.

Say Yes To Part Of The Request

Maybe your boss is asking to you help with a high-profile project that you’re interested in participating in but don’t want to lead. Then offer to help with a part of the project that you know you can complete within your time constraints, says Michele Mavi, director of recruiting at Atrium Staffing. Mavi recommends saying, “I don’t think I’m the best person at the moment to take on the whole thing because I have [name your other project] taking up all of my attention. However, I’m confident I can analyze the data in a timely fashion if someone else writes the report.”

Reframe The Request

When you decline a request, reframe the situation and give your manager some additional perspective, says Robin Tingley, author of 10 Essentials for the Motivated Millennial: A Guide to High Performance for New Grads and Career Starters. She suggests breaking your response into three parts by first acknowledging that the request is a priority by saying, “I understand it’s important to meet our deadline.” Then provide your boss some perspective by saying, “I’ve had a prior commitment booked now for several weeks, and it’s important to me that I attend my family reunion.” Finally, decide whether you will offer to change your plans (“Does it warrant me cancelling my plans?”), come in early on Monday morning (“Can we tackle this if I come in early Monday?”) or provide help ahead of time so your colleagues can handle it in your absence (“What can I do to help before I leave?”), and let your manager know which you are willing to do.

Offer An Alternative

Be clear and concise about what you’re declining to do, and why you’re saying no while also providing a different solution to the problem, says Phyllis Reagin Hughes, managing partner and executive coach at CSRH Consulting, LLC. For instance say, “I’m unable to stay late tonight to work on this project because I must pick up my child from daycare. However, I will speak to Vanessa and see if she is able to assist you.” However, don’t apologize or go overboard with excuses, says Tracey Adams, PhD, founder of ThriveOn Seminars. “State with conviction that you already have a conflict, but then add what you can provide, so the boss hears what you can do,” she says.

Enlist A Coworker, But Take Responsibility

When your manager asks you to take on a task, what they’re really asking you to do is take responsibility for getting it done, says Jill Santopietro Panall, owner of 21Oak HR Consulting. “Maybe it’s not you who actually has to do it,” she says, “as long as you arrange to have it done.” For instance, say to your boss, “If Randy can work on a draft tonight, I’ll polish it for you tomorrow and have it to you by the deadline.” Just be sure to give your coworker due credit, Panall says, and perhaps offer to buy them a drink or small gift to thank them for their help, especially if they stayed at work while you went to a concert or on vacation.

The company is trying to fill massive vacancies in their fulfillment centers by hosting job fairs today in a number of U.S. cities, Time reports. Twenty percent of the positions will be part-time and the rest will be full-time.

The job fairs will be taking place in Baltimore, Maryland; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Etna, Ohio; Fall River, Massachusetts; Hebron, Kentucky, Kenosha, Wisconsin; Kent, Washington; Robbinsville, N.J.; Romeoville, Illinois; Whitestown, Indiana; Buffalo, N.Y., and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

You may think of freelancing as something twentysomethings do to earn a little extra side money, and you’d be right. But it isn’t true (and might even be a little bit ageist to imagine) that the freelance economy is powered mainly by the scrappy energy and entrepreneurial spirit of the young.

While Upwork and the Freelancers Union found considerably higher shares of gen Z and millennials picking up some form gig work than in more senior generations, younger workers are more likely to freelance on a part-time basis. The picture changes considerably when you look at those who work for themselves full-time.

In a new survey here at LinkedIn, we polled more than 4,000 members of ProFinder, our freelancer marketplace. Since around three-quarters of respondents were full-time freelance professionals, this dataset makes for a great snapshot of people who earn a living working for themselves. And as it turns out, the share of full-timers is just about equivalent to the share who are 41 and over: about three out of four.

If that sounds like a lot, it actually shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. PwC researchers found something similar, with a considerable 65% of workers over 50 expressing the wish to go solo if they haven’t already, compared to just 33% of those ages 25–34. “The desire to work independently actually goes up with age,” the researchers wrote in a report last year. “Those ages 50 and older are roughly two times more likely to want to work independently than those ages 18–34.”

Here’s why are older generations might be gravitating toward freelance work in such numbers–seemingly even more so than millennials.

Related:Born Between Generations? Here’s How It Can Help Your Career

Robust Professional Networks

While we found that 43% of millennials find it hard to stay in touch with former colleagues and acquaintances, older cohorts don’t. Just 31% of gen Xers and boomers report having that difficulty. Because freelancers often look to their networks to find business leads–81% of our pros cited word-of-mouth referrals and networking as their main sources of freelance work–more senior freelancers seem to have accumulated more total connections than their younger counterparts.

And unsurprisingly, it’s not just a numbers game, either: Older freelancers’ contacts are more likely to have more senior titles as well. That makes for professional networks featuring people who wield more influence and decision-making power–including the power to hire contractors.

Everybody Likes Autonomy–Not Just Millennials

One of many tired stereotypes that millennials are sick of hearing is that they’re freewheeling, independent-minded workers who prize the ability to work autonomously. But at base, who wouldn’t want a little more say over their own work? Like much else, that’s hardly a generation-specific trait. In a ReportLinker survey last year, the ability to be one’s own boss was the top motivation for going solo that those who’d already made the leap to freelancing cited; the ability to work flexible hours came in a close second.

Likewise, we found that more than half of our pros cited flexibility and convenience as the best parts of being a freelancer. Indeed, it’s easy to imagine why the higher up the ranks people rise, the more independence they might crave.

Freedom To Choose

One former recruiter Fast Company recently spoke with lamented that in recruiting, “nobody really believes in the gig economy” and that stretches of self-employment are frequently interpreted as failures to score full-time roles. But to the extent that that’s true, gen X and baby boomer freelancers seem to be turning that to their advantage by building solo careers on the foundations of traditional ones.

Indeed, the ProFinder data suggests this 41-and-up subset of freelancers do have the skills to hack it in the corporate world, too; 70% had worked for more than eight years in traditional jobs, and another 70% report having “advanced” technical expertise in their fields.

