The landscape of modern work is changing, particularly for technology workers. As the world emerges from the pandemic, a new breed of tech professionals is redefining the norms of employment, driven by a desire for flexibility, continuous learning and meaningful projects. Likewise, tech workers and employers may struggle to navigate a tectonic shift in productivity fueled by AI.

“A dinner party, to me, is putting people around a table and feeding them and nourishing them and having great conversations and lingering over the table and connecting,” Peg Tomlinson-Poswall says. “Food is universal. It’s what connects all of us, no matter what country you go to, once you sit at the table.”

FROM THE PUBLISHER: California has survived many changes over the last 150 years, including the political makeup of the elected officials who set the rules for how we live and how business works. Thirty-five years ago, when I started Comstock’s, it seemed to me that officials were more willing to give business the independence it needed to take risks and make common-sense decisions that fueled our economic growth.

My fascination with cemeteries began when I was a child, when my father would take me to our local one in New Jersey to pay our respects to lost relatives. While he stood in thought over the grave of his father or brother, I’d wander.

I recall that as a young man I desperately tried to find a television in India’s lower Himalayas to watch one of the many Wimbledon finals in which Pete Sampras appeared — and eventually had to settle for a hotel with a black and white TV and a dubious antenna that, despite the manager swearing up and down would show Wimbledon if I wanted it to, in fact aired nothing but crackle.

As the respectful exchange of ideas decreases, we’re left with a toxic “third rail,” where any reference to politics can cause major conflict and division in our workforce. So how can business leaders protect the workforce from tribalism this political season and instead build cohesion?

FROM THE PUBLISHER: I’ve always loved art, in every form I can think of: music, dance, painting, sculpture, film, theater, literature, architecture and even conceptual. After all, art is about taste, memory, the senses — and just as often, can be about political preference, sexual orientation and religious affiliation. In short, art is highly personal.

By now, you have heard media stories — with varying degrees of accuracy — outlining significant changes in residential real estate practices that are likely to reshape the dynamics of home buying and selling. Here’s what will actually happen. 

FROM THE PUBLISHER: Our region has long been one of Hollywood’s well-known secrets. Because of the area’s natural beauty and close to year-round clement weather (the two compelling reasons that made filmmakers leave New York in the early 1920s for a stronghold in Southern California), movies, TV shows and commercials have been shot here for years. What if we had our own film studio?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 400,000 fewer people quit their jobs in April 2024 than in January 2023, initiating the era of the “Great Stay.” Counterintuitively, because fewer employees are leaving, employers have a smaller pool of candidates actively searching for jobs.