Ageism

On the other hand, this doesn’t mean age discrimination isn’t a factor in older workers turning to freelancing (in fact, that same ex-recruiter said she’s seen a lot of it). In 2014, AARP researchers found that 64% of adults had experienced age discrimination in the workplace, with 92% of that group saying their own experiences were common, not just one-off flukes.

Related:Why Your Company Needs To Stop Recruiting “Digital Natives”

Ageism in the corporate world might actually drive freelancing on two fronts. First, older employees (who generally earn more money) might make for more enticing layoff targets for employers. And second, if older workers are experiencing age-based discrimination in the workplace, it isn’t a leap to suspect that they’re being discriminated against during the hiring process as well, making it tougher for them to find work–and incentivizing them to pursue freelance opportunities.

In any event, it may be that millennials are getting a bit too much credit for driving the rise of the gig economy while their elders fly under the radar–even if they’re succeeding in the process.

Thogori Karago, senior product manager, and Yu Liu, product manager, lead the LinkedIn ProFinder team, LinkedIn’s online marketplace for freelancers.

Not that we needed another reason to love picturesque tropical islands, but Hawaii ranks as the friendliest state for student-loan debtors, according to a new analysis from WalletHub. The personal finance website ranked all 50 states and Washington, D.C., across 10 key indicators—including the states’ average student debt levels, default statuses, youth unemployment, and job opportunities. The good ol’ Aloha State came in at No. 51, meaning it ranked very low on the “Student Loan Indebtedness” scale and the “Grant and Student Work Opportunities” scale, WalltHub says. Utah, Wyoming, California, and Nevada were also really good bets. On the flip side, Ohio ranked No. 1, meaning it had the worst score. It was followed by Mississippi, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New Hampshire.

Worst Ranked States 

1. Ohio
2. Mississippi
3. Pennsylvania
4. West Virginia
5. New Hampshire

Best Ranked States

51. Hawaii
50. Utah
49. Wyoming
48. California
47. Nevada

Check out the full survey here.

Let’s face it: Negative feedback on your job performance can be a drag. Who likes to be told that their work could use improvement?

Research published in the Harvard Business Review provides some interesting insight into receiving and giving such feedback. While managers by and large avoided giving negative feedback or praise, employees craved it. And they weren’t looking for platitudes, either—57% wanted corrective feedback versus 43% who wanted praise. Seventy-two percent said that corrective feedback could improve their job performance.

Still, it’s one thing to think about that in theory—and another to hear from your manager, “We need to talk about your performance . . .” If you do find yourself on the receiving end of negative feedback or criticism, here’s how to cope.

Check Your Defensiveness

When you get feedback that stings, be aware of your emotions, says Rebecca Zucker, a partner at leadership consultancy Next Step Partners. “Understand, ‘Okay, this stings,’ but why does it feel like this? Is it because I’m embarrassed? Is it because I tried really hard and I’m not getting the recognition I feel like I deserve?” she says.

Defensive reactions are normal but may not be useful in feedback situations—especially since many feedback givers don’t have great communication skills. So try not to let your feelings get in the way of what might be constructive dialogue. If you feel yourself getting angry or tempted to escalate the situation, listen to what’s being said, then take some time to process the information and formulate a response.

Take Notes

Note taking is often a good idea for a variety of reasons. Jotting down the feedback can allow you to capture what’s being said, says Tawanda Johnson, president and CEO of human resources consulting firm RKL Resources. Such notes will give you something to review once you’ve had time to digest what your supervisor or peers are saying. Depending on the nature of the feedback, it might be a good idea to take a look at your notes the next day and see if you have any additional questions.

Clarify What’s Fair

Sometimes, feedback is fair and meant for your improvement—and sometimes it’s not valid and the result of a misunderstanding or a poor manager. As you consider what’s being said, try to remain objective, says workplace bullying expert and philanthropist Andrew Faas, author of From Bully to Bullseye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire. Think about the dynamic in your workplace. Is your supervisor truly trying to help you improve and grow? Or are you in an environment where you’re being unfairly criticized for reasons beyond your control? If it’s the former, it’s time to work on understanding how to improve. If it’s the latter, you need to guard against letting unfair criticism demoralize you while you decide if this workplace is the right fit for you.

Ask Questions

If the feedback is fair, it’s time for a conversation, Zucker says. Negative feedback shouldn’t be a “dump and run” where you’re blindsided and have no chance to ask questions or respond. Try to stick to the facts and not the emotional component. If your boss says you need to improve your organizational skills and you’re not sure what that means, ask for examples, Johnson adds.

You might ask something like, “What are the one or two things I could be doing differently that would make the biggest difference to you,” she says. That way, you’re sure your focusing your efforts in the right place, she says. If your boss is talking about better project management organization and you think the problem is your messy desk, you could end up focusing on improving something that doesn’t matter.

Get Help

If there are obstacles that prevent you from improving, share them, Faas says. You might need extra training, or there may be factors of which your supervisor is unaware. If you’re dealing with a personal issue that’s affecting your work, or if you have a project that’s taking an inordinate amount of time and having an impact on your performance, your supervisor might not realize it. Discuss these impediments and what you need to get past them.

Create A Plan

Once you have clarity and a commitment of resources, look at the steps you can take to get better, Johnson says. How can you ensure that a mistake doesn’t happen again or a skill improves? Create a written series of steps with deadlines to hold yourself accountable and ensure that you make progress.

Follow Up

Zucker says that sometimes employees are worried about following up with managers after receiving negative feedback. “I think it’s perfectly okay to hold your managers accountable. By that, I mean schedule some follow-up intervals,” she says. You may want to plan a follow-up meeting in 60 days to review progress and get additional feedback. “A good leader would welcome that,” she says.

For many of us, Slack has dramatically changed how we work. The tool has taken countless work conversations that would have happened over email and moved them to a chat platform where communication can happen much more efficiently. Except, you still need email. While Slack is a great tool, it’s not a substitute for good old-fashioned email. That means you need to pay attention to both of them throughout the workday. Now a new product called Redkix, which launches in public beta today, is attempting to change that with a product that combines your email with some of the best features of Slack.

“There are these cycles in collaboration software that have been going on for years,” says Oudi Antebi, cofounder and CEO of Redkix. He says that companies often reach a breaking point where they realize that just email isn’t quite cutting it for them anymore. They sign up for something and get so excited about it they don’t notice its flaws. However, as time passes, those flaws become more and more visible, and eventually, the team starts to transition back to email.

“I tried to understand why that is happening. If they’re so good, why don’t they stick around? Why don’t they actually replace email?” Antebi says. He thinks there are a number of factors at play, the biggest of which is that in order for these tools to work, you need 100% participation.

If you’re a Slack user, then Redkix will look very, very familiar. You can create channels for different groups of people, and direct-message colleagues. However, with Redkix all those messages are powered by email.

“100% participation is easy to reach when you have a team of 20 people. Once you start looking at larger companies, it becomes very difficult with different departments to have everyone on the same tool” Antebi says.

That plus customers and partners, and that one guy who just refuses to join for some reason, makes it so you still have to use email.

“Because you can’t get rid of email, you always have to manage conversations in at least two places,” says Antebi. “Not only do you have these two inboxes, those two inboxes are completely disconnected. They don’t talk to each other. So, you end up in a situation where some of your conversations with the same people are on one platform, and some people are on another platform. You can’t bring them together or move them from one place to the other.”

Enter Redkix. Rather than trying to kill email, it incorporates it.

With Redkix, messages you send to people not using the platform come through as just a normal email for them. When they respond, their message shows up within Redkix as if they just chatted it to you.

“We’re making the system inclusive, so you can add anyone to a conversation, whether or not they use Redkix; centralized, so it’s one inbox for all your conversations; and modern, which means its real-time, light, fun, and engaging. All the things you’d like to see in a modern tool today,” Antebi says.

That means you can go through an entire day emailing customers and talking to colleagues with just your Redkix window open just as if everyone you communicate with during the day was using the service. There’s no need to launch email.

We spent a few hours giving the platform a test drive—and while the concept doesn’t exactly seem ready for prime time yet, it is promising, especially the idea of ditching a traditional email client.

With Redkix your email inbox is positioned right at the top of the page, and you can respond to emails on the platform just how you might respond to a direct message. After using it, the email incorporation is a pretty killer feature. AI sorts emails into a Priority inbox (people you talk to) and Other (new senders) bucket. When you send email, you’re in essence doing the exact same thing as responding through your traditional email client, but something about it feels much more efficient. Messages are threaded just as if it was a chat conversation within Redkix, something I find a bit easier to digest that scrolling through a huge email chain. For your recipient, everything looks just as it always has–they’ll have no idea you’re using Redkix to read or respond.

Another thing that looks pretty useful: Threads. Within each channel you can create individual threads. Threads can be created from a message, for instance, “We should work on a proposal for this,” or can be created out of nothing. Within them, you can discuss individual topics without polluting the main feed with your convo. It makes it super simple to have a number of different conversations at once without talking over your colleagues or trying to figure out if a response is meant for you or another person. Slack enables something similar with replies, but this makes finding those individual conversations topics a bit easier.

Beyond that, the experience is relatively similar to what you’ve come to expect from Slack and other similar services but stripped down and with some limitations. Currently, the service is limited to just those who have a company-issued email address. That means contractors using Gmail and the like can only participate via email, not through Redkix proper. That’s something that might eventually change, but for now, some of your team might be left out in the cold. If that’s a lot of your team, then that can be pretty problematic.

There are also other hiccups: Sending messages requires you to physically hit a “Send” button on the page or use a keyboard shortcut (Command + Enter) rather than just hitting enter, which gets annoying fast. In our test-drive of the product, which is still in beta, we also ran into issues with new users finding channels that they were invited to by people outside of the organization.

Redkix will be available in two tiers: a free starter version as well as a Teams version, which costs $6 per user/per month. The company plans to eventually offer Enterprise-level support with Okta and Active exchange support.

Is it ready for you to move your team over now? Probably not. That said, it’s an interesting idea and something to keep an eye on once the kinks get worked out in the beta.

When investor Michael Cammarata first encountered chemical-free deodorant, his immediate question was: “Does it work?”

The longtime Old Spice devotee was itching to get in on the booming natural products market when an assistant told him about Schmidt’s Naturals. The Portland startup sold small batches of homemade deodorant with scents like sage, bergamot, and lime with lavender.

“Back then in 2014, [Schmidt’s Naturals] was only in a jar,” he recalls incredulously of the product that was applied with a finger. “A jar.”

Empty out five of our sustainable glass jars, and we'll set you up with a freebie. ????✨ #SchmidtsNaturals #RecyclingClub #TeamJar

A post shared by Schmidt's Naturals™ (@schmidtsnaturals) on Jul 25, 2017 at 11:09am PDT

Cammarata reluctantly gave it a try—”getting me to switch to that was hard”—and was pleasantly surprised. It was not, as he feared, some “hippie” product with a patchouli smell. It featured strong, distinct scents he believed might appeal to the mass consumer, particularly millennials.

With Cammarata’s investment and business guidance, Schmidt’s Naturals is now the fastest-growing natural deodorant company in the $6 billion body care and deodorant sector.

The startup seized on the natural body care movement with a line of products that, as thousands of testimonials attest to, limit perspiration and mask odor with unique scents.

Schmidt’s Naturals is now carried by 14,000 retailers big and small, including Kroger, Walmart, Whole Foods, and Urban Outfitters. The company has increased its net gross by 269% in the last year, with retailers like Target struggling to keep the stuff—now in a more consumer-friendly stick format—in stock.

“We’re at the point where we’re not just taking market share from Tom’s Natural Deodorant; we’re taking market share from Secret and Dove,” says Cammarata. “That’s how effective it is.”

“I Wanted To Blow It Up”

“That’s the joke in the industry—that natural deodorant doesn’t work,” laughs Schmidt’s Naturals founder and chief product officer Jaime Schmidt, 39. “But we changed that.”

Schmidt boasts an uncanny path to entrepreneurship. She recounts the years spent searching for “the right” career path, as if her job were a long-lost soulmate. Schmidt wandered from nonprofits to human resources, child care, and hospitality. But finding her passion proved elusive.

“I wanted to work with people, I wanted to make a change,” she says. So, she earned a sociology degree. Still rudderless (she does admit her consumer behavior class later came in handy), she decided in 2010 to “take some time off” and drive cross-country from Chicago.

She made her way to Portland, Oregon, and settled into working part-time at a vegan hot dog shack, where she both cooked and served the faux links. The city was, as she describes it, the best place for her to de-stress and simply “figure this life thing out.”

“Portland was really supportive of people trying to find their way,” says Schmidt. “It’s the place where 30-year-olds go to retire. My parents were like, ‘Okay, what are you doing?'”

It was in Portland’s craft-loving environment, without the pressure to make a lot of money, that Schmidt felt able to indulge in what was then just a hobby: brewing homemade bath and body products. Schmidt made chemical-free lotions, oils, and–after several botched batches—a deodorant after learning DIY recipes.

Her formula was—and remains—a deodorant, not an aluminum-based anti-perspirant, which some scientists suggest may have a link to breast cancer. It was, as she explains, a low-cost and fun way to ensure quality control on what she put on her body. It started nonchalantly, as a curiosity in her kitchen.

The burgeoning chemist crafted her product in scents one wouldn’t spot on a supermarket shelf, like tea tree oil or juniper—and paired the ingredients together in unconventional ways.

“I thought, ‘let me just do this on the weekends,” recounts Schmidt, who soon began making the rounds at the city’s numerous craft festivals and farmer’s markets. She was playing with the idea of taking the concept a bit further, but wasn’t sure yet if she had something that people would buy. At the same time, she was working at a residential facility for kids with special needs, and expecting her first child with her husband. Local shops eagerly responded to the product, and in fact, at one market, a Whole Foods representative straight-up asked her: “Have you thought about selling this in stores?”

Within just a few months, something interesting happened: Stores began contacting her, instead of the other way around. She remembers random shopkeepers calling her, asking, “Why are my customers asking for this? What is this?”

“Locally, there was so much support,” says Schmidt, who admits that such early adoption triggered a new behavior in her: “I immediately got very competitive.”

Schmidt quickly began reaching out to bigger stores within the area, and within a year, the deodorant was selling in boutiques and spreading within the Pacific Northwest. In under two years, Schmidt’s Naturals made it into its first supermarket, and then a month later, in 2013, it hit big time: A Whole Foods market.

“I had a realization that the deodorant industry was weak and boring, and I wanted to blow it up,” says Schmidt. “I saw the opportunity there for some growth and a new, exciting brand.”

An Unlikely Partner

It was roughly two years later that entrepreneur Michael Cammarata took notice.

Cammarata founded and invested in several companies, including internet message board system Ultraboard, before he made the switch to the entertainment industry. At age 25, Cammarata managed Big Time Rush, a boy band with a top 10 program on Nickelodeon and over $300 million in ticket sales and merchandising.

He soon noticed teens’ growing interest in chemical-free products. During Q&A sessions, live audience members across the world would routinely ask the young stars what natural products they liked, used, and where they could get them.

“It got me interested in the category,” says Cammarata. “I saw it was a trend.”

He kept it in mind when in 2014, he launched the venture capital and private equity firm Random Occurrence. The firm invested and strategically partnered with new companies in consumer products, technology, and entertainment sectors, but Cammarata wanted to add a naturals product to his growing portfolio.

When he caught wind of Schmidt’s Naturals, he told his advisors, who vehemently opposed the firm’s involvement. Random Occurrence wanted to invest in a company that made close to under $5 million in revenue, and at that time, Schmidt’s Naturals made less than a half a million.

But despite the caution, Cammarata was convinced there was potential in the small Portland startup. “‘Look at the [online] reviews,'” he told his advisors of beauty and natural health sites. “‘Consumers are raving about this product.'” Goop’s beauty editor Jean Godfrey-June, for example, stated, “It’s the greatest.” Indeed, he saw reviews in the thousands, outnumbering those of traditional big brand competitors like Axe or Dove.

Besides, he thought, “I’m looking at the product. I can build the business [side].”

With his advisors calling him “crazy,” Cammarata went ahead and invested in Schmidt’s Naturals, where he now serves as president and chief global strategy officer. The first order of business? A product remodeling. He saw a broad swath of consumers, like him, who were accustomed to deodorant looking and being applied in a certain way.

“I called Jaime and said, ‘We gotta get this in a stick. I can’t do this jar thing,” recalls Cammarata.

An Army Of Online Reviewers

The investor then went to Schmidt’s Portland office, a 1,200-square-foot space with just four employees and a pet turtle living in the bathroom. At that point, the company was earning half a million dollars in yearly revenue. Within six months, Cammarata expanded the company into a 5,000-square foot facility, hired a dozen more employees, and bought equipment to automate the manufacturing process. They found a new home for the turtle.

Schmidt’s Naturals then added a roster of new product offerings, starting at $4.99, including various sticks (made of 60% recycled materials). It also kept its original jar format, which is particularly popular with spas and upscale boutiques.

New scents included Coconut Pineapple, Jasmine Tea, Geranium, Cedarwood and Juniper, and Ylang Ylang and Calendula. In a way, the scents mimic a perfume line more than a conventional deodorant line. There are even limited-edition scents for winter or summer, thereby inducing a collector’s mentality in their consumers. It’s what pushes retailers like Urban Outfitters to carry deodorant in the first place–then place it alongside trendy fragrances and body lotions.

From there, Cammarata’s marketing strategy was to promote the very thing that convinced him to invest: the reviews. The idea was to “amplify the consumer feedback,” he says.

In advertising and social campaigns, Schmidt’s Naturals touted consumer testimonials and online reviews in hopes to squash the lingering question: Does natural deodorant work?

“Consumers are the biggest-selling people,” stresses Cammarata, who essentially capitalized on digital word-of-mouth. Online reviews, he says, built the company. As of today, 20,000 online reviews exist on third-party websites alone.

Schmidt’s Naturals also made sure to prominently reflect the product’s natural ingredients on product packaging, which was redesigned in bright, modern colors. On the cap, a label reads: “Award winning natural formula. No aluminum. No propylene glycol. No artificial fragrance.” All products contain plant-based powders to absorb wetness, with coconut oil and candelilla wax to provide the sticks’ “glide.”

As Cammarata explains, it’s the right time for natural products to succeed. “Consumers are waking up, they want to know what’s on their body,” he says. “They want to know everything. Transparency is key to them.”

Indeed, the natural beauty and body care market is expected to reach $13.2 billion by 2018, due in part to millennial consumer behavior trends, according to Transparency Market Research. Brands with a natural and/or botanically derived clinical orientation now represent the largest combined share of prestige skincare sales, reports The NPD Group.

“Consumers in the U.S. are showing greater preference toward natural and organic products, especially in the personal care product segment,” states Vijay Sarathi, lead analyst for cosmetics and toiletry research at Technavio.

Schmidt’s Naturals is keen to take a positive approach to selling consumers on the many benefits of natural products.

“There is a lot evidence that shows that there are some ingredients in conventional products that can be problematic to your health,” says Schmidt, “but we don’t like to take the scare tactic. Our philosophy is: If you have a product that’s natural and clean and works as well as a conventional product, why not choose the safe option?”

Of course, the answer to that—and the reason that might prevent Schmidt’s from going mainstream—are twofold: One, the price. It’s nearly 25% more expensive than Degree or Secret. Second, the formula. Many Americans are accustomed to their deodorant serving as an anti-perspirant, which Schmidt’s is not. Some online reviewers attest to yellow clothing stains following use of the product.

Schmidt’s Naturals considers itself a leader and teacher in the natural space for “millennials, who are paying attention to the products on the market,” says Schmidt.

On any given blog or Instagram post, one can see fans share their experiences and marvel at how surprised they are by the efficiency of natural products. The company now has over 500,000 social media followers.

“Seeing people get excited about deodorant is not … well, the norm,” laughs Schmidt.

Today, Schmidt’s Naturals works out of a 30,000-square-foot facility in Portland, with an additional sales office in Florida, and 120 employees. Moving forward, the company plans to expand beyond the underarm; Schmidt’s Naturals will release a full home and bathroom product line in Fall 2017.

It’s not something Jaimie Schmidt ever saw herself doing, but now that she’s at last found her passion, she’s not slowing down.

“I’m still really competitive, I don’t think that will ever go away,” she admits, reflecting on how far she’s come since handing out vegan hot dogs. “I live and breathe the business. It took a lot of time, with a lot of trial and error trying out different career paths, but this is it.”

When talking about the particular stressors of life in the modern age, it’s hard not to point to tech as part of the problem. Technological innovations, it seems, have wormed their way into every corner of our lives. There’s now a smart mirror, for instance, that will analyze your appearance to direct you in how best to carry out your morning beauty routine, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who hasn’t suffered the mental fatigue of realizing they’ve just spent the last hour scrolling through Twitter and Facebook on their smartphones.

“I’m always thinking about ways in which these new technologies like VR are going to enable us to become more immersed in stories and become better human beings,” m ss ng p eces founder and executive producer Ari Kuschnir tells Fast Company. “I didn’t see enough experiments in VR with anything related to mindfulness.”

VR hasn’t yet crossed the threshold into mass consumption, but Kuschnir and the m ss ng p eces team wanted to find a way to use it as a platform to boost mindfulness and relaxation–and reach as many people as possible. “We were thinking of what could be a good place to start, and landed on a VR experience that could also work as a 360-degree video, featuring a well-known spiritual teacher,” Kuschnir says.

Kuschnir immediately thought of Jack Kornfield, the founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Northern California; he’d been listening to Kornfield’s podcasts for years, and admired his ability to weave stories together. Kuschnir ran the idea by Ivan Cash, a contributing creative director at m ss ng p eces; Cash, in turn, told Kuschnir that he had an uncle who worked at Spirit Rock. The m ss ng p eces team got in touch with Kornfield, sending him a sample VR headset and explaining the concept: to translate the storytelling work Kornfield was already doing on his podcast into a more immersive, visual format. Kornfield was immediately on board.

“VR really is the future–it will become widespread as a way for people to experience something they didn’t know before,” Kornfield says. “It’s a particularly beautiful way to capture what it means to be on a retreat or to come to a meditation center. For a lot of people, those experiences are quite foreign–they may think that it’s out of their comfort zone, or not for them. But what VR does is allow people to have an immersive experience where you feel you are actually present somewhere with people around you, and you get a sense of why people gather together in these places.”

The experience put together by Kornfield and m ss ng p eces–which is now available on YouTube as a 360-degree video, and as a VR experience on Daydream and the couple million YouTube-enabled VR headsets–aims to capture myriad facets of meditation. “There are meditation talks, a nature meditation in the hills of Marin County, a walking meditation, for which we’d encourage people not to actually walk through while wearing the VR headset,” Cash says.

As Fast Company has previously reported, it could take around eight years for VR to reach the mainstream “tipping point”–there were 2 million non-Google Cardboard VR headsets in consumers’ hands at the end of 2016, and it’s expected that there will be 135.6 million in use by 2025. But m ss ng p eces feels it’s important to stay ahead of the curve, and begin to prove VR’s usefulness in democratizing access to truly immersive mindfulness-supporting experiences.

In addition to trying to reach those VR users interested in meditation, Kornfield and m ss ng p eces are also looking to partner with organizations who can bring the experience to people in jails and underserved schools, expanding on the mindfulness training work Kornfield has already been doing in those spaces. “And honestly,” Cash says, “hopefully it inspires more creators to explore the interesting tension, which is that we have such amazing technology, but it’s making us miserable. We want to keep figuring out how to make the right kinds of content and resources to support people being happy and fulfilled, and holistically in a better place.”

WHAT: The trailer for Bodied.

WHO: Director Joseph Khan, producer Eminem, and screenwriter Alex “Kid Twist” Larsen.

WHY WE CARE: The underground rap battle scene is a ruthless arena where the greasiest insults are flung around with reckless abandon. It’s a battle, after all, and the whole point is to draw some proverbial blood. Eminem’s 8 Mile stands as film’s most popular depiction of what goes down in rap battles–and Bodied looks like it’s about to dig even deeper, story-wise and insult-wise.

Directed by music video visionary Joseph Khan and produced by Eminem, Bodied has apparently been in the works for some time now but it’s set to premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The film’s primary focus seems to be the hair-trigger sensitive topic of white people in rap, cultural appropriation, and the like.

But what I’m most looking forward to are the rap battle insults that former rap battle champ and writer Alex “Kid Twist” Larsen has concocted for this movie. It’s not clear whether he’s directly responsible for the trailer’s full-minute savage takedown of “MC Goggles” by “Megaton,” but it encapsulates the racial tension simmering at the heart of the film.

Our #TIFF17 Midnight Madness Opening Night Film is @JosephKahn’s BODIED, with Anthony Michael Hall, Debra Wilson, @cthagod and @CalumWorthy. pic.twitter.com/MNZ6C2Vkiy

— TIFF (@TIFF_NET) August 1, 2017

Most regular lonely hearts turn to Tinder to right-swipe their way to love. The elite, though, won’t slum it on regular Tinder lest they accidentally fall for a mere mortal. Instead they use Tinder Select, the virtual VIP section that is the invite-only version of the dating app for the prettiest, richest, and most famous. Since Tinder couldn’t possibly expect their elite users to grab a beer at the local bar, they rented out a 5,000-square-foot Hamptons beach house for the millionaires and models to mix and mingle in style. According to Page Six, a Tinder exec plunked down $135,000 for the month and then outfitted the oceanfront rental with a skate ramp, a lawn teepee, and a DJ, and then got around to applying for a party permit. Per Page Six:

Tinder submitted a request for a party permit, but then crossed it out on the form and instead asked for a wedding permit, according to a government official, but after being denied, they threw the party anyway.

Their love nest was broken up, with police and fire marshals called to the scene by neighbors. Tinder was busted for a lack of permits and for noise violations, while some of the Tinder Select guests were ticketed for “parking in the middle of the road” like entitled jerks. When telecom and nightlife mogul Michael Hirtenstein, who owns the rental property, heard about the complaints, he kicked them out. Now, Tinder reportedly faces $20,000 in fines and the East Hampton town board is filing a temporary restraining order against the company. Guess that connection wasn’t a match.

Of course Tinder isn’t the first love-making app to wind up in hot water for having too much fun. Bumble got ousted from their headquarters in a downtown Austin residential luxury tower, according to Buzzfeed, after their neighbors couldn’t find any love for them.

It was a favorite shopping spot for famous musicians from Buddy Holly and the Beatles to Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix, and now the building is set to be pummeled into a purple haze. The former site of Manny’s Music at 156 West 48th Street in Manhattan has been approved for demolition, according to a city permit issued last month. It’s a final nail in the coffin for the legendary music store that served as a mecca for generations of musicians and once stood as the crown jewel of New York’s famed Music Row. The storefront has been closed since 2009, but the five-story building had been left relatively untouched, and even still retains the large vertical “Manny’s” sign and adjacent clock. The building was built around 1920 and is not currently landmarked by the city, records show, meaning nothing is protecting it from the wrecking ball.

Dwayne Doherty, a spokesperson for Rockefeller Group, which owns the building, confirmed the permit, but said it was too early to comment on plans for the site. “We don’t comment on projects that are in the preliminary stages of development,” he said. “However we can confirm the demolition permit for 156 West 48th Street, which has enabled us to continue to advance our plans for future development.”

Manny’s operated at the site for 74 years and was frequently cited by notable musicians as the place where they purchased their first instruments. In a book about the store, Paul Simon talks about getting his first guitar there at the age of 14. Even though the store itself has been gone for eight years, music fans still visit the site often and post pictures to its unofficial Facebook page.

New York’s Landmarks Preservation Commission sometimes offers landmark protection to buildings that hold a special historical significance, as it did for the Stonewall Inn—the birthplace of the gay-rights movement—in 2015, but that’s a lengthy process, and landmark designation can’t prevent work from taking place on a permit that’s already been issued. (It’s also unclear if the former Manny’s site would even rise to a level city officials would consider worthy of such protection.) A spokeswoman for the landmarks commission told me the agency has not received any requests to evaluate the building.

Since belly laughs are the best ab workout, read this: The cofounder of Google Maps thinks he can make running fun with an app. As if.

Former Googler Lars Rasmussen, along with cofounder Elomida Visviki, just launched a new running app called Weav Run, which pairs music with a patent-pending technology to theoretically make running not awful. The tech actually sounds pretty cool. It allows the music to match the runner’s speed, so that each step lands on a beat. According to the press release, “the endorphins that are released when running in sync with the music create a better running and listening experience.” Guess we’ll just have to believe them on that.  

When a bipartisan posse of the top lawmakers in the country proposed a law called the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act this week, it must have seemed to them like the ultimate no-brainer, a rare sign of unity during this bitterly fractious era. Yet this piece of legislation, which seeks to crack down on online platforms that knowingly proliferate illegal sexual trafficking content, is anything but a slam dunk. It’s bitterly opposed by Silicon Valley and represents just the latest dispute in a long-running debate over the right balance to strike between online freedom and civic responsibility.

Over 20 senators have signed off on the bill, which specifically targets one of the holiest texts in the tech sector: Section 230. This portion of the Communications Decency Act passed in 1996 protects internet companies from being liable for the offensive content that is posted on their platforms—it is why Reddit and Facebook aren’t legally responsible for what its users say.

Section 230 is one of the pillars of online free speech, as well as many technology giant business models. Without this one tiny provision of the law, neither Facebook nor Google would likely have grown as dominant as they are today, since they would have been considered liable for any and all of the content posted to its sites.

The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act focuses specifically on this one provision of the law as a way to combat sites like Backpage.com, which are notorious for hosting classified ads for sex workers, thus enabling sex trafficking. The idea is that Section 230 would be amended to say that websites that knowingly facilitate sex trafficking lose their legal protection. The fear, however, is that changing the law would result in unanticipated consequences that could significantly alter the way we use our favorite platforms like Facebook and Twitter, changes that would only be figured out years later in court.

Currently, Section 230 serves as a “very powerful shield” for internet companies as well as “the foundation of the internet as we know it,” says Santa Clara University School of Law professor Eric Goldman. Most of the sites people use, he explains, are built upon third-party content. So without the ability for platforms to freely publish such content, going online would be a much different experience, potentially resulting in less online freedom.

Given that, Goldman fears any significant legal ramifications resulting from an amendment to Section 230, noting that there’s no telling how potential litigators will try to interpret the new provisions. Already Section 230 has a few exclusions about the sort of content that is not protected–namely federal criminal law, intellectual property law, and electronic communications privacy law–and those exceptions have prompted numerous lawsuits against internet companies. Any shift that allows for more exclusions will result in even more litigation, says Goldman.

And it’s not even clear if this law will accomplish what it sets out to accomplish. “The law is targeting Backpage,” he says, “but it’s unclear what will happen if Backpage exits the industry. Does that make the lives of the victims better?” Goldman’s point is that by specifically targeting Backpage (which, it’s true, was the only example given by all of the senators introducing the bill) it’s unclear whether this focus actually does anything to stop sex trafficking, which has systemic roots in poverty, immigration policy, and sexism, among others.

But anti-sex-trafficking advocates see SESTA as a step in the right direction. Bradley Myles, CEO and executive director of the Polaris organization, says that what’s most important is ending the status quo created by Section 230 for websites like Backpage. For years the site has won endless lawsuits relating to content that was uploaded to it. Since Backpage itself wasn’t liable for the illegal posts, it was able to successfully fend off legal action.

This creates a signal to others, says Myles, that it’s okay to create online spaces for this type of content. “We are not exclusively concerned with Backpage,” he says, “there are other sites that are being formed now or in the future following in Backpage’s footsteps. With years of legal victories thanks to the current law’s safe harbor, advocates wanted to change things. Organizations like Polaris have worked toward “some sort of remedy or change to statutes that could put in place a systemic solution going forward.”

In Myles’s eyes, the wording of SESTA is spot-on. “I think it’s very narrow,” he says, “I think it’s surgical.” And the wording is what’s most important because it will shape decades, if not centuries, of future legal battles. There was an immense need to craft an amendment that would account for this sort illegal content, he says, and SESTA is a promising way to do that.

Myles believes that the legislation won’t hurt the bottom line of tech giants. “Polaris has a very strong and positive relationship with [companies like] Google and Facebook,” he says. “We don’t have any interest in solutions that are too broad or that massively disrupt business operations for some of the biggest tech companies in the world.” This wording, he adds, seems to be the best kind of compromise.

Tech companies aren’t convinced. Already the Internet Association, which represents giants including Facebook, Google, Amazon, Airbnb, and Twitter, has issued a statement opposing the legislation. “This bill is overly broad and will be counterproductive in the fight to combat human trafficking,” wrote Internet Association president Michael Beckerman in a statement. “While not the intention of the bill, it would create a new wave of frivolous and unpredictable actions against legitimate companies rather than addressing underlying criminal behavior.”

Many of the biggest companies have bulked up their lobbying activity since the start of the Trump administration. Lined up against a group of strong-willed, powerful members of Congress, expect a hard-fought battle in the coming weeks.

Goldman sees Section 230 as a truly pivotal moment for the internet. While it continues to provide safe harbor for the big guys, it still makes the barrier of entry much easier for the little guys. “Section 230 is not really about how much it’s going to cost Google or Facebook to comply with the law, he says. “It’s about the next company to displace Google or Facebook.”

Meanwhile Myles is hopeful about the passage of this law or similar legislation, holding out hope that the two sides can reach some sort of compromise over how to take on an issue that is universally condemned.

“I think that if there are other groups that have other proposed solutions or refinement to the language,” he says, “I’d love to hear what those solutions are and keep a really open dialogue instead of locking in on certain positions.”

Kiss famously sold Kiss-emblazoned bowling balls and caskets, and Eminem once sold bricks from his childhood home for $300 a pop. Now Bon Iver is offering an all-inclusive vacation package. The band has just announced that fans can purchase vacation packages that include a Bon Iver concert as well as four nights at the Hard Rock Hotel on the Riviera Maya between Playa del Carmen and Tulum, Mexico. The event, called Days Have No Numbers, will take place over four nights from January 21-25, 2018. In addition to the concert, which includes a headlining set by Bon Iver as well as performances from bands like Sylvan Esso, Hiss Golden Messenger, and Spank Rock, ticket prices include all meals, beverages, and activities like contests, games, and daily yoga. All that’s left is for guests to choose between a “concert courtyard suite” or an “oceanfront room” and to figure out which super-obscure song they want to scream at Bon Iver to play during the encore.

WHAT: A new short film from British telecom Three UK.

WHO: Three UK, Gravity Road.

WHY WE CARE: If I wanted to sell you a product, any product, chances are my first instinct wouldn’t be to tell you a story that highlights the downside or perils of using that product. Not many car ads, for example, talk about accident stats (except for that one time). That’s what makes this new short film from Three UK so interesting.

“Streaming Consciousness” takes us inside a goofy group meeting that appears to equate mindfulness with the sheer amount of video content you can stream into your eyeballs at any given time. The mantra, echoing Portlandia‘s classic Battlestar Galactica sketch, is “Watch one more.”

Why would anyone want to join this sad, screen-addicted troupe? Or perhaps our sense of irony is so well-tuned we can admit to our own defeat to the powers of never-ending content that seeing a worst case scenario will just make us smile, rather than recoil in horror. That’s what Three UK is banking on. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge. But before you know it, you’ll be the one missing your flight to squeeze in that next episode of Glow.

The three-time NBA champion and entrepreneur discusses what has led him to repeated victories throughout his career.

Lt. Col. Amy McGrath, a retired Marine fighter pilot, announced she’s seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Kentucky Representative Andy Barr in 2018 in a video trending on YouTube.

In the video, McGrath highlights her military success, saying she was the first woman Marine to fly an F-18 in combat, and critiques Barr’s support for repealing Obamacare. McGrath’s announcement comes amid a push by Democrats to harness anti-Trump energy and recruit veterans to run for Congress to take back the House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections. As Mother Jones notes, it’s the kind of political ad “that keeps Paul Ryan up at night.”

A new study by Payscale and Redfin found that tech companies with more women in leadership tend to pay their female staffers more equitably than businesses led by men.

The analysis compared salaries between men and women at similar levels and with similar years of experience. Then measured median salary for men and women regardless of job level or experience. Redfin picked 31 of the largest U.S. tech companies to include in its study, and designated companies with executive teams that were 25% or more women to have a “high rate” and fewer than 20% a “low rate.” PayScale studied 6,562 salary profiles of people who worked for those companies between June 2015 and 2017.

“The pay gap difference is a whopping 14¢ when you look at all men and women without controlling for whether they are in similar roles and levels. This suggests that companies with a high percentage of women execs also have more women in other highly paid roles.”

The report also reveals that both men and women had higher levels of job satisfaction at companies with more women in charge, and fewer said they’d considering leaving in the next six months. That could cost a company between $20,000 and $30,000 to recruit and train a new employee making around $40,000 per year.

Given that another study found that both men and women score similarly in their ability to drive business (but fewer women are rising beyond lower management), this only strengthens the business case to get more women in leadership.

Yesterday’s earnings report from Apple was greeted with huzzahs from analysts and kudos from investors, who boosted the company’s stock price by 5% in after-hours trading. That’s as it should be. Apple showed strength across the board, even as the product that sparked this company’s great revival flickered into oblivion. The iPod is dead, but the steady gains by iPad and the Watch show the resilient strength of Apple’s brand and its commitment to continually improving its products. If it weren’t for all the needless hand wringing that accompanies every Apple earnings report, yesterday would have been perfectly unexceptional: just another solid quarter from the world’s leading tech company.

Yet one part of the earnings report does signal something extraordinary: Apple’s revenue from services. Check out this collection of charts assembled by veteran Apple observer Philip Elmer-Dewitt reflecting quarterly results over the last four years. Four of the charts—quarterly revenues, earnings per share, iPhone shipments, and Chinese revenue—reflect the up-and-down cyclical nature of Apple’s business. They are a perfect representation of the cyclical aspect of Apple’s business. Its first fiscal quarter (the one reflecting sales during the last three months of the year) is always the monster peak. That’s when buyers gorge on the latest iPhone release. The charts slump acceptably in the second quarter, when people who waited out the holiday rush finally come on board, bottom out in the third quarter, and start rising again in the fourth, when a few lucky people get early releases. Revenues, profits, and unit sales all rise in this roller-coaster fashion.

The chart illustrating service revenues, however, is an eye-opener. There, ups and downs are replaced by a straight line moving up a nice, gradual slope. Companies—and investors—love to see such sequential quarterly growth because it’s predictable and steady. That predictability is particularly important to Apple, for two reasons.

First, the services business is the only segment that reflects the financial benefit of Apple’s massive installed base. There are well over 1 billion iPhones, iPads, and Macs out in the world. Apple made a bunch of money when it first sold these devices, of course. After that, services—including apps, iCloud storage, Apple Music subscriptions, iTunes store sales—are the only way the company continues to benefit from the devices. That’s why Apple spends so much time wooing its developers, improving its own applications, and exploring new segments like software for health care systems. The result is good for Apple and good for customers, who transform their devices by adding all kinds of cool new software.

Second, the swift, consistent ascension of the services business gives Apple a valuable cushion against the possibility of weak product releases. In this past quarter, services accounted for 16% of Apple’s total revenue, versus 14% in the same quarter last year. If revenue growth in services continues to outpace revenue growth from devices, as seems likely, services will become an even bigger part of Apple’s revenue mix. This softens the impact of the peaks and valleys of the hardware business.

This may become particularly important in the years to come. Apple is rarely the first to sell a product based on an emergent technology, and we are in a period where no one really knows the potential impact of such hot areas as augmented reality, distributed artificial intelligence, and the long-heralded virtual reality. Apple’s business model allows it to come in late with improved versions of existing products—that’s what it’s trying to do with AppleHome, its home assistant that aims to outdo Amazon’s Echo with a great sound system. But if it enters these new markets too late or with an inferior product, as has been the case so far with television services, the consistency of services will keep the company on stable footing.

This increased reliance on services revenue is a central part of CEO Tim Cook’s great project: turning Apple into a rock-solid company that makes the most of its dominant position. Critics can carp all they want about Apple not being as innovative as it was in the past, but they’re missing the point. Cook has made Apple so reliable and so dependable that it doesn’t need another iPhone.